The Knotted String

March 10, m0039, continued

The Europeans first walk back to their sleeping quarters to leave Florence's UAW (which would seem tactless to take to a friendly chat about problems in science) and to explain matters to Dr Liang first. They tell her their story so far, and then head over to the main Nova Iquitos quarters, where the Peruvian scientists are gathering in the dining room.

There, Jianwei explains that the explosion was the result of an encounter with a hostile cybershell, and then tells their story yet again, starting from the point where they boarded the road train - all illustrated with recordings from their personal AIs, date-stamped and validated. As he talks, he notices Saul Fedirici becoming nervous, even panicky, while Tiberius sees that Dinah de Carneiro, while interested in the story, is becoming irritated at Fedirici, and catches de Carneiro muttering something to Fedirici about this being bad for his "public speaking work". By contrast, Maria Coronado, although startled by the whole story, seems mostly concerned to acquire a reliable body of evidence so that she can escalate the matter to her superiors (although she does become a little irritated with Fedirici's uncertain suggestions about how to handle the matter), and Kobo Tezuka simply takes a close interest in all the technical aspects of the business.

After a while, however, Fedirici drops out of the conversation, staring into space with the air of someone working in VR, and then returns to the discussion as something much more like his previous relaxed and charming self. He now seems to think that it would be best to go public with the whole problem as soon as possible, while making it clear that Nova Iquitos disowns any attempts at fraud and will cooperate with all investigations, to put the best face on the team's handling of the problem. Coronado seems happy with this attitude; de Carneiro maybe senses that he's taking charge of yet another social issue, and perhaps finds this irritating.

After some discussion, everyone agrees that a little more evidence-collection is indicated, and it is decided that two teams will set out straight away. One, consisting of Dr Liang, de Carneiro, Florence, and Jianwei, will head to the second oasis, where the snakebot was headed, to run some tests and collect some samples; the second, consisting of Tiberius, Vajra, and Tezuka, will take another look at what is left of the snakebot. Meanwhile, Fedirici will go pick up some samples from the nearest oasis and the nearby "fertiliser" dumping-spot.

The two groups are heading out in the same general direction at first, though, so they set out in company. As they are walking across the Martian terrain, a call comes in; an unnamed being requests an immediate VR meeting with Jianwei and Tiberius. They excuse themselves for a moment to take this, and drop into what proves to be a plain, featureless VR room, where they are greeted by a simple humanoid mannequin-like figure with speech patterns and mannerisms that indicate that it's a non-sapient AI. This being explains that it is delivering an automated response to pre-set conditions - a change in circumstances.

"Specifically, Nova Iquitos have just placed a pause on all their project reports, and requested that their experimental results be withdrawn from academic discussion pending an upcoming announcement."

(Subsequent checking will suggest that this was a very quick response; the pause must have been placed during the meeting just finished.)

"Given such a radical change in circumstances there, my task is to inform you that it is believed that something or someone at Nova Iquitos is the focus of attention of an entity known as Quipu. It is further believed that Quipu controls an unidentified TSA project - probably a memetic program of some kind. You may wish to proceed accordingly."

Reference to a standard dictionary shows that a "quipu" is a pre-Columbian record-keeping system from the region of Inca Peru - a system of knotted strings. As the NAI appears to have finished delivering its message, and shows little inclination to expand on matters further, Jianwei and Tiberius drop out of the meeting. They pass a quick summary of what they were told to their colleagues, and later provide a more detailed recording; Florence files it ("Hold this for me, Dougal"), and when she reviews it at leisure, is exasperated at the scantiness of the information, while Vajra, hearing the name Quipu in this sort of context, discovers that it has what seems to be a relevant reference pointer - which unfortunately leads to a blank, deleted space in its memory.

Anyway, the two groups continue on their way. Before they split up, Tiberius carefully questions de Carneiro over heshes disgruntled attitude towards Fedirici, coming to the conclusion that the latter has simply annoyed de Carneiro by being charming and socially successful, parlaying his charisma into a generally profitable career. At some point, he also researches the public speaking events that the Fedirici is apparently undertaking, finding relevant schedules on the Mars Web and trying to ascertain the sponsors and suchlike in case they proved to be relevant at a later date. The Europeans look into this further when they can, and note that the talks have very recently had title changes, de-emphasising the "success" of his work in favour of objective discussions of "events" at Nova Iquitos.

The two groups go their separate ways. At the scene of the earlier fight, Vajra deploys one of his surveillance swarms, and discovers four or five identifiable microbots from the snakebot's payload, while Tezuka prods around the remains of the hostile cybershell with interest, and Tiberius looks on.

The walk to the second oasis takes longer. On the way, Jianwei, reviewing the situation, sends a message asking that the rover that is on its way should come directly to this group - it won't pass anywhere near Nova Iquitos in that case. The group also draws de Carneiro out a little more regarding Fedirici, confirming the general impression that hesh is, frankly, jealous of Fedirici, thinking that he uses social skills to gain advantage in his scientific career. It seems that Fedirici is indeed becoming a minor public figure, and he or someone helping him is determined that he should look as good as possible. Jianwei has some training in memetics, and thinks that he's beginning to see a pattern here; Fedirici looks like the well-honed or well-chosen spearpoint of a serious memetic project.

At the second oasis, there's still no sign of microbot or cybershell activity, and Dr Liang begins collecting samples. She'll run a lot more tests later, when she has better facilities available, but even the portable gear she has with her can pick up traces of the planted fertiliser chemicals; evidently, this site too has been seeded, and the snakebot was doubtless on its way to clean it out. In fact, the group head out carefully in the direction of the first oasis, scanning the ground as they go, and sharp eyes spot an area of disturbed ground at a point where the snakebot, moving between the two sites, might well have been expected to burrow down or surface in the past. It will be interesting to examine the more distant sites... Which can best be accomplished with a vehicle. And so that group waits until the rover arrives. When it does, they check it as best they can, finding no signs of tampering, and set out to look for more evidence further afield.