Carrying a Load

April 23, m0039, continued

As they settle in, the team members chat a little over encrypted channels - after all, the Chinese might have dropped surveillance dust. (The conversation is managed by Jianwei and Vajra, whose skills prove fully adequate to compensate for Florence's lack of secret messaging experience.) They theorise a little more about Sergei's presence; if he's a GRA agent, what is their interest in Eden Unlimited? Something to do with plant genetics, perhaps?

Whatever... Vajra deploys a bug-hunter swarm, but doesn't find anything with it, and feels fairly sure that there is nothing to find. So while the organics sleep, he chats to Eve, assisting her re-planning work.

April 24, m0039

Nothing untoward happens during the night, and in the morning, the team do a little more local investigation. They don't find anything much in the way of genetic engineering equipment on the site, and when Jianwei finesses Eve's psychology, gaining access to more of her files, he doesn't find much more there, either.

However, a message comes in after a little while, asking the team to take their rover down to the lake shore, as there is an (unspecified) delivery arriving. Jianwei stays in the station on general principles (his presence might help assert continuing E.U. authority on the site), while the other two make the short trip. A small water vehicle - essentially an unmanned powerboat with a cargo pod - pulls up, emits a "sign here" pulse, drops off a crate, and then departs, leaving Florence to complain that it didn't take the crate itself away after its contents have been removed. In fact, the crate opens itself to reveal a rather generic "wanderbox" cybershell, a box on large wheels. Sergei promptly installs itself on that, and the group head back to the domes.

As Sergei now has an independent shell which it and its employers trust, it tells them that it is happy for them to leave. It also hands over a small box, which they might perhaps take with them... Florence wonders what's going on here, but Jianwei guesses that there's a deniability issue somewhere, and kicks her ankle.

The team head back toward Santo Tomas. On the way, they send requests for (a) a closed metal box to put the box they are carrying in (after Vajra has discovered comms ports on it), and (b) a flight back in a hopper with no other passengers. They're not actually this nervous really, but they don't want people complaining about finding themselves on an aircraft with an emergent intelligence. (Quentin actually calls back to query this. "You people know human memetics best, but it sounds a little paranoid to me...") In any case, they make an uneventful journey back to Port Lowell.

While they are en route, Marshall Kirkowicz sends them a polite note. ("We really should do something nice for her some time," Vajra comments.) Then, when they reach the embassy, they determine that the ambassador is in her office, with no signs of digital activity there. Jianwei sees the invitation implicit in that, and suggests that Dougal, Aunty, and Samadhi should be shut down or temporarily offloaded to the embassy network, thus removing any danger that their memories might be subpoenaed later by someone who wants to know what's said in the office.

Mostly, it turns out, Schmidt wants to talk to the team about the GRA - who do indeed appear to be behind Sergei. She isn't sure what they're up to herself,but she suspects that they want to move into Mars - where they do not currently have a significant presence - and this incident has given them a minimal but adequate excuse. Anyway, all that the embassy can do for now is watch and try not to annoy anyone.

Oh, and someone has identified an organisation that is competent and trusted to analyse Adam-4 and what happened to him, and the team are being sent along as observers (and guards). They have to take that box on to a company called Equatorial Data Services. They have tickets to Bako booked for the next day.

So the team head to their various homes (and Florence heads on from there to the local bars, but has a dull time of it). They chat a little about that idea of doing the Marshall a kindness, but identifying anything that wouldn't be classified as a possible bribe is hard.

April 25, m0039


 With a hopper booked, Jianwei calls ahead to avoid legal problems. Bako, it turns out, has rules in place for this sort of thing, and Jianwei has a straightforward conversation with the cops there. In fact, a lot of clearances have been arranged; the short trip is on a commercial flight, with Adam-4 travelling as what is enigmatically known as "19-inch hand luggage". The team can relax enough to pay attention to the street scenes in Bako, which proves to be full of ethnic-African somatypes, including the odd lion-maned Felicia.

Equatorial Data Services proves to be a hive of African computer geeks, but there are still formalities and legalities to observe and certificates to be exchanged; Jianwei ends up processing a mound of digital paperwork. The company have acquired source information and documentation from Eden Unlimited, which they regard as generous reference data, and the team are directed to a coffee lounge (with access to the building's internal networks and cameras) while the analysts work.

This work turns out to involve a lot of cryptic 3-D holographic models, but the analysts seem to know what they are doing. After a while, one of them stares hard at the holographic display. "That's interesting", he murmurs...