From Above and Below

March 10, m0039, continued

Back at Nova Iquitos, Dr Vartex receives a couple of messages. One, from the E.U. Martian Medical service, is simply a request for him to monitor Florence's psychological stability - they're aware that she's used live ammunition recently, and this sort of thing causes them concern. The other is from his contacts in the intelligence community, who say that they've been attempting to follow up some issues of concern to him, and have come to the conclusion that the SIA were up to something a year ago, and that they may well have sought to draw him in for some reason; they had access to enough E.U. recognition codes that, yes, a call from them might have caused him to divert his hopper on that crucial day. Meanwhile, Vajra uses available optical equipment to examine the microbots it salvaged from the snakebot's load, cross-referencing what it can determine about the design and construction with Web research. While the results aren't conclusive - whoever built these things made intelligent efforts to cover their tracks, and there's certainly nothing as incriminating as a serial number to be found - Vajra's best guess is that these things were constructed using the kind of equipment and technical references most usually found in TSA territory.

Meanwhile, in the rover, Jianwei has been composing a report for the embassy, summarising his view of recent events and including a recording of the recent anonymous message conference, all flagged for the ambassador's personal attention. Among other things, he's concerned that if somebody - presumably "Quipu" or some other TSA agent of influence - is playing tricky memetic games here, they may switch from the previous line to a claim that the Nova Iquitos researchers are the victims of sabotage by another faction - and while the E.U. aren't the obvious people to set up as the villains in that case, anything is possible.

Then, as the party in the vehicle arrives at the third oasis, a Web conference call comes in for Jianwei, Dr Vartex, and Vajra. Jianwei remains in the vehicle to deal with this as Florence escorts Dr Liang, who starts taking samples. It seems that the Ambassador Schmidt has been alerted to events around Nova Iquitos (not least an explosion) by Quentin, and has seen Jianwei's interim report. Hence, she's been pursuing matters with some energy, passing requests for more information on to appropriate contacts. "They pursued the matter further, and apparently made contact with some ... supposedly helpful acquaintances of their own. And do you know what they received in reply?"

Jianwei ventures guesses along the lines of "flat denial".

"Not even that, in fact, Mr Chen. They have been told absolutely nothing. One might almost think that the SIA were embarrassed. Our own contacts seem quite unhappy with them.

"Can you hear a buzzing sound at your end, Mr Chen?"

Jianwei, who can hear no such sound in the vehicle, says as much.

"Well, that is strange, because that is what one usually hears when one has kicked over a hornet's nest. Oh, and some other people are apparently concerned that Ms Adele has been using live ammunition.

"I have come to the conclusion that it might be wisest if we were to extract you from that situation there. I will open some back channels to the Chinese, but you had best see what Dr Liang wants for herself - but do help her to leave if she wishes. Anyway, I've somehow suddenly acquired the budget to send you a couple of rented hoppers; I'll leave it up to you how you use them."

The call ends, and Jianwei determines that the hoppers will arrive at Nova Iquitos in a couple of hours. The best option seems to be to use then to travel to the nearest stop, and then return home on the maglev. So he speaks to the others, including Dr Liang, about how they should handle matters. He's not going to disobey the instruction to withdraw from the area, and while Dr Liang would like to take more time to conduct tests and so on, he has little difficulty convincing her that it might be safest for her to depart as well. However, the group at the third oasis does take the time to collect a few more samples and to conduct a brief examination of the soil around the site. Dr Liang concludes that this site too has been seeded with fertiliser, albeit slightly less than the first two - a bit of variation in the results would doubtless help avoid having them look too suspiciously uniform - and there are some signs of soil disturbances that might indicate a snakebot coming and going. However, these last are in the direction of a fourth, nearby oasis, and not of the first two; it's a fair bet that there's at least one more snakebot out here somewhere, and possibly a couple.

So the team then mounts up on the rover and heads back to Nova Iquitos, arriving at about the same time as as the two rented hoppers sent by the embassy. They speak briefly to the Peruvians, warning them that there may be two or three more dangerous snakebots out there around the other oases. Then they quickly load their luggage into the two hoppers, instruct their rented rover to take itself back to its base, and take off, with Florence and Jianwei in one (Florence actually flying it, to keep in practise), and Doctors Vartex and Liang in the other, with Vajra riding in the luggage compartment, patched into the on-board computer system and the craft's sensors.

The actual flight to the nearest maglev halt goes uneventfully, and the hoppers begin an approach to its landing strip, Florence leading the way. Then, the group see another hopper rolling out onto the field, and just have time to note that it isn't responding to standard traffic management signals when its ducted fans turn to a vertical take-off configuration, and rather than make any sort of economical short take-off run, it throws itself into the air - and at them.

Florence's trained reflexes kick in, and she easily evades the attempted ramming; the hopper simply carries on, aimed at the second incoming craft, where Vajra is by now issuing instructions to the controlling LAI. This too manages to avoid the attack, and the hostile hopper temporarily loses control, hurtling off into the sky.

This gives first Florence and then the second hopper's LAI time to make hasty but safe landings, and as Jianwei hastily logs the incident for any subsequent investigators, Florence vaults quickly out of the cabin, Dr Liang is evidently unnerved and confused by the incident, and Dr Vartex works to keep her calm and get her to get away from the hopper - but by now, the attacker has turned around and is coming back. Florence springs to the cargo bay doors of her vehicle, using her implant to tell both them and her weapons case to open up as she goes. Her UAW is ready to hand, and she picks it up - it arms itself as its stock recognises her hand - and spins around in time to see the hostile hopper bearing down on her. Her implant overlays targeting data on her vision, and she fires the shotgun barrel, once.

Her explosive shell enters one of the hopper's wing-mounted ducted fans, and detonates, shattering rotor blades and damaging mechanisms. The high-tech craft handles the disruption remarkably well, but its automatic emergency stability systems cut in, and it drops neatly to the ground. Members of the group hasten over to it and hit any emergency cut-out switches they can find.

Meanwhile, however, another group of people have emerged from the maglev halt buildings and are approaching rapidly; large oriental individuals, all similarly and plainly dressed, and all with drawn guns. The Europeans turn to meet them, some with their own weapons still in hand, and there is a brief tense moment, especially as, despite Jianwei's smoothly tactful greetings, they seem uncertain what to make of most of the newcomers and highly suspicious - but their personal identity codes mark them as Chinese government agents, and it's clear that they're here to escort Dr Liang safely back to Chinese territory.

And so the two groups settle down and wait for the next train - which turns out to have two carriages, both empty. The Chinese agents take over one, and the Europeans decide that it's most tactful to use the other. Some quick administrative footwork by Jianwei has that effectively declared E.U. diplomatic territory for the duration of their occupancy, which allows Florence to keep her weapons to hand, just in case... But anyway, the group begin their long return haul to Port Lowell.

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.