[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

would have asked those few cydroids I'd encountered, like Everett Forster. It
was the sort of question you asked a close friend or a professional in a
professional setting.
"Would you be different as a cydroid, Dr. deVrai? Would not your thoughts and
motivations remain?"
"I don't know. I've never had or been a cydroid." That was certainly true.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
She nodded. "If you have any other questions, please feel free to link."
"I will." I edged toward the French doors, then gestured.
"Thank you."
I didn't say anything until she stepped outside. "I appreciate your following
up."
"Pleased to be able to help you, Dr. deVrai."
She turned and walked down to the small white electrocar with the safo
insignia. I closed the door, and headed back to the office.
The safo had been a cydroid, but she'd seemed ... I wasn't sure what. Maybe a
better way to put it was that I'd met people and safos who seemed more like
Page 102
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
cydroids than the cydroid had except for the odd business of referring to
herself/itself as Central Four. Did systems like Central Four even have a
gender orientation? Probably not. I put the seeming humanity down to good
programming.
That left a bigger problem.
Three traces on my system? I picked up the hard copy printout and looked at
the schematics. All the traces were inside the hardware, every last one of
them, and all of my system components were unitary black boxes. That meant
they'd either been replaced as units in my absence, or they'd been installed
at the manufactory but one section had been in use for five years. That told
me that someone had been good enough to bypass all the security systems and
install the equipment without my even noticing.
I looked at the printouts again.
I'd been wrong. Central Four had noted the probability that all the traces had
been installed at different times by different individuals approached unity.
Threepeople tapping my systems? But why? Or had it been Central Four that had
appeared at my door?
That was something I could check.
Muttering to myself, I linked Aliora.
She was there, or at least, the link went wherever she was. "Jonat." After a
moment, she asked, "What is it?"
"Will you be home in forty minutes?"
"Not until one this afternoon."
"Could I come by then?"
There was a pause. "It's not too bad, is it?"
"I don't know. I'll tell you then."
"Make it quarter past."
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
"I'll be there."
I forced myself to spend the next two hours working on Reya's project, and
actually thought I could finish it by Wednesday and then begin Bruce Fuller's.
At twelve-thirty, I left the house, securing it behind me not that securing it
seemed to have had much effect in the past, not against sophisticated techs.
But then, I'd never expected to have to worry about that. An economic/media
analyst, worrying about traces and spying and attacks? Who even cared what I
did except my clients?
I kept thinking about it as I drove toward Aliora's.
The problem was that someone didn't like what I was doing, and it had to be
connected to the Centre study. I could guess that someone didn't want the
study out, because it would fuel a reform effort to limit use of media
techniques in campaigns. But the techniques I'd studied had been used almost
exclusively by
LR candidates, and the Centre was backed primarily by multis with an LR bent.
So ... was there a dissident within the Centre? Or was there a deeper agenda?
The "attacks" on PD candidates suggested a hidden and deadly struggle over the
electoral process, but I
had yet to come up even with a motivation for either side except, of course,
the general point that it was all about power. That was obvious. What wasn't
obvious was how my study and I fit into the power struggle.
When I got to Aliora's, I left the Altimus on one side of the rotunda.
She opened the nebulae door before I got to it, but she didn't say anything
until we were alone in the foyer. "You look worried. I haven't seen you this
way since ... since you were in the Marines."
"I am. I haven't had anything like this happen to me in a long time. I'd like
to use your comm system, if I
could."
"Of course. Dierk's would be best. I know he wouldn't mind. He's in Bozem,
again, anyway."
Page 103
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
We walked out to his study, a windowed room on the north end of the house,
overlooking the formal garden.
"Do you want to tell me more?" Aliora asked.
"It's strange. Nothing like this has ever happened to me..." I went on to
explain about the appearance of
Safo Athene, about her investigation, and the fact that she had said she was a
representative of Central
Four, and the discovery of the taps. "I don't have the equipment or the
ability to investigate that technically, and I'm not sure that I should try,
because, if I remove them, that alerts whoever it is. Then, I
got to thinking ... Anyway, I'd like to link to Central from here."
Aliora nodded. "Dierk has a security firm that checks everything here weekly."
"Do you have a direct link to Central?"
Aliora frowned, then smiled. "I'd forgotten. I've never used it." She pulsed
something, and then opened the link to me.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
Central, this is Jonat deVrai... requesting Central Four.
Aliora stood behind me and to my left, out of the receptor's scan, but where
she could see the projections.
The image I got was that of Paula Athene, almost as she had looked when she
had stood in my office.
"Dr. deVrai. You're linking from another system. It's a class-one secure
system."
"That's correct." I knew it was secure but I hadn't had any idea Dierk's
system was that secure. "I had a few questions."
"What are your questions?" The trace of a smile appeared.
"Why did you need to inspect my system? Beyond what you told me?"
"It seemed illogical that all the events that had happened could have occurred
without some knowledge of you, Dr. deVrai. Central Four thought that traces on
your system might be possible."
"Now what?"
"Central Four and the Denv Office of Public Safety will continue to
investigate. Central Four suggests that you have a class-one security upgrade
on your communications and operating systems, including your domestic
systems."
"Won't that alert whoever has been tracing my communications?"
"That is probable. Central Four calculates that your vulnerability to physical
harm is a minimum of forty percent higher without the security upgrades, and
that calculation factors in the unitary probability of discovery of those
traces."
In short, I was in bigger trouble than I'd thought.
"Can you tell me any more about the traces?"
"Two are deKuiper solid-bloc standard tap-traces. The third is a model that is
unknown. Its energy patterns suggest nonstandard fabrication."
"Do you have any idea why people are tracing and tracking me?"
"There is a fifty percent probability that the attacks on you are linked in
some fashion to PAMD efforts and a forty percent probability that those
attacks will continue."
"I've never had anything to do with the PAMD either for or against them."
Athene shrugged a very human shrug, followed by a sad smile. "You asked, and
that is the best estimation possible at the moment. Central Four has not been [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]