"I put Ron in stasis," said Jackson, "It was a good freeze. He, Crystal and Tran are safe on the ship in sickbay. I just wish Tran was as fixable as the others."
***
The joy awaited Morris as soon as he started. Building the thing went along much more easily than he thought and he soon saw the circuits he created taking on an almost Imperial symmetry. Lace brought him a lunch he didn't really taste. She stayed a while after he finished it but Morris' work totally absorbed him. He had to make several trips to the roof to set up and align the hybrid uplink array and every time he did Jackson and Harkin found a reason to be below in case he fell. That thought amused Morris; he knew he wouldn't fall with the job yet undone!
By evening he had it finished. He ran a pair of power and data lines to their main building and connected them to a spare terminal he took the time to purge of all parasites. He blasted clean and powered down all the memory, segmented that and booted the most minimal operating system required to run the terminal.
"My plan is simple," he explained, "I have no doubt the metavirus is trying to invade the beacon drone. I doubt it can, though, because military systems are hardened and a lot more difficult to crack without internal compromise.
"I'm no pyro burner but I've configured half of this system to look like an enhanced gensat and the other side the beacon drone. When I activate it I'll have a high-density link to both."
"Won't this parasite try to grab it," asked Harkin.
"I'm counting on that," said Morris, "The code here is hardwired to reflect any sudden changes back to the host initiating them. If my theory is sound we'll convince the metavirus to attack itself. If not we'll at least keep it busy while I work on the drone."
Morris checked his chrono, did a quick calculation and gave Jackson coordinates.
"That's where the drone is now. You should have a good visual; when it launches it should light up the sky. You may also see some frying gensats. Check and verify please."
Jackson nodded and left, taking a chair with him.
Morris contacted the gensats with a low-res connection, calibrating and measuring its response curves. When he had their attention he gradually opened the channel to full pipe. As he suspected, the gensats had meshed themselves well outside their normal operational parameters. The mesh acknowledged and then terminated as the metavirus took over. data shot through the pipe far too quickly for Morris to interpret but the sigma monitor told him what he needed. The gensat side heated up to furious activity.
Morris did his work well. Here he had no shoddy software patches; all of the 'readings' the gensat mesh took came from hardfibered and hardwired unalterable sources. That frustrated the virus. It brought more and more of its resources to bear, replicating and mutating madly in the memory Morris provided. He then locked his machine away from the gensat uplink, keeping it active but allowing no data to pass. After a number of generations the metaviral invaders began running out of memory so they attacked the older versions still within the memory. Those copies fought back, albeit feebly, but could not resist their progeny.
That was Morris' cue. When the fourth evolution of deleters spawned he re-opened the link to the gensats and echoed the activity up to them. Readouts around the room uplinked to the gensats went berserk. Harkin's weather monitors reported the atmosphere transforming to a nitrogen-rich vacuum, the deepscanners reported the planet's crust changing to gold, then cheese, and the 'comm network began playing random bits of interstellar noise which AI analysis routines tried to interpret rationally. And succeeded!
Amid this chaos Morris carefully watched the sigma monitor. As soon as the activity hit a brief plateau he forked a copy of one of the most advanced strains into the drone side of the memory and froze it in place. He hard-severed the gensat side of things and uplinked directly to the drone.
'HOSTILE SYSTEM INTRUSION | ACCESS DENIED'
Morris sent the first segment of the crypto Harper gave him.
'INITIATE LOGIN PROTOCOL'
He keyed the second segment.
'LOGIN VALID | REQUEST INPUT'
'-pr status'
'HOSTILE CODE INVASION DETECTED | CORE PROTECTION ACTIVE'
'-pr status launch'
'FUEL RESERVE 97% | FTL RANGE 37P | CORE SYTEM CONTENT 14%'
'purge core_memory'
'ACCESS TO CORE SYSTEMS IS DENIED.'
Morris keyed the final segment of Harper's crypto.
'purge core_memory'
'ACCESS TO CORE SYSTEMS IS DENIED.'
That stopped Morris. Cleaning the drone of the metavirus required full core system access. He started to sweat. Before long the parasites in the gensat mesh would stop fighting each other and start cooperating, then he'd lose his advantage.
'-x prepare datafeed standard port-density 4 access direct'
'ACCESS TO CORE SYSTEMS IS DENIED.'
Something nagged at Morris.
'-pr status core_system'
'Core system content: 14%, Coordinate-cache: 0%, Logged data: 80%, Mission data: 7%, Network feed data: 5%, Dataloss: 2%'
Eighty percent content on Harper's logs? Not likely! Morris unfroze the drone side of his memory and reflected it through the uplink. The drone tried to block it but failed. The sigma monitor showed chaos in the drone's caches and before long Morris noticed another routine fighting to wipe out everything but itself. Before long it devoured everything else and Morris' screen cleared.
'CORE SYSTEM PURGE COMPLETE | REQUEST INPUT'
Yes!! Morris didn't know if he spoke it or not, he began entering commands furiously.
'-x prepare log
'-x receive text -protect -isolate 9'
Morris fed the terminal a dataspool. He included a basic report on what happened along with a plea for help. With the protections he activated the metavirus would be isolated from execution, even if it did manage to invade his transmission.
'DATA ENCAPSULATION COMPLETE'
'-x coordinate-feed -set A A 4 9 f0f0 P 2 S A f0f0 L N 0 5 5 B 9 f0f0 a$X9vl_t4E f0f0'
Morris checked and double-checked that. He ran the coordinates and hash on his isolated and purged datapad so he felt comfortable with them. Harper's verification would have been nice, too.
'COORDINATES SET AND CONFIRMED | VERIFY [[a$X9vl_t4E]]'
'-x verify_true
'-hx launch -immediate
'-hx window -min_max
'-hx insertion -standard
'-x execute_held -confirm'
'CONFIRM LAUNCH IMMEDIATE | WINDOW MINIMUM MAXIMAL | INSERTION STANDARD'
'-pr status'
'HOSTILE CODE INVASION PURGED | ENGINES FIRING | CONNECTION ACTIVE'
Morris heard pounding on the wall. The 'comm crackled to life.
"It launched, Morris. I saw it," said Jackson, "It only lit up part of the sky. Looks like some of the gensats popped, too. You're paying for them if they did."
Morris sighed as relief, and amusement, washed over him.
'-x calculate_ETA'
'PROJECT ARRIVAL: 4D 10H 37M 8.02S'
'-mx logout ++ endsession ++ terminate ++ lock-secure'
'CONFIRM | SESSION ENDS'
Morris closed his eyes and melted back into his chair. They did it! Hands clapped his shoulder and congratulatory phrases washed over him but he paid them little heed. They did it! They launched the drone and it would arrive in four days plus tariff. Assuming a standard response Dustball would have new visitors in one day plus travel time. After a time Morris opened his eyes.
"What do we do now, sir," asked Polov.
"I have no idea, Mister Polov. I, however, intend to eat and rest."
"Eat," said Lace emphatically, "We've all been shorting ourselves, especially you, Morris. Eat now."
So saying she placed a heaping plate of rations in front of Morris. He ate slowly, savoring the extra spice she added. It did little to improve the flavor but the kind thought worked wonders. He even managed to finish the plate. Barely. In his eyes he'd done Jackson a fair challenge.
That worthy sat beside Morris, chatting about what he saw.
"... seven evenly-spaced points of light. Placed so perfectly I doubt they were a micron off."
Morris started to explain gensat placement when Jackson clapped him on the shoulder. Then he heard the hiss of a hypo.
"Phase down, Morris," said Jackson, "It's just something to help you sleep."
Morris opened his mouth to protest only to yawn hugely instead. The room tipped sideways and Jackson caught him. He fell into a deep, sound sleep well before he touched his bunk.
***
Morris drifted slowly up from a warm, hazy oblivion. His body and mind both felt totally refreshed. As he concentrated on these details the events leading up to them returned. No doubt Jackson was underhanded and sneaky but he was in the right. Not, thought Morris, that he couldn't give the big man some good-natured grief over it. Something moved near Morris, quietly but making no attempt at stealth. When Morris opened his eyes he saw Lace puttering around and tidying things.
"Good morning," she said, "I trust you slept well."
"Very." Morris checked his chrono and found the hour well advanced into morning. "Perhaps too well. What did Jared give me?"
"A quarter-dose of a very mild sedative. It just relaxed you, you did the rest."
Morris stretched. As he did his grimy clothes chafed him.
"I think I need a shower."
"I think you may be right," she said, "The hot water should be back by now."
Morris scrubbed himself quickly and hard. It felt good to luxuriate under hot water with the end to their ordeal a certainty now. For once Morris didn't regret an empty schedule. Today he would do the minimum needed and save the rest for later.
After his shower Morris lazed until lunch. He made two blessedly mundane and fast adjustments then sat down with the others to a regular portion of rations. His appetite, compensated last night for the time he'd shorted it, shrank back to normal. After lunch he fixed his gaze on Polov and Eisley.
"I notice the two of you have a plenitude of spare time," he said mildly.
The two students exchanged glances, then shot Lace an appealing look which she ignored.
"Now is your chance to truly experience League technology," said Morris, "Just think of all the broken things you can tear apart and fix."
Morris thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon, as did the students. They spent it working over the remaining prefabs, either repairing what they could or repairing over what they couldn't. With most of the prefabs isolated and powerless they had little trouble and almost all of the infrastructure survived.
"Did the three of you enjoy yourselves today," asked Jena when they assembled for dinner.
"Yes," said Polov, "I think that's what I'm supposed to say."
"Polar," said Lace, "Because you two are going to clear out and re-prep the infirmary tomorrow. After that Culle has weather for you to observe and forecast."
Rackwell retired soon after the meal. He was still recovering and the hectic past few days had taken a toll of him. After Rackwell dozed off the others had an invigorating game of two-across. Spectres of their ordeal still popped up occasionally but they all saw the worst as behind them.
Morris reconditioned the vehicles the next day. He serviced the rover, replaced what all he removed for his communicator and made sure everything else worked at peak. He didn't expect to need it but the follow-up teams certainly would, he left it in good condition for them.
After lunch Morris worked over the cargo float. It had seen heavy use and needed work badly. He serviced the thrusters, replaced several worn seals and re-synced the gravitics. With the hardware working he pulled the traffic computer out of the almost-empty ship's hold and reinstalled it. He physically segmented the memory into partitions too small to hatch the parasite, regenerated the operating system and added some specific safeguards. He finished well into the afternoon but with quite a bit of time before dinner.
Morris reconditioned the shower. Built rugged and for maximum efficiency it reclaimed up to ninety-three percent of the water it used. Water wasn't a problem here so he reconfigured it and increased the hot water reservoir.
Polov and Eisley discussed their day over dinner. They and Jackson restored the camp infirmary almost to the point of pristine newness. It would need some restocking, of course, but not much of that. They also discussed the weather patterns Harkin showed them, both the ones unique to this planet and the rest common to most. Harkin himself expounded on the unique aspects, again, and again vowed to assemble a course curriculum on it.
After dinner Lace, Harkin, Rackwell and Eisley started a game of Feodality. Neither Polov nor Jackson cared for it so they started a play-for-blood game of one-across. Morris had other plans. Before dinner he moved some of the smaller parts of his hybrid 'comm rig into this building. He wanted to start taking them apart and Lace refused to allow him to work alone in the other building.
Morris sat in a comfortable chair at a sturdy table with ample light and room to work. He'd recorded every step in creating the communicator now he'd dissemble it with a microscopic eye for any damage to the ancient components.
The beauty of the Imperial circuitry captivated him yet again. Though people called it decadent he wondered if it might not represent a higher order of sophistication. He had no doubt it represented the very leading edge of the Imperium, evolved from the overabundance of time, resources and prior research it shared with its antecedents. He measured every aspect of it, sent power through it and watched the logic flows develop.
***
Sudden realization left Morris thunderstruck! All the facts buzzing around loose inside his head came together in a blinding flash of clarity. All of them! He saw the pattern. He saw the inexorable conclusion to which they all pointed.
His reckless mistakes came back with a vengeance! Oh how wrong had he been! Guilt seized him as he saw what his impulsive assumptions and unthought actions had caused. Tools dropped from nerveless fingers as he worked to refine the fact and implication of this new construct.
Morris glanced around. The others sat, exactly as before, with no inkling of the utter danger they now faced. Maybe... Possibly... Morris fervently hoped it wasn't too late. Perhaps he could correct the damage from his horrible mistakes.
Lace looked up at him. Then looked harder with concern etched in her face.
"Heaven's flames, Morris! What happened? You look like you've seen a ghost."
The details swarmed into place. It made sense. It made a hideous abomination of sense!
"I'm polar," he said, weak-sounding even to himself. Perhaps not too late.
Jackson still wore his laser as did Morris, their firearms now a part of their clothing. Not too late...
"Jared." Morris let his voice slur and waver a bit. "I think there's something wrong..."
***
Chaos erupted and things moved entirely too fast! With a speed that belied his years Harkin leapt to his feet. A huge blaster appeared in his hand as if from thin air. Lace, reacting now, tried to scurry backward in spite of her chair. Jackson tried to rise but Harkin kicked the chair out from under him and in a continuation of the same motion positioned himself behind Lace, his blaster leveled at her temple.
"Don't be foolish," said Harkin, "I can and will kill her if anyone moves."
Eisley made a soft terror-sound.
"Move away, Tina. I do not wish to cause you undue pain. Besides, blaster wounds will be hard to explain."
Jackson growled deep in his chest. In response Harkin twisted his off hand into Lace's hair.
"Move back, Jared. I can kill both of you before you reach me. Move now!"
The tableau burned itself into Morris' brain. He failed again. In retrospect he realized he should have known Harkin would have extensive training and blinding speed and reflexes. Spies did. And assassins.
"Morris." Harkin spoke conversationally. "Certainly you realize you cannot fire on me without harming Jena. Kindly remove your weapon
belt and step away from it. You as well, Jared." He dragged Lace to where he could draw a bead on anyone in the room. "Rack, Greg, Tina, move to the side wall and sit with your backs against it. Then fold your hands in your laps and don't move them."
All of them complied with Harkin's instructions. Lace coughed a strangled sob, terror etched into her face. As he dropped his belt Jackson inched away from Morris, moving microscopically toward Harkin's flank.
Satisfied with their positions Harkin kicked a chair under Lace.
"So tell me, Morris. How did you know? Whatever tipped you happened within the last hour, of that I'm certain."
"Tell what," asked Rackwell, "What the bloody hades are you doing, Culle?"
"Ahh, ever the inquisitive mind, Rackwell. Morris, why don't you explain to them."
Morris drew a breath. Anything to delay him.
"It's the site, Dr. Rack," said Morris, "It isn't real. It's a fake. It is all fake."
Gasps from everyone except Harkin. Rackwell and Polov both expressed disbelief.
"Oh it is quite true," said Harkin, "It is a false site created with a great cost both in time and in money. I'm told no few workers also lost their lives, tragically. You owe them, Morris. You owe them the explanation of the flaws in their work."
Morris' blood boiled at this but he kept his control of it.
"Details," said Morris. Keep him talking until we can think of something. "You were good; no, very good. But you left too many details dangling."
"Enlighten me."
"First was your knowledge of Guild structure and administration." Morris shifted nervously with each one moving him a millimeter away from Jackson. "Most if not all League citizens are familiar with the Guilds, at least enough to name them, but that's it. Very few outside of historians, some politicians and Guild members have even half of your familiarity.
"Then there is your range of knowledge in general. Once again not unusual except for its extent. You were routinely able to use equipment well outside your scientific specialties, even well enough to instruct others proficiently. You did that well enough that I automatically accepted that you could. That doesn't happen outside other Techs."
"And..."
"The float was the final detail." Morris kicked himself for not seeing that sooner. "When your group arrived after the ship shorted Tran told me you knew and he authorized the traffic computer override. It isn't particularly hard to find which is why the penalties for unauthorized use are so severe."