I used to hack a lot before I came of military age."
"They have trouble believing a ground-pounder like you knows which side of a Data Handler to plug in. I prefer your command work, myself." He pulled out a stool and sat. "How'd the visit go today?"
So that was it. "Boormin's Brighties, sir? Okay."
"What did you show 'em?"
"This that I'm working on, sir. It's a minor Contingency Plan, in case we get attacked by the Bernheim Systems. This is part of a Daush-based supply operation."
"Working on it? You're supposed to be finished with it."
Dvenitch blinked, not the first junior officer to be surprised by what he incorrectly didn't think General Kabrell was up on. "It is finished, sir. I'm looking at the modifications we made during the discussion today."
"Why?"
Dvenitch tapped a symbol on his screen. "That, sir."
Kabrell looked closely. "A communications symbol of some sort. What about it?"
"I had to look it up. It signifies a manned enemy Clandestine Communications Post. Why our software thinks the enemy would put it there, I have no idea. I was just trying to figure it out."
"Was it there before the plan got modified?"
"No, sir. It wouldn't be marked in at all, except the software projected it would be spotted by a squad-sized patrol on day fifty of the operation. It gets taken out the next day."
"How is it supposed to be useful to the enemy?"
"I don't know, sir. Anything it can do in communications, their satellite back-ups can do better, faster, cheaper, and more securely."
"What was in the plan that made them put it in?"
"Fixed-wing aircraft, sir."
The General snorted in amusement. "Fixed wing aircraft!"
"Yes, sir. The students were mostly interested in laughs. They had me put in Steppni Speeders - a civilian sports biplane - as reconnaissance aircraft, just to see what would happen. Watch when I take 'em out, sir."
Dvenitch removed the Speeders from the Tables and restarted the campaign; it developed along quite different lines, and the symbol disappeared from the hillside.
"Now I'll put 'em back in." Biplanes rejoined the attack, to swell the personnel requirements, bloat the resources and time devoted to security, and to crash and be shot down in hideous numbers. And the little symbol reappeared.
"So it's the aircraft, sir, or something associated with them, but I don't know why."
Kabrell was intrigued. "Let's ask an expert." He lifted a communicator and punched in a number which Dvenitch recognized as the Officers Club. "Let me speak to Colonel Leffert Philmaur, please. This is General Kabrell." Pause. "Hello, Phil? Got a professional problem for you. Come on over to G.C.P., Lab Five. You'll be interested."
Three minutes later, Colonel Philmaur, a short, balding intelligence officer, rapped at the open door and stepped into the laboratory.
"Over here, Phil. This is Lieutenant Donal Dvenitch. Colonel Leffert Philmaur. Donal, explain what you've got."
"Yes, sir." Dvenitch outlined the events of the afternoon.
Philmaur chuckled. "And you saved the silly version?"
"Yes, sir. Before discarding it, I noticed an enemy emplacement. It's there for no logical reason we can think of."
"Let's see it."
Dvenitch moved the viewpoint to a mid-air location sixty feet above the Communications Post. "It's a manned Clandestine . . ."
"I can see what it is," said Philmaur. "Odd."
"Yes, sir. The condition that made the enemy put it there was our forces using prop-driven biplanes for aerial reconnaissance."
Philmaur shook his head. "I gather you'd like to have a direct look at the enemy's counsels."
Kabrell answered. "Yes, we would. Out of pure curiosity."
"All right, turn your backs, both of you."
The two infantrymen turned away from the input surface, and Colonel Philmaur punched in the classified code that exposed the operation from the enemy's point of view.
When Dvenitch turned back, he felt a minor thrill to see the Bernheimer symbols on his screen, and the landscape laid out in the opposite direction. "Do the same query commands work, sir?"
"Yes," said Philmaur.
Dvenitch surrounded the Clandestine Communications Post - now symbolized quite differently - with an orange rectangle. A Type Three Query revealed that the installation had been dug in over a period of two nights. Philmaur chuckled. A Type Three Query was too causal. Dvenitch tried a Type Four, and a message appeared in the upper-right window: Clandestine back-up communications emplacement established in resp to projected enemy use of tight beam seeker/disrupters.
"Seeker/disrupters?" said General Kabrell. "Those are used to screw up communications in heavily inhabited areas so you don't get civilian casualties in the process. This is an empty peninsula. What are you using S.D.'s for, Lieutenant?"
"I didn't think I was, sir." Dvenitch laughed. "Let me check to see if they snuck in on me." He called up the large scale catalogue and looked. "No seeker/disrupters, sir."
Colonel Philmaur was mystified. "You say sport biplanes on our part brought about this fatuous response from the enemy?"
"Yes, sir."
The three stared at the screen in silence.
Finally the General said, "I wonder. You'd surely need close-in guidance radar to land fixed-wing stuff in mountain winds at night."
"Close in radar is there, sir," said Dvenitch.
Kabrell grunted. "Show us a picture of a close-in guidance radar assembly."
"Yes, sir." Dvenitch hunted through a Table, found a drawing, and projected it on the screen.
Philmaur nodded when he saw it. "I see what you're getting at, General. The software had to simulate looking at these things from satellite height: from there, the transceiver funnels would resemble disrupter cones. The Bernheimers would be stumped at the presence of old fashioned biplanes, and would never assume we were using them for recon. I can see them concluding these assemblies were something sinister, like disrupters."
Though it was his own idea, Kabrell was not convinced. "But it's not sensible. There are no civilians within hundreds of miles. Why worry about something that has no purpose?"
"That's easier to answer," said Philmaur. "Policy."
"Policy, sir?" echoed Dvenitch.
"Yes. The governments that ally themselves with Falmuth Cluster have to use policies - fixed reactions to given conditions - as dictated by Falmuth. Unlike us, they don't like military improvisation. Our software has been primed with this fact, and it knows that for the Bernheimers, when the enemy uses seeker/disrupters, clandestine back-up communications are mandated and no buts, never mind that in a particular case they might not be appropriate. Test it by removing just the guidance radar."
Dvenitch did so: just the radar, and sure enough, the symbol disappeared. No one had the heart to check into projected aircraft losses.
Kabrell nodded. "Well, if you're not right, you're close enough for me. Paradox resolved, and very intriguing. Have you eaten yet, Phil?
"Of course, sir; hours ago. I'm civilized."
"Must be fun. Are you hungry, Lieutenant?"
"Yes, sir."
"Close down your Data Handler, and I'll buy you a steak."