The Gap into Madness: Chaos and Order (4 page)

But
even while he accessed his personal board to call up whatever information Data
Storage had on Sorus Chatelaine and
Soar
, Hashi considered deeper
possibilities.

He was
by no means an unintuitive man. And he knew himself well. He recognised from
experience that the issues which first focused his attention when he studied a
problem often proved to be of secondary importance. Those issues frequently
served as mere distractions for his conscious mind so that other parts of him
could work more efficiently. Therefore he didn’t waste his time wondering why
Nick’s message continued to nag at him, suggesting doubts he could hardly name.
Nor did he worry about how many of Nick’s intentions were contained or
concealed in the rumours Darrin Scroyle reported. Instead he concentrated
deliberately on gleaning data; deflecting himself from the questions he most
needed to answer.

Unfortunately
that took time. Under the circumstances, he wasn’t sure he could afford it.

Well,
he required the time. Therefore he would afford it as best he could.

You
deserve her.

While
Data Storage spun retrieval routines over its mountains of information, he
keyed his intercom and told DA Processing — which was what he called his centre
of operations — that he wanted to see Lane Harbinger. “At once,” he added
laconically. “Right now. Five minutes ago.”

A tech
replied, “Yes, sir,” and went to work.

Lane
was the granddaughter of the famous explorer/scientist Malcolm Harbinger, but
that meant nothing to Hashi. Its only significance was that she’d come by her
meticulousness honestly. He wanted to see her because she was the hardware tech
he’d assigned to help ED Chief of Security Mandich investigate Godsen’s murder.

He
could not have said what connection he imagined or hoped to find between
Captain Scroyle’s report and Godsen’s murder. He was simply distracting
himself; allowing his intuition the time and privacy it needed in order to
function. Preserving himself in that fertile state of mind in which the least
likely connections might be discovered.

Lane
Harbinger responded to his summons promptly enough. When his intercom chimed to
announce her, he adjusted his glasses by sliding them even farther down his
thin nose, rumpled his hair, and verified that his lab coat hung crookedly from
his shoulders. Then he told the data tech who served as his receptionist to let
Lane in.

She was
a small, hyperactive woman who might have appeared frail if she’d ever slowed
down. Like any number of other people who worked for Data Acquisitions, she was
addicted to nic, hype, caffeine, and several other common stimulants; but as
far as Hashi could tell these drugs had a calming effect on her organic
tension. He assumed that her meticulousness was yet another kind of drug; a way
of compensating for internal pressures which would have made her useless
otherwise.

Presumably
she was also a woman who talked incessantly. She knew better than to do that
with him, however.

“You
wanted to see me,” she said at once as if the words were the merest snippet of
a diatribe which had already been going on inside her for some time.

Hashi
gazed over his glasses at her and smiled kindly. “Yes, Lane. Thank you for
coming.” He didn’t ask her to sit down: he knew that she needed movement in
order to concentrate. Even her most precise labwork was done to the
accompaniment of a whole host of extraneous tics and gestures, as well as
through a cloud of smoke. So he let her light a nic and pace back and forth in
front of his desk while she waited for him to go on.

“I
wanted to know,” he said, peering at her through the haze she generated, “how
your investigation is going. Have you learned anything about the kaze who
brought about our Godsen’s untimely demise?”

“Too
soon to be sure,” she retorted like a rushing stream caught behind a check-dam
of will.

“Don’t
worry about being sure,” he countered amiably. “Just tell me where you are
right now.”

“Fine.
Right now.” She didn’t look at him as she paced. Her eyes roamed his walls as
if they were the limits, not of this office, but of her knowledge. “It’s a good
thing you sent me over there. ED Security is motivated as all hell, and careful
as they know how, but they don’t understand what ‘careful’ really means. Let
them stick to shooting people. They shouldn’t be involved in this kind of
investigation. Five minutes without me, and they would have made the job
impossible.

“It
could have been impossible anyway. That wasn’t a big bomb, they never are, there’s
only so much space you can spare inside a torso, even if you only expect your
kaze to be able to function for a few hours, but it was high brisance, I mean
high
.
No particular reason why it shouldn’t have reduced his id tag and credentials
to particles so small even we couldn’t find them, never mind the embedded chips
themselves.

“But
Frik’s secretary knows more than she thinks she knows.” In full spate the tech’s
tone became less hostile; or perhaps simply less brittle. “Ask her the right
questions, and you find out that after she did her” — Lane sneered the words as
if they were beneath contempt — “‘routine verification’ on this kaze, he didn’t
put his id tag back around his neck. He didn’t clip his communications
credentials back onto his breast pocket, which is so normal around here we don’t
even notice it anymore, hell, I’m doing it myself” — she glanced down at the DA
card clipped to her labsuit — “you’re the only one who gets away without doing
it. But he didn’t do that.

“He
shoved them both into his thigh pocket, the right one, according to Frik’s
secretary. Which is not the kind of thing you do if you’re trying to plant
evidence when you blow yourself up, because the bomb is still going to reduce
everything to smears and scrap. But it
is
the kind of thing you do if
you’re new at this and you know you’re going to die and acting normal in secure
areas isn’t second nature. So his id tag and credentials were just that much
farther away from the centre of the blast.

“I
found part of one of the chips.”

Hashi
blinked his interest and approval without interrupting.

“You
know how we do this kind of search.” As soon as she finished her first nic, she
lit a second. “Vacuum-seal the room and go over it with a resonating laser. Map
the resonance and generate a computer simulation, which helps narrow the
search. When we chart the expansion vectors, we can tell where the kaze’s
residue is most likely to be. Those areas we study one micron at a time with
fluorochromatography. When you’re operating on that scale, even a small part of
a SOD-CMOS chip emits like a star.”

He did
indeed know all this; but he let Lane talk. She was distracting him nicely.

“As I
say, I got one. Two, actually, but one was driven into the floor so hard it
crumbled when I tried to extract it. Even I can’t work with that kind of
molecular powder. So there’s just one.

“I don’t
know much about it yet. We can assume its data is still intact, that’s exactly
what this kind of chip is good for, but I haven’t found a way to extract it
yet. SOD-CMOS chips add state when power is applied to the source and drain.
They read back by reversing the current. But to do that you
have
to have
a source and drain. This particular piece of chip doesn’t include those
conveniences.”

Another
nic.

“But I
can tell you one thing about it. It’s ours.”

Fascinated
as much by her manner as by her explanation, Hashi asked, “How do you know?”

“By its
particular production quality. Legally, nobody but us is allowed to make them,
that’s part of the datacore law. Of course, we don’t actually manufacture them
ourselves, the law simply gives us the power to license their manufacture, but
we’ve only granted one license, Anodyne Systems” — she didn’t need to mention
that Anodyne Systems was a wholly owned subsidiary of the UMC — “and they
supply us exclusively. In fact, everybody in Anodyne Systems actually works for
us. The whole company is really just a fiction, a way for the UMC to keep a
hand in what we’re doing, and for us to get SOD-CMOS chips without having to
find room for an entire production plant in our budget.

“There’s
only one way to make a SOD-CMOS chip. On paper, they should all be identical,
no matter who produces them. But it doesn’t work that way in practice. Quality
varies inversely with scale. The more you make, the more impurities creep in —
human error, if not plain entropy. The less you make, the fewer the impurities.
Unless you’re incompetent, in which case I wouldn’t expect the chip to work
anyway.”

“So if
a chip were manufactured illegally,” Hashi put in, “you would expect it to be
purer than ours.”

Lane
nodded without breaking stride. “
This
chip came from Anodyne Systems. It’s
indistinguishable from the chips in our most recent consignment, which we
picked up and brought here six days ago.”

“In
other words,” he concluded for her, “we have a traitor on our hands.”

She
corrected him. “A traitor or a black market. Or simple bribery. Here or in
Anodyne Systems.”

“Quite
right. Thank you.” He beamed his appreciation. Meticulousness was a rare and
treasurable quality. “A traitor, a black market, or bribery. Here or over
there.” After a moment, he added, “It fits, you know.”

She
paused in her pacing long enough to look momentarily breakable. “Fits?”

“It’s
consistent,” he explained casually, “with the fact that our kaze arrived on the
shuttle from Suka Bator. He had already been cleared by GCES Security. That
detail enabled him to succeed here. If he had come from any other port, the
estimable Min Donner’s people would have scrutinised him more closely — and
then he might not have been allowed to pass.”

Lane
had resumed moving. “But I still don’t see—”

“It is
quite simple,” Hashi replied without impatience. He enjoyed his own
explanations. “Min Donner’s people were not negligent. They had reason to rely
on GCES Security. Routine precautions around Suka Bator are as stringent as
ours at the best of times. And at present, so soon after a similar attack on
Captain Sixten Vertigus in his own office, those precautions were at their
tightest. Surely no threat would be allowed to pass. Our kaze would have
presented little danger if he had not already been verified — in a sense,
legitimised — by GCES Security.

“But
how was that legitimacy achieved? Was GCES Security negligent? Under these
circumstances, I think not. Therefore our kaze’s various credentials must have
been impeccable.”

The
smoking tech couldn’t keep silent. “All right, I get it. Whoever sent the kaze
didn’t just have access to our SOD-CMOS chips. He also had access to GCES
Security codes, not to mention ours. So he must be GCES personnel. Or UMCP.”

“Or
UMC,” Hashi added. “They own Anodyne Systems.”

“Or
UMC,” she agreed.

“But we
can dismiss the GCES,” he continued. “Unlike the United Mining Companies and
the United Mining Companies Police, our illustrious Council has no access to
Anodyne Systems.

“Conversely,
of course, the Dragon in his den holds enough votes to obtain whatever he
desires from the GCES.”

Lane
considered this for a moment, then nodded through a gust of smoke. When Hashi
didn’t go on, she asked, “So where does that leave us?”

“My
dear Lane” — he spread his hands — “it leaves us precisely where we are. You
have gleaned a certain fact. Each fact is a step, and enough steps make a road.
We are one step farther along our road.

“I am
eager to see if you will be able to provide us with another fact, or perhaps
two.”

She
didn’t hesitate. “I’m on it,” she announced brusquely as she turned for the
door.

“I am
sure you are,” Hashi said to her departing back. “Thank you.”

For a
useful distraction, he added while the door closed. And for some intriguing
possibilities.

Sitting
nearly motionless at his desk, he considered them.

If the
list of suspects in Godsen’s premature effacement included only those men and
women directly or indirectly involved in the manufacture and transshipment of
SOD-CMOS chips, that was daunting enough. The prospect became actively
appalling if the list were expanded to name every minion who might have been
able to draw on Holt Fasner’s clout with the GCES.

Hashi
was neither daunted nor appalled, however. Such lists were self-winnowing, in
his experience. Each new fact uncovered by Lane Harbinger, or by ED Security,
would narrow the range of suspects. No, his thoughts ran in other channels.

What,
he wondered, would be the Dragon’s reaction to the provocative information that
Nick Succorso had brought some sort of cargo or prize back from Enablement
Station? Hashi could hardly guess what it might have been — but he could
estimate its value. It was so precious that the Bill and the Amnion were
willing to fight over it; so precious that Captain Succorso was willing to sell
one of his own people in order to buy it back. So precious that someone would
risk stealing it from such formidable adversaries.