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Book 2: Chapter 26: Selling Poseidon
Book 2: Chapter 26: Selling Poseidon
Book 2: Chapter 26: Selling Poseidon
Riker
December 2175
Sol
“You seem incapable of preventing them from striking at will.” Ambassador Gerrold seemed to be enjoying the situation, which made his attempts at portraying anger unconvincing. I’d ignored his jibes in the past, but I was getting tired of it.
“And what have you been able to do, Ambassador? Found the source of those hacking attempts yet? Made any arrests? Got any suggestions? Anything besides endless carping?” I exchanged glares with the ambassador for a moment, then moved on. “We’re working on replacing the donut, but it’ll still be a few months. Plus whatever time it takes to get the farm regrown. There will be short rations for a while, but no starvation.” I had a sudden inspiration, one of those mid-action moments, and added, “VEHEMENT got lucky this time. We stop most of their attempts before they get anywhere. They aren’t really that smart.” It wasn’t true, but baiting them might force some kind of reaction. VEHEMENT depended on fear, and being publicly dissed might provoke a response.
Before anyone could comment, I turned off my audio, effectively giving up the floor. I turned to Guppy without moving my avatar. “Put everything we have on communications monitoring. I want to know who reacts to my words, and how. I want every byte accounted for.”
Guppy nodded and went into command fugue.
The session moved on to the emigration question. The Maldives and Micronesia had pretty much cemented their claim on Poseidon—partly due to lack of interest by the other enclaves. They needed about six hundred more people from other enclaves to form a full colony-ship complement, but they were having a hard time making that. No one wanted to split off from their group, especially to go to a planet so, um, specialized. It was attractive to islanders; to everyone else, not so much.
At the same time, other groups were trying to lay claim to the semi-completed ships for emigration to Vulcan or Romulus. The whole thing was acrimonious and mostly information-free.
[No detectable increase in Earthside traffic. One anomalous communication to spaceside]Okay, that was something. “Source? Destination?”
[Source New Zealand, although not near any population centers. Destination Homer]
“Uh, excuse me?”
[It was a tight-beam signal. It would not have been detectable except for a chance alignment with one of our drones on cleanup duty]
Oh. Shit. That just did not make sense. Why would Homer be helping them? Why would he be sabotaging his own project? Unless he didn’t have a choice…
Suddenly Homer’s change in personality took on an ominous cast. It was very un-Homer-like. The complete cessation of jokes, the withdrawal from the rest of us…
Perhaps because it wasn’t Homer.
I sent a message to Charles, requesting a physical meet-up.