Twistor (36 page)

And the birds. He glanced up to where the treebird was working its way along the tree trunk. The birds seemed to come in two groups. Those like the treebird divided the basic six-appendage body design into two wings, two walking feet, and two manipulator feet used for food gathering and perhaps also for fighting and defense. So far these were all large pelican-size birds, few in number and quite territorial.

He looked higher, to the flyer activity at the forest canopy. Up there were the four-wingers. Their design involved two pairs of wings with a muscle structure that made one pair go up while the other pair went down. That counterbalanced wing movement seemed to be a very efficient design. Birds as large as robins were able to hover like hummingbirds. They were fascinating to watch. Perhaps he'd set up a bird feeder near the treehouse so he and the children could study them more.

He was still very concerned for the children's safety. Many times a day they had to climb to a dangerous height to get to the treehouse, they were eating plants and fish with unfamiliar characteristics that might contain toxic biochemicals, and there were large and dangerous carniverous animals in the forest.

There was now some evidence that the big carnivores hunted only at night. They'd been here for a week now,
and
in that time David had seen the large bearlike animals only at night. But he still carried the gun whenever they explored new parts of the forest.

David had had some initial misgivings about his capability for dealing full time with the Ernst children. He was much relieved to find that he was able to take care of them without major traumas on either side. He was glad they were with him, actually. They could do useful things, and they were good company. Looking after them kept him from devoting too much time to brooding about their biggest problem: to find a way home.

It was ultimately a problem of electrical power. They had all the complex apparatus, the microprocessors and power supplies and multipole coils, needed to operate the twistor apparatus and return them to their proper universe. David had everything, but the hydroelectric dams, the transformer stations, and the transmission lines to deliver electrical power to the university to feed the breaker boxes to power the equipment to make the twistor field to take them home. The big sources of electrical power now lay a universe away. And the twistor equipment required many kilowatts of power.

When Melissa discovered the pool with its natural spring, David had considered the possibility of building a dam and installing a small electrical generator turned by a millrace. But the problem of scale defeated him. Even if he could convert one of their electric pump motors to an efficient electric generator, which was by no means certain, a twistor field large enough to transport them back required many times the power that such a setup might conceivably produce. He'd also considered trying to convert one of the mechanical vacuum pumps to operate as a steam engine to turn the hypothetical electric generator. But that too was impractical; there was not enough metal to make a boiler, no way to shape the needed metal into a closed vessel, no way to seal the vessel well enough to hold steam pressure.
Making
a bank of large liquid-cell batteries was perhaps a more realistic low-technology alternative, but even that required quantities of electrolytes and electrode metals that were simply unavailable here.

It looked as if they might become permanent residents of this universe. At best it would take many years to relearn the old skills of smelting and forging metal, making copper wire and magnet steel and battery zinc and acid, producing boilers and bearings and chemicals, the products of a whole technological civilization. And until that technology was reinvented, their only electric power sources were a few puny flashlight batteries and solar cells that would not last forever. If only it didn't require so damned much energy to produce a twistor transition . . .

An elusive thought flitted at the periphery of David's consciousness, evading his grasp, just out of reach. He snatched at it—

He smiled. Of course! Rescale the energy! The power for the twistor field goes as the cube of the field diameter; a doubling of the field diameter requires an eightfold increase in the power. That means that a big field size requires a huge amount of power. But it also means that a smaller field takes a far smaller amount of power. A small enough field could operate on a few flashlight batteries!

David rapidly calculated how big a field one could make using several flashlight batteries as the power source. The answer came quickly. About the size of a baseball or perhaps a grapefruit. Small. Not enough to send people anywhere. But enough to send messages, to establish contact, to let those on the other side know that they were still alive and well. A bottle in which to float a message from castaways to the distant shores of home.

His mind racing, David strode to the ladder and began to climb rapidly up to the treehouse. He would make a prototype. There was work to be done.

As
soon as David was out of sight, Melissa selected a choice fillet of fish from the bucket of those waiting to be put into the 'smoker' and walked around behind the big tree. 'Kitty?' she called softly. 'Here kitty, kitty, kitty!'

A small orange-brown figure darted from behind a nearby tree and scampered across the carpet of leaves. It took the fish fillet in one tiny hand, paused to taste it, and then vanished into the forest.

Melissa smiled.

Flash returned from school at 3:37 A.M. There were some leftovers from last night's pizza still in the upstairs fridge. He gave it a quick nuke job in the microwave and carried it downstairs to snack on while he started up the Mac. The anchovy flavor was even better after sitting overnight. He'd noticed that before.

He activated the modem and began to weave a convoluted path through the net. In a few minutes he had arrived at his destination in San Jose and DECNetted across to the Megalith VAX in San Francisco. Quickly he downloaded the day's collection from his decoy file, watching it as it went into the Mac. Good, the second encryption key was there in Pierce's recent dialogue. They were in business.

He disconnected the decoy from Pierce's port, deallocated it, deleted the program, and wiped away all evidence of his snooping. Briefly he considered doing some mischief as a parting shot. Perhaps he should delete all of Pierce's files and backups, or maybe send obscene mail messages in Pierce's name to the receptionists and secretaries of all the Megalith vice presidents. Or he could order in Pierce's name the issuance of Megalith payroll checks to selected worthy dudes and causes . . .

But no, that was kid stuff. He was now an ethical 'professional' doing honorable work. He backed out of the Megalith systems one by one, erasing all evidence of his intrusions, folding the net behind him, and then
switched
off the modem. He was home free. He hadn't lost the old touch-o.

Flash fetched a Coke from the fridge and set about decrypting Pierce's files. It was going to be interesting to learn what secrets lay beneath all those layers of protection.

The balding man had just established a link from the van where he was sitting to PSRS headquarters. He placed the encrypted file he had prepared in the
[BROADSWORD]
area of the PSRS VAX. How long would it take for his client to read it and reply, he wondered.

He had been monitoring the Gordon subject's telephone line this afternoon when data communications at 4800 baud had come on the line. PSRS was, of course, set up for interception of data communications as well as voice recordings. He had watched with interest as the subject using the line wove a network path from one computer system to the next. The subject clearly knew what he was doing and was up to something.

Since the primary subject, Victoria Gordon, had been observed to leave the site early this morning, it was likely that the communications were initiated by her brother, William Gordon, who had a police record for computer-related crime.

In rapid succession the subject penetrated several computer systems of the Megalith Corporation and finally downloaded a data stream of terminal dialogue that seemed to involve some decryption on a
[PIERCE]
account of a Megalith Corporation VAX system located in the San Francisco area. The balding man had recognized the message as one that he had previously sent to Broadsword. He had duly included this information with his encrypted report to Broadsword and inquired if this activity was of any interest.

The old VT-220 terminal beeped and the message
You have new mail!
appeared on its screen. That didn't take
long,
he thought as he fetched the MAIL message:

To:
MANDRAKE

Subject:
GORDON SURVEILLANCE

Text::
Urgent you apprehend BOTH Victoria

Gordon and William Gordon and hold both for immediate questioning. Also retain all data recording media found in the possession of William Gordon and hold these for further instructions. Under no circumstances are any files on these media to be read or decrypted.

The balding man rubbed his chin. The subject's hacking had clearly touched a nerve. There was indeed a connection between Broadsword and the Megalith Corporation. That information could prove very useful. After they nailed the Gordon kid, he'd have to have a look at those files, maybe make backup copies for insurance . . . can never tell when a bit of leverage with Megalith might be useful.

He would need some help with this operation. He reached for the telephone.

Too much still to do, Vickie was thinking as she counted the empty spots in the twin electronics racks. She looked at her watch. Six P.M. It was too early to be this tired and hungry and frustrated. At the group meeting over lunch she'd had a big argument with Paul. He still wanted to make a deal with Allan Saxon to get his company's help with the project. Dumb! And now Jim Lee, who'd signed up to help her this evening, had just begged off, pleading a domestic emergency and leaving her with no help for tonight.

She scribbled a few updates on the project time line taped to the wall. It was going to be at least a week before
they
could try any twisting. She thought about that. The first test would be to see what a half-meter twist into the target universe produced. Maybe another 'wooden marble.' Maybe a ball of dirt or water. This basement room was lower than the lab upstairs, but she had no way of knowing if it was above or below ground level over there. If the twist produced only air, they'd twist a camera through and take a look. She wondered what David was doing now.

The wall phone rang. She walked across and answered it. It was William. She wondered how he'd found this number. Probably found the departmental phone book on the HyperVAX.

'Sis!' he said, excited. 'I just read the Megalith files. That Pierce creep ordered some guy named Mandrake to do a snatch on you! You're supposed to be kidnapped! Get out! Quick! I think our phone's tapped, too. They know. Get to a safe place. If you can, meet me at midnight tonight for anchovies.
Go! Now!'
He hung up.

Anchovies? she thought, then remembered last night's pizza at the Broadway Pizza Haven. She struggled into her jacket and opened the door to the basement hallway. Two men were standing just outside the door. The one in front was quite large. She noticed his right hand was missing as he grabbed for her.

With a skill acquired over several years with the Tae Kwan Do Club at CalTech, she kicked the big man expertly in the crotch with her toe, then deep in the stomach with her instep. He was doubling over as she whirled to meet the other man.

A mist of aerosol droplets drifted over her from a little spray can the man was holding. She tasted oysters, then . . . darkness.

As Flash put down the phone, he heard one car door slam outside, then another. He shoved four diskettes into his pocket. The FBI man's card was still on the computer
table.
He took that also. As he was walking down the hall to his room, he heard a loud knocking on the front door above, then heavy footsteps in the upper hallway. A rough voice above said something about 'Gordon.'

He was prepared. None of the el bust-o. No more up-against-the-wall-turkey for The Flash. Moving quickly, he closed the door and turned the key twice in the lock, then put a steel rod through it wired to the doorknob so it couldn't turn. He rolled the heavy chest of drawers to a position blocking the door and flipped down the latches on its oiled casters, locking them. Moving to the window, he freed the carefully cleaned and modified window latch and slowly pushed the bottom of the window outward so that the ivy vines growing over it at ground level moved silently outward like a tent. Fitting his legs into the gap formed by the ivy, he slid outside and pulled the window closed. He found the Allan wrench he had taped over the windowsill, slipped it into the small hole he had drilled in the window frame, and relocked the 'doctored' window latch from the outside.

Flash slithered down the ivy-covered passage to a point where he could exit hidden from the street. In the six-o'clock twilight he darted across the gap between the houses and down the side basement steps of the old house next door. Fitting the key taped over the doorsill into the lock, he let himself in. As he closed the door, he heard banging noises coming from his rooming house. He locked the heavy basement door from the inside, pocketed the key, and made his way through the darkened basement to a little-used cupboard at floor level near the old furnace. Crawling into the opening, he pulled the door shut and crawled into the long space behind stacks of old magazines.

Flash had read that the best strategy for a fugitive was to 'go to ground' and stay in quiet hiding for as long as possible, especially when there were searchers nearby. He'd made his plans accordingly. He located the
plastic
bottle of 'borrowed' sleeping pills that he'd taped in the corner. They were the new controlled-duration type with a calibrated sleeping period. He shook out two of the green ones, the five-hour kind, and swallowed them. Briefly he imagined the Megalith muscle trying to deal with the 'locked-room' mystery he'd left for them, and he smiled. But soon he slipped into a deep and dreamless sleep.