[Firewall has blocked breach attempt]
I stiffened and turned to Guppy, the UN eting forgotten. “What? Soone’s trying to hack us?”
[Affirmative. Source appears to be the video feed from the UN eting]
“Ongoing danger?”
By way of reply, Guppy threw up a stack trace. I examined the listings. It appeared that the hacker was basing his attack on the basic Heaven design. The original Heaven vessels had no firewalling, relying instead on all communications being encrypted. However, it looked like the encryption routines had a back door. Soone had injected so packets, which had run right into Bob-1’s firewall.
I made sure the UN communications system was logging all traffic. I would try the hack on sandbox Bob later. There was little doubt in my mind that the attempt originated from the FAITH enclave, but I needed so kind of docuntation before I made accusations. And there was the question of what could be done about it. It’s not like there was a planetary police force to complain to.
The UN eting seed to be all about routine matters today, so I decided to get an early start on the day’s administrivia.
The first item was a ssage from Hor, just one phrase, “Space Station!” Complete with exclamation mark. I couldn’t see what he could add to the idea that would make it viable, but I would talk to him when I had a few monts.
I glanced back at the video feed of the UN eting, but still nothing noteworthy was happening.
There was a ssage from Julia, fairly long, talking about family history. She seed to have adopted as a relative with no qualms. I was a little choked up about that, and I hoped she didn’t send it just on Cranston’s orders.
[Source is New Zealand]
Guppy had traced the packets back to their originating stream. But New Zealand? That made no sense. It also ant that I wasn’t going to have the proof I needed to really make Cranston’s life difficult. Maybe I could bluff.
anwhile, the hack attempt wasn’t going to get anywhere, so I might as well just let the perp keep at it.
I did a test ping at Hor, and he indicated he was free to talk. I took a mont to feel awe at being able to talk to him halfway across the solar system without any delay. We no longer had to worry about light-speed lag.
I popped into Hor’s VR. “Space Station?”
Hor minimized the window he’d been looking at, and turned to face . “The answer to our problems,” he said with a grin.
“Not unless you have sothing new.”
“Just a new perspective,” Hor replied. “We’ve been thinking of space stations in terms of housing people. Of course that won’t work. Got to get the air right, the gravity right, extra shielding for radiation, extra armor for microteors, construction for living quarters, feed them, entertain them, yadda, yadda, yadda. But the engineering is a lot easier if we don’t try to house people.” Hor looked at expectantly.
“Okay, Hor, I give up. We’re going to raise cattle? Or…” My eyes went wide.
“And the penny drops,” he said, pointing his index finger at . “Farming. You just need enough spin to establish an up and down, so the structural strain you have to engineer for is reduced. The interior can just be one big cavern, and sunlight is available twenty-four-seven. So equipnt to make sure the air mix stays correct and the temps stay in range, and we’re golden.”
I thought about it. “Plants take CO2 and produce oxygen. Any kid with a match can reverse that. But we need to produce calories in as dense a manner as possible. Got anything specific in mind?”
He gave a thumbs-up. “Damn right. Rember that library entry about gene-engineered kudzu? Improved nutritional content, simplified growth environnt, human-digestible…”
“And high sunlight requirents, and optimum temps in the 20 degrees Celsius range. Where are we going to find those conditions? Oh, wait…” I grinned.
“Yeah. And since we have access to the Svalbard vaults now, we can pick the cultivar that best matches the environnt we end up with.” Hor hesitated and held up his index finger. “But kudzu needs a lot of water, so we’ll have to constantly truck a supply up, unless we bring in so icebergs from Saturn—”
“—Using the asteroid movers.” I was becoming enthusiastic about this idea as we worked through the details. “Which we can also use to bring in regolith for soil. Fertilizer will have to co up, but that’s small potatoes, volu-wise. Especially once the operation gets going.”
“And the best part,” Hor finished, “is that the work can be done with my printers, the sa ones that are building Arthur’s replacent right now.”
Hor’s last comnt made think of Colonel Butterworth, and I groaned. The colonel very likely wouldn’t be mollified by that line of reasoning. To him, any equipnt that could do sothing else could also work on his colony ships. ʀ₳₦ÖＢĚṢ
“Butterworth is still going to have kittens.”
Hor bounced up out of his chair. “This will be fun. Can I watch?”
***
Not only did Butterworth have kittens, but the UN assembly went ballistic. Everyone except the groups that were facing starvation was beyond apoplectic and well into incoherence. I sat there, jaw dropping, as people complained about criminal misuse (their words) of a resource that wasn’t even part of the construction equation. Finally, I’d had enough. I signaled for the floor.
“Ladies and gentlen, here’s the thing. People are about to starve, and I an within six months to a year. Those of you with reserves have refused to consider sharing, so that leaves it to to fix things. This is a viable option, and it doesn’t even affect the schedule. Yes, it affects future colony ships as we’re using scavenged materials for space stations instead of colony ships. However, I’m willing to trade future colony ships against current lives. And by the way, so of you here will be depending on our kudzu gardens by the ti your turn cos around. So let’s not be too critical, okay?”
I turned off my mike, which was the video equivalent of sitting down, and watched as the speaker was inundated with requests to speak. Unbelievable. This crap is universal.
***
I was going through my daily round of calls, and naturally, one was Cranston. Outstanding. On the other hand, I did have this hacking thing to talk to him about. I rubbed my eyes, got myself a coffee, then activated the connection.
“Good afternoon, minister. Anything in particular you wanted to talk to about?”
“In fact, there is, Mr. Riker. Today’s session, specifically. While we are not the richest enclave on the planet, we do have so surplus.” He nodded an acknowledgent. “As you’ve taken great pains to point out, on several occasions.”
“And you’ve refused to give any of it up. Has sothing changed?”
“In a manner of speaking. Since you have this kudzu idea, it seems that giving up so of our surplus would now be a temporary setback rather than a permanent crippling action…”
I sat up straighter. Very likely there was a but in there sowhere, but the minister was at least sounding reasonable.
“…Of course so quid pro quo would be in order as well. Since you’ve already decided to put the Spits in ship three, and the remaining space is just about right for our enclave—and without our surplus we’d be part of the have-nots—it seems to that we would be a reasonable choice for the balance of the ship’s allocation.”
The minister looked at expectantly. I bristled at the implied request for favoritism, then had second thoughts. Everything he said was true. And while the FAITH enclave wasn’t a shoe-in to be next in line, they weren’t an unreasonable choice either. Especially with any surplus gone. And rewarding such an overt display of cooperation would send the right ssage.
I stared into space for a few milliseconds. Interesting. I would actually be displaying a negative bias by dismissing his proposal out of hand.
“Minister, that’s a surprisingly reasonable proposal. I’ll have to discuss it with my team, but it sounds like it’ll fly.”
Minister Cranston managed to not look too smug. With a nod, he reached for the off switch.
“One mont, minister. There’s a small matter that I need to discuss with you.” I filled him in on the hack attempt, leaving out any details of why it failed. “Any thoughts on this?”
He was silent for several seconds—an eternity to . When he spoke, he sounded uncharacteristically embarrassed. “I’m assuming, Mr. Riker, that the geographical source of the attempt is the only reason that you are asking instead of accusing.” He gave a small smile. “As it turns out, New Zealand makes sense. The fact is that our probe technology may not have been, ehm, entirely original FAITH research. Australia was working on the probe concept, and one of our agents may have, ehm, borrowed so ideas.”
“Espionage? You stole their plans?”
“Call it what you will, it’s very likely that the Australian Federation has, or had, so very good insights into your original design. And New Zealand is where most of the survivors would have ended up once Brazil started dropping rocks on Australia.” He looked at with his head cocked, the implication clear.
“Very interesting. And thank you for being frank about that, Minister Cranston.”
We said our goodbyes, and I sent a quick IM to Charles and Hor.
Charles’ response ca back within monts. “I agree on the FAITH proposal. That also saves our relatives. I know you don’t want to make that part of the equation, but I’m less worried about being impartial.”
And from Hor: “Agreed. And the Australian explanation sounds reasonable. Cranston very rarely sounds reasonable. I hope he didn’t sprain sothing.”
I chuckled at that. Okay, looked like we had a deal.
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