Chapter 10: Family in Danger

“Don ‘t wait for the perfect moment to strike, strike in the current moment and make it perfect. Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking. “

– William Butler Yeats

Jason returned home to find Julia and Razza waiting for him, but chatting to Gamma, Sheila and Jonathan.

“Hi, you guys what’s going on?” Jason asked.

“Julia has arrived here with a number of concerns about tomorrow. She worries that if we rely on one computer that we leave behind, we are putting all of our eggs in one basket. I think in many ways she is correct. In my view the Collective computer is slower than I would want in data acquisition and that leaves us vulnerable. Porquenta suggests that you delay for a day or two,” said Sheila. “The company is not going to expect you to do terribly much and they’re not going to change their strategy until they see what you guys are doing. Porquenta has built another two computers and he suggests that we put them into trans-dim pockets in both Razza and in Julia. The new computers will arrive tomorrow night. I will create the pockets,” said Jonathan a consultant and diplomat from the Collective.

“I think Razza has some important information that you need to hear, Jason,” said Jonathan. “I have communicated what she has told me to Ouma Chatzke and she has made a number of suggestions. Ouma Chatzke wants you to listen to Razza and then decide on your strategy. Razza please tell Jason what you told us here.” Jonathan said.

“My father has sent a message. His intelligence services confirm an evolving plot to kill the entire family. Our extended family is due to meet in three months, the usual meeting that we have every ten years. He believes the Coven will kill the entire family at or after that meeting and destroy the whole to hide the crime and blame the Collective. He says that it is an elaborate, well planned plot and has a high probability of occurring.

“I would like to rescue my family as I believe that if we do rescue them, we can appeal to a large segment of Coven society and end the war sooner. Obviously, I want to save my family. I would like you to help me Jason and use your resources to make it happen. I have spoken to Ouma Chatzke and she thinks that we should go there this weekend, fly overnight and spend three days in the Collective. She says it will give us the chance to speak to her intelligence about what I have heard, but it will also give her the opportunity to provide for us and our groups special training from her cyberwarfare groups that may be of help to us and she will send back two specialists with us to support the intelligence team here. She wants us to take the intelligence people from here to get the same Collective training. She will also send some of her specialists to help us find Cyril’s parents. She believes we have no rush to get the information out of the company. Brecht believes that it would help us to pretend to be incompetent and do nothing effective with the terminals, while we try and spend time exploring the management area while we work and find out as much as we can, before we hit the data and let them know exactly what we are up to. She knows there are bigger agendas at play with implications for the Collective after she spoke to Alana yesterday,” said Razza.

“Even though I’m scared to death to venture onto one of the Cockroach planets, every effort needs to be made to try and rescue your family,” said Jason shuddering. “I am happy to visit the Collective, talk to them and get some more input. I agree we don’t have to rush to grab the data. When we do, we need to do it properly. I’m happy to try and wander around our floor and see what else we can find to help you guys collect more about what else they are doing. We can try and spend some time in the canteen and we can try and speak to Abel Satora. I would like to bug his office directly,” said Jason.

“You weren’t keen to help me directly to rescue my parents before, what is your position now?” Razza asked.

“I’m sure our university groups and our intelligence mob would be only too happy to enjoy a trip to the Collective. I am not entirely sure about landing on a Cockroach planet. I am very much more cautious than I used to be and the idea of being trapped somewhere underground with tens of thousands of Cockroaches trying to get to me, terrifies me. I’m not sure how useful I would be at the best of times.” Jason said. “That is not to say that I don’t believe that it’s important to help your parents. I think that it is vital to do so but it needs to be a very well-planned operation. I think it is vitally important to help save your family. I support you Razza and I will do what I can to help. At the same time it scares the pants off me. I am happy to go to Charassa this weekend and plan what can be done. We can leave on Thursday afternoon, there is no reason to delay. Let’s talk to Beth and get her to bring along all of her people as well. What about you Gamma, and Jonathan?” Jason asked.

“We are all coming along, I have contacted Philippa who is very keen to see you Jason. Norbert and Rebecca will also be there. They are consulting with a large group of academics who have previously done similar work in constructing and implementing the kind of curriculum they are aiming to provide. They were also here for a couple of days meeting with both Cassius’ and Felix’s people,” said Jonathan. The contingents from the other allies were also here and they had quite a big meeting. The AIs are trying to consolidate the information, but they have had some difficulties; which are being ironed out as we speak.”

“Porquenta contacted me while you were at the palace,” said Sheila. “He needed several interface specifications as he believes he has a way to accelerate the data acquisition. He has Cassius’ intelligence people looking at other ways of directly tapping into the databases via each of the client organizations. Porquenta thinks that there is a reasonable chance that you will be able to acquire the databases only through Empire AI and Computing Systems CC. He says you need a robust solution in the longer term and as soon as you acquire the databases, they will shut you down. He said that he would have suggested you clean the Company out, but Alana believes that there is a lot more criminal activity beyond the computing problems that they are involved in and we will miss all the rest of it if you simply order a purge of the organization.”

“He is trying to find out who else might be consolidating the data and has access to the system so that it can be done simply at one point rather than individually through all the other organizations, though at the end of the day he says that it is vital to be able to crosscheck and both approaches are necessary. For the time being he says go and enjoy your holiday on Charassa and look after Philippa. He also says you’re not paying me enough attention, why else would he make me as attractive as I am? Well, Jason, what do you say?” Sheila said nudging Jason and laughed.

“May I offer all of you a drink,” Gamma asked, “I am having one myself.”

Jason put in his order as did everyone else. Gamma returned with a large tray of drinks which she passed around.

“Gamma, what is this about you having a drink?” Jason asked as he watched her sipping her glass of red wine. Gamma giggled. “I wondered if you would notice, Jason. Porquenta gave me an alternative power system. I am powered by the usual AI energy generator, but I can be augmented with organic matter. He has made this body such that I am able to eat and drink. I can also become intoxicated. He assured me that I will also get a hangover if I drink too much. He has much to answer for! I wanted to see how much I could drink and what the effects were. I suffered for a whole day afterwards!” Gamma complained sounding quite disappointed.

Jonathan wished everyone a good night and made his way to bed. Julia, Sheila and Razza stayed on after Gamma excused herself and headed upstairs.

“Jason,” said Julia, “It is time that you take all of us to bed. We have agreed to share you and your good first wife is nowhere near, nor are your military people who all busy waging war or planning to wage war. So, we decided to give you no choice in the matter. Take us to bed now or you will suffer a fate worse than death.” Julia said and took his hand, Razza shyly took his other hand while Sheila followed behind. “Come now,” said Razza, “it is time to experience the superior lovemaking of a Cockroach. Once you have tried a princes of cockroaches you will never go back,” said Razza giggling.

***

Jason shook off his tiredness as he woke at his usual time. Both dogs were standing on the bed one on each side of him, between him Julia, Sheila and Razza.

“Wake up all of you, it is time to rise and shine, go for a run and visit the gym. There are no excuses. The dogs are ready and Aylot is impatient.” Jason said as he walked towards the refresher. He was joined by three sleepy women who quickly woke up when he turned on the cold water. They slapped him simultaneously. Sheila excused herself saying she had business matters to take care of.

It was a beautiful day and they enjoyed running and frolicking with the animals. Julia and Razza enjoyed throwing the balls for the dogs. They were soon joined by both groups at the gym and worked out before sparring and eating at the canteen, then made their way to visit the intelligence group. Beth was well aware of their intentions and said that they were ready to go the following day and would join Jason on the battleship.

Empire AI and Computing Systems CC:

Both Groups left for work early and cheerfully entered the building. They were delighted to see a terminal for each of them.

Trackrof signaled that they were not under surveillance. “I am surprised that they have installed new data runs to support these terminals. My equipment shows that they are ultra-high speed.”

Jason watched as the groups got themselves organized to define the databases and to determine who owned what. Jason was embarrassed to see they had completed his work as well as their own. He realized that they must have worked many long hours in his absence and had done an enormous amount of work. They had not only completed the data acquisition methodology they had completed everything.

Marsin Zinduski, Heinrich Harold and Sergei Paz unpacked the computer from the Collective, placed it on the floor and then Adrianna Xavier and Stinger Murphy assembled the pseudo-tabletop and put it on top of the computer cube and its stand. It looked as though they had brought in their own table. They piled their bags onto the table along with their Brains.

Julia and Razza handed out data run interception devices and the equipment to install them into the data runs and hide them in the walls. Jason was incredibly impressed, he wanted to ask questions, but he did not want to disturb the frenetic activity that he was seeing. He was enormously proud of both groups for what they had done and how they were working in such a coordinated and organized way. Mandy Fritzell was grinning at him and he grinned back. He put up his thumb to show how impressed he was. There was no way anyone would see the connection into the data trunks.

Like a well-rehearsed army, they sat themselves at terminals and began to play with the holograms. Jason walked over to look at what they were doing. He had no specific task, so his terminal remained unused. He saw that they were doing the most basic work, each looking at a single table or data base. Anyone looking at what they were doing would be underwhelmed at the threat that they were presenting.

Jason took out his Brain and immersed himself in mathematics. He began defining in more detail the universe he had discovered. He noticed during the afternoon Julia and Razza began to work on the Collective computer, while mirroring the same work on the computer in the trans-dimensional pocket within him.

“Jason you can pack up now,” said Bonita Mofo laughing. “You can leave your alternative universe now and return to this one.”

“How did you know that that was what I was doing?” Jason asked.

“We heard on the ship that that was what you were doing and you had made a lot of progress but you were not finished. It was not a great intellectual leap to assume you were working on an alternative universe. Sometimes talk to yourself as you work and we all heard what you were doing.”

“You had a lot of important other things to do and there was no point in us waiting for you to do the computer work once we hit the Company. The education that we have received as a result of knowing you and the ability that you have to corral resources has made all of our lives easier. We have heard about the Una who are looking for their people and believe the Una here have communicated with their lost brethren. Unless you define the mathematical rules no one else other than the Parzool is going to be able to travel and understand the multiverse. You and the Parzool are in a unique position to help them and that is vital work. So, go for your life and if we can be of some support we will be!” Said Benita fervently. By this time most of the others had gathered around and they all cheered. Jason felt a tear on his cheek.

“Something must be irritating my eye,” Jason said as he rubbed his eye, “come on guys, no fooling around we have a battleship to catch and another galaxy to reach. It is time to eat drink and be merry, soon we are going to be deep in the sewerage processing system of this miserable place. Get your bags, the shuttle is outside, take the table and the base cube and let’s get going.”

***

“Etta, how are the students doing?” Abel Satora asked as he leaned back in his chair in his office.

“They don’t seem to have done terribly much. The students will be leaving for the weekend soon. They acted like hotshots in my office asking for multiple terminals, then they seem to have taken a long time to get anything going. They did the most trivial of tasks today while slowly attempting to work on one single database. I’m not sure that there is one brain between them. The level of query that has been generated to date is puerile to say the least. I think the Archduke is, as you say, a playboy. He is a good-looking man who appears alert and intelligent, but he literally did nothing all afternoon. The others were busy but he was coasting. I made sure that I could track exactly who was doing what, to know who has some potential so we can offer them a job later. So far, I would say it is unlikely that we’re going to have much to worry about but we can’t identify any great potential employees.”

“Tania is there anything you observed?” Abel asked.

“They visit the canteen often to get drinks and to get a snack. They were all chatting to the secretaries and anyone who happened to be in the canteen and certainly don’t look that serious about work. They have put a low table in the room which I saw when I walked past. It looks like one of those tables that you assemble and take apart again. All I could see was bags on the table and plenty of drinks and food. To me they seem to be a lazy group of students. Jason Kargo was sitting at the table with his brain and looked like he was surfing the system. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was looking at pornography,” said Etta.

“Etta I am not sure that he has much taste, as he was looking at you quite intently yesterday, though you looked as though you were hypnotized by him!” Tania said teasingly.

“Nonsense, I was simply looking at him to confirm my impression that he is a playboy. He hardly speaks himself and relies on those two women who act as his bodyguards. I am singularly unimpressed with him. In summary Abel at this time we do not have a problem. At the rate that they are progressing there is no way in a month of Sundays that they will finish the project.” Etta said.

“Is there anything more that we should be doing?” Abel Satora asked.

“Abel, they do not appear to be a threat. We can relax a bit, there is nothing that either of us has seen to indicate that we are in trouble.” Tania said.