The Radical Factor (Stone Blade Book 3) Page 18

  "We specialize in that," said Kidwell. Several others at tables around them voiced agreement. "I'll be right back, sweetie."

  Before long Micah had a variety plate of hot nibblers and two large glasses of very flavorful tea with Kidwell's promise of more to come. Ferrel sat down halfway through the nibblers and helped finish them.

  "Dead on the beam, my brother," said Ferrel, "Anything on your end?"

  "Squelch and squelch, bad or good. Preliminary read?"

  "One point of interest." Ferrel took out a 'stick and left the lighter on the table; it had a small-radius garble. "Naval security is a lot looser than Merchant. That's peculiar."

  "No blather. Might we find out why tonight?"

  "Possibly." Ferrel deactivated the garble and pocketed the lighter.

  Kidwell brought food, swapped a friendly insult with Ferrel and left them to eat.

  "Do leave a generous tip," said Ferrel, "I don't want her speaking ill of us."

  "Hey! Why am I paying?"

  "Because I am working tonight. I am also so very fatigued from my daily labors."

  Fortunately the crowd noise covered Micah's response.

  Across the square from the food court sat a datamart almost as big. Cadets from both schools occupied most of the terminals but with a fair number of civilians mixed in as well. Micah bought some time and found the movie servers lagged to the point of stopping so he switched to a music server. It seemed some of the cadets had something besides homework on their minds. As soon as the transfers started he slapped in a dataspool and sat back to observe the crowds. He didn't expect any trouble but any such here would be twice as bad!

  "Feces," swore Ferrel.

  "What?" Micah snapped to alertness and scanned the doors.

  "Nothing bad. Well, nothing dangerous. I ran facials against the entire student directory. Squelch. Then I tried recent graduates. Squelch again. Ruddy annoying, that."

  "What about faculty?"

  "Squelch-dot-three. Besides, all but two of those stapes were way too young for that."

  "Did they spot you?"

  "For truth?"

  "Sorry." Micah knew that would cost him. "Since we're her and since you probably own the entire net, why not try against Merchant."

  "Almost a challenge. Give me a few to reconfigure. See if you can't find us a decent movie, too."

  Ferrel took three minutes to reconfigure his warez, all of which time he spent grumbling. Micah did find a streaming server with an only-slightly-insane lag so he started a pair of downloads.

  "Flames! This security is a lot tighter. No, my brother, we're still polar. It's just bloody strange, no blather. It's going to take a lot longer to... Heh! I found a match!"

  Ferrel worked his terminal. "This is more than passable strange, Micah. I have multiple matches. In fact all of our amateur ghosts are students here. I wonder..."

  Another two minutes and Ferrel had another success.

  "Mister Experience is a member of the Merchant Academy faculty. He works under Eminent Senior Professor Donald A. Hacreau, preeminent instructor in and chair of the prestigious Department of History of Trade Education. Ick. Sounds horrible."

  "Are we still clean?"

  "Plus-plus. All of this is public unrestricted."

  "Polar. Can you dig deeper?"

  "I can but I'd rather not. Not right now. I don't want to slirp too much too fast, especially when the slirp-ee might be sharper than the average asteroid. Even with low-grade security that smells bad."

  "Cryo. You grab schedules and I'll get curricula."

  Back at their house Micah showered before starting on his data. Ferrel didn't, and had initial results by the time Micah finished.

  "Pretty much what I thought," said Ferrel, "History of Trade Education is the personal domain of one Donald Aaron Hacreau. Very distinguished academic credentials, publications, honors and a truly impressive amount of grant money brought into the Academy. Very prestigious meetings with numerous important personages. Thus is the sigma line for Distinguished Professor Doctor D. A. Hacreau."

  "You already had dessert, Charlie, and a good one. Keep going."

  Ferrel sighed. "Hacreau the First actually was a trader of great reputation and renown, born into a large family of wealthy and successful merchants. Nonetheless he made a name for himself above and beyond his family. He helped establish the Merchant Academy and since then his heirs have always taught there.

  "At first the line of Hacreau had other accomplishments but as time passed they grew fewer and farther between. The past dozen have been desk traders. They hypothesized about the theory of trade, the meaning of trade, historical moments of trade and the past masters of trade, but didn't do any of it themselves. They teach classes on how to execute it and how to educate about it but don't have two millis of practical experience between the lot of them."

  Kidwell walked in as Micah began working up hypotheses. She verified that they did indeed succeed and headed for her own shower.

  "Well and good for the head of department," said Micah, "but he wasn't the man on the street. That would be Doctor Michel Etienne. What do we know about him?"

  "Working up to that, my brother. Be virtuous with patience!

  "According to his bio Michel Etienne graduated with minor distinction from the Merchant Academy. He served for five years among Brothers of the Table traders and received high marks. Then, as soon as he was eligible he returned to the Academy for graduate work. After another very successful five-year hitch he returned there to teach and has been there ever since."

  Micah checked the catalogs he downloaded. "There are four degrees in HoTE. They have about fifty percent overlap. Call that common core. Half of that is outside the department and there's nothing unusual about any of it. I'm looking at the degree-specific classes. Looks like Etienne and Hacreau teach the same range of classes. Heh. Hacreau doesn't teach afternoon, evening or early morning classes."

  "The privilege of rank," suggested Ferrel.

  "Truth. Etienne doesn't seem to mind, though. They also seem to have a permanent adjunct for the department."

  "That would be Hassam Francois," supplied Ferrel, "Similar story to Etienne. Graduation and service, no particular distinction for either but welcomed back nonetheless. He's been working on his doctorate for the past eleven years."

  "Professional student," wondered Micah.

  "Possible," said Ferrel, "but low-sigma. Perhaps if Seigneur Francois was actually paying his own way but this is effectively a military school. Even though it isn't, it feels like one."

  "Truth and pure," said Micah, "I do believe the prestigious department of History of Trade Education warrants further scrutiny."

  "Heaven's flames!" Kidwell, fresh from her shower, entered just in time to hear that. "What's wrong, Micah? Is there too much boredom in your life?!"

  Micah summarized their findings but kept his conclusions back.

  "That is puzzling," she said, "This may or may not be relevant. I didn't mention it at the time but I overheard a discussion between a group of students. There were seven of them and they all stayed past the start of afternoon classes. That's serious for either Academy so I hovered around them. One of the students was worried about flunking out. It sounded like he was considering something desperate. One of the others said 'Don't worry. If it's that bad you can change to the other Academy.'"

  "That's understandable," said Micah, "Military training is rough. Some people just can't take the pressure and the training. I remember a few boots I had to talk through it or to talk out of it. Into dropping. That was plus-plus narsty and it wasn't even OTS."

  "That's just it," said Kidwell, "These were Merchant Academy cadets and they were telling the poor man he could transfer to Navy."

  "Phase down," said Ferrel, "That would imply that Merchant training is harder than Navy! That's... That doesn't make sense!"

  "Jitter squelched on that," agreed Kidwell, "I hear chatter about transferring every day and I don't - didn't
- pay any particular attention to it. I always assumed it was primarily Navy to Merchant. That might be wrong. Micah, any conclusions about their Naval Academy?"

  "It appears to be a standard OTS. Never having been to such I can't say six-sigma. It is good, solid military, I can say that for certain sure. Their troops are good when they start and better when they finish."

  Kidwell powered up her datapad and began massaging hypotheses.

  "Check me on this," she said after a while, "So far we've assumed military training would be harder than merchant. That's the way it is in the League, and it works, but this isn't the League. Micah, 'One does the fighting, the other does the food.' Your words."

  "Truth. I assumed the military would be more honorable and prestigious, though. Of greater status."

  "We assumed," said Kidwell, "But flip that. What does that yield?"

  "The merchants are at the top of the stack," said Micah, "That leaves the Navy hence the rest of their military more like... guards? No. Protectors is more accurate." He tried to follow that to its conclusion but Kidwell beat him to it.

  "We're looking for their Intel agents. We assumed it would be part of their military, just like ours."

  "But League Intel isn't all military," said Ferrel, "For instance..."

  "Me," finished Kidwell, "Or Ted. Mostly. But he and I aren't part of the Merchant's Guild. They have their own intelligence structure but we keep close tabs on it. It's mostly concerned with predicting prices and trends before they manifest themselves."

  "So Mekhajan Intelligence is part of their Merchant's Guild, or the Brothers of the Table," said Micah, "Do you have that formalized?"

  She did so and Micah and Ferrel both tore into her hypothesis and assumptions. Try though they might neither could find fault with them or even come close to refuting them.

  "It does make a high degree of sense," said Micah, "Military Intelligence exists. The Naval Academy has several degree paths in it and they're not even trying to hide them. They're more tactical in nature, though, or strategic. Force deployment, logistics, that sort of thing. Nothing like what we do."

  "Mark that as provable," said Ferrel, "and let's contact Ted."

  ***

  The next day at work Micah very carefully did not deviate from his ordinary routine. Still, the seconds ticked slowly. Ferrel planned to run some queries to give them goals and targets for their evening burns. Nothing out of the ordinary happened and quitting time finally arrived.

  "Lots of data," said Ferrel with a grin, "All acquired from multiple terminals at multiple locations scattered amongst the ones I serviced today. No worries either, my brother! Some of them I 'volunteered' to do on behalf of my overworked co-workers. I even logged in under their IDs so they will receive credit for the fixes. I am so generous at times."

  "The data?"

  "Solid identification on our intrepid spies. They are indeed students at the Merchant Academy. The instructor you caught was Michel Etienne and I'm eight-three certain the other was Hassam Francois."

  "And the students?"

  "I don't have full details. That's tonight. I did check the two I found first. They both have classes under Francois so I pulled that roster. Besides them he has four of the others. I didn't go deep or too wide but I would call that ample justification for further investigation!"

  Micah thought hard a moment.

  "I concur but I'm not sure about using the food court datamart again. Part of me says that would rouse the least suspicion. The other part says any Intel department worth its weight in sewage will have plenty of security aimed at any queries, especially from such a likely source so close by."

  "Give me some credit, my brother. I very carefully did not investigate in a linear fashion. I also pulled in enough ancillary and irrelevant data to cover my real burns. Still, your second thought is valid. Fortuitously enough we have a solution ready to hand. We have time before Vera goes off shift. Tonight we shall again dine high but this time we leave more than a good tip."

  They timed their arrival to just after the evening crowd peaked and once again took Kidwell's section. When she brought their drinks and took their orders Micah slipped her a note. When they finished he left a datacard along with her tip. Scribing that took Ferrel a long time but he assured Micah it would scorch rock when it hit the datamart net.

  After their meal the two of them attended a play not far from the main square. Students from the Academies made up most of the audience with interested civilians and Academy staff comprising the remainder. Micah found the play itself quite good even though he missed most of the cultural references. Ferrel enjoyed it too, but checked his chrono far too often. When the play ended and the lights came up they merged with the crowd and let it carry them to the square. Before long they again sat in the datamart.

  "What if the machine Vera hit is in use," asked Micah.

  "So much the better, my brother! The module I designed will slow-creep up to whatever pipe I want. Besides, as clever as Vera is five credits says she owned more than one."

  "Done!"

  Micah lost the money. Kidwell infected four terminals. That gave Ferrel four times the pipe, potentially, plus four platforms from which to launch his attacks. He wasted no time setting up a spiral tunnel with integrated anchors for gooey grapples and throbbing needles and a codefog built in. Impressive!

  "These boxes aren't too secure," said Ferrel, "as long as you don't try to alter the accounting or pay-tracking. Nothing I plan to do involves either."

  Ferrel started his burn with one of the three in-use machines. He forked the current user's data stream and copied it on general principle but with no expectation of anything interesting. He logged into the Merchant Academy net, easily accessible from here, and launched a query almost massive enough to qualify as a thorn snatch. While it ran he forked the connection, nulled the result stream - he didn't need two copies of that much data! - and launched a very devious promote-me. Once he had higher access he forked that connection four times and attached a high-level connection to each of his machines.

  When the data started flowing smoothly Micah powered up a terminal for himself. He had graduate-level access to both Academy libraries courtesy of Ferrel and several areas of interest, none of them restricted. One of the HoTE classes touched on trade with the Esavians, 'Trade Practice and Procedure When Dealing With Inferior Technologies,' and he wanted all the information on it he could slirp. Including cross-links he found an amazingly large amount and downloading would cost a lot. No matter, he had a card with plenty of money on it and if he ran out of spools the datamart sold them too!

  With that download under way Micah powered up another terminal and began a search along the line of a student interested in the Mekhajan worlds with specifics on soil chemistry, agriculture, botany and the products each world produced. He set his queries wide and waited for the information to transfer. They could narrow down the data later. Ferrel still showed no signs of slowing so Micah powered up a music browser and turned his attention to the crowd.

  Ferrel finished with a smug grin and turned his attention to boosting Micah's download speed.

  "Close the hose," said Micah preemptively, "Just help me look for the lookers."

  "More than a few of the delicate female type, my brother, but none of the other."

  ***

  "Well," asked Kidwell.

  "Well is exactly how things went," smugged Ferrel, "Thanks in no small part to your diligent work, my dear love. We have a treasure ship of data and a dearth of time in which to assess it."

  "So that means you want me to make chog and nibblers while you take off your shoes," she said sardonically.

  "Ahhh, bliss, my darling," said Ferrel dramatically, "Thank you so much for offering."

  Kidwell did make chog while Micah showered but the nibblers showed signs of age.

  "Leftovers," she said, "Purchased at a discount. That's what you're getting unless this data truly goes suborbital."

  They all meshed t
heir terminals and began working on Ferrel's data.

  "This is significant," said Kidwell after a while, "I'm glad you're as thorough as you are smug, Charles. Hassun Bidout received honors in math and history before applying to Merchant Academy yet he failed simple calculus his second term. He changed degrees from Scan Tech and Astrogation to Philosophy of Trade. Javaal Kenai, with independent awards in business management, changed majors from Trade Economics to Trade Education. Likewise our other student shadows. All applied to the Academy with considerable knowledge in their initial majors yet all of them changed."

  Micah checked the data. "Truth and pure. They also started struggling and making low grades in those selfsame areas of knowledge. Now they're barely making the grade to stay in school and not so in two cases."

  "All of which happen to be classes within the HoTE department," added Kidwell, "What a coincidence! They also happen to be students exclusively in Etienne's classes with occasional forays into one taught by Hassam Francois. Another coincidence! Phase down, there's more. Even though these particular students are taking HoTE courses each term they never seem to land in a class taught by Hacreau. Never! Even on the rare instance when he's teaching the same class."

  The three of the swapped looks.

  "My friends," said Kidwell, "I do believe we've cracked Mekhajan Intelligence!"

  "But have we," asked Micah.

  "We have the entry point," she said, "Artfully concealed within their Merchant Academy. And no, I don't think this is the sigma total of it. This is where they do the recruiting, initial training and winnowing out. We need to find out where they go from here."

  "Ted definitely needs this," said Ferrel, "Let's do a back-correlation and see if we can find any others."

  Doing so took quite a while but produced another eleven students. Eleven students who entered the Academy with high marks but whose performance dropped dramatically during their second or third terms. Eleven students who transferred from substantive degrees to the do-nothing History of Trade Education yet took all their classes under Etienne and Francois.

  "That is ruddy clever," said Ferrel, "Plenty of students' grades drop when they take college-level courses for the first time. HoTE is one of the few degree paths they can take to avoid the shame of washing out. What better place to hide their most brilliant?"