Emprise by Michael P. Kube-McDowell Page B

A10, A11, or B4 pulse. The sequence is 150 seconds long.
    “Those are the objective facts—and we knew them all by the end of the first week. Since then, we’ve detected no patterns or clues of any kind. None of the numbers seem to relate in any base up through base 20. The A pulses form no pattern; nor do the B’s; together they form a meaningless matrix in two or three dimensions—”
    “In short, we don’t know scheisse ,” Schmidt interrupted politely.
    The giggle that threatened to overwhelm Agatha was a whopper. She eventually managed to stifle it through a combination of pinching and smothering it behind her hands, but not before her squirming inattention sent her pen careening through the grate and down the ductwork with a clattering sound. Her father might have ignored the sound—Crown House would have been populated by a dozen ghosts had the Eddingtons been more imaginative about its many noises—had the clatter not been followed by a perturbed, girlish, “Oh, bother-de-bother.”
    Agatha scrambled to her feet, but before she could flee the dining hall her father was standing at the library doorway.
    “Would you join us, Penny?” he asked with stiff politeness.
    “Agatha.”
    “Penny,” he said pointedly. “Please?”
    He stood aside to let her pass into the room, and plucked the notepad from her hand as she did. “That’s mine,” she said angrily, whirling around. “Private.” Eddington merely smiled a cold smile and shooed her into the room. “It seems we’ve had a committee of six all along,” he remarked to the others, opening the notebook. Taped onto the first page was a familiar square of white paper. “She even had her own invitation.”
    Aikens glowered at the child; the others seemed faintly amused. Eddington flipped the page and read aloud: “Terry Winston—grumpy, sloppy dresser, but pretty sharp.” He looked up. “She knows you.”
    There were accurate if unflattering descriptions of all the committee members—“Jeri Anofi—flirts like a teen”—accounts of arguments (with a scorecard showing wins, losses, and ties), and details of who had attempted what attack on the signal. Agatha’s side comments to herself dotted the otherwise objective record.
    “Very complete,” Eddington said, handing it back. “And very wrong of you.”
    “You only told me not to bother you,” she pointed out. “Nothing was said about listening.”
    “Nothing should have to be said. An Eddington does not snoop, nor split hairs to defend doing so.” He shook his head. “I’m not sure yet what I’m going to do about this. But there are two things I know—go upstairs and box up those books of yours. You’re done with them—you’ll read something of substance from here on in. And on your way up, throw your notebook in the fuel box—and any more, if you have them.”
    It was no less than she had expected, but more than she could take calmly. “Maybe I did snoop,” she snapped. “But at least I’m not so dumb that I can’t figure out a substitution cipher. You’ll be another ten years just figuring out the first word is ‘greetings.’ ”
    The room became crowded with laughter. Winston was so consumed by his own derisive variety that he began to cough. But Eddington knew his daughter better than the others did and did not join their laughter. “So—you think the first word is ‘greetings’? Show me,” he said softly.
    Agatha stepped to the desk and sorted through the stack of papers until she found the signal listing, then pointed out a nine-pulse segment. “Here.”
    “What makes you think that means ‘greetings’?”
    Agatha scrunched up her nose. “I broke the code.” She said it in the same tone another child might report, “I broke the vase”—apology implicit, “ you couldn’t possibly blame me because I’m just a tyke .”
    The laughter had died out. Anofi was the first of the others to realize that the child was serious and that Eddington was taking