help.
Erythrina didn’t respond immediately — and only part of the delay was light lag. Then the swirling snow flecks that represented her gusted up around him. “So you lose no matter how this comes out, eh? I’m sorry, Slip.”
Mr. Slippery’s wings drooped. “Yeah. But I’m beginning to believe it will be the True Death for us all if we don’t stop the Mailman. He really means to take over … everything. Can you imagine what it would be like if all the governments’ wee megalomaniacs got replaced by one big one?”
The usual pause. The snow-devil seemed to shudder in on itself. “You’re right; we’ve got to stop him even if it means working for Sammy Sugar and the entire DoW.” She chuckled, a near-inaudible chiming. “Even if it means that
they
have to work for
us
.” She could laugh; the Feds didn’t know her Name. “How did your Federal Friends say we could plug into their system?” Her form was changing again — to a solid, winged form, an albino eagle. The only red she allowed herself was in the eyes, which gleamed with inner light.
“At the Laurel end of the old arpa net. We’ll get something near carte blanche on that and on the DoJ domestic intelligence files, but we have to enter through one physical location and with just the password scheme they specify.” He and Erythrina would have more power than any vandals in history, but they would be on a short leash, nevertheless.
His wings beat briefly, and he rose into the air. After the usual pause, the eagle followed. They flew almost to the mountain’s peak, then began the long, slow glide toward the marshes below, the chill air whistling around them. In principle, they could have made the transfer to the Laurel terminus virtually instantaneously. But it was not mere romanticism that made them move so cautiously — as many a novice had discovered the hard way. What appeared to the conscious mind as a search for air currents and clear lanes through the scattered clouds was a manifestation of the almost-subconscious working of programs that gradually transferred processing from rented space on MT3 to low satellite and ground-based stations. The game was tricky and time-consuming, but it made it virtually impossible for others to trace their origin. The greatest danger of detection would probably occur at Laurel, where they would be forced to access the system through a single input device.
The sky glowed momentarily; seconds passed, and an airborne fist slammed into them from behind. The shock wave sent them tumbling taft over wing toward the forests below. Mr. Slippery straightened his chaotic flailing into a head-first dive. Looking back which was easy to do in his present attitude he saw the peak that had been MT3 glowing red, steam rising over descending avalanches of lava. Even at this distance, he could see tiny motes swirling above the inferno. (Attackers looking for the prey that had fled?) Had it come just a few seconds earlier, they would have had most of their processing still locked into MT3 and the disaster — whatever it really was — would have knocked them out of this plane. It wouldn’t have been the True Death, but it might well have grounded them for days.
On his right, he glimpsed the white eagle in a controlled dive; they had had just enough communications established off MT3 to survive. As they fell deeper into the humid air of the lowlands, Mr. Slippery dipped into the news channels: word was already coming over the
LA Times
of the fluke accident in which the Hokkaido aerospace launching laser had somehow shone on MT3’s optics. The laser had shone for microseconds and at reduced power; the damage had been nothing like a Finger of God, say. No one had been hurt, but wideband communications would be down. for some time, and several hundred million dollars of information traffic was stalled. There would be investigations and a lot of very irate customers.
It had been no accident, Mr. Slippery was sure.
Erythrina didn’t respond immediately — and only part of the delay was light lag. Then the swirling snow flecks that represented her gusted up around him. “So you lose no matter how this comes out, eh? I’m sorry, Slip.”
Mr. Slippery’s wings drooped. “Yeah. But I’m beginning to believe it will be the True Death for us all if we don’t stop the Mailman. He really means to take over … everything. Can you imagine what it would be like if all the governments’ wee megalomaniacs got replaced by one big one?”
The usual pause. The snow-devil seemed to shudder in on itself. “You’re right; we’ve got to stop him even if it means working for Sammy Sugar and the entire DoW.” She chuckled, a near-inaudible chiming. “Even if it means that
they
have to work for
us
.” She could laugh; the Feds didn’t know her Name. “How did your Federal Friends say we could plug into their system?” Her form was changing again — to a solid, winged form, an albino eagle. The only red she allowed herself was in the eyes, which gleamed with inner light.
“At the Laurel end of the old arpa net. We’ll get something near carte blanche on that and on the DoJ domestic intelligence files, but we have to enter through one physical location and with just the password scheme they specify.” He and Erythrina would have more power than any vandals in history, but they would be on a short leash, nevertheless.
His wings beat briefly, and he rose into the air. After the usual pause, the eagle followed. They flew almost to the mountain’s peak, then began the long, slow glide toward the marshes below, the chill air whistling around them. In principle, they could have made the transfer to the Laurel terminus virtually instantaneously. But it was not mere romanticism that made them move so cautiously — as many a novice had discovered the hard way. What appeared to the conscious mind as a search for air currents and clear lanes through the scattered clouds was a manifestation of the almost-subconscious working of programs that gradually transferred processing from rented space on MT3 to low satellite and ground-based stations. The game was tricky and time-consuming, but it made it virtually impossible for others to trace their origin. The greatest danger of detection would probably occur at Laurel, where they would be forced to access the system through a single input device.
The sky glowed momentarily; seconds passed, and an airborne fist slammed into them from behind. The shock wave sent them tumbling taft over wing toward the forests below. Mr. Slippery straightened his chaotic flailing into a head-first dive. Looking back which was easy to do in his present attitude he saw the peak that had been MT3 glowing red, steam rising over descending avalanches of lava. Even at this distance, he could see tiny motes swirling above the inferno. (Attackers looking for the prey that had fled?) Had it come just a few seconds earlier, they would have had most of their processing still locked into MT3 and the disaster — whatever it really was — would have knocked them out of this plane. It wouldn’t have been the True Death, but it might well have grounded them for days.
On his right, he glimpsed the white eagle in a controlled dive; they had had just enough communications established off MT3 to survive. As they fell deeper into the humid air of the lowlands, Mr. Slippery dipped into the news channels: word was already coming over the
LA Times
of the fluke accident in which the Hokkaido aerospace launching laser had somehow shone on MT3’s optics. The laser had shone for microseconds and at reduced power; the damage had been nothing like a Finger of God, say. No one had been hurt, but wideband communications would be down. for some time, and several hundred million dollars of information traffic was stalled. There would be investigations and a lot of very irate customers.
It had been no accident, Mr. Slippery was sure.
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