Complete Short Fiction, page 287
“Does that fit with what just happened—team hunting?”
“No. Of course not. Did they find someone’s dropped knife, maybe? And how would they—”
“You’re getting wild,” D’Orrey cut in patiently.
“I certainly am Watching snakes cooperate would drive anyone over the edge. It’s not natural—”
“That’s what we want to make sure of.”
“Are you sure you didn’t sneak a false-witness into these glasses?”
“That’s closer to sanity but no, I didn’t. How could I? You take care of your equipment, don’t you? I haven’t had a chance to get at ‘em—though that could be just because I haven’t been looking for one. Don’t take my word for it—get ‘em checked when we get back, or have Pete do it now. I’m looking for help in a research job, not just confirmation for a Ripley. I had my glasses done after I saw this first, and told the hacker w—pardon, told my respected colleague—I’d seen something I couldn’t believe. I didn’t tell him just what, of course. He said that the smallest false-witness he could design himself which could handle such a job—do the wave patterns, carry the record, allow for changing view line in both planes, be programmed to run only against an appropriate background or in a preplanned inertially locate spot, and coordinate in both barrels of a pair of binoculars at once would be at least peanut size, and that there was nothing anywhere near that big except the regular machinery in the glasses. All that was working as it should; nothing had been sneaked out to make room for a false-witness.”
“Who was the hacker?” asked the boy, speaking for the first time in several minutes.
“A colleague, Jerry Chu. Associate Professor at Orono. Why” You know him, I suppose?”
“Sure, who doesn’t?” It was not obvious whether Peter regarded the name as that of a co-hobbyist or a rival.
“Trust him? Is he good as I’ve always thought? Do you like him?”
“Oh, he’s good.” There was a pause. “Maybe too good.” Another pause, then D’Orrey was surprised by a rush of candor. “He made a fool out of me a while ago.”
“So you don’t trust him.”
“Well—I guess I trust him. Maybe I was asking for it. But I don’t like him. He’s just a spare-time hacker, anyway; he’s in the bio department, of all things, at Orono.”
“And what’s wrong with biologists? Your uncle is one, after all. Are we too cooperative with the rest of science, or just not—”
“Is it all right if I get closer? I can’t see how the snakes are settling who gets the dinner.”
“Something wrong with your glasses?” D’Orrey had not really expected an answer.
“I’d like to use my own plain, unsupported eyes. I know no one’s sneaked anything under my eyelids, and if there’s going to be a snake fight I want to believe what I see.”
“There isn’t, but come on over. Just remember these two may not be the only rattlers in the neighborhood.”
“I’m not worried.”
“That’s why we are. Keep your untampered-with eyes open, and get on over there if you must.” Vicki allowed some annoyance to creep into her tone, and raised her sending volume enough to make it obvious.
D’Orrey was right; there was no fight. The action was unbelievable, but happened just as he had seen it before. The rattlers were now together beside the victim, but the larger, the one which had done the herding, watched with apparent indifference as the actual killer proceeded to work its jaws around the corpse and engulf it in ordinary snake fashion. When it had finished, the two wriggled off together to D’Orrey’s left, the smaller leading, and finally disappeared even from his binoculars among the bushes. He waited five minutes longer before speaking.
“That’s it for now, I expect,” he said in ordinary tones. “I’m closer to the trail. I know it doesn’t seem natural, Vick; that’s why I want to make sure whether it’s technical. Shall we meet right here?” He stood up as he spoke and switched his suit off.
“All right. At least, all right if I can get out of this tree without tearing anything. I paid for this suit myself,” came the woman’s voice.
“Are you sure it’s all over? Shouldn’t we follow them? asked Peter.
“I don’t say it’s over at all. I hope it isn’t. I want to set up close observation on those critters. I want to know whether this was natural and new, or some hacker amusing himself, or what. We’re not ready to do it now, though; we have no food and not much water up here. There’s a lot of planning to do before we can start a real study. Knowing that it really happens, and right around here, was all I hoped for now. We can talk it over on the way back; I’d rather not do it through the suit coms. I’m coming down.” He turned his camouflage back on, since animal behaviorists prefer to be seen by potential subjects as little as possible, and began to make his way carefully down the sloping side of the rock, retracing his original path up. He had more confidence in his suit’s durability than Vicki seemed to, but took no major chances with sharp stones or thorns.
He was several minutes reaching ground level and getting around to the front of the boulder. Both his companions were approaching, though he had to look carefully in the direction he knew she must be to detect the woman at all; her suit, too, was on. The boy’s was not, and he was walking around and among the bushes as though he felt no concern for his cam unit or anything else.
“There could be more rattlers around,” D’Orrey pointed out again as calmly as he could. Peter took this as implied criticism, quite correctly, but his response was more impertinent than abashed.
“I know. And I know there’s snake-bite equipment in the first aid kit, but I’d just as soon they knew I was coming. They can see I’m too big to swallow. Even y—” he broke off; both adults felt they knew why, and were rather pleased. In the week they had been together, and in spite of who was paying the bills, Peter Ben Becker had shown a tendency to make rather perky remarks to and about his uncle, commonly about their seventeen centimeter height difference, which the boy regarded as being in his own favor. D’Orrey had felt that objecting was beneath adult dignity, and was reluctant to have trouble with his older sister. He was pretty sure, however, that Vicki had said something once or twice when he himself was out of hearing.
If the kid were really trying to curb his wit, all to the good. If he were beginning to realize that there were more valuable personal qualities than height, even better.
The man just barely stopped himself from switching off his own suit again. The point about letting rattlers know they were coming had been very well taken, but it seemed poor policy to be guided too obviously by the youngster’s advice. In a few seconds he forgot the matter. Vicki’s garment also remained active.
No more was said until they met at the kill site. Woman and boy examined the area for details they hadn’t been able to see from their trees, but neither found anything which helped answer the obvious questions. The man had seen all he needed. All that really caught his attention was the difference of watching what the others were doing.
Vicki Kalani’s suit was much like his own, though of different make. Its eyes, like his, were the size of split walnuts studded with hundreds of minute lenses, but she had only two, one on the outer side of each shoulder. D’Orrey’s numbered three, one on top of his head, one between his shoulder blades, and one at his breast bone. Both pattern processors were where the belt buckles would have been had either garment been belted—prolate hemispheres of coppery polymer about eight centimeters by four, thought the man’s was mounted with the long axis vertical. Dr. Kalani’s also fit better, less because her eight centimeter superiority in height made her easier to fit than because her suit’s more sophisticated processor handled warp and woof tension as well as light paths.
All fibers, both fabric components and control and sensor connectors, were far too small to see with the unaided eye. With the suits turned off, as Peter’s was, the basic material was almost transparent. The eye-hurting pattern of the tight shorts which were his only inner garment, a random alteration of patches displaying leopard spots, tiger stripes, and geometric exercises in fluorescent colors, could be seen too clearly for comfort.
Vicki’s face was also visible as she released her mask; she had knelt to examine the ground more closely, and brought out her pill vial. Her features were rather broad and round for D’Orrey’s personal tastes but much easier to look at than his nephew’s shorts.
“Nothing the tracks tell me,” she announced after several minutes of careful examination. “Any project details?”
“Some. We’ll trash it over on the way down,” D’Orrey replied. “Or do you want to stay longer, Pete? Can you think of anything else we ought to do now?”
“I guess not. I’d like to see where they went, but you’re right about not staying much longer without supplies. I know better what equipment we should bring up, now. We ought to have brought more food with us this time.”
“If I’d been sure we’d see anything, we would have. Now we can feel pretty sure of finding them in this area, we can set up here for a longer stay—maybe even move the camp.”
“Are you sure these snakes are the same ones you saw before?” Vicki asked suddenly. She had stowed the pills again without opening the container.
“Not at all. They could be, but I can’t recognize individual rattlers by sight. But if they are, they seem to work this area fairly regularly, and if they aren’t there could be a whole tribe of them around. Either way this should be a good place to work; there’s a lot of clover and berries, and presumably a lot of mice and rabbits.”
Peter nodded, and the three started down the trail which opened into the clearing a few meters from the lookout rock. They quickly found themselves in more comfortable shade, but discussing plans was harder than D’Orrey had assumed. The way was usually too narrow to let them travel side by side, steep enough to demand full attention to footing much of the time, and the woman’s sneezing was now up to full antihistamine-free level. She used her pills only when this would interfere with work. Nothing was really settled in the half hour they took to get almost back to sea level.
Here the mixed pine and second-growth hardwood opened out once more, and they could see the lake.
Here it was also a good deal hotter, and the midafternoon sun was nearly straight ahead of them. The sea breeze from behind and to their left was blocked almost entirely by hills. As they approached the road—little more than a track, but useable by vehicles—which led out toward the tip of the peninsula, Peter scored another point.
“Suits off,” he said quietly, deactivating his own. This time neither adult compromised with common sense; even though nothing wheeled could be seen or heard, crossing a road in an operating camouflage suit was what the boy would have called pure crack. D’Orrey switched his unit off without comment; Vicki thanked Peter. None reactivated the garments when they reached the other side.
The camp was still a half kilometer away, beside a brook which emptied further on into the lake. The way was quite open now, and they could talk more freely. Little had really been settled, however, when Peter stopped and gestured for the others to do the same. His other hand went to his waist. His suit, unlike the others, had a belt which carried several items besides the camouflage logic unit; as a matter of courtesy, neither of the adults had asked what these were. Hackers like to keep their tricks to themselves when not in showoff mood.
He seemed to be listening, but had not asked for silence so was presumably not using an ordinary eavesdropper. He had not removed anything from the belt, but he was touching first one point and then another on it, waiting two or three seconds before each new shift of the finger. It was fully a minute before he relaxed and turned to his companions.
“No one’s been in the camp, and nothing—no animal—into the tents or the food.”
“As far as you can tell,” appended his uncle.
“Of course. If I’m wrong, someone’s curious enough about what we are doing to cover it very carefully.”
“Well, if the snakes are a hacker’s trick, maybe someone is. If it’s legitimate research or, perish the thought, a natural change in snake behavior, no one should be.”
D’Orrey thought a moment, then risked a guess. “I take it you left sound and maybe other sensors and recorders in and around the camp, and have been playing them back.”
“That’s the idea.”
“The same general sort of stuff you said you’d use for me to track animals up on the Stage?”
“Right.”
“Good. How long will it take you to set them up back there?”
“Not long.” Peter grinned smugly. “You were here when I set these after we arrived, but never saw me.”
“Great. I didn’t think of it when we first talked this over, but can you keep our glasses and other gear checked for false-witness tampering?”
Peter frowned thoughtfully for a moment. “I could, but it’d be better for you to stay with Jerry, wouldn’t it?”
“Why?”
“Because I’m part of this team. Shouldn’t the checker be independent? You should keep your personal observing gear—glasses, cameras, recorders—out of my reach, and you should quarantine mine for checking if I ever report anything you don’t see or hear.”
“Unless you record it, I suppose that’s true. But you can record, obviously.”
“Sure, if you want to trust my records—”
Vicki cut in. “Of course we do. Any record can be faked; everyone knew that even before UFO days, but there’s no point assuming it has been until there’s trouble repeating an observation. Otherwise no one gets anywhere. You said it just now: you’re part of the team, as reliable a part as we are. Science is certainly a search for truth, mixed with a reasonable effort not to easily that you’ve already found it, but you’re worrying far too much about the faker-defense aspect.”
The boy glanced at D’Orrey, who nodded. “Even if I had any reason to suspect you, which I don’t, she’s right. I know about the never-ending war among hackers, anti-hackers, and other hackers, but nothing ever gets done if we spend all the time worrying about rivals and liars. This is where prevention is not better than cure; it gets in the way of the work. We assume no one wants to live with the only cure there is for liars unless he’s force to. So stop worrying, be ready to record anything any of us decides is worth keeping, and pardon the lecture. You cook this evening; deal out some of that chili you did before if there still is any. It’s good.”
“Thanks. I like flattery, but you still cook tomorrow.” His uncle made no answer, but shed his camouflage suit and stretched happily.
The meal was quickly prepared in an extremely old-fashioned kettle over a jellied-alcohol fire—burning wood was still taboo in the park—and almost as quickly eaten. D’Orrey took three helpings without looking at the boy, whose only comment was a repetition. “You still cook tomorrow.”
“And I wash up tonight,” added Vicki, getting to her feet. “Don’t dawdle too long over that last helping, Jaques.” The man made no answer; his mouth was full.
Vicki and Peter, the latter rather pointedly, took advantage the next morning of D’Orrey’s culinary duties to remain late in their tents, but the sun was not very high when the three left camp together with the built in back-packs of their suits loaded with food, water, and carefully selected equipment. They hoped to stay away until the study was done, so the tents and unused equipment were collapsed, cased, powered down as appropriate and stowed in a single travel pack concealed in a tree. Bears and smaller mammals could be a nuisance, but Peter felt that human interference was much more likely. The adults were pretty sure he was carrying equipment which would warn him if the bundle were disturbed. They didn’t ask, but both noticed that he had paid little attention while Vicki carefully adjusted the camouflage wrap on the container.
It was still cool when they started back up the hill. The sea breeze had not yet developed, and would have had little effect at the camp anyway. It would help later, but they wanted to get up to Stage, as Vicki had named the work area, before the sun became too oppressive. Once across the still deserted road, all activated their suits.
They wanted to get there early, but even Peter was too experienced to wear himself out at the start. He was willing—again rather pointedly—to allow D’Orrey to set the pace once the slope began to steepen. Vicki tactfully brought up the rear.
This proved to be, not exactly a mistake, but unfortunate.
They had climbed nearly a hundred meters, the woman’s natural morning sneeze pattern was well established, and they were at a point where the trail was not only narrow and steep but offered very poor footing in loose crumbled granite, dry dusty loam, and even drier pine needles. All were careful; they had passed this way twice before. Even the fact that it was much trickier descending failed to make anyone careless; Vicki was simply unlucky, perhaps because she was behind and encountering freshly loosened surface.
She ejaculated some words which would have been considered more appropriate for a male—one of low culture—not too many years earlier, as her weight came on her left foot and the substrate slipped from under her. Her hands were both free and her reflexes good as she grabbed for branches, but the only one she caught proved unworthy of trust. Her other foot, rising for a forward step, came down abruptly on an equally unreliable surface well short of the spot she had intended; it slipped too. This brought her chest, stomach, knees and face into violent contact with the trail.
The others heard, but had no time to do anything. She stopped herself after a couple of meters of sliding, at a spot where the slope flattened a little, and struggled back to her feet. She had said nothing after the first moment and still remained silent, checking damage.
The suits were designed for outdoor use, and hers had been actually pierced in only a few places. Her skin had not done so well. She had a deep slash over her right eye, and her knees and palms were dirt-plastered crimson messes. Damage to her suit was at least as eye-catching. Several control fivers had been severed, mostly in places not matching visible bodily injury, and fairly large areas of its body and legs no longer responded to the logic unit. About half her head piece above the level of the cut revealed the mahogany red-brown of the hair inside, and a roughly triangular area from right shoulder downward to her waist and inward to the small of her back showed the fabric of the sweat suit she was wearing under the camouflage unit.
