Chap. 360 The Prime Key

Chap. 360 The Prime Key

K’ndar looked with misgivings at Jansen’s computer terminal.

“Turing, what is going on?” he asked it. It blandly ignored him.

On impulse, he pulled his datalink and thumbed it awake. Let’s see what happens if I send a message. Who should I send it to?

Duh, make it simple. Jansen

“Hello, Jansen, how are you doing today?” he typed.

Within seconds, a line popped up on the screen:

Sender: K’ndar of Landing.

Subject: none given.

Hello, Jansen, how are you doing today?

A few moments later, his datalink buzzed.

Sender: Jansen of Landing

Subject: busy

“K’ndar, I’m busy. I’ll be there in a few, okay?”

A moment later, another line popped up:

Sender: Rialla of Telgar Hold

Subject: Can’t find reference to exact date of first Thread fall

Text follows:

Several pages down, it ended. I see what she means, he thought.This is nonsense.

The terminal blipped and a message came over the displayed text.

Sender: Main Frame Database Landing

Subject: last message nonsense or significant?”

An icon blinked for a response. Impulsively, he leaned over and clicked on “nonsense”.

“You’re an idiot if you haven’t learned history,” he said, hoping Rialla would hear it.

The terminal seemed to agree.

Jansen came back, a bit disheveled-but with a hint of triumph.

“What..um, did you do something to my terminal?” she said, a bit suspicious.

“Um, sorry, but a message came through with what Turing asked was nonsense. I said yes.”

She grinned. “Thank you,” and then said, “Let’s go outside for a few minutes? I need to get some fresh air.”

She steered him clear of the building, a little further than he thought necessary. “Oh, it’s a lovely day,” she sighed. “I sometimes wish I didn’t have to work indoors. This tree, look at the bark. Even in winter, it’s lovely.” She flopped to the ground gracelessly.

“Of course,” he said. I should be seeing Siskin soon, he thought.

He is here, he just arrived. He is fine, don’t worry Raventh said, I told him to stay with me. They don’t like fire lizards in that building.

Please send him to me, I hope he has the drawing.

Siskin appeared within minutes. He chirruped, landed on K’ndar’s left arm and very proudly thrust his chest forward.

“Oh, he’s so pretty, K’ndar,” Jansen said. “He seems to sparkle in the sunshine.”

“And he’s smart,” K’ndar said. He opened the message pouch and withdrew the drawing. There was a note from B’rost.

Friend says it’s a gown, made in Singing Water’s Hold Crafthall.

“Thank you, Siskin. Go to Raventh now, there’s a good lad.” Siskin chipped and launched, whirring away in flight.

Jansen watched him go, wondering if she’d ever like to have a fire lizard. Then her present issues crashed back down on her.

He handed her the drawing of the Lemos woman.

Ah, the spymaster, Jansen thought, her conviction only strengthening.

“B’rost says his friend thinks the gown was made in the crafthall just west of Singing Waters Hold. I have no idea what the difference between a dress and a gown is.”

She glanced at it. “A gown is just a dress that costs more than you make in a month,” she sniffed.

He laughed, but it was tinged with confusion. What is it about this drawing, what am I not seeing?”

“Do you feel the same way I do? The idea that someone here at Landing is watching everything we say and do?” she asked. He nodded. “Yes, and I don’t even do your sort of work. I feel paranoid, as if someone is watching me.”

Ah, she thought, as the breeze touched her cheek, with just the faintest hint that soon, spring would arrive. How long do I want to stay at my job? Can I find something to do outside?

“But,” she said, “In a way, it’s a good thing. If your friend hadn’t been attacked and killed the raider in self defense, you might not have found the stamps or the keys to the codes. None of this would have been revealed. As chaotic as it is right now at Landing, at least we KNOW something’s amiss. It’s like a bad disease, to know is better than to not know.”

“It was dumb luck, Jansen.”

“Well, perhaps. The problem is two fold. Those two data chunks came through just after midnight. Was it just two days ago that you brought the first batch of messages from the raiders? Just two days? Yes. Problem one is the Big Egos inside are stymied by how these big chunks of data came in without any sort of notification that the maintenance program had been paused? Problem two is all the finger pointing, Admin and Data blaming the other, the Council is pulling their collective hairs out trying to get them to come to some sort of explanation, and a dragonrider has to say, oh, look,you dumbarses, this spy could be listening to every word you say and reading everything you type.”

He laughed despite himself. “That’s three problems, and I didn’t say dumbarse.”

She laughed. “No, those are my words because, unfortunately, some of them ARE. Incredibly brilliant at working with computers and willing to tell you so, but helpless as a baby interacting with the real world.”

“So what happens now?”

“Well, thankfully, we’ve kept a tight rein on this entire thing, the marks being stolen, I mean, and now this. I believe Vixen pissed in someone’s ale up North because the Runner stations are refusing to service Lemos, solely because they’ve lost two runners and almost a third. Lemos sent a man to the Council dragonback, demanding that Runners MUST continue serving Lemos, and the Council..oh, I wish I’d been in there, Lord Cecilia said, “You buggered it up, you fix it. We don’t tell Runners how to do their job, just like we don’t tell Lemos how to run their Hold.” That’s it. No one has said anything about your finds, as far as most of Pern knows, it was just raiders accosting a girl. And “just’ doesn’t mean it’s wasn’t bad. It WAS and is bad.”

“Do you think Lemos Lord Holder knows about the spymaster? “

“I don’t, and I seriously doubt it. It would be incredibly stupid of Lemos’s Lord Holder to allow that to happen. Lemos has always been proud that their sideline of creating stamps has a history of strict chain of custody before they’re issued, and now they have this ugly baby in their arms, that being the missing stamps. They don’t know that the stamps are wrong, just missing. I imagine Lord Toric is hammering the Metalsmiths at Lemos Hold hehehe, pun intended, wanting to know where his new stamps are. For once, he has a legitimate complaint, he turned in the old stamps, right on time, along with a year’s worth of old worn out marks, and what did he get? Blanks that are worthless without new stamps.”

“He must be using datalinks, because he banished dragonriders a long time ago.”

“Oh, please don’t make me go looking through an ocean of messages for something from him, please. I’m cross eyed after looking at data.”

“Sorry.”

“If I were a Lord Holder, expecting marks and stamps, I’d have a liaison there, watching the entire process, and I’d have them brought to me dragonback. It’s the only secure way. I have a feeling Lord Toric would like to have dragonriders return to his Hold, but that’s Toric for you. Too damned proud to admit he made a mistake,” she said, shaking her head.

“Even if he did, there’s none of us who would ever fly for him again. We have egos, too. And a comradeship. With the possible exception of one or two rogues, we’re all observing the boycott. So he’s stuck, I guess, depending on fire lizards and…” Something in his brain pinged, then vanished.

“That chain of custody, it’s not as good as they boast, if the stamps went out in brass and misspelled. That’s probably the worst part of it all. I bet when this all comes out-it’s inevitable, people will say, if we can’t depend on Lemos’s Metalsmiths to get the stamps right, maybe we should find someone more reliable,” she said. “I wonder why the stamps and marks were sent separately, never mind how the raiders got the stamps in the first place.”

“The spymaster has to have access to the engraving division. Or at least to the person doing the engraving. As to how they got to the raiders, I’m guessing they were sent by fire lizard and deposited in the bolster.” Bip! said his brain. Without a word, he picked up the drawing of the woman in the gown.

“I can’t believe I didn’t remember this! This woman! See, she’s got a green fire lizard on her shoulder. It has to be the same fire lizard that was killed by a raptor, poor lass, to the last she was doing her duty. She broadcast an image of the raider, Lout, I’ll call him, as she lay dying. She told our fire lizards and Raventh this was her contact. I would bet my lunch (which I would love to have, by the way) it’s the same fire lizard, meaning this woman might just be the spymaster!”

“How do you know the lizard was a green?”

“Dragons and fire lizards both transmit in color. I had only a pencil to sketch the images. And Kelso, the brown fire lizard owned by the Northern raider said he’d mated her once. I’m guessing it was at Lemos Hold, and probably where his master was from.”

She folded the drawing. “May I keep this for the moment?”

“Of course. But maybe it’s not a good idea to scan it in.”

“I won’t put this in the database just yet. Whomever has gained access to the main database might see it and figure out we’re hunting him or her or anyone involved. Funny, as tired as I am, this is getting to be exciting. I want to find this woman, I want her to explain to the Council just what she’s done.”

His stomach growled, loud enough for her to laugh. “Let me guess, you’re ready for some lunch?” she laughed.

He looked at her with an ‘are you kidding?’ expression. “Yes. I didn’t get much breakfast this morning, and I’m starving.”

“Before I let you go, let’s go back in and look at what you brought me today,”she said, regretfully. How nice it would be to have my desk out here. But with my luck, it’d start raining.

A message was awaiting on her terminal.

Sender: Narafft of Crom

from: Crom Mining Craft Hall

Subject: how long does it take for a horse’s tail to regrow?

“Damn it, I thought we’d finally staunched the flood,” she said as she deleted the message.

“A long, long time.”

“What?”

“It takes forever for a horse to regrow a tail. Every once in a while, you get a horse that loves to eat other horse’s tails. They’re a pest. They’ll eat the tail hairs right to the tail bone if you let them. And the tailless horse is miserable and embarassed all the while.”

“How do you stop that?”

“Usually they do themselves in, colicking with a solid mass of hair in their gut.”

The pouch held a written note, in code, and a hastily sketched drawing of a man.

“Let’s see,” she said, “Hopefully one of the old keys you brought the other day ago will work on this new message.”

One did. The note was brief. “Courier missing. Use backup strategy. Use enclosed key and two seven zero for heavy drops til further notice.”

“Two seven zero! That’s the bolster I pulled this from! And the courier, that has to mean the green fire lizard,” he said.

“Unless she means Lout, did you call him? Obviously, she has no idea that Lout is dead. She knew he had the stamps, and now, I’m sure of it, she knows the attempt to steal the blanks was unsuccessful. She has to know Lord Toric got them. What does she mean by heavy drops?”

“You can’t send a stamp via datalink. Or blank marks. You have to have a specific person bring the marks and a place to put the small things, like the stamps.”

“Makes sense. Lets examine this drawing,” she said. “This is poorly drawn,” K’ndar said, exalting at the sudden feeling of expertise,”as if it was drawn from memory.”

It was of an elderly man, barefooted, a pair of heavy goggles perched atop his head. His left hand was up near his face, fingers spread. The ring finger was missing the tip. He was leaning on a dragon headed cane with his right. He was pictured in what appeared to be a workshop.

“He looks so sad,” she said. “And those glasses, what are they? Goggles?”

“Yes, K’ndar said, recognizing them instantly, “They’re goggles, to protect your eyes. I wear goggles when flying on Raventh and believe me, they’ve saved my eyes a hundred times. It’s not just dragonriders who wear them. Metalsmiths wear them, too, when they’re forging metal or hammering it. Sometimes when they open a forge, little bits of molten metal spit out, and you do NOT want one to hit your eyes.”

“Oh, ick, just the idea makes my stomach turn.”

She regarded the drawing. It has a lot of information in it, she thought, rubbing her temples to ease the fatigue. It’s getting hard to think straight, she thought, I’ve been up for how long? Thirty six hours, with a few naps?

“The fact that he’s holding his hand up, and has a cane but most importantly is wearing goggles in a workshop-the artist is showing us specific points to observe about this man.”

“Have you ever seen this person here?”

“No, but then I’m no longer at the Reception Desk. We can look at the visitor logs, but I’m sure he’s never been here, and we don’t have his name. We only recently began collecting photos or drawings of everyone who works here or even has contacts here. Even of you, AND Raventh.”

“I don’t remember having my picture taken,” he said.

She smirked. “If you’ve contacted me here at Landing using a datalink, yours had sent me a picture of you, too.”

He pushed his datalink out of reach. “Huh. Betrayed by a piece of electronics. Little snoop. Like a miniature spy. You’re sure this old man isn’t the spymaster?”

She laughed, then said, “I’m positive the woman is the spymaster. This man? No. Why would the spymaster send a picture of himself? That’s just allowing for interception, like you’ve done with this message.”

She mistook his expression for doubt. “Look. This man is old, it’s obvious. He’s using a cane, so he’s incapacitated in some way. The cane itself is topped by a beautifully carved head. Lemos is known for their woodworking and elaborate carving. He’s wearing goggles, meaning he works with something than can be dangerous, like cutting metal. I don’t think carving wood causes splinters to fly.”

“And he’s barefoot. No one in their right mind goes barefoot except ‘in the bed, in the bath or on the beach’ ” he sang, reciting the Teaching Song taught to little children.

She grinned, remembering the one time she made the mistake of going barefoot, as a child. One of the many tiny shards of obsidian and spicules of volcanic glass that every cavern seemed to shed had sliced one of her bare toes to the bone. “That’s why we sweep daily,” her mother had said as she bandaged her copiously bleeding toe, “and why I taught you the Barefoot Song. Now do you understand?”

As if hearing her thoughts, the toe throbbed. I was lucky to not lose the entire thing to infection, she thought.

“And, by the way, prisoners are kept barefoot, Jansen, it’s an easy way to slow one down.”

“I guess. I’ve never been around a prisoner. Now, see this? He’s missing a fingertip. How many times have I tried cutting my finger off while dicing a carrot? I’m thinking this old man lost a fingertip while working with something sharp. That hurts just thinking about it.”

“The background being a workshop would certainly suggest that,” he said. “And, I suspect, it’s in Lemos. It’s obviously a cavern. Yes, we all grew up in caverns, back when Thread was falling. But now most buildings going up in Southern are of lightwood.”

She tapped the drawing to focus her attention.

“This is a message. The Lemos woman is sending a drawing of him to her spy here at Landing. She’s saying, keep an eye out for this man. I bet you a bubbly pie this is the spymaster’s stamp engraver. Remember, he purposefully made the stamps out of the wrong metal, which makes me believe the spymaster is not, herself, a craftsman. Perhaps she’s never seen a steel one. The engraver purposefully misspelled words on those stamps, and she didn’t notice. He was sending out a cry for help. I’m wondering if she didn’t find out that they were misspelled AFTER he sent them out. She doesn’t dare kill him, though. You don’t get to be a master engraver overnight. He worked for the Metalsmith, NOT the spymaster.”

“Wouldn’t it be stupid to send a drawing of someone you want to keep out of sight?”

She thought for a long moment. “When a horse is stolen or lost, don’t horsefolk put out a drawing of the horse?”

“Yes, with a lot of information, color, stockings, blaze, sex..ah,” he said, understanding.

“Yes. You see. I bet you this man has escaped. He’s on the run, and she’s furious, and scared. She wants him returned-or killed, more likely, before he can tell a soul who she is and what she’s doing. He has all the information needed to see her beheaded. “

“That I’d like to see happen,” he growled. “I wonder, do you think he’s trying to come here, to Landing to alert the Council? Maybe the spy here doesn’t know what he looks like, and he’s been told to find him before the man can expose him and the spymaster.”

“That’s the only explanation that fits. If it were me, I’d definitely be headed here,” she said. “Southern’s big and empty and if he can get here to Landing, he’ll be safe. Still, the engraver is old, and I bet he’s not got a mark to his name. Oh, dear, now I really have something to worry about.”

“Jansen, I think you’re right, he IS the stamp engraver. But, give him some credit. If he planned on escaping, he’d probably find a way to stamp a few marks, good ones, for himself. I’ll bet you two bubbly pies he’s got some stashed away. Which means, if he’s on the run, he can afford transport. All he has to do is get away from Lemos Hold. The first dragonrider he meets, he’ll ask for immediate transport and get it. If he makes it to a port, any ship captain, even fishermen, will carry supercargo for a price. Most captains ignore supercargo, they don’t want a chatty passenger. They’re “pay for passage, leave my crew alone, get below, and shut up”.

“I wonder if I should post this as a ‘help this man’ sort of poster,” she said. “I could send it to all the Holds, Halls and Weyrs, all ship captains. I could say, this man needs help, contact Landing and keep him safe until we can pick him up.”

“No, no! If Landing’s spy sees the poster, as he probably will if you use the database, he’ll know that their mode of communication has been compromised. He’ll know that the only way to get here from Northern is by ship, or dragonback. And I don’t know if any ships carry datalinks other than Harve on the We’re Here, that lad we rescued from a sea raider.”

“Many ships carry datalinks, now, but most of their traffic goes directly to Shipping or Finance. They’re not chatty like the flood of nonsense that’s been coming here all the past week.”

Her terminal suddenly beeped.

“Attention, all datalinks. At this time, data entry or accessing the Landing/Yokohama database; all datalinks contacts/messages; and all information requests will be suspended for unscheduled equipment repair. This will affect all traffic outside of Landing itself. No data has been lost. We apologize for this interruption and will restore function as soon as possible.”

“What does that mean?” K’ndar asked.

Jansen smiled. “Huh. I’ve never seen this happen but it means, right now, Admin and Data have finally shut the barn door to prevent any more horses running out. No one can access our computer here outside of Landing, or the Yokohama. We can, though, communicate with each other within the compound.”

“But why..”

“This gives Data the chance to comb the access logs with a fine toothed comb for the intrusion. They don’t have to worry about it going out into the world. This insures that no one outside can see them searching.”

She snickered at the memory of the tech’s faces when she dropped the bombshell on them.

“What’s funny?”

“Oh, the high and mighty in Data and Admin. You pointed out that there might be a spy right here. It flabbergasted them. For one long moment, everyone looked at me with their mouths open, they looked like fish out of water. Shocked them to their shoes!

It had never occurred to any of us, me included, that anyone could actually stop the maintenance procedure. Or was even capable of tweaking the maintenance procedure to sneak data in and out without it showing up on the access logs.

I bet it’s even taken them a moment to grasp the concept that the spy is collecting everything that goes into the database. Right now I’m sure there’s a lot of them thinking, oh shaff, will my wife find out I’ve been messaging that sweet thing I met at the last Gather?”

She laughed, then sobered.

“Even if Data isn’t able to find out what’s in those data dumps, still-they’ll be putting a LOT more attention on who’s got access to what-and when. They’ll be locking that barn door, this time. Whatever happens afterwards is anybody’s guess.”

She smiled at him, enjoying the feeling that the ‘experts’ had finally been tripped up despite the ominous ramifications.

She tapped the desk, unconsciously. “When I related your idea, a lot of them gave me that ‘you are so stupid’ look. It was as if I’d gone in there and said “K’ndar flew his dragon to the Yokohama and woke AIVAS back up.” It took one very kind woman who’s been in Admin forever to say, “Look, you dolts, this really happened. You don’t have to like it, but it happened. It took a biologist and an apprentice data tech to point it out to your tiny little minds. And if you’re doubting that the invader is in our computers RIGHT now, you’re drunk on fellis.”

“Lowly? She called me a “lowly” biologist?”

Jansen laughed. “I know her. She’s kind. She didn’t mean it as a pejorative. It was her way of saying to the big egos, you’re so full of yourself it took someone outside of your field of expertise to point it out to you.”

“Okay. I sort of like being lowly. That means less responsibility and I get to sleep all night. How long will the computer be, um, out of service?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. Her gaze locked onto the terminal in front of her.

His stomach growled again. “Look, Jansen, I’m about to die from starvation.”

“Not just yet, K’ndar, let’s puzzle this out, then I’ll go with you, get something to eat. My brain is suddenly cooking, it’s got this all figured out, I think and I have to get it out before it goes away.”

He sighed in resignation. “Fine.”

“Thank you. Let’s backtrack a little. Let’s assume the spymaster believes that that Lout obeyed her orders to kill the others. Her fire lizard being dead, she doesn’t know if Lout is alive and still has the stamps, or if he’s dead.

The only way she can learn that is to contact her counterpart here at Landing. I think that’s what the data dump of this morning…oh, gads, is it still today? was about. In fact, this message implies that there IS a backup strategy that, until now, has been held in reserve. Again I’m assuming, but I’m betting that she contacted her spy here at Landing via coded datalink message last night. Maybe she said that she suspects their usual way of communication is compromised. Maybe she told him to start sending or receiving data and that she’d sent this stuff, here, to two seven zero. He shut down the database last night long enough to send and receive data, and-and I wonder if he’s gone to two seven zero to look for this shipment.”

Both their eyes widened.

“He’s going to find it empty. Because it’s HERE, on your desk,” K’ndar said.

“Which means-if he’s gone to the bolster and finds it’s empty-he or she knows their cover has been blown.”

The import knocked them both for a loop. Her eyes grew wide. Again.

“Right,” Jansen said, “I’ve got to run to Raylan, again.”

“Can I go with you to see the gasping fish? I am a biologist, after all.”

She giggled despite her hurry. “Better not. I’ll be right back.”

As she returned, her terminal beeped again.

All Landing division chiefs. Conduct a headcount of all personnel assigned to you immediately. If any one is off site, report where they are, how they traveled, and what they are doing. Contact them via datalink using internal channel only. Report in person to Admin upon completion.

“This time they believed me,” she said. Raylan came in. He looked hard at K’ndar, touched his datalink, and left without a word.

“Guess I’m accounted for,” he said. They looked at each other.

“Both of us. He’s nothing if not disciplined. Let’s see what’s in this tube, then we can go get something to eat,” she said.

“Be my guest, please. My stomach thinks my throat’s been cut.”

“Look at the craftsmanship of this tube,” as she opened it. “I bet the stamp engraver made it.”

Two small slips of paper fell out. “Real paper, this time,” she murmured.

She unrolled the first one.

1028910301

“Hmm”, she said.

The second piece said

1123465789

“Just numbers. That means nothing.” K’ndar said, disappointed.

She tapped her teeth with the tip of her pencil. “No, K’ndar. Let me think a minute. Let’s sum it up. The spymaster is cunning. She assumes, rightly now, that her hand crafted keys and codes had been broken. I’ve been convinced from the beginning, but this, to me, tells me you’re right., there is a spy here in our midst. “Backup strategy,” she says. These two numbers are significant.”

She was about to type in the numbers when K’ndar stopped her. “Wait, won’t the spy see this?”

“Not now, K’ndar. We’ve can only talk to each other here in this building. We have to ask permission, right now, to contact another datalink outside of Landing. It’s like we used to function before you found the first datalink. Give me a second. In fact, let me get with Data. They have some bright sparks there that will know exactly what this is.”

She was gone for several minutes. When she returned a lad of about fifteen was with her.

“Wulf, this is K’ndar, rider of brown Raventh and Landing’s Chief Biologist.”

I’ve been promoted? he wondered. Did they hire someone new?

Wulf bumped his fist, hard. “Hello, Sir! I’m so pleased to meet you. I’ve read your expedition reports. It’s amazing, the things that you’ve found, all the animals! Those giant animals down south, did you ever figure out what they are? And the smandas! And that weird snap trap jaw, it’s ferocious. I really like the paladen, it’s at Jansen’s museum, it’s huge!”

“Well, um, thank you,” K’ndar said, flabbergasted, “Mind you, I did have a lot of help.”

“I’m sure but wow, what adventures!”

Jansen turned the boy’s attention to the pieces of paper.

“K’ndar found this information, and I believe it has something to do with last nights’ incursion. Can you tell me the significance of these numbers?”

The boy looked at them and chuckled. “May I?” he asked her. She slid her chair over to allow the teen access to her terminal.

He typed faster than anyone K’ndar had ever seen.

Significance of the following numbers:

1028910301

1123465789

A moment later, the screen said

Ten digit primes.

The boy giggled. “I knew that,” he said, “this is a very common way of creating an unbreakable key.” He typed,

Multiply.

The resulting number seemed a kilometer long.

K’ndar only vaguely remembered his math, as he’d avoided it if at all possible. Living on a remote cothold had allowed that, with a journeyman harper coming by twice a year for a week, to shove as much science, math, history and reading as he could into resistant young boys brains. Besides, he thought, not once have I needed math since I left home.

“Yes, yes, yes!” Wulf cried.

“It’s a key!” Jansen squealed. Wulf’s grin was like that of a dragon about to pounce on dinner. He typed

Apply key to intrusion data.

Writing spilled onto the screen. There were maps, pictures, names-and messages. It came so fast K’ndar couldn’t read it. But the words Lemos Hold, marks transport, Lord Holder Toric, jumped off the pages.

Jansen whooped and Wulf jumped into the air, pumping his arms in victory.

“We broke it! We broke it!” she shouted, almost delirious. Behind her, K’ndar could see techs begin to flood out of their offices.

Raylan was first, knowing that tone of victory in Jansen’s cry.

“What?” he asked, hope all over his face.

“We broke it. We’ve got the key to the data intrusion! Look! ” Wulf shouted.

Raylan peered at the terminal, which was unloading data. “YES!” he shouted.

“You’re a genius,” K’ndar said to the lad, who looked as if he’d just won the Ruatha Stakes.

“Nah,” the teen said, bashfully, “just a geek.”