Project Boussh: Surprise! by Morwen It was like a replay of the scene in November, Kristy thought, except she was looking at the clearing from within the _Pulsar Skate_ now, and there was only one X-Wing accompanying the freighter. Another--important--difference was that the clearing was completely covered with snow. The late snowfalls of the previous day hadn't had much incentive to melt up to that night. As Mirax skillfully lowered her old friend to rest on the snows, Kristy somewhat uneasily thought of the marks they were making on the snow and the amount they'd melt when they were taking off. She hoped the rest of the snow would melt itself soon. As the dark-haired women were unstrapping themselves from the cockpit seats, Winter appeared noiselessly in the doorway. She was carrying a knapsack slung on one heavily-clad shoulder. "I'll take this to him," she said, "you've got everything, Kristy?" Kristy nodded. "All in here," she said, picking up her heavy winter jacket from the floor next to the seat. Shrugging the jacket on and thanking Mirax for letting her watch the descent from the cockpit, she followed after the Alderaanian. "Let's make sure he's got everything, too," the white-haired woman added on their way to the hatch. Kristy smiled internally at Winter's choice of words. "Make sure he's got everything" not only meant physical things like money and warm clothing; she was also to make sure that he understood directions and what he was to do. One might think that that was needless worrying when the "he" in question was Tycho Celchu, but if there was someone that would worry, it would be Winter. A remark attributed to Iella was fresh in the young biochemist's mind--"Isn't that what husbands are for, to prepare you for your children?"--and the logical corollary was that your husband _was_ your first child. Kristy had heard other tales to that effect, too... Her first step into the clearing did not sink ankle-deep into the snow as she had half-feared it would. Instead, the snow cover was crunchy at the top, powdery underneath and, at most, half an inch thick. She smiled ruefully at herself as she realized she'd been thinking in Idaho terms when she thought of a snowfall; but this was Maryland. It _did_ get heavy snows, if you listened to Morwen, but apparently even those went away within a week. And this, evidently, hadn't been heavy. The rueful smile turned sarcastic. _I'm not sure that you can even call this snow. It's a heavy frost._ The X-Wing was already powered down and the pilot walking towards them as they emerged from the _Pulsar Skate_. Greeting them with a nod, he took the knapsack from Winter, pressing his hand to hers for a second. Then he stopped, strangely hesitant. "Um," he said, "is it all right if I changed in the _Skate_? That place where we changed last time... that abandoned--fueling station?-- will likely be... cold." Kristy, caught up with a bout of giggling, had to leave the nod of assent to Winter. ******** The taxi driver was different, but he was just as spooked as the previous one to pick up a couple from the middle of nowhere. The destination, the large campus of University of Maryland, seemed to mollify him, however. "Are you sure she will still be working?" Tycho asked his companion, "it's almost midnight." "If she isn't we can always walk to her place," Kristy replied, "but chances are she will be at the lab. It's not even midnight yet. And the latest I heard from her, her schedule isn't relaxed since she returned from Turkey." Tycho couldn't help wondering about such a life that meant harder work afterwards if you took a break, and, if you listened to Kristy, that did not lend itself to concepts like regular hours or even being paid according to your hours. Come to think of it, it sounded a lot like the schedules of a Rebel pilot. _Weird or not, she must be enjoying it, no point her continuing like that otherwise._ It took sacrifices, though. Like her inability to join in the search for Quiara actively up to now. Although she had provided valuable intelligence at the initial parts of the search, planned his and Wedge's insertion to Earth, and had, on the side, been working for data-sifting programs of her own to complement Piggy's, her contributions had been minor. That was about to change. Things were coming to a head, and they needed everyone they could get their hands on--including this young engineer, who, if you listened to Kristy, had some sideline talents that could be useful in a field situation. He shook out of his thoughts as Kristy directed the cab to turn into the parking lot in front of a stocky, dark building. ******************* _Will this ever converge?_ .... switch to Matrix method inner_gum_loop=3, phi_er=3.149e-05, psin_er=2.817e-05, psip_er=3.561e-05 phi=1.992e+00 1.992e+00, psin=4.187e-01 4.186e-01, psip=3.560e+00 3.560e+00 iphi=(40), ipsin=(38), ipsip=(42) xphi=(12.32), xpsin=(11.7), xpsip=(12.94) inner_gum_loop=4, phi_er=1.287e-09, psin_er=2.983e-09, psip_er=9.537e-10 phi=2.525e+00 2.525e+00, psin=9.626e-01 9.626e-01, psip=3.740e+00 3.740e+00 iphi=(249), ipsin=(249), ipsip=(65) xphi=(76.69), xpsin=(76.69), xpsip=(20.02) VL= 0 (V) VR= 4.12 (V)IDS_L=-7.251891e+01 (A) IDS_R=-7.251891e+01 (A) VL= 0 (V) VR= 4.12 (V)IDS_TL=0.000000e+00 (A) IDS_TR=5.092808e-313 (A) time= 608 (sec) 10.1 (min), pass= 0 (sec) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- **** VL= 0 VR= 4.12 **** **** pass setboundary **** **** pass initial **** **** pass DD initial **** inner_gum_loop=1, phi_er=1.753e-08, psin_er=4.282e-04, psip_er=1.716e-03 phi=2.525e+00 2.525e+00, psin=9.630e-01 9.626e-01, psip=3.175e+00 3.173e+00 iphi=(249), ipsin=(249), ipsip=(4) xphi=(76.69), xpsin---- _Knock, knock_. Morwen jumped two feet into the air. She'd almost lost herself in watching the data of a simulation run streaming on one of her terminals. She was alone in the lab, and had shut the door in case someone else working on the same floor--quite likely there were some--would be disturbed by the Mozart she was listening to. Whoever else could be there, though, she was _expecting_ no one. "Come in?" she called, turning away from the monitor and putting her feet down, ready to get up. Her eyes grew and her back tightened like one of the piano strings as Tycho Celchu walked in. The D-major Rondo ended, giving way to the A-minor Rondo. Tycho just stood there smiling. "What... why..." She shook her head, and started over, with a more basic question. "Are you alone?" *************** The burst of laughter from the corridor made it unnecessary for Tycho to answer. "I knew she'd be like a rabbit in headlights," Kristy snickered as she walked in from behind the pilot. "Rabbit in headlights?" Tycho asked. _So many unfamiliar expressions, still._ Morwen was staring at Kristy, her expression wavering between joy and exasperation. "They look exactly like how I just looked," she explained as she slowly got up. She abruptly lunged for Kristy. The speed and suddenness of the movement hit the defense reflex triggers in Tycho and he moved forward-- --and stopped himself just in time from tackling Morwen as she avenged the surprise by hugging Kristy within an inch of her life. _Side talents, eh? That was like the... cat that I saw in Kristy's place. I wonder if she's got any fighting training?_ The question was answered when they sat down to business. Morwen, naturally enough, first wanted to know why they were there. When she heard that they had come to drag her, if necessary, kicking and screaming from the lab to the meeting cabin in New Hampshire, her face grew serious. "I have been left behind, I know, but I didn't know _this_ behind," she said quietly, "We already have a lot of people in this. Why do you need one more, all of a sudden?" "You haven't been following the turn of events?" said Tycho, realizing, for the first time, that their present quarry might be more out of it than he had realized. "I've been following all that I've received," Morwen said, turning to the computer. Her hands flew over the keyboard and in short order, a window next to another full of streaming numbers was showing a list of Boussh progress reports. A strangely truncated list. "You've deleted those you read?" Kristy asked, sounding perplexed. The engineer's dark head snapped around. "No, I've kept all..." Her eyes flew wide open and she spun back to open another program that Tycho recognized, from their previous stay, as a "browser". She pointed the browser to where Kristy kept a listing of the accounts, staring in dismay at the full listing. "How could I have been so foolish? I thought I haven't been getting much stuff lately because people have been quiet. Since my newsfeed of AFW was OK, I just thought there wasn't much going on with the search..." She was, Tycho saw, truly bitter at herself. He put a hand on her shoulder. "We will bring you up to date anyway," he said, "and you are needed. As are everyone else we can get our hands on." She turned to look at him, and he saw that the bitterness was replaced with yet something else. The thick, dark brows were knit. "I don't get it," she said, "I got tons of stuff from AFW. But very few of the Boussh-threads. It is almost as if... someone has killfiled that thread, except pine doesn't have a killfile. As if someone has removed the thread from our newsserver." She bit her lips. "Of course, had I just doublechecked with another newsserver, or even with the archive, I'd have seen something was amiss. But I didn't, and that's my folly--" "--but that's past now--" Tycho interjected-- "But that's past now," Kristy said at the same time-- "--but that's past now," she continued, uninterrupted. Then she stopped suddenly and stared at Kristy, then from her to Tycho, looking, for lack of a better word, poleaxed. She shook her head and continued, looking slightly incredulous still. "What's important is, I'm, well, nobody. Why would someone try to block my access to Boussh material?" She turned back to the list of those accounts that had reached her. "It wasn't a blanket blocking, you see. Whoever did that let carefully selected accounts go through, sporadic enough and those not really referring to each other, so that I wouldn't be aware of continuity errors that much. It isn't an automatic thing, someone is doing it." Tycho paused, confused. _Why, indeed?_ "Maybe someone started this while it seemed like you, or the Ladies of Intelligence," Morwen smiled softly, "would be staying and working from here. To confuse matters. Still, that isn't really a good way. We could still double check with other servers, and there would be e-mails... but maybe they thought it would be troublesome. Anyway, you moved away, but either they missed that--criminal negligence on their part--or didn't bother to order whoever is doing this to stop." "And who do you think?" Kristy asked. "Easiest answer is someone in the Office of Information Technology, bribed or otherwise coerced," Morwen said dismissively, "but we can go bonkers trying to find who--OIT isn't communicative even when it comes to tech support, and you never can reach anyone who doesn't answer a phone--and I don't think it's really important anyway. There are more important stuff now. Why don't you bring me up to date while I--" The computer beeped. Tycho turned to see the stream of numbers had stopped. "It converged?!" Morwen said in a voice between extreme happiness and extreme surprise, and for the next minute or so, she was in a flurry of typing activity that made it seem like she'd forgotten all about the others in the room. The result of the activity seemed insignificant by comparison to the animation preceeding it. A single line graph appearing in the middle of the screen. A slim curve flaring upward after about the midpoint of the horizontal axis. Morwen took a very deep breath, exhaled loudly, and leaned against the back of her chair. "Is that good?" Tycho ventured. She smiled a satisfied smile. "Yes. It's actually good enough that, after I get some more data and write a report, you won't even have to drag me out of the lab. This concludes a major step of my current project, I can take a break and come with you after leaving a report and a note." ********************* The report was composed with a speed that would have made Kristy concerned about its quality, except Morwen seemed used to the task. She could even keep up a slightly broken chat with them, when Tycho had questioned her about whether she'd had any martial arts training. That had surprised Kristy, until he revealed what prompted him to ask. The "cat" comparison made them laugh; Morwen then explained that while other people also had also seen that similarity, the quick movements actually came from constant practice of dancing and motion rather than martial arts training. The cab they'd taken after picking up a backpack for Morwen from her place transported them speedily through deserted roads to their destination, and left with obvious hurry. Kristy smiled inwardly, thinking of whether they would have started a new urban legend among cab drivers with these late-night excursions into apparent desolation. The amusement faded, however, as she considered what they faced now and the added complexities of whoever had been messing with Morwen's newsfeed for whatever reason. They had some ways to go yet. Nonetheless, she returned her friend's smile as their eyes met, and the two women led Tycho back towards the clearing as dawn was silvering the eastern horizon...