BOUNDARY(169)

"Yes! Thank you, thank you, you are gorgeous and brilliant and just plain always say the right thing at the right time!"



She was laughing. "You nut. What is this all about?"



A.J. rose, giving a hand to Helen at the same time. "You and old fangface there and a few reminiscences. I can do it, Helen!"



He felt the grin just about splitting his face from ear to ear. "I know how to decode that damn disc! Screw Earth, I don't even need to go back to Nike, I just need her bandwidth and some design work that we can do right here!"



"Joe! Hey, Joe, you and me have got some detective work to do." As A.J. and the Tayler Corporation had programmed, the smart suit recognized when the wearer spoke a name in such a way as to indicate "connect me with this person" and opened an appropriate channel. Not waiting for Joe's response, A.J. continued marshaling his resources. "Yo, Jackie!"



"Ms. Secord is sleeping at the moment," came an automated reply. "If this is an emergency—"



"Not really, no. Is Dr. Gupta there?"



The unmistakable sonorous voice answered in a moment. "Yes, I am here. A.J.? What is it that you need? No emergency, I hope?"



"No, just a hell of a job. I'm going to need a lot of the processing capacity of Nike dedicated to running an ad-hoc network with, um. . . a few billion individual nodes."



To his credit, Dr. Gupta's reaction was only slightly delayed. "That is indeed a formidable task, especially if as I suspect you will be passing data through the network for analysis. You will have the protocols for us and the specifications on what functions you will need? And when exactly this will be needed?"



"Oh, you can bet on my having the exact code for you. When? Ah . . . let's say the day after tomorrow. I've got some engineering work to do down here with Joe. I just want you guys to make sure that I'll have the system clear for me then."



"It shall be done, assuming that the captain approves. What is the reason for this interesting task?"



"Getting that disc Rich found a couple of days ago to spill its guts so Rich and Jane can really go to town."



"Ah. In that case I cannot see any reason why you would not have access to virtually all of our processing capacity at the time you specify."



"Didn't think so. A.J. out."



He started for the exit. "Joe! You coming?"



"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming. Remember that Mr. Gimpy is slower than you are. Mind telling me exactly what it is we have to tinker together out of duct tape and WD-40?"



"Sure, won't take a minute."





Joe had a lot of questions and comments that changed the design somewhat. But by the time they got back to Thoat and the tools they needed, the basic design was already visible in their HUDs.



"Not too hard. Yeah, A.J., we can do that in a day."



It actually took ten hours and seventeen minutes.





A.J. carefully unpacked the device from the container he'd used to carry it all the way from the surface to the innermost sanctum of the Vault. He placed it on the polished, flat surface that was clearly a desk or table and, despite millions of years of waiting, seemed to be just as solid as the day it was made.



"It's showtime."



Rich looked at the thing in bemusement. "Just what is it? It looks like something you and Joe dreamed up with a box of metal Tinkertoys and a few electronic lab kits."



The object was about half a meter across, a square framework of slender metal tubes or thick wires with a carefully arranged clamping device in the center, and round black cases at the corners. Wires trailed from it to connect to a fuel cell.



"That," A.J. said, as he gingerly extracted the precious disc from its case, "is the support and supply framework for the device that's going to read this old book-on-disc for you."



"Ah . . . there's no reader or anything on that framework," Rich pointed out, as A.J. clamped the disc carefully into the holder. "And that clamp won't let the disc spin, which seems almost certain to be the way it was read."



"There will be, and it doesn't have to spin," A.J. replied confidently. "Just watch."



And with that, he took the entire bag of Fairy Dust he'd brought with him and upended it onto the framework, disc, and all.



In that large a mass, the dust-sized, motile sensor motes looked more like liquid graphite than dust, but unlike any liquid, the mass stopped flowing long before it could spill off the table. Eerily, the stuff began to move upward, spreading first along all the structural supports of the framework, and then filling in the gaps, and covering the entire surface of the alien disc.