Read Online This Alien Shore by C.S. Friedman - Free Book Online

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    MEETING WITH DEAN SUMPTER AT 10:30.
    â€œDamn.” He called up the current time, and saw that there were only two hours until the meeting. Not long enough to finish what he was doing. He called out for the vid to connect him with the Dean’s office. God willing the man would be up, and in, and approachable.
    He was. “Dr. Masada. I’ve been expecting to hear from you.”
    It was hard to switch gears, from the clean and straightforward language of code to the cluttered layering of human communication. “Sir?”
    â€œGuildmaster Hsing spoke to me yesterday regarding your obligations here. I’ve agreed to have Dr. Alesia cover for you this morning, and Towcester this afternoon. We’ll need you at the Standards Committee meeting tomorrow noon—no way around that one—but after that we can make do without you, if we have to.” He paused, and perhaps another man could have read some meaning into his expression. “I know how important your Guild work is to you.”
    What on Guera had the Guildsman said to him, to make him so agreeable? If Masada were a different man, he might have been suspicious, but as it was, he was simply grateful for the reprieve. “Thank you, sir.” Possibly the Guild had donated a large amount to some university fund that was near and dear to Dean Sumpter’s heart; the amount they had offered to Masada implied a large enough budget for that kind of gesture. And Sumpter could certainly be bought.
    Guildmaster Hsing. He hadn’t thought to ask the man’s name, he realized, or his rank. The fact that a Guildmaster had come all this way, forsaking control of an outworld station for more than an E-year to meet with him ... it meant that they were determined to hire him at any cost, under whatever conditions were necessary, and had sent a man with the authority to make binding promises. The Guild clearly didn’t intend to take no for an answer.
    Energized by that discovery—and by his sudden reprieve from scholastic duty—he took up the headset again to see what his comparison program had uncovered.

    â€œI t’s called a hide-and-seek,” he told the Guildmaster. “A sophisticated spy program meant to invade your outpilot’s brainware, copy certain information into its code, and then spin off ‘spore’ programs to reinfest the outemet. Meanwhile it would be improving itself and its offspring as well, and creating a back door through your security programs. So that if someday a version developed which could uncover more of your secrets it would have a guaranteed way back in.”
    â€œWhy did it attack our outpilot?”
    â€œI believe that may have been an accident. A side effect, if you like, of the virus’ true function. This one was designed to collect data during the pilot’s transition period; it may have simply dominated his brainware at the moment when he needed full access to his circuits. I would need more time to be sure of that,” he cautioned, “but right now it’s my best guess.”
    â€œAll right. All right.” The Guildmaster nodded slowly as he processed that information. “First question: can you stop it?”
    â€œYou mean an antibody program? Surely your own people have one in place by now.”
    â€œWe have three, to be exact. The best odds our designers will give us regarding their success aren’t reassuring. We’re hoping you can do better.”
    Part of Masada’s reputation came from never promising anything he couldn’t deliver. Thus he considered carefully before answering. “In a machine environment, I could guarantee you success. But this is the human brain we’re talking about,” he reminded him. “Every program that runs in the brain is altered by it, we know that. Even the virus itself will be affected by the brain it invades. Can I try to predict the overall pattern of such changes, allow for