“Updates?”

“Yeah, bug-fixes and stuff. Revisions to the program code that are supposed to make it run better.”

“Okay.” Runstom started thinking out loud again. “So someone could have used this up-link to put the program into your LifSup. Does that mean they would have used a satellite somehow?”

“Yeah. Well. Not necessarily a satellite. But in order to speak to the receiver down here, they’d have to do it from somewhere in orbit around the planet. I don’t know much about satellite communication. But it seems like it’d be possible for someone in some other kind of space vessel to carry the same kind of transmitter that a satellite would use, and beam the signal down to our receiver.”

Runstom took a moment to digest that. “Wouldn’t the data coming down from a satellite be secure?”

“Yes, I’m sure there’s an identification process,” Jax said. “Plus an encryption layer. So we’re talking two possibilities here. Either they somehow mimicked a known satellite, which would be tricky, because they’d have to get information used to generate the identification of the specific piece of hardware out there in space.”

“And we are already looking at the possibility of someone who has enough inside information about a LifSup system to be able to circumvent the safety checks,” Runstom said. “So we can’t rule that out.”

Jax nodded slowly. “Yeah, true. The other possibility is that they knew of some other channel, some back-door or something into a LifSup system.”

“You mean like some other up-link?”

“Well, not really. I mean the same up-link, but during the handshake – when the signals are being sent from each end to identify itself – there could be some kind of code that you could send to the LifSup side to get direct access to the system.”

“Why would there be some secret code?” Runstom asked. “I mean, if they can already send updates through the up-link, why would they need a ‘back-door’ into the system?”

Jax pulled his arms up and twisted his upper body in his chair, popping a few kinks in his back as he did. “Well, it’s just an idea. I’ve seen technicians when they’re working on a system that’s not behaving normally. When something subtle is off, they like to use a special port somewhere on the LifSup main unit. They plug directly into it with their personal computer and send it some special code that gives them full-access to the system. I figure it’s the kind of thing that’s universal across LifSup systems, or at least LifSup systems of the same model. It’s just there for troubleshooting purposes.”

“So you figure that there’s another back-door in the up-link that works the same way a technician uses a physical port to get into a system,” Runstom reasoned.

“Now, I don’t know that for a fact,” the operator said, spreading his hands out in front of him. The more he had to explain technology, the more physically mobile he seemed to get. “Let’s just say, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were such a back-door.”

“Okay, okay.” Runstom nodded and looked down at his notes. It was all speculation, and it was all hinging on this prisoner being wrongfully accused. Runstom willed himself to resist judgment one way or the other, but he felt like he had to decide if it was even possible for someone to exploit the system in such a way. Was it even possible for Jax to have been set up? “So we have so far. One, someone who knows the internals of Life Support systems writes some code that would open both sets of venting doors on a block. Two, they disguise this code and set it up to run as a replacement for a login prompt, knowing that it would cause some operator to unwittingly execute it. Three, they beam the code down from a transmitter of some kind to the satellite up-link of the LifSup system at block 23-D.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s about it,” Jax said, looking off into the distance. He seemed to be lost in thought for a moment, his eyebrows furrowing and his mouth opening slightly as if he were about to add something else. Then he simply shook his head, then nodded. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

Runstom studied the other man and they both lapsed into silence for a few minutes. The door to the interrogation room opened and the rookie B-fourean officer came through. He held the door open and George Halsey came in after him.

“Oh, hey, George,” Runstom said, feeling his face redden with guilt.

“Officer Runstom,” Halsey said, standing over the table. “I see you decided to question the prisoner.” He eyeballed Runstom. “Just like we talked about.”

Runstom stood up. “Uh, yeah. Like we talked about.” He tried to make his voice power through the sheepishness he was feeling in getting caught by his partner.

Halsey used the next awkward pause to grab the top of the chair Runstom had been sitting on and wheel it over to himself, swooping it beneath him, sitting, and lifting his feet up and dropping them crossed onto the table in one continuous motion. His head lolled back in a kind of relaxed apathy. If there was an art to laziness, Halsey had mastered it.

Runstom frowned at Halsey, then glanced back at the one-way window that stretched across the back of the room. “So you watched some of the interview, right? Or do I need to catch you up?” He cast a sideways glance at Jax, who was looking at both of them timidly. Runstom was worried that Halsey’s sudden entrance undid all the work he’d done to open the prisoner up.

“Yeah, I caught most of it,” Halsey said, following Runstom’s eyes to Jax. “Lemme ask you fellas this. Do you think that this alleged satellite transmission happened right before the incident at the block? Or did someone allegedly beam that code you’re talking about down to the LifSup months ago and it laid there dormant?” At the end of the question, he briefly speared Runstom with a warning look, then his face relaxed again as he turned back to await Jax’s answer. Reproval was something rare to see in Halsey’s eyes and it fueled Runstom’s lingering doubt over whether he should have started the interrogation in the first place.

“Well, either is possible I suppose,” Jax said. Apparently, Halsey’s relaxed manner extinguished any previous anxiety, because the operator again spoke freely. “I guess it doesn’t seem likely that they would beam it down and let it just sit there on the system for long. In fact, it probably sat hidden in volatile memory, so it would be wiped clear during a reset and no trace of it would ever be found.”

Halsey nodded and ran his fingers through his short, blond hair. “Clever,” he said. He looked at Runstom. “I’m thinking traffic logs.”

“What traffic logs?” Jax asked.

“ModPol keeps record of all space traffic coming in and out of the system, orbiting the planets, going into the asteroid belts, and so on,” Halsey said, turning to Jax again to answer the question. He looked back at Runstom. “We could access the logs, find out who was out there at the time of the transmission – alleged transmission – and get their approximate position.”

“Right.” Runstom knew Halsey was going to give him an earful when they left the interrogation room, and yet the other officer seemed to be happy to play along. Then it clicked as to what Halsey was talking about. “Because you would need a direct line of sight from a ship to the receiver dish at block 23-D in the Gretel dome on this planet.”

“Exactly. We plot all the coordinates of ships in the system at that time, and then we can isolate just the ones that would be in position to beam a signal down to his LifSup,” Halsey said, waving a finger at Jax. “Allegedly beam a signal.”

CHAPTER 6

“He goes by Three-Hairs Benson. Bluejack is his game. I know he’s been here, so you might as well make it easy on yourself.”

The proprietor of the card-house smirked. “Listen, lady. We got a strict policy here at the Grand Star Resort.” He raised a yellow finger. “We don’t ask for names, and we don’t give out names. We protect the identities of our clients.” He took the raised finger and bent it down, poking the flat palm of his other hand. “You come to a bluejack table, you lay down cash, you get a color, and that’s what we call ya.”