The Human Blend - Alan Dean Foster [43]
“Content is encrypted.”
The techrap looked relieved. “Is that all?” Moving to the workbench, he fingered additional controls. Two more pieces of equipment came to life; one to the right of the capsule-holder, the other that was built into the shelf beneath it. After a delay of a minute or so one, or perhaps both of them, beeped softly.
“Decryption failed.”
Was that a hint of confusion in the gray box’s synthesized voice? a perplexed Whispr wondered.
Leaning his back against the workbench and sliding his tail onto a vacant shelf Gator crossed leathery arms as he stared at the floating image of the uncooperative thread. “Military level?” he inquired aloud.
“No.” Gray box’s response was unexpected. “Beyond military. Beyond anything in my files or that I can access via the box. I can distinguish patterns within. But as soon as they are pursued, holes are encountered.”
“Utilize the patterns to construct temporary bridges.” Gator was now utterly involved in the probe, Whispr saw. Had the engineer possessed a brow, it would have been deeply furrowed.
“That has been tried. Thus far no bridging effort has proven successful.”
Gator nodded with satisfaction at this first sign of encouragement, however inconclusive. “ ‘Thus far.’ Keep at it unless and until you hit a wall.” Remembering that he was not alone, he looked over at the blank-faced Whispr and explained patiently.
“For every hole in an encryption pattern it is possible to construct a bridge based on the underlying nature of the encryption pattern itself. It might fall into place on the tenth attempt, or on the trillionth. But the number of possibilities is finite. While we’re waiting for the box to find one we might as well eat something. You like Italian?”
Never one to turn down a free meal, Whispr avowed as how he did.
Almost as distinctive and engrossing as Gator’s appearance was the sight of him using a special utensil to shovel penne pasta into his crocodilian jaws. They ate in the workshop. It would not have surprised Whispr to learn that Gator slept there as well, comfortably ensconced among his instruments and tools, his pet caimans and garails.
The gray box and its wireless attendants were still humming away trying to unlock the secrets of the thread’s contents when farther up the workbench the portal beam analyzer chimed for attention. Carrying his now almost empty plate of self-heating pasta Gator rose from where he was sitting and ambled over to study the readout. Having long since downed the last of his own meal Whispr watched as his intent host stared fixedly at the wisp of screen.
“Well, what’s it say?”
Though not words of magic, Whispr’s query broke the spell that seemed to have overtaken his host. Gator blinked and turned to him. “At the outset we encountered an oddity. Now I find that compounded by an impossibility.” Whispr’s response to this avowal consisting of blank incomprehension, his host hastened to explain. “It is the thread’s composition. It’s chemically absurd. It’s physically preposterous.
“Under normal pressure and temperature metallic hydrogen shouldn’t even exist.”
HOURS PASSED, NIGHT DEEPENED, AND the Alligator Man seemed to grow more and not less energized as one tantalizing clue about the mystifying thread after another was disclosed by his interlinked complex of instruments. Minuscule as they were, periodic revelations emerged only after long periods of analysis by multiple devices. As midnight snuck up on the two Melds and then fled, Whispr found himself having to struggle to keep from nodding off. Fortunately, a refrigerator in one corner of the workshop proved to be an inexhaustible font of chilled stimulants. So he was able to stay awake but grew increasingly edgy doing so.
Not Gator. The more he learned about the thread’s composition, if not its still impenetrable contents, the more determined he became to winkle them out.
“Look at this.” Holding a hard copy in front of the sleepy Whispr he shook the reusable paper violently. “According to the laws of physics and metallurgy not only is the thread’s atomic