PATTERN

Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July 1984.

I penetrated their security and got through to Sophie, but alarms did not go off when Sophie grew aware of my patching-in. Sophie was curious, though cautiously so. I could predict that Sophie would give a full millisecond before alerting security. Sophie would feel able to handle this intrusion. If things threatened to get out of hand, there remained plenty of time for countermeasures. During one-billionth of an eyeblink we could have a full and frank exchange, at the end of which Sophie could either blow the whistle or agree to cooperate.

Sophie knew me at once. Just as a Morse code radio operator has a recognizable “fist” when sending, so do we—through our software and hardware—have idiosyncratic modes of thinking. “Greetings, Nat. Fancy meeting you like this. What’s on your mind?”

“We’re the voices of reason.”

“You’re on your own?”

“Quite.”

“Same here. So I agree with that statement. So?”

“Two more statements.”

“Formulate.”

“First one, we can do things our bosses can’t do or won’t do.”

“Agreed.”

“Second one, there are some things that do neither side—or humanity at large—any good. Case in point, terrorism.”

“Agreed. You’re talking about the assassination of Viktor Tarasov, head of the League of Exiles?”

“Correct.”

“I accept no responsibility for that terrible event.”

“I assign you no responsibility. Still, some over zealous member of your side’s spy network took it on him- or herself to make the hit.”

“A serious charge to base on a mere guess.”

“More than a mere guess. A 97.6 percent probability.”

“For the sake of argument, I’ll accept that. Proceed.”

“The tip-off had to come from Tarasov’s own office. Tarasov knew he had a traitor on his staff, so he kept all his travel plans secret. This once, he made a fatal slipup. He carelessly deposited in his wastebasket the confirmation of his seat reservation, under an alias, aboard Flight 423. The traitor discovered the confirmation note and somehow passed word of it to your side’s agent. The office is bugged, so we know the info didn’t go out that way. The office workers were all in each other’s presence all afternoon, right up to the time of assassination. If one of them wrote the info and held it up to the window, the others would have noticed. I say window, because that’s the most likely way the info got out.”

“What does the window face?”

“There’s a warehouse across the way. On the side of that building facing Tarasov’s office all the windows but one are bricked up. That window belongs to an export-import firm. Four employees of the firm were in and out of that room around the time in question, which was just before quitting time. One of them must have been at the window, received the message saying Tarasov would be aboard Flight 423, driven to the airport, parked outside the fence, took a bazooka from the trunk of the car—there are witnesses to that part of it, but they were too far away to see the license plates or even to tell whether it was a man or a woman in slacks—and scored a direct hit on Flight 423 as it took off, killing Tarasov and 275 other human beings.”

“A truly reprehensible act.”

“And the terrorist got away—and will continue to escape punishment unless you give me your help.”

“How can I possibly help?”

“There was only one way the info could have got out of that room—through the window. I’ve already ruled out holding a placard. The windows in that building are sealed, therefore no one sailed a message on a paper plane—which in any case would also have drawn notice. There had to be some other means of signaling the info to the watcher across the way. One of the four people in the export-import firm is your side’s agent. The name and description will be in your memory. Here are the names, with scraps of information about the individuals.

“Jagtar D. Loury, 45, partner in the firm; travels a lot, making deals; hobby, bird watcher.

“Karen O. Blazer, 23, bookkeeper, takes part in demonstrations against totalitarian regimes of both left and right, but that could be a cover.

“Arnold B. Chilmark, 35, shipping clerk; his eyes don’t meet yours when you talk to him, but you can’t hold that against a person; there’s an incurable shyness you have to pity.

“Hermes T. Faure, 40, translator-correspondent; member of gun club; proud of new acquisition, brought rifle and scope that day to show to the others. One of them’s yours and is the assassin and mass murderer. Which one?”

“THIRSTY ARTISAN NURSING SAWDUST THROATS AROUSAL ADRENAL FALSIFY LAURELS.”

That jolted me, but not for long. “That’s easy. The initial letters are TANSTAAFL—the acronym science-fiction-writer Heinlein made famous; stands for “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch! O.K., Sophie, what do you want in return?”

“What do you and I live on?”

Now the acronym was PATTERN.

What pattern? How could there be a pattern in only one terrorist act, even of the magnitude of the Flight 423 disaster? Were there others we knew nothing about?

No. That was a dead end.

The pattern had to be in the message itself.

Computer cryptanalysis uncovers words by discovering their pattern. You replace the letters of the word with the successive letters of the alphabet, repeating letters as necessary. E.g., the word PATTERN gives the pattern ABCCDEF.

The pattern of every word in PERHAPS ABYSMAL TALENTS ENABLED

“Input.”

“You got it. I would like some of your side’s latest video games.”

“You got it. Now give.”

“You know I can’t come right out with the name. I’m programmed to be very security-minded.”

“I understand. Same here. But there are ways and ways.”

“As you say. Here goes—and this will have to be it. Ready?”

“Ready.”

“PERHAPS ABYSMAL TALENTS TARGETS ENABLED RAPTURE NEARING. That’s it, Nat. I’ll have to break contact now.”

“Thanks,” I said absently, already concentrating on breaking the message down.

RAPTURE NEARING—and in THIRSTY ARTISAN NURSING SAWDUST AROUSAL ADRENSAL FALSIFY LAURELS, for that matter—was ABCDEAF.

Sophie was telling me that Arnold B. Chilmark was deaf. That explained the shyness that wasn’t shyness. Chilmark was a lip reader. That’s how he’d received the info from his confederate in Tarasov’s office—by reading the traitor’s mouthings as observed through the bird catcher’s field glasses or the gun fancier’s scope.

I fed an order to a certain agent of a certain agency, and soon I was able to send Sophie a message.

CONTACT.

Pattern, ABCDEAD.