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water. Tell me how it works, he said.
Griffith laughed. Okay, buck. It s actually very simple. You know chess
people, they have bulletin boards on computers in a lot of locations, right?
It wouldn t surprise me.
Well, a lot of these people put chess problems up on the bulletin boards for
other people to solve, okay? Or they play chess against one another on
computers, or whatever.
I follow.
Griffith smiled, sucked in tobacco smoke, exhaled. Okay. So here s how it
works. You go into the station, find a terminal or a telephone, get onto their
chess bulletin board, and look for a particular chess problem. You take a
memory spike with you and plug it into the terminal. You punch in a certain
incorrect answer that we ll give you, then a password. The computer will feed
your memory threads some data. You unjack and go back to your ship, you get
some time on the ship s transmitter, you aim the antenna, and you shoot the
data to a certain address in
Antarctica that I ll give you. After that the information is put on the market
and you get a cut, ten percent, wired to an account of your choice anywhere
between here and Neptune.
Why can t the guy who steals the data in the first place send it
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Williams, Walter Jon - Voice of the Whirlwind off?
Because he wouldn t have unrestricted access to transmission equipment. A lot
of these corporate habitats are worried about signal intelligence, and they
monitor transmissions very carefully. They can t do that with the antennas of
ships that happen to be docked on their station. Griffith grinned. Pretty
good, huh?
Steward frowned, tried to think of a problem with it. I don t even have to
see the guy I m dealing with? he asked. Not at either end?
Griffith shook his head. That s the beauty of it. And if you access the chess
problem over public lines from the station, and not through any commo hookup
from your ship, they don t know who s doing it even if the whole system is
compromised.
I ll have to think about it.
A smile creased Griffith s face. Let me know before you go up the well. I ll
give you the problem and the password, and we ll set up your mode of payment.
And some way I can contact you.
The chess problem and password change from time to time.
I ll think about it. Steward watched Griffith stub out his cigarette and
knew that his delay, his insisting on thinking about it, was just a method of
retaining a certain amount of his self-
respect, that in the end he would agree to Griffith s plan. He couldn t find
anything wrong with it. He wouldn t have to meet any more of Griffith s
friends, not unless he wanted to go
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Williams, Walter Jon - Voice of the Whirlwind looking. And he d make some
money.
But more important, it would keep him in touch with the way things moved in
the real world. Keep some of his reflexes honed, keep him looking over his
shoulder at least part of the time. So that when he wanted to do some things,
up there in the vacuum, he wouldn t have to worry about being entirely out of
practice.
He could look on it, he thought, as free training.
The night flight from LA arrived at six in the morning. Steward took a cab
from the airport, trying to sleep in the back, but caffeine was still
trickling across his nerves, keeping him awake.
When Steward opened the door to Ardala s apartment, he saw her across the
living room, dressed for work, watching the silent video while holding the
mastoid audio receiver to her skull. She looked up at him quickly and raised a
finger to her lips. Steward moved into the room and saw Ardala s niece, age
five, lying on the couch under one of Ardala s discarded jackets. Ardala put
down the mastoid receiver and stood, walking into the hallway where they could
talk.
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