Caleb's Web by Alyssa Hope & J. P. Webb

Author:Alyssa Hope & J. P. Webb [Hope, Alyssa]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2017-07-10T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5.

Caleb started brooding about the lost children, and the years Suki had spent in slavery. He knew they were finding some of the children, but slowly, and there were too many still out there, and they had no way of knowing if they were safe or at risk. There had to be a pattern which, when seen, would lead to a way to find them faster. Oki agreed, and assigned the ever-present Kasu to assist Caleb in setting up a computer program to search. Anything that might offer help would be good.

When he wasn’t rolling around naked with Suki, Caleb started spending his time with Kasu going over star maps and time lines, trying to develop an algorithm to tell them where the lost children might be. There was a pattern, he knew there was, even if he couldn’t see it yet. The lonely geek who had grown up to be a solitary engineer with his own ship loved the logic of patterns.

At first he just worked at one terminal or another that was unused at the time, and then he was assigned his own terminal, with a chair more suited to his smaller frame. Kasu did something to protect the programming so he couldn’t accidentally blow the ship up, although he took that as an insult. He might not be the smartest human around, but he was an engineer and a pilot, and he knew what he was doing with computers.

Kasu smiled kindly at him, and shrugged.

‘It’s all good. You can play now.’

That offended him, but he didn’t say anything. Apparently Oki wasn’t the only one who thought he was a stupid human. He had a discussion with the computer when Kasu wasn’t around, and regained access to everything, and was astounded by the untapped power in the system.

To build his pattern, his map, it was simply a matter of having enough power and enough information, and his new people had some of the most powerful computing equipment he had ever seen. If it had enough information, a pattern would emerge. He asked it questions and sometimes the computer answered right away, and sometimes it took days for the answers, or partial answers, or more questions, to come back to him.

When had the children been stolen, where and when had the ones they had recovered been found? Where had they been in the interim? Exactly where had they been and what had they been doing when they disappeared?

What ships had been where? What traders? What travellers, what explorers? What signals had been heard, what rumours, shifts in opinion? Dates, places, people, ideas? It was all data, and if they had enough of it, it would tell them a story, and then they could find the children.

He expanded the information search, building a massive multi-dimensional web. Where had there been droughts or wars, planet scale events that had caused evacuations or emigration? Addictions, religions, prophets or dictators? Who had sent messages across space, translated or not? Warp anomalies, unexplained

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