Fallen Star by Hawke Morgan

Author:Hawke, Morgan [Hawke, Morgan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9781596321199
Publisher: Loose Id
Published: 2005-05-17T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Three

The grueling march continued through several broad corridors and ended with a sharp left turn into a small very plain chamber walled in black and carpeted in dark blood-red. The compartment was commanded by a broad black desk on the immediate left and a huge, nearly floor-to-ceiling window against the facing wall, showing space as it streamed by at jump speed. The door cycled closed behind them.

Khan unsnapped the leash and pushed her toward the desk. He tugged out the desk chair and shoved her into it. He slapped both palms on the desk’s surface. A keyboard formed from the desk’s surface and three holographic displays bloomed into being. A second keyboard, completely holographic, appeared and lifted to sit under his palms.

Khan’s fingers flew across the holographic keyboard. “You will give me a copy of this spectral code of yours. Now.”

“Yes, ‘Syr.” Fallon folded her arms and raised a brow at him. “I need a direct access jack and a rather specific Imperial interface script editor to make you that copy. ‘Syr.”

Khan curled his lip, showing a long tooth. “Name your program.”

She did.

Khan tapped across his floating keyboard. The program appeared on the main display before her.

Fallon blinked. Great Maker, he not only had the program she needed, his version was newer than hers. She winced. Newer than hers had been. Everything she’d owned was lost back on Dyson’s.

Khan leaned over the edge of the desk by her right knee, opened a drawer that hadn’t been there before, and wasn’t there again after he pushed it closed.

Fallon blew a strand of hair from her nose. He would have a mimetic desk.

Khan uncoiled a direct data jack, plugged one end into a port that appeared under his palm and then held the other end out to her. “Begin.”

Fallon set the jack into the back of her skull and began writing code. Her spectral code activated, and the music that ran it began to play.

Khan frowned. “Do I hear music?”

Fallon nodded, watching as the code on the holographic display began to shift into harmonious patterns. “I have a problem with math. Music is mathematically precise so I use it to memorize key phrases of coding.”

Khan frowned at his display. That explains the stylistic flavor of her coding.

Fallon glanced at Khan, guessing that he’d meant his comment to be private. Apparently the collar-induced telepathy went both ways.

Fallon felt her program shift, and the text written before her abruptly changed composition. Her programming still saw it, but it no longer existed as light.

Khan frowned. “What happened?”

Fallon frowned at her display. “I’m running it to check for flaws, ‘Syr.”

Khan stared at her. “There is nothing on my display.”

Fallon smiled tightly. “It’s there, you just can’t see it. You have to have the programming code downloaded to perceive it.” Her internal program scan ended. It was functional. She turned to Khan. “It’s ready, ‘Syr.”

“Burn a copy.”

Fallon shook her head. “It doesn’t work that way. You can’t save it the way you can normal programs. What it’s written in disintegrates.

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