72 - A Lot of Information to Exchange

“Hara?”  The voice was faint and far away but she could hear Shashi calling her.  Tizrav weasel-bounced sideways and ran out the door.

*I find. I find. I hunter. I flyer. I… I… I… go! ---“ Her chatter in the code was like a continuous stream of her awareness that Hara could almost see it was so steady.  She latched onto Shashi’s search code and dragged it to the moon base office in her teeth like a dead snake.  *See, see. I hunter. I mighty. I big.*

“Yes, thank you Tizrav.”

“How intriguing!” The Terry program said, peering down from his screen as Tizrav dumped her strand of code on the floor. “You have a living interface with code that allows you to handle all kinds of dangerous things… as if they were poisonous or venomous… without burning your own synapses out of your head.  That’s an extremely clever way of dealing with code at this level.”

“Thank you,” Hara said drily. “It’s nice to see that we primitives have something that you haven’t seen yet.” Just wait till he meets the Hive.

“Oh no offense, Heraklez, please don’t take offense.”

Hara picked up the seek end of the strand, tagged it with herself and suddenly Shashi was there, one hand clenched to the other end, now manifest in this reality.  “THERE you are!  I thought we’d lost you in the code like we lost your father and stepfather.”

“Heraklez… might I beg an introduction?” Terence Program asked.  The image on the screen tugged at its coat, swept a hand through the hair, though neither had been disarranged to begin with.

“No,” she snapped and turned her back on it.  “Shashi…how is my body holding up?”

Shashi smiled, her eyes crinkling over her veil.  “You’re safe for another few hours, before I’d start getting worried.  This code is so well hidden that you had to reel me in, or I’d never have found it.” She nodded at the screen behind Hara.  “A friend?”

“A machine,” Hara said.  She wasn’t sure why she was feeling so… abrupt.  “Shashi Basserus, this is Terence Cameron’s Program to receive me.  I touched the man who devised it while in code getting Pa out of his tree-shape and out from under the security.  He’s on Xanadu and he’s rebelling against the Owner.”

“I am charmed, sir!” the image snapped a razor sharp bow.   

“I refuse to be treated like an Illiterate any longer… but if he catches me, I’m deleted out of his perfect world.”

“I see.”  Her eyes narrowed.  “Since this was specifically for Hara… would your creator mind if we exchanged some information?”

“It has to imagine that we’re male –“ Hara put in, sitting down again.  “Xanadu apparently has weird ideas about how smart and capable girls are.  Big surprise.  The owner is a murderous tyrant and his society treats women like dirt.”

“Heavens, no!” Terence exclaimed.  “Women are delicate, beautiful, fragile flowers of humanity…”

“Who need a Keeper walking behind her to repeat everything she says so people… other men actually… can hear what she has to say.”

“Another lovely idea by Perrin.” Shashi said.  “So… might I join you?”

It hadn’t answered her question and looked uncomfortable.   

“Um… Shashi Basserus… this is so far beyond the parametres of my ability…” His look cleared.  “Why don’t we say ‘I can’t stop you?”

Shashi laughed.  “Why don’t we?”  Tizrav ran over to climb Hara as Shashi came in.  “We have a few hours and I have a feeling we have a lot of information to exchange.”