Graph after graph pops up on Roze’s screens as they continue to dig through the data. Production numbers, mundane communications, advertisements. From this they’ll probably be able to get a sense of how many people are in Morgan domes and broad strokes of Morgan Industries’ large-scale plans, such as if they are getting anywhere near Data Haven. There have been no overt strikes since Arx was caught, so I doubt the teen gave away this location. However, there is always the chance that Morgan Industries might just happen upon Data Haven if they start surveying this far afield.
Cleve takes an interest in supply. While Data Haven subsists on rations, Morgan Industries produces its own food within domes. And there are the locally-sourced materials that Campos’s company uses, chitin-lumber for want of a better term.
“What is that racket?” Roze demands, when the sounds of pings and clatters suddenly disrupts our conference. They should be pleased that the natural light in the hallway they were complaining about earlier is gone. A monsoon has rolled through, blotting out the suns and dumping a pile of rain above Data Haven. Tenoch’s modifications are letting in more noise than before, so we can hear the pitter-patter of it now.
I pull Roze’s attention back in here. “Anything about where Professor Zakharov comes from?” So far, I know about Data Haven and about Morgan Industries. But there may be other groups out there who either need to be convinced that we can coexist with the planet, or who are already inclined to work with the Stepdaughters of Chiron. My only lead on that is a name from Corazon. Roze tells me that Zakharov’s faction is much larger than Data Haven, perhaps on the scale of Morgan or the Stepdaughters of Chiron. It’s across the Tethys Sea, the coast of which Cleve and I saw on our first day awake.
There’s some amount of trade between the University and Morgan Industries, but crossing the Tethys is surprisingly perilous. One might have thought it would be easier than land travel since you don’t have to deal with fungus, but there are storms and currents. And given everything else we’ve encountered, probably sea monsters, too. Seaweed versions of briar beasts, perhaps. Cleve suggests the name kelp kraken.
“There were other colony pods,” Roze reminds us. “In the event of a tragedy such as what occurred, they were designed to disperse and spread out. By all accounts, there ought to be other people who survived. It’s just a matter of who’s running those shows. Probably these University fellas have some more contacts, being on a different landmass as they are.” Data Haven has no regular contact with any other group; there’s no courier service with a scheduled run between here and the Stepdaughters of Chiron, for example. Even the news they get from Morgan Industries is irregular, just based on who flees it and the occasional message passed to Morris.
“You got any other co-workers you want to check on?” Cleve asks me.
“Do you mean friends from Earth? No. But actually…” I have Roze look around for anything on the people we’ve met here so far. Any new wanted posters for Corazon? Any word on Yushi? Roze finds some correspondence among Yushi’s bosses. This confirms that Yushi is, as we were led to believe, a repo squad manager. He actually got a bonus for returning the fungicide cartridge we gave him! Cleve rolls his eyes when he hears that. These messages indicate that Yushi’s squad was really just sent to chase problem-child Corazon away; they didn’t think Yushi would recover anything at all. This is actually good news; it means no one is likely to still be hunting for Cor to bring her to justice. Management thinks it’s too expensive to go after her, a waste of resources. Particularly with the new fungicide they expect to receive soon. Mind you, she’s still persona non grata in a Morgan dome, and her showing up there could set off alerts.
Also in this traffic is the report from Yushi on our first meeting and some discussion of it. He included in his write-up that he’d met Mariah Thorne from Morgan Prospecting and a guide. Unfortunately, there’s some back and forth about that. One manager says they checked with a friend in that division who says there’s no record of me there and wonders if there’s been some kind of mix-up. There’s not a serious level of suspicion; this name confusion is just an oddity. Still, it could cause trouble for me later with Yushi, next time I see him.