TRUE NAMES Read Online Free PDF Page B

held up his hands. “I’m convinced. But what should we do? You’ve got the best angle in Wiley. The Mailman doesn’t know you’ve got a tap through him, does he?”
    She shook her head. “Wiley is too chicken to tell him, and doesn’t realize that I can do this with his True Name. But I’m already doing everything I can with that. I want to pool information, guesses, with you. Between us maybe we can see something new.” “Well for starters, it’s obvious that the Mailman’s queer communication style — those long time delays — is a ploy. I know that fellow is listening all the time to what’s going on in the Coven meeting hall. And he commands a number of sprites in real time.” Mr. Slippery remembered the day the Mailman — or at least his teleprinter — had arrived. The image of an American Van Lines truck had pulled up at the edge of the moat, nearly intimidating Alan. The driver and loader were simulators, though good ones. They had answered all of Alan’s questions correctly, then hauled the shipping crate down to the meeting hall. They hadn’t left till the warlocks signed for the shipment and promised to “wire a wall outlet” for the device. This enemy definitely knew how to arouse the curiosity of his victims. Whoever controlled that printer seemed perfectly capable of normal behavior.
Perhaps it’s someone we already know, like in the mysteries where the murderer masquerades as one of the victims. Robin Hood?
“I know. In fact, he can do many things faster than I. He must control some powerful processors. But you’re partly wrong: the living part of him that’s behind it all really does operate with at least a one-hour turnaround time. All the quick stuff is programmed.”
    Mr. Slippery started to protest, then realized that she could be right. “My God, what could that mean? Why would he deliberately saddle himself with that disadvantage?”
    Erythrina smiled with some satisfaction. “I’m convinced that if we knew that, we’d have this guy sighted. I agree it’s too great a disadvantage to be a simple red herring. I think he must have some time-delay problem to begin with, and —”
    “— and he has exaggerated it?” But even if the Mailman were an Australian, the low satellite net made delays so short that he would probably be indistinguishable from a European or a Japanese. There was no place on Earth where…
but there are places off Earth!
The mass-transmit satellites were in synchronous orbit 120 milliseconds out. There were about two hundred people there. And further out, at L5, there were at least another four hundred. Some were near-permanent residents. A strange idea, but still a possibility.
    “I don’t think he has exaggerated. Slip, I think the Mailman — not his processors and simulators, you understand — is at least a half-hour out from Earth, probably in the asteroid belt.”
    She smiled suddenly, and Mr. Slippery realized that his jaw must be resting on his chest. Except for the Joint Mars Recon, no human had been anywhere near that far out.
No human
. Mr. Slippery felt his ordinary, everyday world disintegrating into sheer science fiction. This was ridiculous.
    “I know you don’t believe; it took me a while to. He’s not so obvious that he doesn’t add in some time delay to disguise the cyclic variation in our relative positions. But it is a consistent explanation for the delay. These last few weeks I’ve been sniffing around the classified reports on our asteroid probes; there are definitely some mysterious things out there.”
    “Okay. It’s consistent. But you’re talking about an interstellar
invasion
. Even if NASA had the funding, it would take them decades to put the smallest interstellar probe together — and decades more for the flight. Trying to invade anyone with those logistics would be impossible. And if these aliens have a decent stardrive, why do they bother with deception? They could just move in and brush us aside.”
    “Ah,