Children of the Fleet (Fleet School #1)(21)

“It’s hidden in plain sight.”

“As what, a game?”

“Games are hard to use as a disguise for data. To be believable, the game has to be good enough that they would believe someone of your intelligence would play it.”

“So … in a graphics file.”

“In a painting, very expressionistic. It’s one of your favorites.”

“I don’t have a favorite painting. I don’t have any paintings.”

“You have three paintings, all of which you treasure. In these roughed-in parts of each painting, there are several that seem smeary or pixelated. These actually contain code. If you run the exercise-charting program, using the painting as data input, it will show you a three-dimensional map of Fleet School, at least as it was during its Battle School days about eight years ago.”

“What’s to stop the school authorities from doing that?”

“It shows you an error message, and you have ten seconds, without any visible feedback or instructions, to type in the password.”

“And what is the password?”

“Whatever you type, the first time you run it. I suggest you do that here on Earth, as soon as possible. Run the exercise program on all three paintings, and you’ll have as much information as we have that might help you. And the address to which you should send instructions about what portal you’ll open for our little invasion force. We’ll watch for it to open, close, reopen, and close again. Then we’ll tell you the date and time you need to open it for our force.”

“No,” said Dabeet. “I’ll tell you. You won’t know what times I’ll be free, what times the spot I chose will be accessible. I’ll let you know when the window will open and stay open.”

“I don’t believe this will work,” said the general. “But other people think that poking the bear is a dandy idea, because after all, what harm can an angry bear do?”

“I’m a kid,” said Dabeet. “What could go wrong, following the plans of some immigrant kid?”

“My point exactly, but who listens? Each time you pull up one of the pictures to access the information, when you quit your session, all traces of the decoded data will be erased. Just so you know that your phone will always be secure.”

“Secure as long as their searches are perfunctory. If they ever think they have something to worry about and become thorough, nothing will be secure,” said Dabeet.

“It’s good that you know that,” said the general. “Emails can be sent to and from Fleet School. Watch for us. Check your filtering software—our messages will always go straight into your spam folder. They’ll never come from the same address twice, so never answer. Only write to the address concealed in one of the picture files.”

“Which they’ll detect, if they want to.”

“It never leads to the same place twice. And if you receive no message from us for more than thirty days, send a message to your mother complaining of the weather in Fleet School. We’ll know that means we must write to you through her as well.”

“So you’ll be reading my mother’s mail?”

“We will,” said the general. “Are you going to complain that her constitutional rights are being violated?”

Dabeet said nothing. If they thought he would be more loyal to them because they would be in such close control of his mother, they were mistaken. He owed them nothing. Nor did he owe their stupid plan even token compliance.

The general could not be reading his thoughts. Yet he said, “This is your plan, so don’t be skittish. There are risks, and you volunteered to take them.”

“My plan is to try to involve the IF in Earthside wars, to put a stop to them. If there’s nothing to put a stop to—”

“The first fighting has already begun on many battlefields. And Russia has made a play at kidnapping many of the top Battle School students. Whether that benefits them is unknowable, but it certainly harms those nations from which the Battle Schoolers were taken.”

So the plan was regarded as necessary to preserve the independence of small countries. “Just make sure that when you come, you don’t hurt anybody,” said Dabeet. “Not one serious injury. Not one death.”

“That’s our goal.”

“You don’t think it will happen that way,” said Dabeet.

“Live bullets will fly,” said the general. “No plan survives in the face of the enemy.”

Unspoken, of course, was this: The moment Dabeet secretly let the invaders into Fleet School, he would have no more control over their actions than would any other child. It did not matter if the Trojan horse had second thoughts once the concealed Danaean soldiers had left its belly.

“I consider myself warned,” said Dabeet. “Take me home, please. School’s over for the day by now.”





5

—You are going to a great deal of trouble for one boy, whose worth is unproven and whose loyalty is nil.

—We have a responsibility to all the children left over from our wartime programs.

—His native intelligence was gift enough. You know that he’ll thrive without any intervention from us.

—Even if that were true, which is by no means secure, he has legal rights. He is a child of the Fleet. He does want to study at Fleet School. How, then, do we have the right to refuse him?