第78页
Dr. Halsey sealed Kelly's injuries with biofoam, removed the catheter, and cauterized the incision. "Rest," she said.
"No, ma'am. I'm ready to—" Kelly tried to sit up.
"Down." Dr. Halsey set a hand on her shoulder. She had no il?lusions that she could have stopped Kelly with the gesture—but it reinforced her words and her will. "Doctor's orders."
Kelly sighed and lay back.
"I'll be in my office just over there"—she pointed to the next room—"if you need anything."
Dr. Halsey left Kelly and moved to her office. Two walls were covered with giant displays; old disposable coffee cups littered the floor; a holographic projector flooded with data, lines, rotat?ing graphics, and unanswered correspondence overflowed her
126
HALO: FIRST STRIKE
desk. She turned down the blinds that separated her office from the medical bay, but only halfway, so she could keep an eye on Kelly.
"Let's have it, Kalmiya."
Kelly's medical history scrolled across a display.
"Here," Kalmiya said, and highlighted a surreptitious data re?quest at the end of the file. "It's dated three months ago. That's Araqiel's routing code."
Dr. Halsey picked up the snowglobe off her desk, shook it once, and set it down, watching the swirls of particles.
"Araqiel? That's Ackerson's watchdog, isn't it?"
"Affirmative, Doctor."
"Can you trace the request?"
"Done and terminated contact at node FF-8897-Z. Access re?stricted to X-ray level clearance."
"Restricted?" Dr. Halsey gave a short, soft laugh. "Does that mean anything now? There's no one here to stop us, is there, Kalmiya?"
"Entering those files without proper clearance is a treasonable offense, Doctor."
"They can come and arrest me, then. Do as I have instructed, Kalmiya," Dr. Halsey said. "Override your ethics center subrou?tine four-alpha. Nullification code: 'Whateverittakes.' "
Dr. Halsey found a half-full cup of coffee on the floor and gin?gerly picked it up. She sniffed its contents and, satisfied it wasn't rancid, swirled it once then downed its cold contents.
"Yes, Doctor. Working. Done."
Kalmiya was Cortana's older "sister." Dr. Halsey had designed and tested the software intrusion routines on her. Once the process had been debugged and streamlined, she'd incorporated the routines into Cortana. The brass in ONI Section Three had been quite explicit in their instructions to destroy any prototype routines—an order that Dr. Halsey had promptly disobeyed.
"There is an unusually voluminous amount of counterintru-sion software, Doctor."
"Show me," Dr. Halsey said.
The holographic display flickered and solidified into colored crystal blocks representing the code barriers. Dr. Halsey traced a
ERIC NYLUND 127
seam with her forefinger along a shard of ruby to the ninety-degree angle made by a stair-step-cut emerald. "This data clus?ter here. Spike that and backfill with a neutralizing pulse."
"Yes, Doctor."
The holographic crystal shattered into a thousand glittering fragments and swirled upward into a helix.