The Descent

Chapter 23 - Back To Work

"Denton, this is completely unacceptable. I can't work in these kinds of conditions."

Denton leaned back, sighed and rubbed his face with his hands. "Tanner, this is what we've got to work with. We're not on Proxima b, and you know that."

"That's obvious."

"Listen, our hosts have no obligation to provide you with the same resources that you have at home. Considering you're only on this trip in the first place because of my insistence, I'd appreciate a little less whining."

A short silence followed before Tanner answered. "Fine. Just be aware, the investigation will likely take longer because processing evidence will take longer."

"That's fine. Even if that does happen, it wouldn't be your fault, ok? You work with what you have, and we'll see where it takes us. Now, can we get to work, please?"

"Ok, yes, of course. I'm sending you the information about the transmission we intercepted back home to your terminal. You should see it any second."

Denton grunted as he looked around his temporary office. It wasn't much larger than a cleaning closet. Or, so it felt. There was a desk with a computer terminal, a chair and the usual holocom device for a more personal call experience. At that very moment, a digital recreation of Tanner's head was visible a few inches above his desk. A couple of chairs on the other side of the desk completed the sparse furnishings of his temporary home. Although his office back home on Proxima b wasn't luxurious, at least it was spacious. 

Leah had made some vague promises about it being temporary while they moved people around, but Denton wasn't so sure. He had nodded and said thank you, determined to focus on the case and not the circumstances. There was enough complaining from Tanner about bandwidth limitations and other technicalities that he had little understanding of. The size of his office was unimportant anyway, as long as he had the tools he needed to get the job done. Whining wasn't one of those, and he would have thought an AI like Tanner would understand that.

Moments later, an icon flashed on his screen. All the case files opened up immediately after he tapped on it, covering his screen with information.

"Alright, I've got it. Let's focus on the transmission."

"Right, the diplomatic transmission. It was intercepted, as you know, just before the final event of the Olympics."

"The Descent."

"Yes, exactly."

"So how does this intercept lead us back to Gabi?"

"That's the tricky part. All diplomatic messages, like the one intercepted, are carried on the ships that travel between the solar systems. They're created in their home system, encrypted and packaged up before they are transported securely through space to the destination system. There, upon arrival, they are transmitted to the final destination in that solar system, wherever it may be."

Denton leaned back in his chair and tapped his fingers on the table. "So, they're not live?"

"Definitely not."

"Huh," Denton said and paused for a second before he continued. "Believe it or not, I didn't know that."

"It makes little difference for the investigation. Our goal is to find the source of the transmission here on Earth."

"Wait a second, Tanner, don't say that. It could actually matter. For example, the person that created the message could conceivably also have traveled to Proxima b together with the message and been present during the Descent."

"That is possible, I agree, but what would be the point? If someone is traveling to the same destination as the message at the same time, why send the message in the first place? Tracing it back to the source would be much harder if a message like that is sent locally without the source signatures and metadata."