The Data Arks


    While FTL travel is now commonplace, no practical method of FTL communications is currently known.  This means that any data transfer between major star systems must be done by physically moving the data.  While many mechanisms have been tried including store and forward, the current state of the art for moving large amounts of data across interstellar distances is clearly the Data Ark.  Data Ark refers to a class of interstellar commercial ships that are designed specifically to securely store and transmit as much data as possible given current limits of technology.  While there are many designs and classes of vessels, the general design principals are remarkably similar.  In general, they consist of a series of redundant storage cores, ringed with processor nodes and a variety of transmissions technologies for import and export of data once within a system.  The vast majority of guild members serve out their careers on these vessels.  Indeed, some ships are owned and operated by extended clans who live out their entire lives on their ships.


    Excerpted With Permission


    Data Trader’s Handbook


    Copyright 3250, Interstellar Data Trader Guild


    The Reggie was finally settling back into a new routine.   The events at Upsilon Irridini had caused not only scheduling chaos but also gave the small town that was the Reggie much grist for the gossip mill.  Amongst the most unlikely rumors was that Leo and Ramona had foiled the plans of a group of space slavers.  While not only inaccurate, it also seemed self-conflicting since nobody could decide if Ramona was the potential victim or the liberator.  If she was the liberator, where were all the slave girls?  Leo tried to take the long view and be amused by such things but stories about Ramona being a space pirate or a secret agent of some kind just made him angry.


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    Only half aware of where he was going, he walked down the empty corridor towards Master Thorsten’s office.   Coming nearer, he realized that the Guild Master already had a visitor.  Slowing further, he heard Gunny Tomlin’s unmistakable bellow coming from the office.


    “Of course!  Why do you think I wanted her in Weps?”


    Master Thorsten said something that Leo couldn’t hear at a more reasonable volume.


    “No, I won’t lower my voice!  Do not mess with me Roger!  I don’t give a good Goddamn what the rumor mill says!  This is doubly my problem as chief of security and as Guild Master for Weps.  You know that.”


    Another reply too quiet to hear.


    “You bet your ass!  If I think Eddington was an actual danger to the ship, out the airlock she would go.  This ain’t my first rodeo.  For fuck’s sake Roger, what do you think we’re playing at here?  Did you think she would be some candy ass REMF?  She’s a real soldier even if she is a seeker.  I told you to keep the team focused on the astronomer.  Now she’s on her guard and he’s disappeared.”


    As he got closer, he could her Thorsten’s voice.  “I just think she could be dangerous.”


    “So is space.  Deal with it.  From now on we do this my way.”


    Leo would have loved to listen to the rest of the conversation, but he could hear them finishing up and didn’t want to be caught listening in the hall.  He quickly continued on his way before he was discovered.


    The conversation disturbed him not because he was worried about any danger Ramona might cause but because of what he had not heard.  Why would the Master Trader be concerned about Ramona?  She obviously had a military background, but so did many people already on the ship.  Everyone agreed that she had acted appropriately and probably had saved Leo’s life on the buoy.  And what the hell was a seeker?


    Even more troubling, none of the masters were asking the obvious question:  Why were those armed men on the Buoy in the first place?