Metafire

Chapter 30 Leaks

"I have them," Jim Edenfield shouted. "Here, they're on the speakers."

"Alzo, w' 'ust ganize a method of mantaining a continus watch. The authorities still have the Bluebird capsule. That's the capsule with FBI. We've sen it attached to a tug, and we have seen it being provisioned."

The laser designator was directly pointed on the side of the Metafire cavern. The laser sound monitor was working. Jim Edenfield was a seasoned agent who knew these laser sound monitors worked only to a certain degree. If a person is faced away from the surface being monitored when he spoke, then the sound would be so heavily attenuated that it could come out like a muffled mumbling. Furthermore, every container, and every position on every container would transmit different kinds of sounds better than others. And, if people talked in light voices, there was a pretty good probability that there would not be enough energy in their speech to vibrate the surface in a detectable fashion. So it was not surprising to Jim to now get the silence of a white noise overlaid by the whirrings of the mechanical systems on board the Metafire colony.

"They were talking about us, guys." Jack mused.

"Yes, they are going to watch us. We'll watch them. I'll establish communication with headquarters and ask for further orders. But I suspect they're just going to tell us to keep our distance and keep monitoring."