At the start of the third week Monk was introduced to his communicator. A surprisingly young man called Danny came up from London.
“It’s a perfectly ordinary laptop computer,” he explained. And it was. No larger than a normal book, the top when raised revealed a screen on its underside, and the keypad, whose two halves could be lifted up, spread apart, and relocked to become a full-sized typewriter-style keyboard. It was the sort of thing eight executives out of ten now carried in their attaché cases.
“The floppy disk”—Danny held up what looked like a credit card and waved it under Monk’s nose before inserting it into the side of the laptop—“carries the normal range of information needed by a businessman of the kind that you will be. If anyone interferes with it, all they will get is commercial information of zero interest to anyone but the owner.”
“So?” asked Monk. He realized this disarmingly young man was one of those born long after his time who had been weaned on computers and found their inner workings much easier than Egyptian hieroglyphics. Monk would have picked the Egyptians any day.
“Now this,” said Danny, holding up another card, “is what?”
“It’s a Visa card,” said Monk.
“Look again.”
Monk examined the thin sheet of plastic with its “smart” magnetic strip along the back.
“Okay, it looks like a Visa card.”
“It will even act as a Visa card,” said Danny, “but don’t use it as such. Just in case some piece of duff technology wipes it by mistake. Keep it safe, wherever you live, preferably hidden from prying eyes, and use it only when necessary.”
“What does it do?” asked Monk.
“A lot. It encodes anything you want to type. It has memorized a hundred one-time pads, whatever they may be. That’s not my field, but I gather they are unbreakable.”
“They are,” said Monk, glad to hear at least one phrase he recognized. It made him feel better.
Danny ejected the original floppy disk and inserted the Visa card in its place.
“Now, the laptop is powered by a lithium-ion battery with enough power to reach the satellite. Even if you have a regular circuit available, use the battery in case of a drop or surge in the domestic current. Use the circuit to recharge the battery. Now, switch it on.”
He pointed to the power/off switch and Monk did so.
“Type your message to Sir Nigel onto the screen, in clear language.”
Monk typed a twenty-word message to confirm safe arrival and first contact made.
“Now touch this key here. It says something different, but it gives the order to encode.”
Monk touched the key. Nothing happened. His words stayed on the screen.
“Now touch power/off.”
The words vanished.
“They have vanished forever,” said Danny. “They have been completely erased from the computer’s memory. In the code of a one-time pad, they are inside Virgil the Visa, waiting to be transmitted. Now switch the laptop back on again.”
Monk did so. The screen illuminated but remained blank.
“Touch this one. It says something else, but when Virgil is inserted it means ‘transmit/receive.’ Now you just leave it on. Twice a day a satellite will swing over the horizon. As it approaches the place you are in, it is programmed to beam a message downward. The down call is on the same frequency as Virgil, but it takes a nanosecond and it’s in code. What it is saying is, Are you there, baby? Virgil hears this call, identifies Mother, acknowledges, and transmits your message. We call it handshaking.”
“That’s it?”
“Not quite. If Mother has a message for Virgil, she will transmit. Virgil will receive it, all in the one-time pad code. Then Mother passes over the horizon and vanishes. She will already have passed on your message to the receiving base, wherever that may be. I don’t know and I don’t need to know.”
“Do I have to stay with the machine while it does all this?” asked Monk.
“Certainly not. You can be out and about. When you come back, you find the screen still glowing. Just touch this button. It doesn’t say ‘decrypt’ but that’s what it does if Virgil is inside there. What Virgil will do is decode your message from home. Learn it, hit power/off, and you erase it. Forever.
“Now, one last thing. If you really want to blow Virgil’s little brain to pieces, you hit these four numbers in sequence.” He showed Monk the four, written on a slip of card. “So never punch in those four numbers unless you want to return Virgil to just a Visa card with no other function.”