Farside

by Ben Bova

  Zach and Toshio were sitting on stools at a workbench; McClintock stood between them with a puzzled frown creasing his chiseled features. Aichi looked glum, Zach’s usual pleasant smile was nowhere in sight.

  Winston’s space suit was stretched out atop the bench like a corpse in a morgue, its hard-shell torso and flexible leggings smeared with gray dust. Grant smelled the faint odor of gunpowder, typical of lunar dust.

  “Do you mean to tell me you can’t find anything wrong with his suit?” McClintock was saying.

  “Not yet,” Aichi replied, almost hissing the words.

  Zach added, “We’ve only been at it for a few hours, man. Give us some time.”

  Grant came up to the workbench. “Having a problem?”

  Zach shrugged good-naturedly. “Mr. McCee here wants us to find some failure in Win’s suit.”

  “And there is none,” Aichi said. Grant could tell from the tone of his voice that Toshio was bristling with suppressed fury.

  “Give them some time, Carter,” Grant said easily, smiling as he spoke. “They—”

  “We don’t have time,” McClintock snapped. “Selene’s news service has put in six calls about this accident in the past two hours. Earthside news nets are sniffing around, as well. We have to have something to tell them.”

  In a small voice, Zacharias said, “No news is good news.”

  McClintock glowered at him.

  “Look,” said Grant, “if there’re no defects in the suit that’s good news, isn’t it?”

  “Good news for you, maybe,” McClintock shot back. “You’ll be off the hook for letting the man go out in a defective suit.”

  Grant looked into McClintock’s tawny eyes and said evenly, “The suit checked out fine.”

  “But we’ve got a dead man on our hands and the newshounds yapping at our heels.”

  “Give the guys some time to check the suit in more detail,” Grant said. “You can’t force results in something like this.”

  McClintock turned from Grant to the two technicians. “I want you to call me the minute you find anything. Do you understand me?”

  “And if we find nothing?” Aichi countered.

  “There’s got to be something!” McClintock insisted. “Find it!”

  He brushed past Grant and strode out of the workshop. Neither of the technicians said a word until the door slid shut behind him.

  Then Zacharias muttered, “Asshole.”

  “Take it easy on him, guys,” said Grant. “He’s right, you know: There’s got to be some reason why Win died, and we’ve got to find what it is.”

  Aichi’s stern expression did not waver by a millimeter. “If this suit was the cause of death, we will find the defect. But if that reflects poorly on you, Grant…”

  “Find the defect, guys,” Grant told them. “We can’t sort out the responsibilities until we know what the hell happened—and why.”

  * * *

  Grant went back to the teleoperations center and slumped into a chair next to Josie Rivera.

  “How’s it going, Grant?” she asked, without taking her eyes from her console screen.

  “Don’t ask,” Grant muttered.

  “That bad, huh?”

  Grant saw that Josie was monitoring a team of space-suited technicians and gleaming white robots working out at Korolev crater, building the foundation and shelter for the mirror that the nanomachines would create there. Four humans, four robots. They could form teams and play tennis, Grant thought wryly. Doubles.

  Turning to face Grant, Rivera asked, “What happened to Win?”

  “Damned if I know,” Grant said.

  “Damned shame.”

  “Yeah.” Jabbing a finger at the console screen, Grant asked, “So how’s the work at Korolev going?”

  “No problems,” said Rivera. “They’re getting the job done. Nanomachines arrive from Selene tomorrow.”

  Grant nodded. But he was thinking, Nanomachines. Could they have anything to do with Win’s accident? My body’s carrying a shitload of nanobugs. Will they attack me, somehow? He decided to call Kris Cardenas and check out the possibilities.

  As he got up from the little wheeled chair he patted Rivera’s shoulder. “Keep up the good work, Josie.”

  “Thanks.” As Grant headed for the door, Rivera called out, “Hey, Grant, whatcha doing for dinner tonight? Want to come over to my place?”

  “I can’t,” he heard himself say, before he even thought about the consequences. “Until we figure out what happened to Win, I’m not going to be very social.”

  “Your loss,” Josie teased.

  “Raincheck,” said Grant.

  “Sure, boss. Anytime.”

  NANODEATH

  Grant hurried to his quarters and put in a call to Dr. Cardenas. Her answering vid came up on the phone screen, smiling perfunctorily as she said, “I’m not available at this—”

  Abruptly, the image was replaced by another view of Cardenas, her face serious, grave.

  “I heard about the accident, Grant,” she said. “I’ve been expecting your call.”

  “Could it be me?” Grant blurted. “Did the nanos in my body somehow cause Win’s death?”

  “No way,” said Cardenas. “No way on God’s green Earth.”

  We’re not on God’s green Earth, Grant thought. But he said to Cardenas’s unsmiling face, “How can you be so sure?”

  She held up a hand and ticked off on her fingers, “One: the nanos in your body are tuned to your metabolism, nobody else’s. Two: they’re designed to attack microbes and viruses; they are not random disassemblers.”

  “Gobblers,” muttered Grant.

  Cardenas frowned at the word, but continued, “Three: the only way the nanomachines in your body could get into anyone else is by direct physical contact with your blood. They don’t fly through the air, Grant. They’re not evil spirits.”

  “Okay. Thanks.” He hesitated a beat, then added, “I had to ask, Kris. I had to know for certain.”

  She smiled minimally. “I know. I understand. Don’t take it personally if I come down too hard.”

  “That’s okay. I guess you get a lot of damn-fool questions.”

  Cardenas’s smile turned bitter. “That I do, mister. That I do.”

  * * *

  Grant fought the itch to return to the maintenance center and lean on Toshio and Zach. Let them do their work, he told himself. They’re not going to get results any faster with you breathing down their necks.

  He went to the engineering office and plunged into the problems of scheduling the construction of the telescopes at the Korolev and Gagarin craters. Coordinating the crews who would construct the foundations, shelters, protective roofs; scheduling the arrival of the nanomachines; checking the maintenance of the robots, the duty shifts at the teleoperations center: there was plenty of work to be done.

  His phone buzzed. Annoyed at the interruption, he yanked it from his coverall pocket and saw that it was Trudy Yost calling. His annoyance dwindled away.

  “What’s up, Trudy?” he asked.

  In the phone’s tiny screen, Trudy’s snub-nosed face looked troubled.

  “I need your help,” she said.

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Can we talk? Face-to-face, I mean.”

  His first impulse was to suggest meeting at the cafeteria, but then he remembered that he had turned down Josie Rivera’s invitation to dinner. If Josie sees me with Trudy she’ll get the wrong idea, he thought.

  “Can you come to my quarters?” he asked Trudy. “In half an hour?”

  “Sure,” she said, without the slightest hesitation.

  Thirty-two minutes later Grant was straightening up his messy room when he heard a tap on the door. Sliding it open, he saw Trudy standing there, looking a little like a lost urchin.

  “Come on in,” Grant said.

  “I appreciate your taking the time to see me,” Trudy said as she stepped into the room.

  “What’s the probl
em?” he asked again. Looking at the place through her eyes, Grant thought that his quarters were shabby, strictly utilitarian. This is where I sleep, he apologized silently. Where I sleep and work.

  Trudy seemed oblivious to the meager furnishings, though. She went straight to the sofa and perched herself on its front few centimeters.

  “Professor Uhlrich wants me to come up with a plan for using the Mendeleev telescope. He doesn’t want it to sit idle while the other ’scopes are being built.”

  “Makes sense,” Grant said, heading for the kitchenette in the corner. “Can I get you something to drink? Juice? Tea?” He glanced at the half-full coffeepot next to the two-burner stove. “The coffee’s a couple days old, I’m afraid.”

  “Juice will be fine,” Trudy said.

  As he bent down and yanked open the little refrigerator Grant called to her, “So you have to come up with a plan for Mendeleev.”

  “The professor wants to start taking spectra of Sirius C right away,” she said.

  “Is that doable?” Grant found a half-empty bottle of grapefruit juice, shook it vigorously, and poured a glass for her.

  “Yes. The planet’s too small for us to image with any decent resolution, but we should be able to get a spectrum, see if it has an atmosphere.”

  “I thought that was settled,” said Grant.

  With a curt nod, Trudy replied, “The planet gives a fuzzy edge in the imagery that telescopes in Earth orbit have gotten. Not a sharp edge. That indicates an atmosphere of some sort.”

  “That’s what I’d heard.”

  “But it shouldn’t have an atmosphere, not really,” Trudy went on. “When Sirius B went through its nova phase, the burps of hot plasma should have boiled away any atmosphere the planet might’ve had.”

  “But you said it looks fuzzy-edged.”

  “Yeah,” said Trudy, almost wistfully. “It shouldn’t. But it does.”

  As he handed the glass to her, Grant asked, “So can you measure the atmosphere’s constituents?”

  “If it really has an atmosphere—and the absorption lines are strong enough.”

  Sitting beside her on the sofa, Grant said, “So there’s your research program.”

  She nodded uncertainly. “I suppose so.”

  “Measuring the components of an exoplanet’s atmosphere,” said Grant. “That would be an accomplishment, wouldn’t it?”

  “If I can do it.”

  “Sure you can,” he encouraged. “It’ll give you a solid reputation.”

  “But what if I fail?”

  Grant looked at her. She’s really worried, he realized. Uhlrich’s given her this responsibility and she’s scared of it.

  “Behold the lowly turtle,” Grant quoted. “She only makes progress when she sticks her neck out.”

  Trudy looked surprised, then puzzled. Then she broke into a grin, all within the span of a second.

  “You’re telling me I should get to work and stop worrying about it,” she said.

  “I’m telling you that you can do the job. Uhlrich wouldn’t have hired you if you couldn’t.”

  For several heartbeats Trudy said nothing. Then, in a low voice, “Thanks, Grant.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Yes you did. And you kept me from falling apart when Win died. You came out and saved me.”

  He didn’t know what to say, how to answer her.

  Trudy got up from the sofa. “Thank you, Grant. You’re very kind.”

  Standing beside her, Grant replied, “De nada.”

  He followed her to the door, then leaned past her and slid it open. “Any time you need to talk, I’ll be here.”

  Trudy gazed at him in silence with her light green eyes. Pretty eyes, he thought. There’s flecks of amber in them.

  Abruptly, Trudy stood on her tiptoes and gave Grant a peck on the lips. Then she turned and hurried down the corridor.

  Grant stood there, somewhere between bemused and astonished. Women, he thought. Studying the mysteries of the cosmos is simple. Figuring out women is the real challenge.

  His phone buzzed again as Grant slid his door shut.

  “On wall screen,” he commanded the phone.

  Toshio Aichi’s face filled the screen: ascetically lean, unsmiling. Talk about inscrutable, Grant thought. Tosh doesn’t let anything show.

  “Grant, we’ve found a defect in Winston’s suit,” Aichi said without preamble.

  Grant’s chest tightened.

  “A defect?”

  “Relax,” Aichi said, his expression unchanged. “You couldn’t have seen it when you checked Winston’s suit. Nobody could have, not without a laser probe.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s a pinhole leak in the suit’s collar ring. Too small to see with the naked eye, but big enough to slowly leak air out of his helmet. Not enough of a leak for decompression, but enough to asphyxiate him.”

  “A pinhole leak?” Grant asked.

  Nodding a millimeter or so, Aichi said, “Pinhole. Like the leak that knocked out your superconducting coil.”

  DENIAL

  Professor Uhlrich sat behind his desk, staring in Grant Simpson’s direction.

  “A pinhole leak in his suit’s collar ring?” Uhlrich asked, unbelieving.

  “That’s what Aichi and Zacharias found,” said Grant, his voice heavy, morose.

  Uhlrich saw an image of Simpson’s darkly bearded face, an image triggered by the sound of his voice. Simpson was the stubborn kind: very capable, but dependent on medications. I can’t run this facility without him, Uhlrich knew, but he can’t function without his drugs. I should find a replacement for him; I shouldn’t be forced into such a dependent position.

  McClintock was sitting across the table from Simpson. Uhlrich heard a tinge of sarcasm as the man asked, “And how did a pinhole leak happen?”

  For a long moment Simpson did not reply. Uhlrich could visualize the sullenness etched into his brooding face. At last the engineer said, “It might have been produced by nanomachines.”

  “Nanomachines?” Uhlrich snapped, instantly alarmed.

  “That’s impossible,” said McClintock.

  “Is it?” Simpson retorted. “The Mendeleev mirror was built by nanos. The accident happened at Mendeleev.”

  A bit more subdued, McClintock said, “Then we’ll have to get Dr. Cardenas here to examine the situation.”

  “Damned right,” said Simpson.

  “Wait,” Uhlrich said. “We mustn’t jump to wild conclusions. Just because an accident occurred—”

  “A man died,” Simpson snapped. “We’ve got to find out why before anybody else is put at risk. We’ve got to halt the mirror construction jobs at Korolev and Gagarin. We’ve got to—”

  Uhlrich’s temper flared. “Stop the construction at Korolev and Gagarin! We haven’t even started building the mirrors there!”

  “And we shouldn’t start,” Simpson insisted. “Not until we know what’s going on.”

  McClintock’s voice took on a more conciliatory tone. “I agree that we ought to investigate the possibility. But we shouldn’t screw up the construction schedules unless we absolutely have to.”

  “How many deaths will it take?” Simpson growled.

  Uhlrich could picture McClintock’s frosty smile. The man doesn’t confront you, he told himself. He simply sits on top of his money and smiles condescendingly until he gets his way.

  McClintock was saying, “You’re getting all worked up over what might be just a maintenance failure.”

  “Winston’s death wasn’t the first failure,” Simpson said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The tractor problem we had several weeks ago,” said Simpson. “Superconducting motor went dead because the main coil lost its coolant. Through a pinhole leak.”

  “Coincidence,” McClintock scoffed.

  “Are you willing to bet your life on that?” Simpson replied heatedly. “The lives of everybody in this facility?”


  McClintock didn’t reply.

  “We’re a closed little community here,” Simpson went on. “If we have some rogue nanos eating into metals we could all be killed in a few days.”

  “I can’t believe that,” said Uhlrich. But he knew that he wasn’t speaking the truth. His insides were trembling.

  “Famous last words,” Simpson muttered.

  “All right, let’s get Dr. Cardenas here,” said McClintock, trying to sound reasonable. “Let her make a determination.”

  Simpson said nothing for several moments. At last he agreed, “That’s a start.”

  “Very well, then,” said Uhlrich. “I will call her myself.”

  “In the meantime, we should stop delivery of the nanos for Korolev and Gagarin.”

  “No!” Uhlrich snapped. “That would throw off our schedule.”

  His voice hard and unrelenting, Simpson replied, “Professor, we’re months ahead of our original schedule. We’ve got the Mendeleev ’scope up and running already. For god’s sake, don’t put the damned schedule ahead of safety, ahead of people’s lives! We can make up whatever time we lose.”

  Uhlrich heard the earnestness in the engineer’s voice, visualized the intensity of his sad-eyed expression. What does he care? the professor asked himself. He’s young, he has a life, a career ahead of him. I’ve only got this one chance, this one last chance.

  “I will not upset our schedule,” he said flatly. “If we suspend construction of the mirrors Selene will wonder what’s gone wrong. The university will send people here to pry into our situation. There will be an investigation. The news media will learn of it! It will be a disaster!”

  McClintock said, “Perhaps we could distract the news media.”

  “Distract?”

  “Trudy Yost is going to use the Mendeleev telescope to get imagery of New Earth, isn’t she?”

  “Spectra,” Uhlrich corrected. “Not imagery.”

  “Besides, Sirius C has already been photographed,” Simpson pointed out.

  “I’ve seen those pictures. New Earth is just a little dot, a blob,” McClintock countered. “We can produce much better stuff, can’t we?”