The Precipice gt-8

by Ben Bova

  He followed the maid as she carried the tray past him, down the hallway, and up the stairs to the second floor. One of the doors along the upstairs hall was guarded by a bored-looking young man in a gray business suit. He saw the maid approaching and opened the bedroom door.

  “Lunch is here, Dr. Cardenas,” he said.

  George stopped as the maid went through the bedroom door and came out again less than a minute later, the tray empty at her side. She closed the door. George heard the lock click. The guard gave her a smile and she smiled back, but neither of them said anything as she headed back for the stairs. George leaned against the wall a half-dozen meters from the lethargic guard, who sat on a wooden chair and pulled a palmcomp from inside his jacket. From the beeps and peeps, George figured the guy was playing a game to pass the time. Okay, George said, folding his arms across his chest. Cardenas is in there. She’s still alive. Now how do I get her out — alive?

  He spent the better part of an hour prowling along the upstairs hall, checking out the stairway, studying the lone guard. Humphries apparently insisted on a dress code for his servants: the guards wore suits, the maid and the kitchen help wore uniforms. The scientists stayed on the other side of the house. They’d be no problem, George decided.

  The maid returned with the empty tray, went into Cardenas’s room, and came out with the lunch dishes. George thought Cardenas might be on a hunger strike; she had hardly eaten anything.

  Shortly afterward, Humphries himself came up the hall. He was dressed casually:

  a white velour pullover and navy blue well-creased slacks. The guard snapped to his feet and stuffed his still-beeping palmcomp into his side pocket. Humphries frowned at him and motioned impatiently for him to open the door. The door’s kept locked, George realized, as Humphries stepped into the room. He waited until the door was almost shut, then tiptoed to it and pushed it slowly open. The guard paid no attention, engrossed once more in his video game. George let the door swing halfway open, then deftly slipped into the room. Humphries noticed it. Frowning, he marched to the door and snapped at the guard.

  “Can’t you close a goddamned door properly?” Then he slammed it shut. Suppressing a chuckle, George edged into a corner of the room. Dr. Cardenas was standing tensely by the only window. It was a super room, George thought: big pieces of furniture made from real wood. Hauling it up to Selene must have cost more than the whole kitchen staff’s salaries for ten years. “How do you feel today?” Humphries asked Cardenas, crossing the oriental carpet toward her.

  “I want to go home,” she said flatly, as if it were a request that they both knew would be ignored.

  Sure enough, Humphries acted as if he hadn’t heard her. “I’m sorry that we had to take you outside. I understand that you don’t like that.”

  “I want to go home,” Cardenas repeated, stronger. “You can’t keep me locked up here forever.”

  “I have a proposition to offer you. If you agree to it, you could go back to Earth and be with your grandchildren.”

  She closed her eyes wearily. “I simply want to go back to my quarters here at Selene. Let me go. Now.”

  Humphries sighed dramatically and sat on the upholstered chair near the window. “I’m afraid that’s impossible, at this precise moment. Surely you can understand why.”

  “I won’t say a word to anyone,” Cardenas replied, walking uncertainly toward the sofa that faced his chair. “I simply want to return to my normal life.”

  “Without warning Randolph?”

  “It’s too late to warn Dan by now,” she said. “You know that.”

  Humphries spread his hands. “Really, the best option for you is to return to Earth. You’ll be in very comfortable quarters and I’ll personally guarantee that your daughters and grandchildren will be brought to you.”

  “The way I was brought here?”

  “You haven’t been harmed, have you? You’ve been treated with great care.”

  “I’m still a prisoner.”

  It seemed to George that Humphries was working hard to control his temper. “But if you’ll only do what I ask,” he said, tightly, “you can return to Earth and be with your family. What more could you ask for?”

  “I don’t want to go to Earth!” Cardenas burst. “I won’t be a part of your scheme!”

  “You haven’t even heard what my… scheme, as you put it, is.”

  “I don’t care. I don’t want to hear it.”

  “But it will stop the greenhouse warming. It will save the Earth.”

  “Nothing can save the Earth and you know it.”

  He hung his head for a moment, as if trying to find the right words. At last he looked up at her again. “You can save the Earth, Dr. Cardenas. That’s the real reason why I brought you here. I need you to run the operation. I need the absolute best person there is. That person is you. No one else could make it work.”

  “Whatever it is, I won’t do it,” Cardenas said flatly.

  “Not even to save the Earth?”

  She gave him a withering look. “What makes you think I want to save the Earth?”

  “Not even to save your grandchildren?” He said it with a smile. Cardenas gasped when she realized what he meant. “You’re threatening my family?”

  He put on an innocent air. “Did I make a threat?”

  “You’re despicable!”

  Humphries slowly got to his feet, like a man weary of dealing with an obstinate child. “Dr. Cardenas,” he said slowly, “your options are few. Please hear me out.”

  “I won’t say a word to anyone.”

  “I’m not talking about that now.”

  She started to reply, then thought better of it.

  “At least listen to what I have to say.”

  She stared at him.

  “Think of your grandchildren back there on Earth,” Humphries coaxed. “Their future is in your hands.”

  Still without saying a word, Cardenas slowly sat on the sofa, facing Humphries. “That’s better,” he said smiling. “We’re both reasonable people. I’m sure we can work this out.”

  George walked softly toward them, listening intently.

  STARPOWER 1

  Sitting in her command chair on the bridge, Pancho asked, “How do we know the bugs ain’t chewin’ away at us now?” Dan had never before seen Pancho look morose. Her long, lantern-jawed face was deadly serious now; her usual cocky grin had vanished. “They were eating copper,” Dan replied. “We got rid of the wire sample. The bugs went out the hatch with it.”

  “You hope.”

  “Fervently,” said Dan.

  “Well, the ship’s wiring doesn’t use any copper,” Pancho said hopefully.

  “It’s all fiber optic. I know.”

  “There’s plenty of copper here and there, though,” Pancho went on. “Maybe only trace amounts, but if we got nanobugs eatin’ copper, they could knock out half the microprocessors on board.”

  “That’s great,” Dan groused.

  “The MHD channel!” she blurted. “It’s got a superconducting magnet wrapped around it!”

  “Holy Christ!”

  “If that goes, the magnet’ll dump all its energy—”

  “It’ll explode?”

  “Like a frickin’ bomb,” Pancho said.

  “Great. Just perfect,” Dan muttered. “And there’s not a double-damned thing we can do about it, is there?”

  She shook her head. “Just hope it hasn’t been infected.” Dan felt shaky inside. He had to swallow before he could speak. “Not much we can do if it has been.”

  “Could be worse,” Pancho said, with false jollity. “If we had bugs that ate carbon, they’d be chewin’ on us.”

  Dan saw no humor in that. “Where’s Amanda?” he asked, pointing to the empty co-pilot’s chair. “Shouldn’t she be on duty up here?”

  “She’s back with Lars.”

  “In the sensor bay?”

  “Yup. He’s tryin’ to jury-rig the electron microscope to get nanomet
er resolution.”

  “So he can see nanobugs?”

  “If there’re any to be seen, right.”

  “Those two seem to spend a lot of time together,” Dan grumbled.

  “Come to think of it, that’s true.”

  Dan said nothing. He didn’t like the idea of Amanda and Fuchs playing around together, but he had no evidence that they were. Fuchs seemed like a pretty stiff straight arrow. But you never know, Dan said to himself. Amanda certainly seems to enjoy being with him.

  Pancho jabbed a finger toward one of the touchscreen displays. “Well, at least the magnetic shield’s holdin’ up okay. We’re safe from radiation storms… for th’ time being.”

  For the time being, Dan echoed silently.

  “And the MHD channel?”

  She tapped at a screen. “Normal as pie.”

  “The bugs haven’t infected it, then.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “I think I’ll go back to the sensor bay,” Dan muttered. “See how those two are getting along.”

  “Gonna be their chaperon?” Pancho teased.

  “Am I that obvious?”

  “You sure are, boss. A real worrywart.”

  “Do you think they need a chaperon?”

  “Prob’ly not. Mandy can take care of herself. Lars isn’t like Humphries.” Nodding his agreement with Pancho’s assessment of the situation, Dan said, “So I’ll see how he’s doing with the electron microscope.”

  “Good excuse,” Pancho said, laughing.

  Wishing he could forget his fears of the nanobugs, Dan left the bridge, poured himself a mug of coffee in the wardroom, and then headed along the passageway to the sensor bay. He could see them through the open hatch to the cramped little compartment, standing amid the humming instruments and flickering display screens, deep in earnest conversation.

  My god, they look like Beauty and the Beast, Dan thought. Even in rumpled tan coveralls, with her shining blonde hair pinned up in a sensible, no-nonsense fashion, Amanda looked gorgeous. Her big blue eyes were totally focused on Fuchs. In his usual dead-black pullover and slacks, his barrel-chested thickset body made him look like a feral animal out of some wildlife vid: a boar or a black bear. But he wasn’t growling or snarling at Amanda. Far from it. “How’s it going?” Dan asked as he stepped through the open hatch.

  They looked startled, as if they hadn’t seen him approaching. Pointing to the gray tube of the miniaturized electron microscope, Dan forced a grin and asked, “Find any nanobugs?”

  Fuchs turned away from Dan, toward the microscope. “No, it’s hopeless. This machine will never resolve nanometer objects.”

  Dan wasn’t surprised. “It wasn’t designed to.”

  “I had thought perhaps I could boost its power,” Fuchs went on, “but that was an idle hope.”

  “We’ve been reviewing the long-range sensor data,” Amanda said, her cheeks slightly red. “Looking for a suitable asteroid, you know.”

  “And?”

  Fuchs broke into a happy grin. It was so unusual that Dan was taken aback. “We have an embarrassment of riches,” he said, tapping at one of the touchscreens. “There are more than a dozen metal-rich bodies within a day’s flight of us, or less.”

  Amanda said, “We’ve been trying to decide which one we should aim for.”

  Dan smiled at her. “That’s easy. Go for the biggest one.” George held his breath as he edged closer to the corner of the big bedroom where Humphries and Dr. Cardenas sat. They both looked tense, although he seemed strung high with anticipation, while fear and anger glowered clearly on Cardenas’s face.

  George knew that they couldn’t see him, yet he felt anxious, almost frightened to be this close to them, invisible or not. Don’t sneeze, he warned himself. Don’t fookin’ breathe.

  “All right,” Cardenas said tightly. “I’m listening.”

  Leaning slightly toward the soft on which Cardenas sat, Humphries clasped his hands together and began, “Suppose I set you up in your own laboratory in some remote location on Earth. My father has holdings in Libya, for example. We could bring your grandchildren there, to be with you.”

  “And what would I be expected to do at this remote laboratory?” Cardenas asked.

  Her voice was without inflection, like an automaton’s, her face a frozen mask. “Nanomachines could be made to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, can’t they? Break the molecules down into carbon and oxygen atoms. The carbon could be buried, the oxygen released back into the air or sold as an industrial gas, whatever. That could stop the greenhouse warming in a year or two!” Cardenas’s expression did not change. “Nanotechnology is banned, you know that. No matter how you want to use it, you can’t make nanomachines anywhere on Earth. You’d have the GEC, the world government, every religious nut on Earth going crazy if you even hinted that you’re thinking of using nanotechnology.” Humphries smiled patiently. “We won’t tell them, for god’s sake. We just start doing it. In secret. Out in the Sahara or the middle of the ocean or Antarctica, anywhere. In a year or maybe even less, they’ll start noticing the carbon dioxide levels going down. We can take out the other greenhouse gases, as well. They’ll see that the greenhouse warming is lessening. Then we’ll have them all by the balls! They’ll have to accept what we’re doing. They’ll have no choice.”

  “And what happens if these nanomachines don’t work exactly right? What happens if they start taking other carbon compounds apart? Like you, for instance. You’re made of carbon atoms, aren’t you?”

  “That won’t happen.”

  “I know it won’t happen,” she said. “Because I won’t do it. It’s an absurd scheme.”

  “What’s absurd about it?” Humphries demanded.

  A slight, sardonic smile cracked Cardenas’s facade. “You don’t have any idea of how enormous Earth’s atmosphere is. Do you know how many tons of carbon dioxide you’d have to remove? Billions! Tens of billions, at least! You’d have to cover Africa with nanomachines to remove that much carbon dioxide!”

  “I’m sure that’s an exaggeration,” Humphries muttered, scowling. Cardenas shot to her feet, startling George. “All right, you’d merely have to cover the Sahara desert. It’s still beyond belief!”

  “But-”

  “And you’d never be able to keep it secret. Not a program of that scale.”

  “But it could be done, couldn’t it?”

  “It could be started,” she admitted. “Until some fanatic drops a nuke on us. Or laces our drinking water with plague bacillus.”

  “I can protect you against terrorists,” Humphries said. Cardenas paced to the window, obviously thinking furiously. Turning back to Humphries, she said, “Using nanomachines on that scale is an invitation to disaster. Some fruitcake could steal a handful and re-program them to take apart… plastics, for example. Or petroleum. Or use them as assassination weapons. You’re talking about gobblers, for Christ’s sake!”

  “I know that,” Humphries said coldly.

  Cardenas shook her head. “It won’t work. Aside from the sheer physical scale of the project, the authorities on Earth would never grant approval for using nanomachines. Never! And I can’t say that I’d blame them.” Humphries slowly got to his feet. “You refuse to even try?”

  “It’s a hopeless task.”

  He sighed theatrically. “Well, I’ve tried to be reasonable. I thought we might be able to work something out.”

  “Let me go,” Cardenas said, with a pleading note in her voice. “I thought it would be a way for you to be with your grandchildren, as you want to be.”

  “Just let me go.”

  He gave her a sad look. “You know I can’t do that. It’s too great a risk for me.”

  “You can’t keep me here forever!”

  With a small shrug, Humphries asked, “What do you propose as a way out of this impasse?”

  She stared at him, open-mouthed.

  “I mean, you can see my problem. I know you can. How can I let you go
when there’s every chance that you’ll tell people that I’m responsible for Dan Randolph’s death?”

  “But I’m responsible, too.”

  “Yes, I know. But you’d confess to it, wouldn’t you?”

  “I…” she hesitated, then said in a low, defeated voice, “I suppose I would, sooner or later.”

  “There you are,” Humphries said softly. “The problem remains.”

  “You’re going to have to kill me.”

  “I don’t want to do that. I’m not a cold-blooded murderer. In fact, I’d like to see you reunited with your grandchildren, if it’s at all possible. There must be some way we can work together, some way we can find around this problem.”

  “I don’t see any,” Cardenas whispered.

  “Well, think it over,” Humphries said, heading for the door. “I’m sure you can come up with a solution, if you just put your mind to it.” He smiled as he opened the door and left. George saw the guard standing out in the hallway before Humphries closed the door and its lock clicked shut. As he strode down the hallway, Humphries mused to himself, It could work! If we could spread enough nanomachines I could break the greenhouse warming in a couple of years. They’d be on their knees with gratitude. He decided to put a small team of experts together to study the possibilities dispassionately. Cardenas isn’t the only nanotechnology guru in Selene, he assured himself.

  BREAKOUT

  Kris Cardenas stared at the locked door for several silent moments after Humphries left, then she suddenly broke into racking sobs. Face buried in her hands, body bent, she stumbled to the bed and threw herself onto it, crying inconsolably. George stood uncertainly in the far corner of the bedroom, wondering what he should do. She’s already hysterical, he said to himself. If I go and tap her on the shoulder and say, “Hi! I’m an invisible man!” she’ll probably freak out altogether.

  So he waited, fidgeting unhappily, until Cardenas stopped crying. It didn’t take long. She sat up on the bed, took a deep breath, then got to her feet and went to the lavatory. When she came out again, it was obvious to George that she had washed her face and put on some makeup. But her eyes were still red, puffy. Well, you can’t stand here like a fookin’ idiot forever, George told himself. Do something!