by Ben Bova
Zimmerman grunted. “You think I am cooking up nano-machines to wipe out Japan, maybe?”
Inoguchi actually broke into a grin. “No, sir, I don’t. But the people at the U.N. who sent me here fear that you might be brewing nanobugs that will spread deadly plagues all across Earth.”
“Nonsense!”
“You know it is nonsense, and I know it is nonsense, but they do not have enough knowledge to allay their fears.”
Zimmerman looked at the younger man with newfound respect.
“Let us be frank with one another,” Zimmerman said. “I will show you my work, but you must tell me about your own. Fair?”
Inoguchi nodded. “Quite fair.”
“Your laboratory is funded by Yamagata Industries, I trust?”
“My entire department is funded by Yamagata. Seigo Yamagata himself has taken a deep interest in my work.”
“Which is?”
“Nanotechnology, of course. You must have known that.”
Turning to lead him to the bench where the electron microscope and micromanipulators were, Zimmerman said over his shoulder, “I had my suspicions.”
Several hours later they were sitting on stools at the back end of the lab, where Zimmerman kept his dwindling supply of imported beer. He had led his visitor through his whole lab, congratulating himself on not once letting him guess that his most recent work was all aimed at helping Moonbase to defend itself against Peacekeeper attack.
Zimmerman took a long draught of beer from the plastic beaker he used as a stein. “If the verdammt blockade continues much longer,” he groused, “I will be reduced to drinking fruit juice.”
Inoguchi said nothing.
“We’ve been trying to make beer with nanomachines, you know.”
“Ah?”
Shaking his head, Zimmerman confessed, “It tastes like piss.”
“Mr Yamagata is most interested in the therapeutic uses of nanotechnology,” Inoguchi said, holding his lab beaker of beer in both hands. “He is concerned about cancer, especially.”
“So? How old is he?”
“Hardly fifty, but the family history—”
“PROFESSOR ZIMMERMAN, PLEASE REPORT TO THE INFIRMARY IMMEDIATELY,” the wall speaker blared. “PROFESSOR ZIMMERMAN TO THE INFIRMARY AT ONCE. EMERGENCY.”
DAY FORTY-TWO
Even nanomachines need a finite time to react.
The virus-sized machines teeming in Doug’s blood stream sensed the sudden drop in pressure and the desperate chemical changes that tried to activate the natural clotting factors before Doug bled to death. His windpipe was cruelly ruptured and blood was leaking into his lungs, choking him.
Unconscious, gasping for breath, bleeding to death as his heart spewed his life’s blood out through his severed arteries, Doug’s hands spasmed, his body shuddered, and then he was still.
Inside him hundreds of millions of nanomachines were working with millisecond frenzy, seizing individual atoms and locking them in place like a stubborn team of men doggedly packing sandbags onto a flood-broken levee. With mindless purposefulness other nanomachines pulled apart the droplets of blood leaking into Doug’s lungs, broke up the liquid into molecules of gas. Doug coughed and retched as nanomachines seamlessly knitted together his carotid arteries and began to close the gash across his throat.
Nearly half his blood had been splashed over the bunk, the wall, even the ceiling above the bunk before the nanomachines sealed his arteries and stopped the major bleeding. It took longer—minutes—to completely close the wound in his throat.
Still unconscious, Doug sank into a deeper coma while the nanomachines cleaned his lungs and augmented the natural chemical factors that prompted his bone marrow to start producing more red blood cells. Yet his blood supply was dangerously depleted. He needed plasma and liquids. He lay there, between life and death, unable to move, unable to open his eyes or stir himself out of the coma.
Hours later, Edith came back to the apartment, tired yet keyed up with the excitement of having pulled off a masterful broadcast. By golly, I am good, she told herself as she slid the door shut and started across the living room to see how Doug was doing.
She screamed when she saw all the blood. Her knees buckled and she felt as if she was going to faint.
No! she raged at herself. Get help! Quick!
She banged on the phone keyboard and shrieked for an emergency medical team. Then she ran back to take a closer look at Doug. Despite the blood she saw no wounds, nothing but a thin red line across his throat. It looked more like a paper cut than anything serious. Yet there was blood all over the bunk, soaking him, splattered on the wall, the ceiling. He was unconscious, totally out of it. He was breathing, though. Or is he? Fighting down her panic, Edith saw that Doug was breathing slowly, deeply, like a man innocently asleep.
The medical team barged into the apartment: the base’s resident doctor and two paramedic aides drafted from other duties.
“What the hell happened here?” Dr Montana scowled at the scene. Within minutes Doug was being wheeled to the infirmary by the aides while the deeply puzzled doctor asked Edith again and again questions that she could not answer as they ran behind the gurney.
By the time Doug opened his eyes, Zimmerman and Kris Cardenas were hovering over his infirmary bed and Jinny Anson was standing beside a pale and shaken Edith, both women peering worriedly at him through the glass partition that closed off his cubicle. A tall youngish Japanese man was out there too; Doug remembered him as one of the U.N. inspectors.
Doug looked up at Zimmerman, who was staring intently at him, as if sheer willpower could make his patient awake. The old professor looked more dishevelled than usual, straggly hair in wild disarray, both vest and jacket unbuttoned and flapping across his paunch. Yet there was a gentleness in his gaze, like a grandfather watching over a sleeping infant.
“This is getting monotonous,” Doug said, weakly. His voice was hoarse, grating.
Zimmerman’s expression immediately hardened into his usual disapproving frown. “So? Even a cat has only nine lives,” he said brusquely. “You are using up yours at a rapid rate.”
“I’m getting a lot of help,” Doug breathed. He realized there were intravenous tubes in both his arms. Monitors beeped away quietly somewhere behind his head.
“What happened?” Zimmerman asked.
Doug blinked, remembered. “Bam. Leroy Gordette. He tried to murder me.” His sandpaper voice was filled with the surprise and grief that he felt at Gordette’s betrayal.
“It was Gordette?” Cardenas asked, her clear blue eyes snapping. “The ex-soldier?”
“He slit my throat,” Doug said, fingering his throat, finding neither wound nor pain there.
Edith pushed into the narrow cubicle, Anson right behind her. Inoguchi remained on the other side of the observation window.
Flinging herself on Doug, she burst into the tears she’d been holding back for hours. “I thought you were dead!”
Doug held her close; felt the sobs racking her body. “I’m okay,” he whispered into her golden hair. “I’m okay now.”
“God, was I scared,” Edith gushed. She kissed him on the lips. The others fidgeted around the bed.
Once Doug let go of Edith and she straightened up, Anson surmised, “Gordette must’ve been the one who malfed your suit.”
“Yeah.” Doug tried to push himself up on his elbows. The room spun and he dropped back onto the pillow.
“You lost much blood,” Zimmerman said, glancing at the monitors over the bed. “You need time to build up your supply.”
“Where’s Bam now?” Doug croaked.
Anson shrugged. “I’ll get security to roust him.” She ducked out of the cubicle.
“Are you really all right?” Edith asked, wiping at her eyes.
“I’m okay,” said Doug. “Weak, though.”
“A blood transfusion would help,” Cardenas suggested.
Doug thought a moment. “How much do we have on hand
? If we’re attacked, we might need a lot.”
“No transfusion,” Zimmerman said flatly. “I must see how long it takes my nanomachines to rebuild his blood supply. A transfusion would obscure the data.”
Edith started to say something, but Doug gripped her hand and stopped her.
Smiling weakly at the old man, Doug said, “I’m still your walking experiment, huh?”
Zimmerman put on his scowl again. “Except you spend more time on your back than walking.”
“It’s not my idea of fun, believe me.”
Dr Montana came in and shooed them all out of the cubicle with the authority and impatience of a minor tyrant.
“If he’s not allowed a transfusion,” the doctor grumbled, glancing sideways at Zimmerman,’then he needs rest.”
“I am kind of sleepy,” Doug admitted. “And hungry.”
“My nanomachines need energy,” Zimmerman mumbled.
“We’re pumping nutrients into you,” Montana said, touching one of the IV tubes gently.
“He can take solid food, as well,” said Zimmerman.
Montana looked skeptical, but said nothing.
Edith kissed him again and they all left, the doctor and Zimmerman in a heated, whispered conversation about who should be making the decisions about the patient. A few minutes later, an aide brought Doug a tray of food. He had to be helped up to a sitting position. He ate quickly, then fell asleep almost immediately.
When Doug awoke he saw that Edith was sitting in the little observation area on the other side of the glass partition, staring intently into the display screen of a laptop. The IV tubes had been removed. He felt strong enough to sit up on his own. A little woozy, but it passed quickly. He pressed the button that cranked up the bed, then leaned back comfortably.
One of the paramedics bustled into his cubicle, her face set somewhere between pleased and annoyed. “You’re not supposed—”
“I’m starving,” Doug said. “When do I get something to eat?”
With a swift glance at the monitors, the aide muttered, “I’ll get you another tray,” and headed out.
Edith snapped her laptop shut and pushed past the departing aide.
After a quick kiss, Doug asked, “Have they found Gordette?”
“No,” she said. “He checked out a tractor and went outside just after he tried to kill you.”
“A tractor?” Doug’s mind raced. “He can’t get all the way to Copernicus in a tractor.”
“Copernicus?”
“The Yamagata base, Nippon One.” Doug reasoned it out. “He knows as much about our situation here as any of us, Edith. He can tell the Peacekeepers exactly how weak we are, what we’re expecting from them, how to take us.”
“But he can’t get that far in a tractor, you said.”
“Maybe he’s got a pickup arranged with them. He could bounce an emergency signal to them off L-1 and they’ll come out and pick him up.”
“But L-1 is off the air, isn’t it?”
“For us, but they’re still working for Yamagata.”
The aide brought in a tray heavy with a double portion of dinner. Doug thanked her and began wolfing it down.
“Edith, call Jinny for me. Ask her if there’s any way to spot Gordette’s tractor. I need to know where he’s going.”
“Why…?”
“So I can stop him, that’s why.”
Inoguchi and Zimmerman were sitting at a small corner table in The Cave, sipping fruit juice. The big cavern was nearly empty, yet they hunched together and spoke in low tones like conspirators.
“His throat was cut?” Inoguchi’s pretense of impasivity was long gone. There was wonder in his eyes, awe in his voice. “You are certain?”
Zimmerman took a sip of juice, then frowned at the glass. “From the amount of blood in his room, at least one of his carotid arteries must have been opened.”
“But he seems hardly hurt at all.”
“The machines work on millisecond time scales.”
“So do the natural blood clotting factors, but they could not have stopped arterial bleeding in time.”
“I think maybe the machines activated muscles in his neck and used them to clamp down the wound,” Zimmerman mused.
“Not possible! Is it?”
With the wave of a pudgy hand, the older man said, “You saw the results.”
Inoguchi shook his head ruefully. “I am a child. Compared to your work, what I’m doing in Kyoto is kindergarten level.”
“The benefits of censorship and your lovely treaty,” Zimmerman said acidly. “You work in ignorance of what has already been done years ago.”
“Yes, I can see that.”
Zimmerman started to take another swig of the fruit juice, then decided against it and put the glass down firmly on their little table.
“That young man is my long-term experiment. He was dying from radiation overdose when I injected the nanomachines into him, eight years ago—”
“Eight years?” Inoguchi seemed startled. “Was he at the south pole with Brennart?”
Zimmerman blinked. “Yes. Brennart died there.”
“I was there also. Or close by, actually. I broke my ribs in a landing accident. Yamagata and the Masterson Corporation were racing to claim the ice fields discovered at the south polar region.”
“So. That was when I injected Douglas Stavenger with the nanomachines. Some were specialized, others programmed in a more general way.”
“And they have been inside him all these years?”
“They will always be inside him. They have formed a symbiotic relationship with him.”
“How can inanimate machines create a symbiosis with an organism?” Inoguchi challenged.
“You see what they have done! What else can you call it?”
“But true symbiosis…”
They argued for hours, neither of them raising his voice, both of them waxing passionate for his position and against the other’s. Zimmerman enjoyed the debate immensely; he hadn’t had this kind of intellectual stimulation since he’d left Switzerland.
“It’s a shame you must return to Kyoto,” the old man said at last.
“Perhaps I won’t,” said Inoguchi.
“You want to remain here? You want to work with me?”
“Most certainly.”
Zimmerman beamed at him. “Very good! You can ask for asylum and—”
“No, I’m afraid you don’t understand,” Inoguchi said, smiling politely.
“What don’t I understand?”
“My work at Kyoto, fumbling and childlike as it is, must be done in great secrecy because Japan has signed the nanotechnology treaty and therefore such research is technically illegal.”
“So come here to Moonbase!”
“Once Yamagata Industries has acquired Moonbase, I will certainly come here and engage in nanotechnology research without all the hinderances I experience in Kyoto. I offer you the opportunity of remaining here even after the others have been removed. You may remain here and work with me.”
Zimmerman took a moment to digest what he heard, then sputtered, “You would allow me to remain at Moonbase and work under you?”
“With me,” Inoguchi corrected.
“We would be working for Yamagata, then?”
“Yes, of course.”
Zimmerman scowled at the younger man.
“You could continue your research unhindered,” Inoguchi promised. “There is no need for you to be sent back to Earth, no need for you to stop your work.”
Coldly, Zimmerman said, “You are assuming that Yamagata will conquer Moonbase.”
With a wan smile, Inoguchi replied, “That is inevitable, Professor. Regretful, perhaps, but inevitable. There is no way that Moonbase can resist the combined strength of the Peacekeepers and Yamagata’s special forces.”
“Even if I can make the entire base invisible to you?”
“What?” Inoguchi’s brows knit with consternation. “What are you saying?”
“Never mind,” Zimmerman replied, shaking his head.
“Invisible? How?”
“I will tell you only this much, young man. Your Peacekeepers and Yamagata forces might be able to destroy Moon-base and kill everyone in it, but they will never take us over. We will not be conquered! I will see to it that every man and woman in this base dies before we surrender to you!”
“You can’t be serious! I’m offering you an opportunity to continue your work as if nothing happened.”
With an angry snort, Zimmerman said, “You think I am a fool? You think I am an amoral egomaniac like your Georges Faure? Or like some renaissance tinkerer, content to work for any prince as long as he gets paid? I’m not a von Braun, I don’t work for any regime that allows me to pursue my goal. Moonbase is my home and I will defend it to the end! Freedom or death!”
Inoguchi had never felt so stunningly surprised in his entire life. The man thinks like a samurai, he realized.
DAY FORTY-THREE
“You can’t go after him,” Edith said. “You can’t even get out of bed!”
Doug smiled at her and hiked a thumb at the monitors over his head. “Look at the screens, Edith. Everything’s in the normal range, isn’t it?”
She glanced upward, then looked back at him. “The doctor told me—”
“The doctor’s playing it by the book. Zimmerman wants to observe how his nanobugs are working. But I’ve got to find Bam and stop him.”
“Why you? Why not a security team?”
“He wouldn’t give up without a fight. I don’t want anybody hurt.”
“After he tried to murder you?”
“It’s my job, Edith,” said Doug calmly. “My responsibility.”
She started to shake her head. “I’m not going to help you risk your butt all over again.”
“I’ve got to, Edith. Go back to our place and get a fresh set of clothes for me.”
“No!”
“You can come with me,” he said, struggling to convince her. “You said you wanted to come outside.”
“Zimmerman won’t allow it.”
“He can’t stop us if nobody tells him about it.”
“Doug, you almost died!”
