Saturn gt-12

by Ben Bova

  “Gray goo is one thing,” Jaansen replied. “Nanobugs have also been deliberately programmed to destroy proteins. Take them apart, molecule by molecule.”

  “So I’ve been told,” said Eberly.

  “We’re made of proteins. Nanobugs can be designed to be killers. That’s a real danger in a closed ecology like this habitat. They could wipe out everybody in less than a day.”

  Morgenthau gasped a disbelieving, “No! Less than a day?”

  Jaansen shrugged his slim shoulders. “They can reproduce themselves out of the materials around them in milliseconds and multiply faster than plague microbes. That’s why they’re usually programmed to be de-functioned by near UV.”

  “De-functioned?” asked Eberly.

  “Near UV?” Morgenthau inquired.

  “De-functioned, deactivated, broken up, killed, stopped. Near ultraviolet light is softer — er, not so energetic — as ultraviolet light of shorter wavelength. So you can use near UV to stop nanobugs without causing damage to people.” He broke into a toothy grin as he added, “Except maybe they get a suntan.”

  Eberly steepled his fingers. “So nanomachines can be controlled.”

  “If you’re verrry careful,” Jaansen replied.

  “But the risks are frightening,” Morgenthau said.

  Jaansen shrugged again. “Perhaps. But take the EVA we had to do on the solar mirrors a few days ago. Nanomachines could have been inserted into the mirror motors and repaired them without anyone needing to go outside.”

  “Then they could be very useful,” said Eberly.

  “They’d be extremely helpful in all the maintenance tasks, yes, certainly,” Jaansen replied. “They would make my job much easier.” Before either of the other two could speak, he added, “If they’re kept under strict control. That’s the hard part: keeping them under control.”

  “Can they be controlled well enough to do only what they’re programmed to do, without running wild?” Morgenthau asked.

  “Yes, certainly. But you’ve got to be verrry careful with the programming. It’s like those old fairy tales about getting three wishes, and the wishes always backfire on you.”

  “We’ll have Dr. Kristin Cardenas to be in charge of the nanotechnology group,” Eberly said.

  Jaansen’s ash-blond brows rose a respectful few centimeters. “Cardenas? She’s here?”

  “She will be, in a few months.”

  “That’s good. That’s extremely good.”

  “Then it’s settled,” Eberly said. “You will work with Cardenas to draw up guidelines for using nanomachines.”

  Jaansen nodded enthusiastically. “I’ll be glad to.”

  “I don’t like it,” Morgenthau said, grim-faced. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “Not if we can keep them under control,” said Eberly.

  Jaansen got to his feet. “As I said, it’s a two-edged sword. Cardenas is the top expert, though. We’ll be lucky to have her.”

  “I don’t like it,” said Morgenthau, once the engineer had left. “Nanomachines are dangerous … evil.”

  “They’re tools,” Eberly countered. “Tools that could be useful to us.”

  “But—”

  “No buts!” Eberly snapped. “I’ve made my decision. Dr. Cardenas will be welcome, as long as she works under our guidelines.”

  Looking doubtful, almost fearful, Morgenthau said, “I’ll have to discuss this with my superiors in Amsterdam.”

  Eberly glared at her. “The Holy Disciples asked me to direct things here. I won’t be second-guessed by a board of elders sitting back on Earth.”

  “Those elders asked me to assist you,” said Morgenthau. “And to make certain you didn’t stray off the path of righteousness.”

  Eberly leaned back in his desk chair. So that’s it. She’s the link back to Amsterdam. She’s here to control me.

  Keeping his voice calm, he said to Morgenthau, “Well, I’ve made my decision. Dr. Cardenas will be joining us in three months, and there’s nothing that Amsterdam or Atlanta or anyone else can do about it.”

  She looked far less than pleased. “You still have to convince Wilmot to let you introduce nanotechnology into the habitat.”

  Eberly stared at her for a silent moment. Then, “Yes, so I do.”

  CONFIDENTIAL REPORT

  EYES ONLY

  TO: M. Eberly.

  FROM: R. Morgenthau.

  SUBJECT: Surveillance of living quarters.

  Dr. Eberly:

  I discussed the problem of installing surveillance cameras in every living space in the habitat with H. Jaansen, of Engineering. He informed me that microcameras, no larger than a pinhead, have been developed for the probes that the planetary scientists plan to send to Titan. Such cameras are also used by the medical department for examining patients’ innards. They can be manufactured in large numbers with existing facilities.

  Jaansen suggests having the medical department initiate a program of spraying each apartment in the habitat with a broad-based disinfectant or aerosol antibiotic, under the guise of preventing the outbreak of airborne diseases. The cameras would be installed in each apartment during the spraying procedure.

  This program will require the cooperation of several lower-level personnel from the medical, maintenance, engineering, and security departments. It will also require a significant amount of time to complete.

  If you can recruit satisfactory personnel for this program, I suggest we begin the “spraying” effort as soon as feasible.

  In addition, Vyborg has successfully tapped into the communications net and is now routinely recording phone conversations and the video programming that individuals watch in their homes. The amount of information is enormous, as you may well imagine. Vyborg will need guidelines from you as to who should be monitored on a regular basis. He will also need personnel and/or automated equipment to accomplish said monitoring.

  DEPARTURE PLUS 268 DAYS

  And this is where we grow most of our fruit,” Holly was saying as she and Kris Cardenas strolled leisurely through the orchard’s long straight rows of trees: oranges on their left, limes on their right. Grapefruit and lemons were behind them; they were approaching apples, pears, and peaches. The trees were lined up as precisely as marching cadets.

  Cardenas had arrived aboard the habitat the day before. Now she seemed lost in wonder. “I haven’t seen a tree in so many years…” She turned and laughed, head upturned. “Not one tree since I left Selene and here you’ve got a whole orchard full of them! It’s like California, almost!”

  Holly asked, “There aren’t any trees on Ceres?”

  “Not a one,” replied Cardenas, a bright smile on her youthful face. “Nothing but hydroponics tanks.”

  “We have hydroponics farms, too,” Holly said, “as a backup in case any troubles come up with the crops.”

  “And bees!” Cardenas exclaimed. “Aren’t those bees?”

  “Uh-huh. We need them for pollinating the trees. They make their hives in those white boxes over there.” Holly pointed toward a set of square white skeps sitting among the trees. Laughing, she added, “Would you believe, one of my hardest problems was finding a couple of beekeepers.”

  Cardenas looked at her with those brilliant blue eyes of hers. “You know, you really don’t realize how much you miss open spaces and trees and … well, even grass, for god’s sake. Not until you see something like this again.”

  They walked on through the orchard, heading for the farms out beyond the trees. Eberly had given Holly the task of showing Dr. Cardenas around the habitat. He called it orientation; Holly called it fun.

  As they walked through the neatly aligned rows of trees, they heard a thin, quavering voice off to their left. Singing.

  “Who’s that?” Cardenas wondered.

  Holly ducked through the low branches of a young peach tree and cut toward the edge of the orchard, Cardenas close behind her.

  The orchard ended in an earthen embankment that led down to the i
rrigation canal. Water flowed smoothly through the sloping concrete walls of the canal. Up ahead of them they saw a solitary man lugging a double armful of sticks and leafy bushes, singing in a high, scratchy voice. Spanish, Holly thought. It sounds like a Spanish folk song.

  “Hello,” Cardenas called to the man.

  He dropped his burden and squinted through the late afternoon sunlight at them. Holly saw he was elderly. No, he looked old. Lean body half bent with age, skinny arms, wispy white hair that floated about his head like a halo, scraggly dead white beard. She had never seen a truly old person before. He wore a droopy shirt that had once been white, sleeves rolled up above his elbows, and shapeless, baggy blue jeans.

  “Hola!”he called back to them.

  The two women approached him. “We heard you singing,” Holly said.

  “It was very lovely,” Cardenas added.

  “Thank you,” said the man. “I am Diego Alejandro Ignacio Romero. My friends call me Don Diego, because of my age. I am not truly a nobleman.”

  The women introduced themselves. Then Holly asked, “You must work for the maintenance department, right?”

  Don Diego smiled, revealing perfect teeth. “My occupation is in the communications department. On Earth, I taught history. Or tried to.”

  “What are you doing here, then?”

  “The Church was not happy with my studies of the Counterreformation and the Inquisition.”

  “No, I mean, working out here by the canal.”

  “Oh, this? This is my hobby. I am attempting to create a little wilderness.”

  He gestured along the canal, and Holly saw that there were bushes and small trees set up haphazardly along the sloping packed-earth banks. Someone had moved a few good-sized rocks here and there, as well.

  “Wilderness?”

  “Yes,” said Don Diego. “This habitat is too neat, too ordered. People need something more natural than rows of trees planted precisely two point five meters apart.”

  Cardenas laughed. “A nature trail.”

  “Si.Yes, a nature trail. Built by hand, I’m afraid, because nature is a stranger to this place.”

  “Why did you sign up for this mission?” Cardenas asked.

  Don Diego pulled a checkered handkerchief from his shirt pocket and mopped his brow. “To help build a new world, of course. And perhaps to teach anyone who expressed an interest in history, if I am allowed.”

  “You’d like to teach?”

  “I was professor of Latin American history at the University of Mexico until I was forcibly retired.”

  Without thinking, Holly asked, “How old are you?”

  He eyed her for a moment, then smiled. “You don’t see many as aged as I, do you?”

  Holly shook her head.

  “I have ninety-seven years. Ninety-eight, in four months.”

  Cardenas said, “You could take rejuvenation treatments—”

  “No,” he replied amiably. “Not for me. I want to grow old gracefully, but I am unwilling to postpone death indefinitely.”

  “You want to die?” Holly blurted.

  “Not necessarily. I maintain my health. I have taken injections to grow my third set of teeth. Also injections to rebuild the cartilage in my joints.”

  With a smile, Cardenas said, “You’re getting your rejuvenation treatment one shot at a time, instead of all at once.”

  He thought about that for a moment. Then, “Perhaps. It would not be the first time I have played the fool on myself.”

  Holly asked, “Does the maintenance department know what you’re doing here?”

  For the first time, Don Diego looked apprehensive. “Eh … not yet,” he said slowly. Before Holly could say anything more, he added, “I have not interfered with the flow of water in the canal. If anything, I believe I have made this area more beautiful, more natural, and serene.”

  Cardenas looked at the tangle of bushes and rocks, then up over the embankment’s edge at the straight rows of fruit trees. Finally she looked back into the old man’s red-rimmed eyes.

  “I agree,” she said. “You’ve created some beauty here.”

  “You will not report this to the maintenance department?” Don Diego asked.

  Cardenas glanced at Holly.

  “I will tell them myself, of course,” he said, “when I have finished this stretch of the canal.”

  Holly grinned at him. “No, we won’t tell anybody.”

  Cardenas agreed with a nod.

  “May we come and help you, now and then?” Holly asked.

  “Of course! I am always glad for the company of lovely women.”

  Less than three kilometers away from them, Malcolm Eberly and Professor Wilmot were following a lab-coated technical manager through one of the small, highly automated factories that produced the habitat’s manufactured goods. This one was turning out the pharmaceutical pills and drugs that the habitat’s population needed to maintain their health, and the meat-based proteins they required for a balanced diet. The two men were inspecting the rows of processors that produced the medications and gengineered food: shoulder-tall stainless steel vats that gleamed in the overhead lights. The factory was practically silent; the only sound other than their own voices was the background hum of electrical power.

  “…can’t allow infectious diseases to get a start here,” the factory manager was saying as he led the two men down the row of processors. “In a closed ecology like this, even the sniffles could be dangerous.”

  Eberly turned to Wilmot, beside him. “That’s one of the reasons why I approved Dr. Cardenas’s application to join us. With her knowledge of nanotechnology—”

  “You should have consulted me first,” Wilmot said sharply. He stopped in the middle of the aisle and fixed Eberly with a severe gaze.

  Eberly stopped too, and glanced at the factory manager, who pretended not to hear as he kept on walking slowly along the row of humming vats.

  “But, Professor,” Eberly said placatingly, “I sent you a memorandum. When you didn’t reply, I naturally assumed you approved of our taking Dr. Cardenas aboard.”

  “You should have come to me in person to discuss it,” Wilmot said. “That’s what I expected.”

  “You placed me in charge of human resources matters. I assumed you would be elated to have Dr. Cardenas with us.”

  “You assume too much.”

  The factory manager, a bland-looking technician in a long pale blue lab coat, cleared his throat and said, “Urn, the rest of the processors are pretty much just like these here. We can program them to produce any of the medications required out of the raw materials coming in from the chem labs.”

  “Thank you,” said Wilmot, dismissing the man with a wave of his beefy hand.

  The manager scurried away, leaving Eberly alone with the professor. As far as Eberly could tell, the manager was the only human on the factory’s staff.

  He looked up at Wilmot. The professor was much taller than Eberly, big-boned. He looked decidedly displeased.

  “You don’t approve of allowing Dr. Cardenas to join us?” Eberly asked in what he hoped was a properly obsequious whine.

  Wilmot opened his mouth, shut it again, and fingered his moustache momentarily before replying, “I’m not certain that I would have approved her application, no.”

  “But she is here,” Eberly said. “She arrived from Ceres yesterday morning.”

  “I know. You exceeded your authority by inviting her, Dr. Eberly.”

  “But I didn’t invite her! She asked for permission to join us.”

  “Even so, you should have brought the matter to me. Immediately. I am the one in charge here, and I have to justify every decision I make to the university consortium board back on Earth.”

  “I know, but—”

  “You know, but you bypassed the rules of procedure,” Wilmot hissed. “You acted on your own authority.”

  “I thought you would be pleased,” Eberly bleated.

  “This habitat must run on
established procedures,” Wilmot said, his voice as low as Eberly’s but much stronger. “We cannot have anarchy here! There is a set of regulations that was drawn up by the best minds the consortium could tap. We will follow those regulations until we arrive at Saturn and the people select the form of government they desire. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir. Perfectly clear.”

  Wilmot drew in a deep breath. Then, somewhat more softly, he went on, “Once we’ve achieved orbit around Saturn the people can draw up a constitution for themselves and elect officers and all that. Form their own government. But while we are in transit we will follow the regulations set down by the consortium. No one will deviate from those regulations. No one!”

  “I thought you would be happy to have Dr. Cardenas.”

  Wilmot fiddled with his moustache again. “Nanotechnology,” he muttered. “Serious stuff, that.”

  Eberly realized that the professor was not angry. He was worried, perhaps frightened. A weight lifted from Eberly’s shoulders; he had to consciously keep himself from smiling.

  “Ah, yes,” he said, in a hushed tone. “Nanotechnology. In a closed environment such as ours…” He let the thought peter out in mid-sentence.

  Wilmot resumed walking along the nearly silent processors. “I realize that nanomachines can be of enormous help to us. And I know that Dr. Cardenas is the leading expert in the field. Still…”

  Thinking quickly, Eberly suggested, “If you don’t want her here, I can order her back to Ceres.”

  Wilmot looked shocked. “Throw her out? We can’t do that! We’ve already accepted her. You did, rather, but you did it in the name of our community and we can’t go back on our word.”

  “No, I suppose not,” Eberly agreed meekly.

  Wilmot paced on, determined to get to the end of the row of processors, even though each one looked alike and there was no longer anyone with them to explain anything.

  Matching the professor’s long-legged strides as best as he could, Eberly said, “I suppose we could order her not to engage in any nanotechnology work. She served as a medical caregiver in Ceres, I understand.”