Farside

by Ben Bova

  “Do that,” said McClintock.

  Grant turned and left the office, not bothering to tell McClintock that he already had four technicians checking out all the other dewars on the tractors and hoppers.

  * * *

  Two weeks later, satisfied that the robots were working as specified at Mendeleev, under the remote direction of Farside’s controllers, and the transport vehicles were all in operable condition, Grant scheduled himself for a ride back to Selene on the next resupply flight.

  The cause of the dewar’s leak still bothered him; Grant did not like unsolved mysteries, especially when they involved equipment that human lives depended upon. But the press of everyday business drove the dewar mystery to the back of his mind.

  Physically, he felt better than he had in months. Dr. Kapstein confirmed that his liver function seemed to be improving, which puzzled her. Grant didn’t tell her about the nanomachines he’d ingested.

  “I’m tapering off on the steroids,” he lied. It actually wasn’t that much of a lie; he intended to stop using the steroids altogether if Cardenas would give him nanos that would take their place.

  He had dinner with Trudy Yost a few times. She was pleasant, intelligent, good company. Much more than cute, he thought. But he told himself there was no sense getting involved emotionally with someone you work with. Farside’s way too small for that.

  Still, he felt strangely disappointed whenever Trudy mentioned Carter McClintock’s name, which she did often.

  “He’s really handsome, don’t you think?” she asked.

  And I’m not, Grant said to himself.

  Then Dr. Cardenas called from Selene to tell him that her nanomachines had finished building the sample mirror.

  “You can come over and take a look any time,” she said, a bright smile on her youthful face.

  “I’m already scheduled for tomorrow’s lobber,” he said.

  “Fine,” said Cardenas.

  “I’ll have to bring the measuring equipment,” Grant said, “to see how close to our specs your bugs have come.”

  “Sure,” said Cardenas. “I’m anxious to see how well they did, too.”

  “By the way,” Grant added, “my latest physical was pretty good.”

  Cardenas’s expression sobered. “We’ll talk about that when you get here.”

  MIRROR, MIRROR

  And there it is, Grant said to himself as he gazed down at the sample mirror. He was standing on a metal catwalk one floor above the mirror, leaning on his forearms over the railing to get a better look at it, Dr. Cardenas beside him.

  It looks no different from the mirror we built at Farside, he thought. Wide as a football field, the mirror gleamed in the overhead lights. A pair of technicians were trundling a handcart around its perimeter. Grant could see the mirror’s underlying honeycomb structure as it sat in the frame he had sent from Farside to Selene.

  The chamber they were in had originally been used to build components of the rocket vehicles that Selene used for transportation across the surface of the Moon: lobbers and hoppers. When Selene shifted its large manufacturing programs to outdoor facilities, to take advantage of the cleanliness of the vacuum environment, this spacious volume had been turned into a storage area. Cardenas had commandeered it for constructing the mirror—with the help of Douglas Stavenger’s influence on Selene’s governing council.

  “So what do you think of it?” Kris Cardenas asked. She looked pleased, satisfied that her nanomachines had done their job, eager to hear his assessment of her work.

  “It looks okay to me,” said Grant. “Now we’ll have to set up the measuring lasers and see how much polishing it needs.”

  Cardenas nodded. “It’ll be interesting to see how close to your tolerances my little guys came.”

  Straightening up, Grant said to her, “You take a personal interest in your little bugs, don’t you?”

  “Of course. Don’t you take a personal interest in your work?”

  With a shrug, Grant acknowledged, “Sure.”

  “Besides,” Cardenas added, “it looks like the Nobel committee is serious about me.”

  “That’s what Palmquist was here for!” Grant realized. “Not Uhlrich. You.”

  “It looks that way.” Cardenas could not disguise her delight.

  “You’ll be going to Stockholm then, for the ceremony.”

  Her expression darkened. “Not likely. Sweden won’t accept a person who’s carrying nanomachines in her body. Neither will any other nation Earthside, just about.”

  “But they’ll make an exception for the Nobel Prize, won’t they?”

  “And have the ceremony bombed by some fanatic?” Cardenas shook her head.

  “That’s bloody rotten,” said Grant.

  “Yes, it is,” Cardenas agreed.

  She started toward the door, Grant following her.

  “The measuring equipment’s waiting out at the spaceport. I’ll need a tractor or something to carry it over here.”

  “I’ve already told my technicians to bring your equipment over. That’s what they were doing downstairs with the cart.”

  A little surprised, Grant said, “You’re a jump ahead of me.”

  She made a thin smile.

  As they stepped through the door and out into the corridor, Grant said, “My latest physical’s pretty good. Dr. Kapstein was surprised that my liver function’s improved.”

  “You haven’t told her about the nanos?”

  “I haven’t told anybody.”

  “Good.”

  Walking along the corridor beside her, Grant said, “So when can you give me the next set?”

  Cardenas did not meet his eyes. Looking straight ahead as they walked, she said in a lowered voice, “Fixing your liver is one thing. Providing you with cell-rebuilding nanos is another.”

  Startled at her response, Grant demanded, “What do you mean?”

  She turned her head to look at him briefly, then said, “Come to the lab tonight. Pick me up there and we’ll have dinner together.”

  “Okay.”

  Grant spent the rest of the day helping Cardenas’s technicians to unpack the lasers and optical gear that would measure the mirror’s curvature down to a fraction of the six-hundred-nanometer wavelength of orange-colored light. Yet he couldn’t help worrying about Cardenas’s attitude toward giving him the nanomachines he needed to protect him against radiation.

  Why’s that any different from the bugs she’s already given me? he wondered. She gave me the nanos for my liver easily enough. Now she’s balking? What’s wrong? What’s going on?

  Although he felt physically tired by the time he and the technicians got the measuring equipment set up, Grant wanted to start the measurements as soon as the lasers were in place above the mirror and the optics equipment was checked out. But he saw the technicians glancing at their wristwatches and then at each other. It was well past 1900; he understood that their regular working hours were over and they wanted to leave for the day.

  If I push them I’ll alienate them, he thought. They work for Kris, not me, and they’ll get sore. Besides, we’ll all work better tomorrow morning, when we’re fresh.

  “Okay, guys,” he said. “And gals,” he added, nodding toward the two women among the half-dozen of them. “Let’s call it a day. See you here at eight tomorrow morning.”

  They broke into satisfied grins and swiftly left the chamber.

  Grant headed toward Dr. Cardenas’s office.

  “I thought you were going to stand me up,” Cardenas called to him as Grant threaded his way through the workbenches of the nanotech lab.

  “We just finished setting up the measuring equipment,” he replied. “Hope I haven’t kept you waiting too long.”

  Getting up from her desk chair, Cardenas said, “No, I’m only moderately famished.”

  She breezed past Grant, heading for the door.

  “About those nanos…” Grant began.

  “Let’s get some food first. Then
we can talk.”

  ONE-WAY STREET

  Feeling distinctly nervous, apprehensive, Grant followed Dr. Cardenas to the cafeteria. The place was crowded with diners, long lines at all the counters.

  Cardenas loaded her tray with a bowl of soup, a plate of soyburger, a salad, and a steaming mug of tea. Grant took fish filets, creamed corn, and a cola. They both avoided the dessert counter.

  She found a table for two in a corner of the bustling, clattering cafeteria.

  “Hard to carry on a quiet conversation,” Grant said as they sat down, raising his voice over the noise of the crowd.

  “Good,” said Cardenas. “Less chance of being overheard.”

  Grant blinked at her. She’s acting as if we’re hatching some kind of a conspiracy, he thought.

  Leaning slightly across the table, Grant asked, “So what about my nanos?”

  Cardenas spooned up some soup and drank it before raising her cornflower blue eyes to meet Grant’s.

  “Fixing your liver was one thing, Grant. Easy. A one-shot proposition.”

  “And?” he prompted.

  “Putting nanomachines into your body that will repair cellular damage from radiation or other causes is an entirely different thing.”

  He waited for the other shoe to drop.

  Her face utterly serious, Cardenas continued, “That kind of nanotherapy is continuous, ongoing. Once you put that type of nano into your body, you’ve started down a one-way street.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Patiently, Cardenas explained, “Look, you’ll be ingesting nanomachines that will fill your body. They’ll invade your cells and repair any damage they find. You’ll be carrying billions of little repair kits inside you.”

  “So that’s good, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, certainly. But they’re so good at what they do that your body’s natural repair systems will begin to shut down. As far as your natural immune system is concerned, you’ll be in such good health that they can slack off.”

  “Great,” said Grant.

  Cardenas shook her head. “Your body’s production of leukocytes—white blood cells—T-cells, all your body’s defenses against infection and cellular damage will decline. Steeply.”

  “But if I’ve got the nanos in me I won’t need them, will I?”

  “That’s right,” she said, so faintly Grant could barely hear her. “You won’t.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “You’ll be chained to those nanomachines, Grant. Like I said, you’ll be heading along a one-way street. Once you start taking nanotherapy you’ll have to stay with it for life.”

  Grant thought it over for all of five seconds. “Okay by me,” he said.

  Cardenas smiled sadly. “Easy enough for you to say, Grant. But the nanomachines have finite lifetimes. They break down, eventually. You’ll need to replenish them from time to time.”

  “I see.”

  “You’ll be hooked on them, just as you might become hooked on narcotics or alcohol.”

  Grant saw that she was trying to give him the whole picture before he made a decision that he’d have to live with for the rest of his life.

  “You’re living with them, aren’t you?” he asked.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “And you seem to be doing okay. Fine, in fact.”

  “But I can never go back to Earth. Never go home. I’m an exile, Grant.”

  “I’m not going back to Earth, either,” he said. “I’ve got nothing to lose.”

  She looked surprised. “I remember you told me that before. But are you certain? Absolutely certain? It’s a decision that you’ll have to live with for the rest of your life.”

  “Which could be centuries long, from what I’ve heard.”

  Cardenas almost smiled. “Yes, you could live for a long time, with nanos protecting you.”

  Grant reached out and clutched her hand. “I’ll take the chance.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure. And thanks for the warning. I appreciate how much you care.”

  Cardenas seemed to brighten, as if a weight had been taken off her shoulders.

  “All right, Grant,” she said. “Come down to my lab tomorrow evening and I’ll have the nanos waiting for you.”

  EIGHT WEEKS LATER

  You’ll be all right, Trudy told herself as she stepped out of the airlock and onto the open floor of the Sea of Moscow. Just don’t look up; keep your eyes straight ahead and don’t look at the stars.

  She was following Winston Squared out to one of the spindly little hoppers standing near the blast pad where the bigger, more powerful lobbers landed and lifted off.

  “The nanobots have finished the mirror at Mendeleev crater,” she said. She knew that Winston knew that, everybody at Farside knew it, but Trudy needed something to chatter about. “Now Grant’s getting them started on the mirror at Korolev. At this rate we’ll have all three telescopes working before the end of the year.”

  “Yeah, that’s good,” Winston said. “And Cyclops is starting to get data from the antennas we’ve already put up. The prof’s a happy camper.”

  “You’re looking for intelligent signals?” Trudy asked.

  With a cynical little chuckle, Winston said, “The great and wonderful search for extraterrestrial intelligence. The more we look the less we find.”

  “I thought SETI—”

  “Trudy, radio telescopes have been searching for intelligent signals for more than a century. With nothing to show for it.”

  “You’re not using Cyclops for SETI?”

  “Oh, sure. We’re scanning for intelligent signals. But it’s strictly routine, nobody expects to find anything.”

  “But you said you were getting data,” Trudy said, keeping her eyes focused on his space-suited back, a few paces ahead of her.

  “We sure are,” he replied, brightening. “We’re looking at the afterglow from gamma-ray bursters. Exploded superstars, three, four megaparsecs out.”

  “Hypernovas?” Trudy asked.

  “You know about them?”

  “Only a little,” she said.

  The hopper was about a hundred paces ahead of them, a flimsy-looking craft, little more than a platform resting on spidery legs. Trudy knew that Crater Mendeleev was nearly eight hundred kilometers away, and Winston had been ordered by Professor Uhlrich to fly her there.

  “Sounds like interesting work,” she said.

  “Not as glamorous as talking to ETs,” Winston replied. “But it sure as hell interests me. And the rest of the Cyclops crew.”

  She nodded inside her fishbowl helmet. The Cyclops assembly would be the biggest and most sensitive radio telescope facility in the solar system, she knew, capable of picking up intelligent radio signals from thousands of light-years’ distance.

  If there are any intelligent signals out there, she added silently.

  They reached the hopper and Winston put a booted foot on its frail-looking ladder, then stopped and turned toward her.

  “Ladies first,” he said, with a stiff little bow.

  Thinking that there were advantages to being one of the few women at this lonely outpost, Trudy grabbed a rung and started up the ladder. She felt the rung sag slightly as she put her weight on it but ignored that and clambered laboriously in her bulky space suit up to the open platform.

  Following right behind her, Winston went to the control console, nothing more than a slender podium at one edge of the platform. She stood beside him and clutched the slim railing with both her gloved hands.

  “Better slip your boots into the loops on the deck,” Winston told her. “These little buggies don’t generate many g’s, but still you want to be anchored down good and tight.”

  “How long will it take to get to Mendeleev?” she asked.

  “We’re scheduled for forty-five minutes. Could go faster but that’d burn up too much of our fuel.”

  Trudy felt her pulse thumping in her ears as Winston went through the
brief checkout procedure and then asked the flight controller, safe and snug back in Farside’s underground shelter, for permission to lift off.

  “You are cleared for liftoff,” she heard in the speakers built into her helmet.

  Winston said, “Okay. Here we go.”

  The sudden surge of acceleration made Trudy’s knees buckle, but she held tight to the railing and straightened up immediately. The ground fell away and all at once they were soaring up, higher and higher, as if they were riding a magic carpet. No sound, no feeling of wind rushing by; it was almost as if she were watching a 3-D video.

  “Fun, isn’t it?” Winston asked, his voice light and carefree.

  “Sort of,” Trudy replied cautiously.

  She could see the barren, pitted ground sliding past them far below, pockmarked with craters, studded with rocks. I’m flying across the Moon, she told herself. She felt light-headed and her insides began to churn.

  “We’ll be weightless most of the flight,” Winston said cheerily. “Feels great, doesn’t it?”

  “Sort of,” was all that Trudy could say.

  Her stomach was crawling up toward her throat and she felt that if she let go of the railing she would float off into infinity. Squeezing her eyes shut, she commanded herself to ignore the queasiness. Forget about it. Forget the cosmic emptiness out there. Think of something else. Something pleasant.

  She thought back to her date with Carter McClintock.

  They had bumped into each other in the cafeteria. Over the months since she’d arrived at Farside they saw each other daily, of course. But two days ago, there in the cafeteria, Carter had asked her to have dinner with him, in his quarters.

  “I’m afraid I’m not much of a cook,” he had said, a rueful expression on his handsome face. “But then, there’s not much available here except prepackaged meals.”

  “That’s okay,” Trudy had said brightly. “I can perform miracles with a microwave.”

  “Can you? How wonderful.”

  McClintock’s quarters were somehow more luxurious than Trudy’s. The place was the same size as hers, and had the same standard-issue sofa and chairs, desk and wall screens. The same kind of kitchenette. The same-sized bed. But McClintock had a real carpet on the floor, a red-patterned oriental. And the coffee table in front of the sofa was a handsome curved piece of glass, not the more practical boxy type that Trudy had in her room. An additional flat screen was mounted on the wall over the sofa; it showed an image of some famous painting of a woman and her little boy on a green summery hilltop.