Farside

by Ben Bova

  Hefting the bag, Cardenas said, “No, Carter. It’s a human problem. Either a fool or a madman planted disassemblers in that shelter. The nanomachines were merely his weapon of choice. It’s exactly the same as if he’d planted a land mine.”

  “But—”

  She brushed past him, heading for the door. “I’m going back to Selene, Carter. You can talk to me anytime you want to—from there.”

  TELEOPERATIONS CENTER

  Grant sat at one of the consoles and put in a call to Dr. Cardenas. The teleoperations center was quietly busy with two teams of techs monitoring the robots’ construction work at Korolev and Gagarin, while a third team huddled around Trudy Yost, who was happily operating the Mendeleev telescope.

  In the bud-sized microphone he had wormed into his ear, Grant heard the phone say, “Dr. Cardenas is unavailable.”

  “Is she in her quarters?” Grant asked, keeping his voice low enough so that he wouldn’t disturb the others.

  The phone’s softly feminine voice replied, “Dr. Cardenas is unavailable.”

  Privacy protocol, Grant realized. There’re no surveillance cameras in the rooms, only out in the corridors and workplaces. He asked for the surveillance command system and quickly scanned through the camera views.

  And there was Kristine Cardenas, marching determinedly along the main corridor with her travelbag in one hand, looking taut, almost angry. McClintock was striding along beside her, talking nonstop, gesticulating with both hands.

  She’s heading for the landing pad, Grant realized. He called up the transportation program and saw that a lobber was due in from Selene in twenty minutes. Kris is heading back to Selene and McClintock’s trying to talk her out of it.

  Grant pulled his earbud out, got up from the console, and headed for the reception area. The three teleoperations teams sitting at the other consoles barely noticed him leaving.

  I can’t talk to her while McClintock’s yammering away at her, Grant told himself. I’ve got to see her alone.

  He hustled down the corridor, actually passing Cardenas and McClintock along the way. He nodded a hello to them as he went by. Kris gave him a tight smile, McClintock didn’t even blink, he was so intensely pleading with her.

  Nate Oberman was at the desk in the reception area, looking bored, his chair tipped back and his soft-booted feet on the desktop. Watching a video. When he saw Grant enter the little room Oberman scrambled to his feet, looking surprised and a little guilty.

  “Relax, Nate,” said Grant. “I’ve got to get into that lobber as soon as it sits down on the pad. Before they begin unloading.”

  “Okay,” Oberman said uncertainly.

  “Let me use your phone, please.”

  “Sure.” Oberman cleared his screen, then stepped away from the desk. “Be my guest.”

  Grant called the flight monitor and asked her to patch him through to the pilot of the incoming lobber. Grant recognized the pilot once his beefy face showed on the phone screen.

  “Hey, Grant, how’re they hangin’, buddy?”

  “Fine, Derek. And you?”

  “Gonna be busy landing this bird in a coupla minutes.”

  “I understand. Look, I need to come aboard as soon as you land. Before you start unloading cargo.”

  “You goin’ back with us?”

  “No, I just need a few minutes with your outbound passenger.”

  The pilot frowned with puzzlement. “She’s right there at your facility, isn’t she? Whyn’t you talk to her there?”

  Making himself smile, Grant replied, “Long story. I’ll chat with her aboard your ship while you’re unloading, if it’s okay with you. I won’t delay your departure.”

  “Okay by me, long’s we get out on time. My boss is a stickler for keeping to schedule.”

  Clicking off, Grant turned back to Oberman. “I’ll run the access tube, Nate. You can stay at the desk.”

  Oberman’s lean face looked curious, but he said only, “You’re the boss.”

  Grant went to the airlock hatch and quickly scanned the controls for the tube that would connect the airlock to the hatch of the lobber, once it landed. Behind him, he heard Cardenas and McClintock enter the area. Actually, he only heard McClintock talking nonstop, more and more frantic with each sentence. He was talking to Kris, Grant knew, but she wasn’t saying a word back to him.

  On the control console’s minuscule screen Grant saw the lobber settle down on the blast-blackened landing pad, silently blowing a spray of dust and pebbles across the barren, pitted ground. He worked the access tube out to the ship, watched it groping its way like a blind giant caterpillar and finally connecting to the lobber’s main airlock hatch.

  As soon as the console’s lights flashed green, Grant opened the airlock hatch and sprinted along the tube to the ship. The man at the other end, in the sky-blue uniform of Selene’s transportation department, eyed him curiously.

  “What’s the rush?” he asked.

  “I don’t want to get in your way,” Grant said, heading for the empty passenger compartment.

  He saw the ship’s pilot clambering down the ladder from the cockpit and got an idea. “Hello, Derek.”

  The pilot’s face was fleshier and ruddier than it had looked in the comm screen. “Welcome aboard, Grant,” he said.

  “Dr. Cardenas is your only passenger on the flight out, right?” Grant asked.

  With a curt nod, the pilot said, “Unless you people make a last-minute addition.”

  Shaking his head, Grant said, “No, no additions. In fact, there’s a guy with Dr. Cardenas who’ll probably try to come aboard with her. She doesn’t want him to.”

  “Oh?”

  “He’s trying to sell her something she doesn’t want. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t let him come aboard. Dr. Cardenas would appreciate it, too.”

  The pilot shrugged his heavy shoulders. “Okay, I’ll stop him at the hatch.”

  “Great. Thanks.” Grant climbed up into the passenger compartment while the pilot went to the airlock hatch.

  Fidgeting along the thinly carpeted aisle between the empty passenger seats, Grant heard bangs and thumps as Farside’s technicians began unloading the lobber’s cargo. Food, mostly, Grant knew. And supplies for sixteen different kinds of equipment, from tractors to computer screens.

  Kris Cardenas stepped into the passenger compartment, her eyes going wide with surprise when she recognized Grant.

  “Are you going to Selene, too?” she asked as she dropped her travelbag onto one of the empty seats.

  Grant hurried to her. “No. I need to talk to you for a few minutes, that’s all.”

  Her expression hardened. “Don’t tell me you’re trying to get me to stay here, too. I told Carter and—”

  “No, not that,” Grant interrupted. “I just need to ask you … is there any way that the nanos inside me could have caused the problems out at Mendeleev? Any way at all?”

  “Absolutely none,” Cardenas said firmly. “You can’t blame yourself for what happened, Grant. It’s not your fault.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “Completely.”

  Somehow her reassurance didn’t make Grant feel any better. He said, “Suppose somebody, somehow, mixed some gobblers in with the nanos you gave me?”

  Now Cardenas scowled at him. “Grant, you’re getting paranoid.”

  “But just suppose. Is it possible?”

  “No one in my lab would do such a thing.”

  He agreed with her. He knew she was right. But deep in his gut he was unconvinced.

  “Is there some way to check out the possibility?” he asked.

  Cardenas huffed impatiently. “I could take a blood sample and examine it.”

  “Could you do it now? Here?”

  “Does your clinic have an atomic force microscope?”

  “No, but the maintenance center has a laser probe that can do nanometer resolution.”

  Looking decidedly unhappy, almost disgusted, Cardenas glanced a
t her wristwatch.

  “You’ve got an hour before they lift off,” Grant coaxed. “You could check my blood and still make it in time.”

  Cardenas sighed heavily. “I doubt it.” But she studied Grant’s face for a long moment, then picked up her travelbag and said, “What the hell. Let’s see if we can make it.”

  Grant knew that there wouldn’t be another flight in from Selene for three days. We’d better get this done before that lobber takes off, he thought. Otherwise Kris is going to be damned unhappy with me.

  RACING AGAINST TIME

  Leading Cardenas out of the lobber and down the access tube, Grant was relieved to see that McClintock had left the reception area. Derek got rid of him, he thought gratefully as he hurried with Cardenas along the narrow tunnel toward Farside’s minuscule infirmary.

  Grant phoned the maintenance center as they entered the infirmary and told Toshio Aichi to be ready to test a sample in the laser probe, then he explained what he wanted to a surprised Dr. Kapstein while he rolled up his coverall sleeve. As he sat down for the blood drawing, Cardenas asked:

  “If I miss today’s flight, when’s the next one out?”

  Grant swallowed hard, then admitted, “Um … three days from now.”

  “Three days?” she yelped.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Glaring at him, Cardenas said, “Well, we’d damned well better get this done quickly. I can’t miss today’s flight. Anita Halleck’s people expect me to be in my lab for a design conference about their mirrors.”

  Wielding a needle, Dr. Kapstein said, “This will only take a moment.”

  “Three days,” Cardenas muttered while Grant flinched at the needle’s prick. “We’d better make today’s flight. I can’t hang around here for another three days.”

  “I appreciate this very much,” Grant said, by way of an apology.

  Clutching the vial of his dark red blood, Grant hustled Cardenas down to the maintenance center and introduced her to Aichi and Zacharias.

  He explained what they needed and the two techs walked them down to the far corner of the center, where the laser probe was already humming. Grant saw from the digital clock on the probe’s readout screen that they had forty-seven minutes before the lobber was set to lift off.

  As Aichi and Zacharias adjusted the laser, Toshio asked, “We are looking for nanomachines?” His face was impassive but his tone clearly uneasy.

  “That’s right,” said Grant, his eyes on the bead of bright red blood that Cardenas had smeared onto the probe’s specimen stage.

  Zacharias’s butterball face suddenly went somber. “Grant, you’ve got nanomachines inside you?”

  He nodded tightly.

  “Cheez,” said Zach, with awe in his voice. “I didn’t know.” He edged slightly away from Grant.

  “It’s only been a month or so,” Grant said.

  Toshio said, “Am I correct in believing that you also carry nanomachines within you, Dr. Cardenas?”

  “That’s no secret,” Cardenas replied.

  “Cheez,” Zacharias repeated.

  The wall screen to the right of the workbench lit up and Grant stared at the sight of dozens of little blobs racing back and forth.

  “Not the sharpest resolution,” Cardenas murmured.

  “It’s the best we can do,” said Aichi.

  “Those are nanos?” Zacharias asked.

  “Yes,” said Cardenas. “They are programmed to disassemble molecules that don’t carry Grant’s specific genetic markers.”

  “Any molecules?” Grant asked.

  “Only organics,” answered Cardenas. “And only within the specific environment of your body. If any of those nanos get outside your body they will automatically deactivate themselves. They’re tailored to your body, Grant. They’ll switch themselves off in any other environment.”

  Grant glanced at his wristwatch. Twenty-four minutes to liftoff.

  “How can you tell if there are any other types of nanomachines in my blood?” Grant asked.

  Frowning at the display screen, Cardenas replied, “I can’t. Not at this resolution. But…”

  Standing beside her, Grant peered at the screen. He could feel Toshio and Zach behind him, literally breathing down his neck.

  “What am I supposed to be seeing?” he asked.

  Cardenas murmured, “Wait … just a minute or so more.…”

  The frantic little specks on the screen were slowing down. As Grant watched, the blobs that were nanomachines moved more and more sluggishly. Finally they stopped altogether.

  Nodding as if satisfied, Cardenas said, “That’s it. They’re deactivated.”

  “They’re dead?” Zach asked.

  “Deactivated,” Cardenas corrected. Turning to Grant she said, “You see? Once the nanos are outside your body, no longer powered by your body heat, they shut down.”

  Grant was still staring at the screen. The specks that were nanomachines were totally inert now, unmoving.

  “Are you satisfied, Grant?” Cardenas asked. “Do you feel better now?”

  He broke into a guarded smile. “Yeah, I guess I do.”

  “All right, then,” Cardenas said. “Let’s get to that rocket!”

  Grabbing her by the wrist, Grant raced out of the maintenance center, leaving Aichi and Zacharias staring at them, dumbfounded.

  As they sprinted along the corridor, Grant flicked his pocketphone open and called the flight control monitor.

  “They’re on schedule,” Josie Rivera said.

  “Find a reason to delay their liftoff for a few minutes, will you, Jo?”

  “A reason? You mean, like make up some excuse for delaying them? I can’t do that, Grant. You know I can’t do that. The Ulcer would fry my butt if he found out. Flight control at Selene would go ballistic!”

  “Just a couple of minutes,” Grant pleaded, puffing as he ran. “Dr. Cardenas doesn’t want to miss the flight.”

  Josie’s dark-eyed face looked stubborn in the phone’s tiny screen. “I’ll see what I can do,” she said, in a tone that Grant knew meant that she would do nothing.

  They skidded into the reception area, startling Nate Oberman so badly he dropped the mug of juice he’d been sipping. It spilled across the desk.

  “… eight … seven…” The automated countdown sounded in the speakers set into the stone ceiling.

  Grant stood by Oberman’s desk, chest heaving, Cardenas panting beside him. Ten seconds too late, he thought. Ten frigging seconds.

  “Dammit,” Cardenas muttered.

  “… two … one … liftoff.”

  The wall screen showed the lobber hurtling off the launchpad in a silent blast of dust and pebbles. The pilot’s voice confirmed, “Liftoff on schedule. Bye-bye, Farside.”

  “Confirm liftoff,” Josie Rivera said. “Have a good flight, Derek.”

  “See you in three days, kiddo.”

  “I’ll be waiting for you.”

  The automated camera out by the landing pad was tracking the lobber as it climbed higher and higher into the star-filled black sky.

  “Pressure drop!” the copilot’s voice yelled.

  In the wall screen’s display the lobber suddenly blossomed into a glaring ball of white-hot flame. Grant could see pieces of the rocket hurtling across the sky, falling slowly, gently, spinning lazily like children’s toys.

  One of the pieces was the body of a man, Derek or his copilot. Frozen in horror, Grant watched the guy’s arms and legs flailing as he screamed in the utter silence of the lunar vacuum all the way down to the hard, barren ground.

  A PLAGUE OF NANOMACHINES

  Grant couldn’t move. He stared at the display screen as the fireball that had been a lobber dissipated and pieces of the rocket fell bouncing to the ground.

  “It … it…” Cardenas’s voice was choked, gasping.

  “It blew up,” Nate Oberman said, his voice a hollow whisper.

  “Oh, my god.” Cardenas began to sob.

  Turning
toward her, Grant took both of her hands in his. It took him three tries before he found his voice. “Are you okay?”

  Her eyes filled with tears, Cardenas nodded as she pulled in a deep, shuddering breath. “I might have been on it,” she whispered. “I might have…”

  “You weren’t on it,” Grant said firmly, “and you’re alive. You’re okay.”

  She said nothing, simply stared at him.

  Josie Rivera’s voice came through the overhead speakers. “It’s gone. It … it…”

  Raising his voice, Grant said, “Better call Selene, Josie, tell them what happened.”

  “Yeah, right.” Her voice sounded weak, dazed. “But how did it happen? How did it happen?”

  That’s what we’ve got to find out, Grant told himself. But first I’ve got to tell Uhlrich about it.

  * * *

  Grant walked Cardenas back to the quarters that had been assigned to her.

  “Will you be okay by yourself? I can get somebody to stay with you.”

  Her eyes red but dry now, Cardenas said calmly, “I’m all right. It was … a shock. But I’m all right now.”

  “Good. I’ll look in on you in a while. Right now, I’ve got a lot to do.”

  “I understand. Go ahead.”

  Grant left her and started sprinting down the corridor toward Professor Uhlrich’s office. As he ran he called Harvey Henderson on his pocketphone.

  “Get a crew suited up and go out to pick up the bodies,” Grant ordered.

  “What’s left of ’em,” Henderson said grimly.

  “Don’t touch the debris,” Grant continued. “Leave it where it fell. We might be able to establish an idea of the force of the explosion from the debris pattern on the ground.”

  “Yeah. Right.”

  He reached Uhlrich’s office, rapped on the door once, and slid it open.

  The professor was at his desk, as usual, with Trudy Yost sitting at the conference table. One of the wall screens was filled with spectrographic data.

  Uhlrich looked annoyed at Grant’s interruption; Trudy seemed surprised.