“Crazy, isn’t it?” Then he turned serious again. “Anyway, it’s just as well it went missing. Otherwise, the Chinese military might have found some way to weaponize it. It’s always easier to build weapons than to make something constructive. Destruction is fundamentally easier after all.”
“Besides,” Charlotte added, “you wouldn’t want anyone building on your research and possibly beating you to it.”
She had clearly struck a nerve with that. “Merely a fortuitous side effect,” he spluttered, then hastily changed the subject. “Listen, come visit me if you like. I can show you some of what I’m doing.” He took a card from his pocket and passed it across to her. “Here, this is my address. It’s outside of town, up in the mountains. Quite remote. But you can ask anyone in the area how to get there; they all know the house. It used to belong to a famous country singer they’re still mighty proud of.”
“And now you live in the famous house,” Charlotte said. “All on your own.”
He looked at her without expression. “Not quite. I live with a woman.”
That gave her a pang. Of course, he had every right to…of course. She had always fended him off. She had done everything in her power to show him that he had no hope with her. Of course. All the same…
“Well that’s nice,” she said brightly, nodding and smiling, though her face had frozen into a mask. “I’m happy for you.”
When Adrian Cazar called that evening, she agreed to meet him in Boston and seriously consider his proposal that she join him on an expedition to a Russian island in the Arctic Ocean.
It was true: Hiroshi Kato lived with a woman. Her name was Patricia Steel, she came from Kentucky, she was 53 years old, and she was his housekeeper. She lived in a cozy three-room apartment in an annex and shook her head every morning when she came to work at the estate itself. The house had six bathrooms and twenty-one rooms, some of them the size of ballrooms, all with floors of tropical hardwood polished till it was almost black and enormous windows offering breathtaking views over the Cascade Mountains. And almost all of the rooms were empty. There was a bedroom the size of a small gym hall where the only item of furniture was a futon in the middle of the floor with a snow-white cover over it.
In one of the biggest halls, down a few steps from the rest of the house, a large basket chair stood on its own. Standing there on the dark, polished floor, it looked like an island in a sea of dark water. Patricia Steel’s eccentric employer would sometimes spend whole days at a time sitting there, motionless, sunk in strange seas of thought, staring out over the mountain peaks and valleys beyond the windows. She was not permitted to speak to him on those days. All she was allowed to do was bring him food and drink on a tray that she put down beside him on the floor. Often, though, it was still there the next day, untouched.
The study was not quite so empty. Five long conference tables were laid out in a huge U shape with a total of twenty-one computers lined up on them, working day and night. They made a noise like a squadron of helicopters approaching from somewhere over the horizon. Patricia Steel was not even allowed to vacuum in there (that was done instead by a little robot that looked like a large drop of mercury when there was nobody in the room) and never even went into the study anymore. Nor did Patricia Steel know there was a fully equipped laboratory in the basement. The only way in was through a secret door with a high-security dial lock, and the lab had not a single window.
Hiroshi Kato spent several days after his return from Mexico sitting in the chair. He looked out over the valley that had inspired the singer to write love songs people still sang today, but for once he was not pondering some deep problem of nanotechnology. He was pondering his own nature and motives. Why had he said that? Why had he let Charlotte think he had somebody? She was unattached at the moment, he knew that. And she had clearly been pleased to see him. She had been relaxed around him, no question. He thought of how they had strolled through the exhibition of curiosities and anomalies to fill the time until she was due to speak. Charlotte had been worrying over her lecture, so at first they simply reminisced, but she had gradually unwound and become more confident, more self-assured. She had obviously enjoyed those hours together. It would have been the perfect opportunity to let one thing lead to another, to give them another chance. Instead, he had made a mess of it all. And not even by his own stupidity—he had done it deliberately. Why? Did he still feel she was too good for him? That was nonsense. By now he was richer than her parents had ever been, and he had done it all on his own. And there was nobody around now who could tell them what not to do.
Well, it might not have worked out. Relationships were no simple matter, and he certainly didn’t have much of a track record himself. But a chance—it would have been a chance.…He hadn’t wanted to take it. That was why. He was so close to solving his riddle, so close to building his universal machine for real that he couldn’t allow any distractions. And a love affair would have been a distraction, no matter how it worked out—what a distraction. Love was always an adventure leading who knew where; he saw that all around him. He had spent so many years concentrating all his powers to one purpose alone that he was ready to sacrifice everything he had for his fated task, his one and only goal. Even in the best case, a love affair would have irreparably shattered his concentration, scattered his focus, and could easily stop him from making the decisive breakthrough. And he couldn’t risk that. Never before had one man been so close to changing the world for the better, so close to rewriting destiny, and never before had the world been in such urgent need of change. All modesty aside, it was the truth. He owed it to himself not to make a mess of this. And if loneliness was the price he had to pay, then he would have to take that burden upon himself.
What he had told her about decades or centuries hadn’t been true. Nobody could say how long it would take. All he needed was the right idea, and that could come tomorrow. It could even be that all he needed was a dream.
Besides, Charlotte had rebuffed him so many times. It would do her no harm to learn what it felt like just once.
“You should really think about patenting what you have so far,” said Rasmussen.
“I don’t have anything. Just a couple of pictures on a computer screen.”
“You have working replication algorithms.” Rasmussen pointed out the window. “There are an awful lot of clever people out here working on the very same thing. A self-replicating nanomachine is the holy grail of nanotechnology. Do you have any notion how many patents are submitted every single day? Every new theory, every tiny incremental improvement—it all gets patented. You have no idea how they’re competing for claims out there; it’s a cutthroat business. And if someone manages to make that final breakthrough before you get your application into the patent office, then you’ll be left in the dust, Hiroshi. You’ll have to pay someone else for the right to use your own invention.”
Hiroshi leaned back and put on what Rasmussen privately thought of as his Japanese face. “They’re not working on the same thing as I am,” he declared. “Not remotely. I admit that I don’t know what goes on in the patent office, but I believe I’m more or less up to date on the theoretical work and the projects that are underway. And I don’t see anyone who has successfully moved away from the biological metaphor. Everybody’s tinkering around trying to build these insanely complicated nanomachines that are supposed to work like living beings. And they’re all wondering what keeps going wrong. Or they’re just using genetically manipulated bacteria, and all that tells me is they’ll never get any further than the compounds of carbon and protein structures.”
“Don’t underestimate these people. It could be just as you say, but that doesn’t mean that nobody will ever have the same idea as you. Quite the opposite, in fact. It could happen any day now. Any one of these researchers might suddenly decide to give up on self-replicating mechanisms and try a self-replicating complex instead.”
“S
o what? What good will it do him? He’ll end up stuck down the same dead end that I’m in.”
Rasmussen sighed. Hiroshi didn’t seem to want to listen. “That doesn’t matter. He’ll patent the idea, and that means that whatever it may actually lead to belongs to him. On top of which, it’ll be published, and it’ll get noticed. All the big brains in the business will be all over it—people like Binnig, Drexler, Merkle, the guys who invented nanotechnology. And I don’t want to step on your toes here, but when there are a whole lot of smart guys all working intensively on the problem, someone may very well solve your problem with the bonding angles.” He clasped his hands together. “You can make all of this work for you if you just patent what you have.”
“You don’t understand,” Hiroshi said. “I’m not interested in patents. Not for this.” He leaned forward and put his hand on the screen. “If this actually works, Jens, then I’ll create a whole new world. A world in which patents play no part. And if it doesn’t work, if I can’t do it…then I don’t need a patent either.”
Charlotte sat in the kitchen and listened with half an ear as Brenda and her son argued.
“Homework first,” Brenda said for probably the thousandth time since Jason had started school. “That’s the rule. You know very well.”
“But I said I’d go out with George!” Jason whined.
“Good. Then if I were you, I would hurry up and do the homework.”
“I can do it tonight, Mom, just this once. There’s not even that much.”
This constant bickering about schoolwork. Sometimes it got on Charlotte’s nerves. But she was sure she would miss it.
“There’s no such thing as ‘just this once,’ ” Brenda said implacably. “Not while your grades are where they are. We talked about all this, remember?”
“But George is gonna be here soon!”
“No problem. I’ll give him a slice of cake, and he can make himself comfortable in front of the TV.”
“Oh man!” Surrender, followed by angry footsteps storming up the stairs.
Brenda came back, rolling her eyes. “I’m curious as to what will happen next year,” she said as she picked up her coffee cup and sat down opposite Charlotte, “when he has to do all his homework in Spanish. Ah well, you never know your luck until you miss it, as they say.”
Charlotte was shocked to realize that by the time she came back from her expedition they would have moved. That this was the last time she would sit in this kitchen, the last time she would visit them in this house, which they had turned into such a cozy, friendly home and safe haven for her in the storms of her life. She had thought that it would always be there. She was almost in tears.
“Have you really thought about this?” she asked one more time. “Buenos Aires. It’s not going to be easy for either of you. And as for Jason. He’s only just got used to going to school at all.”
“I just think we’re too young to settle down here contentedly for the rest of our natural days,” Brenda declared. “And it’s Tom’s big chance. Not just a teaching post—a whole department! And one that is practically uncharted territory. He would never get that anywhere else. So we’re packing our bags. I’m used to moving around, remember?”
“I’ll miss this house. I’ll miss all of you.”
“That’s why they invented airplanes, Charley. You make sure you come and see us.”
Charlotte nodded glumly. When Brenda was gone, what was there to keep her in Boston? Nothing. She wasn’t welcome at Harvard, and she had lost touch with most of her friends here during the years with Gary.
“Anyway, once we’re gone my mother will look after your apartment, so don’t you worry about that. And by the way, Tom asked me to thank you for that tip about getting in touch with Prof. Andrade. They spoke on the phone, and he seems to be a charming man. Tom said he was so happy to have someone other than the flying-saucer nuts interested in his ceramics that…oh, here’s George!”
George was a gangly black boy with beautiful, almost grown-up manners—he called Brenda “Miss Wickersham” when he asked politely after Jason. Brenda told him her son was still doing his homework and asked whether George might like a slice of cake.
“Oh yeah!” he said, his eyes lighting up.
“Have you done your homework?” Brenda asked as she took the cake out of the pantry.
“Ages ago,” George said, waving his hand dismissively. “It was easy today.”
Charlotte snuck a look at the boy as he sat there devouring the cake with every sign of enjoyment, and swapped glances with Brenda, who was smiling broadly. No doubt she would shortly be feeding her English fruitcake to little Argentinean children. Lucky them.
“A machine that will make everybody rich?” James Bennett III tried to blow a smoke ring. He failed miserably. “That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Nancy Coldwell snuggled up on his chest and put her leg across his thigh. “I thought so, too, at first. But Jeffrey said it’s not so crazy. He said if it works, it’ll change the world more than fire, printing, and the Internet all put together.” She began to play with his nipples. “And you can say a lot of things about Jeffrey, but you can’t say he’s easily fooled.”
One of those psychologists should do a study on this, James reflected. Why women always start yammering on about their ex-husbands once you’ve gotten them into bed. He must have made one hell of an impression on her, this Jeffrey, what with tangling with the Chinese mafia when he was starting out and being charged with incitement to murder all those times. And how, despite all that, he had become director for the Americas for a worldwide corporation based in Hong Kong.
James stubbed out his cigarette and put the ashtray over on the nightstand. He rolled out from under her to see whether there was another whiskey in the minibar. No such luck. Nothing even remotely acceptable in alcohol content. And he could have damn well used a whiskey right then. Nancy wriggled over to join him, pressing her large breasts against his back, and reaching a hand between his thighs. In other words, she wanted another round. Or, more likely, she was just playing the sex maniac to make him marry her sooner. Not that James Bennett III would ever have dreamed of doing such a thing. The great advantage of his current situation—possibly the only advantage—was he could counter any such suggestions with the argument he was still getting over his divorce. But she could still have another round.
After that he must have fallen asleep, since it was much darker outside when he finally woke up. He had been dreaming about that machine, even if he no longer remembered what his dreams had told him.
“Did your Jeffrey ever explain how this machine is supposed to work, how exactly it will make everybody rich?” he asked Nancy, who was finally beginning to look worn-out.
She looked at him with smoldering bedroom eyes. “Yes, he did.”
“And?”
“Imagine a universal machine that can build anything that can be built. Logically, that means it can also build another universal machine. So there’s two of them. Then they both build another universal machine and there are four—and so on and so forth. Eventually, you have enough universal machines to build anything that people need. Nobody ever needs to work again.”
James frowned in thought. He felt just as tired as she looked. “A universal machine? There’s no such thing.”
“Oh but there is. The computer is one, for instance. Only works on data, though. This machine is just the next step. That’s how Jeff explained it to me.”
“Aha.” He would have liked to ask her whether she was easily fooled. Better not, though. They had run into each other at a private viewing of an exhibition where he had given the opening speech in place of his father, who couldn’t make it, and she had practically flung herself at him. Since she had everything a woman should have and some to spare, he had decided, well, why not? The affair had been going on for a few weeks and was still
fun—and he didn’t want the fun to end.
Nancy stretched and yawned and gazed pensively into space. “If only I could remember the inventor’s name. Jeff told me, but it was something Japanese.…What were those cities called where we dropped the bombs? Something along those lines.”
James felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up on end. Hiroshi, as in Nagasaki. “Was the name Hiroshi Kato, by any chance?”
“That was it!” She looked at him with real admiration. “How do you know that?”
James slumped back into bed, feeling as though he had been sandbagged. Hiroshi Kato. The Jap who had taken Charlotte from him, turned her against him; the man who was to blame for the misery into which his otherwise wonderful life had sunk. For some reason, the name set alarm bells ringing, making him think—no, fear— there might be something to it after all. The name raised his hackles, all right.
What would be the point of having everybody be rich? The whole fun being rich was that some people, just a few, were richer than everybody else—and that he was one of them. If everybody was rich, then nobody would be rich. If everybody was rich, then nobody would wait hand and foot upon him, James Bennett III. Nobody would serve him coffee, make his bed, cook his meals, do his laundry, and all of that. And even if robots were going to do all that work, what woman would ever be interested in him again if he didn’t have his wealth to make him interesting?
“I knew someone by that name once,” he murmured, since Nancy was lying across him and waiting for an answer. “But that’s got to just be a coincidence.”
All at once he was in a hurry to wrap up this date. When they were finally standing down in the lobby and he took out his gold MasterCard to pay for the room, for the first time in his life he was afraid that the day would come when he would no longer be able to lord it over everybody else. If such an invention really existed, if there really was a universal machine, then he had to do whatever he could to get his hands on it.
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