Lord of All Things

by Andreas Eschbach

  “What for?” Whitecomb asked.

  “For conditions to improve,” Hiroshi said. “And mostly for carbon.”

  “Carbon?”

  “Carbon is the smallest atom capable of forming four molecular bonds. Which is why it plays a crucial role in nanotechnological constructions.” Whatever was happening on the screen in front of him clearly required that he stop for a moment; he paused to think, then rapidly pressed a few keys. “This incident with the Dutch journalist,” he said as he worked. “The human body is composed of up to ten point seven percent carbon. For a body mass of seventy-five kilos, that’s about eight kilograms of carbon, meaning four by ten to the power of twenty-six atoms.”

  Whitecomb snorted derisively. “You’re not seriously telling us that one human body contains enough carbon to completely steel-plate twelve square miles of island?”

  “No, not in the least. But the nanites only needed to develop far enough to get unlimited access to the elements they needed. The ice was unforthcoming, and they had presumably already exploited the adjacent rocks for whatever they could use—I imagine that by the time they could assimilate the carbon in the journalist’s body they were just a hair’s breadth, so to speak, from rest of the resources they needed. Those eight kilos of carbon were the spark that started the blaze.”

  Charlotte felt her gorge rise. She remembered Leon van Hoorn as an adventurous, cheerful fellow with a fondness for weak jokes—and now these men were talking of him as nothing but eight kilos of carbon. She heard Admiral Ulyakov saying, “Saradkov Island was surveyed even in Stalin’s time for mineral resources. There’s nothing there. Just rock.”

  “Nothing worth exploiting with the power of human labor alone, perhaps,” Hiroshi replied. “But at the scale at which nanotechnology sees the world, there are resources almost everywhere. Once the nanites broke through to the ocean—if not before—they had everything they could ever need. Seawater contains every element there is, in solution. Granted, some of them are only there in trace amounts, but when you have as much seawater as you want and as much energy as you need, you can extract whatever you like.”

  “Energy—now that’s a key point,” Whitecomb broke in. “One of the people advising the president—Dr. Drechsler or some such—said that the central question is where the nanites are getting their energy from. Nothing can happen without energy, he said.”

  Hiroshi nodded. “That’s right. I suspect their energy is coming from within the earth. The nanites probably put down feelers several kilometers deep and are getting their energy from the temperature differentials.”

  “From inside the earth? All the way up here?” Whitecomb said skeptically. “Does that give them enough energy for all that?” He pointed toward the island, shimmering darkly on the horizon like the gates of Mordor.

  Hiroshi looked at the rear admiral without expression. “It’s a little-known fact that the earth’s core is almost as hot as the surface of the sun, and that it has not cooled significantly in the billions of years since planetary formation. So yes, I believe that it can supply enough energy for most purposes.”

  Ulyakov leaned forward. “Doesn’t that mean we can just switch off their supply? If we cut off these…feelers down into the earth, they’re finished. So that’s what we must do!”

  Hiroshi frowned as he listened to the interpreter. “The question is how we could do that,” he replied. “You mustn’t imagine there are just one or two thick pipes running down there that we could simply cut off. There are more likely to be millions of them, tubes too fine to see with the naked eye—think of it like a fungus putting down threads.”

  “An atom bomb will get rid of fungus, too.”

  “Not this one. The nanites can doubtless store energy, meaning that even after a total disruption, such as a subterranean nuclear explosion, they would still be able to build new connections.” Hiroshi glanced appraisingly at his screen. “To be honest, I doubt that an atom bomb would even have a chance to explode. It’s entirely possible that the nanites could take it apart faster than it can fall.” He cleared his throat and pulled the computer toward himself. “If you’ll excuse me. My program is ready to run. I want to try something. ”

  “May we know what that is?” Rear Admiral Whitecomb asked in a tone that left no doubt that this was not just a question or even a request.

  “I want to open communication with the nanites.”

  “And how do you intend to do that?”

  Hiroshi seemed to consider this point. “It would take me several hours to explain that in terms that you could understand. Actually doing it would take a few minutes. And it might not even work. I really think it’s best for me to try now and explain later.”

  The rear admiral traded glances with the other military men around the table, then shrugged. “Okay. Try it.”

  Hiroshi was already at work. His fingers danced over the keys, his gaze fixed on the bizarre diagrams and rapidly changing columns of figures on the screen. Connected to his computer by a cable was a red-orange box blinking with diodes in every color, which now sprang into hectic life. A multiband radio, somebody had said. Charlotte had no idea what that was, and she had no desire to find out. She just wanted to get out of there.

  Outside, dark clouds were gathering, while snow and rain drove against the windows on the bridge. The ship began to pitch from side to side. Charlotte couldn’t help but recall the hours they had spent in the dinghy and shuddered at the memory. Though she was still stuck in this nightmare, at least she was no longer so cold. She looked at Hiroshi. What was he really doing? Sending radio signals to the nanites? To machines from outer space? Why did he think they would understand him?

  Just then one of the officers watching for activity on the island called out, “Movement!” He leaned over and turned some dials. “The gate’s opening!”

  In an instant they were all standing behind him, peering at his screen. All but Hiroshi, who carried on working as calmly as if he had heard nothing at all. Indeed, the gate had opened about halfway and showed a dark crack into the mountain. Admiral Ulyakov ordered his crew onto high alert in case artillery or some other weapon appeared from behind it.

  “Radio signal has ceased,” announced another officer. “No further activity.”

  Now the island could be seen on all screens, at different resolutions. In some inexplicable way it really did seem as though it had frozen into stillness. Only then did Charlotte realize that up until that moment there had been constant rippling movement all across the massive steel walls—movement she had subconsciously dismissed as being nothing more than reflected light. But now she could see nothing of the sort.

  Whitecomb turned to Hiroshi. “Congratulations, Mr. Kato,” he said. “It looks like you managed to turn the things off.”

  Hiroshi snapped his laptop shut. “It that case, could a helicopter take me over to the island?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “To the island,” Hiroshi replied patiently. “From this point on I need to be in direct contact with the nanites.”

  Whitecomb spluttered. “Don’t you think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself? At the moment we have no idea whether this will last, and—”

  “It won’t last, not indefinitely.” Hiroshi unplugged the multiband device and wound up the cable. “We have no time to lose.”

  “You did see the videos? What happened to the men in the landing parties?”

  “I saw.” Hiroshi put the multiband on top of his laptop. “I’ll need a warm parka, something like that.”

  The rear admiral gasped for air. “A parka! You have strong nerves, I’ll give you that.”

  Ulyakov listened to all this through his interpreter and nodded gruffly. “Good. Minimum crew for the helicopter. And they will not land him on the island. Lower him with the winch.”

  They brought Hiroshi a thick, naval-issue parka with t
he emblem of the Northern Fleet, pants, and boots to match, and a backpack, where he could stow his laptop and multiband. Hiroshi accepted everything stony-faced. Outside, the helicopter’s blades were already spinning. The snow continued to flurry against the windowpanes. It was an extraordinary moment. The officers didn’t seem to know whether they should be bidding Hiroshi a solemn farewell or sending him on his way with cheers. Above all, they seemed unhappy that a civilian had taken the job upon himself.

  “Good luck,” Whitecomb said at last with a forced smile. Somebody opened the door. The ice-cold north wind gusted in.

  Hiroshi approached Charlotte, his bundle on his back. “Wish me luck,” he said.

  “Ki o tsukete—Take care,” she said.

  A shadow flitted across his face. “I don’t know what made it stop,” he told her quietly in Japanese. “It wasn’t me. But for heaven’s sake, don’t tell anybody that!”

  Then he followed a sailor out to the helicopter. The door closed behind him with a dull clang.

  8

  As the helicopter battled its way through the blizzard, Hiroshi only had eyes for the island. He still couldn’t believe that right here in front of him was what he had been dreaming about for years—for his whole lifetime—and in such an unlikely place. Maybe the others only saw steel walls, fortifications, a colossal fortress in the solitude of the polar sea, but he saw the underlying nanite complexes, trillions upon trillions of them, so many that language hardly had any words for the numbers involved, yet all of them integrated, all organized, all awaiting their commands. He saw an infinite number of miniaturized versions of the robots he had built on Paliuk, of that simplest possible machine, and he saw the forms and structures that had until that moment only ever swarmed across his computer screens. There was no other way to see them: either with the mind’s eye, or not at all. Nanites were so small that the human eye could not detect them without the help of technology. They would only ever remain pictures on a screen. Yet here they were. They existed. The fact that he couldn’t see them meant nothing. Bacteria and viruses were also invisible to the naked eye, yet they existed—albeit on a scale many times larger than nanites.

  And down there in the sea, growing ever larger, was the proof of the nano-robots’ power: by building themselves anew using the atoms they found all around, they could multiply their number indefinitely, almost infinitely. And since, despite their numbers, they stayed strictly organized, marching in lockstep as it were, working hand in hand to follow a clear plan, one gigantic program, they could build structures on any scale at all: from tiny replicas of themselves right up to such colossal creations as this island. Twelve square miles of rock now clad in shimmering steel. But this was nothing. There were no limits for nanites. They could rebuild a whole planet if they were programmed to, and there was practically nothing anyone could do about it.

  Nano-robots did nothing but place atoms next to each other one by one, but that was enough to perform miracles. Fundamentally, the whole history of technology boiled down to this one aspect: how effectively one atom could be placed next to another. It had all begun with flint hand axes, bashing stone against stone until splinters flaked away—splinters made up of so many atoms that early man had no words to begin to describe the numbers involved. Then mankind began to dig for metals, which was nothing more than looking for atoms of particular elements, chosen for their special qualities. Next we learned to organize these atoms—and we called it smelting. Most recently came the highly developed industrial techniques of modern times—for instance, polishing slices of silicon to unprecedented purity, etching them with certain wavelengths of light and then subjecting them to chemical treatment to create computer processors of almost unimaginable capacity.

  But all of this was nothing compared with the possibilities that opened up at the zenith of technological development once it became possible to manipulate individual atoms, to pick them up and place them exactly where they were needed; this was the most advanced technology imaginable. The difference between a lump of coal and a diamond was simply a matter of the arrangement of their respective carbon atoms. Nothing more. And what was so special about a diamond? It was a mere toy compared with the materials nanotechnology alone could create.

  Hiroshi also couldn’t believe that he had just climbed aboard a helicopter that was carrying him to the heart of the most technologically advanced artifact mankind had ever seen. He had spent years working out the fundamental principles of this technology. He had developed a few concepts—but only a few—he believed must be universally applicable. He was a mere beginner compared with the mind that had created this shimmering silver colossus in front of him. A greenhorn. The bizarre structure reared up against a sky of heavy, gray clouds, and the lead-gray waves beat against it.

  Nor did he understand why the nanites had ceased their activity. What had he done? All he had been trying to do was take a closer look at what the military had decided were jamming signals. He had wondered what might happen if he treated them as command signals instead and tried to make contact with the central control units that way. That was all. He had put a couple of his pattern-recognition programs to work on them. While the software did its job, he had just sat there thinking banal thoughts about how the Russian and American computer hotshots might decompile his binary code once all this was over. How his pattern-recognition algorithms would find their way into all kinds of software, thanks to the industrial-espionage guys. And how Jens would give him that lecture about patents and squandered profits when he heard about it. All true. In any case, he had identified a couple of patterns that seemed to make sense, and then he had broadcast a complementary sequence of signals just as an experiment. It had been nothing special, and certainly nothing he expected to provoke any reaction from the nanite machinery—perhaps an answering radio signal, but certainly no more than that. And then—standstill. Absolutely astonishing. Absolutely inexplicable.

  The island reared up before them, gigantic: a dizzyingly oversized redoubt with shimmering battlements and impregnable fortifications. The sight took his breath away. That, and the knowledge he had no idea what he would actually do now that he was here. He had no plan, nowhere to start, nothing but a computer with a radio transmitter attached. The only thing he knew with absolute certainty was he had to set foot on this island even if it cost him his life. He would never be able to forgive himself if he didn’t.

  The copilot unclipped his belt and came back to where Hiroshi sat, gesturing that he should do the same. Then he helped him into a kind of padded noose that ran around his back below the arms. At the front, on his chest, was a thick hook into which the soldier clipped the winch cable. Then he shoved the door open with a clang. Snow flurried in. The man shouted something that was lost in the noise of the engines—Hiroshi couldn’t even tell whether it was in Russian or English. Not that it made any difference, since he knew what it meant. It was time to entrust himself to the winch. One last check to see that everything was properly in place, that the backpack with the computer was sitting above the noose so that there was no chance of it getting damaged. One last nod, and then he stepped out into empty space.

  The air snatched furiously at him as soon as he had dropped a few yards. The searing cold dispelled any feeling that this was all a dream. It was no dream. He was hanging from a thundering helicopter by a vibrating steel cable while the soldiers winched him downward just as fast as they could. Soon he would be the loneliest man on Earth. Nobody would come to save him if anything happened. The footage the agents had showed him in California played out again before his mind’s eye. It had included images of men screaming in pain as they died an almost unimaginable death, killed by the very ground beneath their feet. They had literally melted away as billions of nanites took their living cells apart into their constituent atoms of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, carrying away the calcium from their bones atom by atom to use elsewhere in nanotech devices.

  Hiroshi
looked down. The ground was fast approaching. It looked like flawless, freshly polished steel. His feet touched the surface. Nothing happened. He looked closer and saw snowflakes lying intact here and there on the steel, not even melting. He began to breathe again. He quickly took off the backpack and slipped out of harness. He waved upward. The cable with the empty noose whizzed away, and even before it had reached the winch the helicopter had turned and was roaring back to the ship.

  He stood there. What now? Hiroshi lifted the backpack to his shoulders and looked up at the gigantic gate. It was standing open, which looked like an invitation. Well, he wasn’t going to stay out here. Now that he had made it this far, he wanted to go as deep as possible into the heart of the machine. If for no other reason than that it could only be warmer in there. He marched off, trudging up the shallow slope toward the narrow, dark gap. It was perhaps fifty meters high and five meters across. The closer he came to the gate, the more vividly he recalled the legends about the Bon festival back home and the Japanese legends of the dead. If there really was an entrance to the underworld somewhere, it could only look like this huge gate. He felt somehow uplifted. Even though he had no idea what he would do in there or what he might achieve. Probably nothing.

  Hiroshi turned around and looked back at the gray ships lying offshore at what the military men considered—quite mistakenly—a safe distance. He remembered the walkie-talkie they had given him. He took it out of his pocket. It was a chunky thing that looked like a first-generation cell phone, and he had to take his gloves off to switch it on.

  “Kato here,” he said. “I’m going in.”

  He didn’t wait for an answer. He put the device away, pulled his gloves back on, took a deep breath, and crossed the threshold.