“You're back to square one.”
“But it can adapt to do different things.”
“I think you're confusing the kid. You're sure confusing me. Jumping all over the place.”
“It happens,” Irons yawned theatrically and stretched. “Rematch?” he asked.
“Later,” the kid said shaking his head. He waved and walked out, shaking his head.
“How much you want to bet he'll go back and replay the entire match?” Sprite asked amused. Bailey chuckled softly.
“He'll be useless until he beats you, you know that right?”
“Everyone needs a hobby,” Sprite answered with a grin.
The next morning he sipped coffee with the chief while they watched the cargo supers orchestrate their ballet of cargo pallets and lifting platforms. One good snarl and they both winced as things piled up and chaos erupted.
Of course Irons was getting the occasional baleful look. They had thought they were done shipping stuff down to the planet. His last minute additions had thrown that schedule out the lock. The captain had backed him too. Of course the extra time meant some people got more downtime ground side. That was an added benefit he wasn't getting any credit for.
“So your arm...”
“What about it chief?” Irons asked over the cup of coffee. His eyes were on the mess. Pallets had upturned and cargo was scattered all over the deck. His cargo. He wasn't happy about the way they were treating it.
“It's not like the multi-tool is it?” the chief asked. Irons glanced around to make sure the coast was clear.
“No, no it's not.”
“Thought not. nanites?”
“Yes,” Irons admitted making sure no one else was in ear shot before he admitted that. “That and yes, some other things I can't get into because they remain classified.”
“Oh.”
“nanites get a bad rap,” Sprite said, entering the conversation. Her holo image erupted from the Admiral's right arm. “Sure there was one incident in the AI war, but that was handled. And they did more damage with the nukes than the nanites did.”
“The nukes cauterized the wound before it consumed the world Sprite.”
“More like using a sledgehammer to hit a fly,” the AI retorted. “They could have found alternatives. Programming nanites to kill them, fight fire with fire...”
Irons waved a dismissive hand. “Old argument, millennia old Sprite. What's done is done.”
“True,” she said grudgingly. “But the media had a big hand in the backlash. Hype.”
“Hysteria. Yes, I know,” the Admiral growled. What she wasn't saying was that nanotech was also used in the Xeno war. By both sides, and with predictably horrifying results. That had added to and reignited the hysteria. Seeing a planet being consumed by little tiny robots tended to do that to a surviving population after all.
“Fill me in?” Bailey asked, looking from one to the other.
“The media, that is the news organizations and the scripted shows and movies you could download and watch were big on building up a threat. They loved to scare people.”
“Which is perfectly natural, organics do that all the time. Try yelling shark on a beach sometime,” Sprite said.
“True,” Irons said shaking his head. It was a sore spot for Sprite for obvious reasons. The early stages of humanity's evolution of artificial intelligence had been peppered with the entertainment industry of the time finding the best and worst about a sentient computer. Something that had unfortunately proven true during the first AI war. The chief sighed patiently. He rolled brown eyes and opened his mouth. Before he could ask Sprite explained what she was talking about. “A shark is a predator in the sea. Big ones can get up to five or more meters long. With sharp teeth.”
Bailey winced. The imagery there... of being in water and being eaten alive... yes it did scare the hell out of him. It was like being trapped in a compartment in the dark with a Dilgarth. He shivered.
“Yeah, think about someone...” Irons paused and shook his head. “We're drifting off topic. But to tie that thread into the main one, the threat of a predator was a theme for many movies and other things.”
“Something that can eat you without warning would make a good horror flick.”
“Which they did. Thousands. Millions. The public loves to be scared of something. But after a while they get over their fear and turn it into curiosity of the unknown.”
“Another strange organic thing,” Sprite said with a sniff.
“Organics fear what they don't understand at first. Remember the material in the early nineteenth and twentieth century on AI? Some of it turned out to be true right? There is a grain of truth there, but it's buried in supposition. To get to the truth you have to get over the fear and take a long hard look at the subject and study it.”
“Knowledge is the light that...” Sprite shook her head. “Never mind.”
“Philosophical discussion later. But getting back to nanites, with the hysteria firmly in mind the governments at the time put in controls to prevent accidents. They also firmly limited research and that kept us stagnant. I... well, I may have covered it before.”
“Just a bit.”
“We were getting over the fear of nanites when the Xeno war broke.”
“I gathered that,” Bailey said with a nod.
“It's one thing to speculate about nanites as evil. They are just robots. They are used by evil people, or ignorant people to prey on others. The fear does even more damage than the actual bot.”
“True. But you've never been... well, torn apart.”
“You'd be surprised,” Irons said grinding his teeth a little. The chimp blinked. “Later chief,” he waved it away. “But the fear of it can make people do stupid things. Remember what I said about shark earlier? Imagine yelling nanites in a crowded room?”
This time the simian did wince and then shivered. “Shit, they'd panic, stampede for the doors.”
“Right. And trample anyone in their path. Which is what happened during the war.”
“There were different nanites used. Three actually. Disassemblers, those tore apart stuff. Then their were the virals. They either were direct, infecting everything right away and killing it, or they were time released. The last was a zombie bug. Turn a person into a robot.”
“Brrrr.”
“Right. Not a pleasant thought. The interesting thing though is that all that speculation, all that hysteria building up to the Xeno war gave people ideas on what to do if something like that happened. They weren't always right, nine times out of ten they were wrong, but they gave others ideas as well.”
“Ah, so counters were in place.”
“Well, not in place but in mind. Many viral nanites could be countered. Fight fire with fire like Sprite said.”
“True.”
“Same for the disassemblers. Or an EMP could be used to wipe out mechanical nanites. Organics could be starved of food, power, or oxygen.”
“Ah.”
“So yeah, there are counters. But when people panicked they spread it fast than it could be contained in their flight.”
“Crap.”
“Which is why harsh quarantine measures were enacted. Nasty, but necessary,” he grimaced in the familiar pain of having to kill panicking ships trying to flee a quarantine zone. He didn't want to do it, he still had nightmares, but he'd also known that if he hadn't other worlds would have fallen.
“And that's the digest on nanites. At least from our perspective. Neither friend nor foe, just a tool to use. Treat them right and you'll be fine,” Sprite said in the silence as he gathered his thoughts. He glanced at her and then nodded.
“Right. And we can't exactly throw them out and start over. We need them. So we need to educate people about them.”
“Ah, gotcha.” Bailey nodded and then waved. “Gotta go, toodles.”
Irons shook his head as the chief walked off.
Chapter 12
Irons tugged on his jacket hem
as he watched the loading. He turned as he sensed someone approach. It wasn't uncommon, watching the loading crew had been an occupation for those off duty for a while now. Most of the watchers congregated on the overhead balcony. He'd expected the galley to set up some sort of bar or minor coffee shop there but so far the food staff had resisted the temptation. It was a pity, they were losing out on a great location.
He wasn't sure he liked it that most of the people avoided his company. He avoided theirs, preferring a space away from knots of people. It wasn't that he didn't want company, it was just that he was still cautious after the past several attempts on his life. Fortunately he immediately recognized the biosign.
“How are they doing down there?” Bailey asked quietly.
“On the planet? Not sure,” Irons said lazing against the railing. He'd checked a few times but left Sprite to keep watch. So far she didn't have much beyond scuttlebutt she'd picked up from the crew. Most of it was in line with what he had expected.
“You haven't been down?”
“I've been a bit busy up here.”
Bailey snorted. That was true enough. They didn't have much time left in orbit though. The captain had a cargo shuttle out wrangling rocks, now that Irons had shown them the technique. A few of the rocks coming in were ice, which allowed them to refuel a little. He did think Irons needed a break and had said as much to Bailey, putting the simian up to suggesting it. Bailey had made sure they weren't going anywhere anytime soon before coming here to bring it up. “Yeah well, I'd have thought you'd get some shore leave in.”
“I might if I knew I wasn't going to be marooned on the planet,” Irons snorted.
Bailey blinked for a moment then chuffed a sigh and shook his head. “Yeah, there is that.” He turned and watched a pallet loader trying to get a support strut for an emergency building into a shuttle and failing. He winced as the driver applied a little too much force and ripped the paint off one side.
“Someone's going to get their ass chewed over that,” he growled. “Fuck, that's not a simple buff out either. Right down to bare metal.”
“Should have come in at an angle,” the Admiral said disinterested.
“Probably.”
After a minute of silence as they watched the work crew get the situation under control Bailey grunted. “Where the hell'd all this come from anyway?”
“I made it.”
“You?” Bailey had been a little busy so he'd apparently missed that tidbit.
“Remember all those asteroids I wrangled earlier?” Irons turned to the chimp with a serendipitous smile.
“Oh.”
“The mayor or planetary governor or who ever, wanted shelters,” Irons said as the pause lengthened uncomfortably. The purser had waited until everything else was unloaded before allowing the things he'd made to go down. He'd found out an hour ago that most of it was still sitting in store rooms. What he had seen yesterday had been the remnants of the last official load. He'd had to go to the captain when he had found out Mayfair and the purser had cooked up an idea to charge the colonists shipping for it all. That hadn't gone over well with Custard. Nor the captain for that matter. The captain had squelched it of course. That wasn't what they were here for.
He couldn't understand Mayfair. Was she really so stupid as to undermine her own position like that? Or was it deliberate? Was she sent out here purposely to fail?
Of course some people became sore when they were given a hand out. He could understand pride, but there was a time and a place for it. When your kids were starving... that wasn't the time for pride to get in the way. The Agnostan's had understood that. They intended to do something nice for Destiny, he wasn't sure what.
Of course for Notuma it could be the port fees they had asked for when the ship had finally made official contact with the colony. That had apparently not gone over well with the penny pinching accountant. He couldn't blame Notuma though, they were looking a gift animal in the mouth.
Of course what Notuma didn't or wouldn't realize was that the port fees and the money the spacers were spending ground side was a major kick to the colony's economy. The trade would hopefully spread throughout the colony and get people to re-establish trade routes.
“Yeah, I heard they were living in caves.” Bailey's face contorted in a rictus of anger. “Bloody pirates,” he hissed. When the pirates had heard that the towns and villages had gone bush they had taken what they had wanted and then blasted the buildings from orbit with kinetic strikes. Most of what they had taken had been returned already. Not that jewelery and machinery would do much to help with winter fast approaching.
“They need those rations you made. A way to make them on their own would be nice,” the chief said after a bleak moment of thought at how cold and long the winter would be. He'd heard they had saved some crops but not a lot. Winters were long on Agnosta. They were even worried about firewood.
“Way ahead of you chief,” Sprite said amused. He turned to see her holographic image sitting on the Admiral's shoulder like a tiny faerie.
“Oh?”
She smiled and pointed. A series of crates were being loaded into another shuttle. “Plastic extruder for the packaging. They already loaded the food processors.”
“Oh.”
Irons grunted. “More than one. I'm sending down three, one to each major town. And a couple of smaller units for the clustered villages.”
“Including a castle if you can believe it,” Sprite interjected. “They were spared the kinetic strike since they were well camouflaged.” She had thought that the new capital would turn up there, that they would evolve into some sort of feudal society given time and a lack of outside intervention. Fortunately Destiny had intervened to change that path.
“Really? I'd think that a castle would be sort of hard to miss from orbit,” Bailey snorted.
“Not this one.” A holo appeared in front of them. It was of the planet. A box formed over an area and then it zoomed in. “The castle is built into the side of a mountain. It's well hidden due to the use of native stone and the forest.” She zoomed in again so they could see what looked like a swatch of mountain forest.
“I don't see anything...” Bailey grunted.
“Here.” Sprite highlighted the linear outline of the buildings and then rotated the view to a Bird's eye. “The builder incorporated some of the giant trees into the castle. Their canopies provide excellent shade and cover from overhead eyes. Not effective against a thermal imaging scan, but apparently enough to fool the pirates.”
“And it's so far out of the way it doesn't get much traffic you'd think.”
“No, it does.” Sprite highlighted a valley trail. “The castle is in the middle of this passage which is used to transfer goods between the coastal towns and the inner plains towns. It's also a good base for foresters to log the surrounding area and then sell their goods to both sides.”
“Ah.”
“I think it's going to be a major trade center and possibly a contender for the new planetary capital once things get sorted out,” Irons said.
“Maybe. My money is on one of the space port areas. Flying in and out of the mountains is hard.”
“Speaking as a chief engineer with no flying experience Chief?” Sprite teased with a smile.
“No, just as a passenger thinking about flying a brick down into a mountain chain,” Bailey retorted.
“Point.”
“You were saying they've got food extruders now? Or will?”
“They are simple things. Put raw food or other organic materials into the hoppers and the plastic wrappers in a feed slot and it will spit out ration packs.”
“Well, it also needs water and electrical power Admiral,” Sprite pointed out helpfully. “About one hundred kilowatts of electrical power per device.”
Bailey winced at that. He turned but then something caught his eye and he turned back to see pallets of wind turbine parts. “Thought of everything huh?”
“I try. Generally fail,
but I try.”
Bryan scowled as he dropped his bags onto his desk and sat on a stool. He shook his head as the lights in his little sickbay came up to see Irons there stroking Nara.
“Home sweet home. How's she been?”
Irons looked up with a polite smile. “Fine, fine, just fine. Kits too Doc.”
“Don't call me that, after the past couple of days I've had, goddess of space I feel like....”
“Problems Doc?” Irons asked looking up.
“Yeah, something's getting to the kids. People with weak immune systems I think. Not sure what. I got called in to take a look but I don't have a clue,” he sighed, clearly frustrated. He got up and paced. Nara chittered at him and he stopped to stroke her pelt.
“So why are you here and not there?”
“I can't figure it out, and I can't describe it over the link. I brought up some tissue and blood samples to do some digging.”
“Ah.” Irons sat back and crossed his legs. “And here I thought you came up to check the medical database.”
“Do give me some credit. We, hell you cloned it. There is a copy down there. Or if worse comes to worse I could access it through the satellite net you set up. Thanks for that, it's helped coordinate medical rescue efforts a lot.”
“Good to hear,” Irons said with a nod.
“You don't look so well Admiral, sleeping okay?” Bryan asked, checking him over.
“A lot to do, and not a whole lot of time to do it in Doc, I'm just bushed.”
“You need some time off.”
“When we're in transit I'll get some time off.” Irons yawned and stretched. Nara looked up and then stretched herself. “So what are the symptoms?” he asked after Nara finished.
Bryan frowned as he unpacked the cooler with the blood in it. “In the little kids it starts with irritability and drowsiness. Some of the older kids and adults have headaches, neck stiffness, confusion, and fever. A few have bad reactions to light and sound. After a while they get constant nausea and vomiting. After a while the patient collapses and dies.”
Destiny's Choice (The Wandering Engineer) Page 23