Assemblers of Infinity

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Forging ahead through the storm with those unwanted samples he had gathered for Parvu, Kent had made it most of the distance before plunging into a crevasse.

  But Parvu was alone, incommunicado. He stared at the map. He had no training in Antarctic rescue operations -- what could he do to help?

  He felt a pang inside his stomach. Had he been floating with elation at the success of his hybrid automata only an hour ago? Now things couldn't have felt more different.

  Still suited up against the cold, Parvu had to chip away ice around the seals of the outer storage cubicle before he could slide the door open.

  Battery-fed lamps shed low illumination into the darkened interior. He had to move, but he couldn't go fast enough. He felt very old suddenly. He kept pushing ahead, doing what he needed to do one step at a time, though everything threatened to overwhelm him. He could not allow himself to be distracted; he could not let helplessness slow him down.

  Kent's life hung in the balance.

  He shoved aside heavy boxes of canned and freeze-dried food. A quick check ensured that rope and spotlights were in the Emergency Overland Vehicle; the winch looked operable as well. Neither he nor Erika had ever seriously thought they would need to use the EOV, and he mistrusted the contraption as well. But as he fired up the engine and keyed in the coordinate line the computer had given him, Parvu blessed whatever regulation-chasing clerk had required it to be here.

  Parvu left the crags surrounding the NIL behind as the vehicle engine thrust him forward over the bumpy surface. He picked up speed as the locator kept a lock on its position.

  Parvu found himself gripping the wheel and squeezing his eyes shut, hoping he could trust the obstacle-avoidance computer. The vehicle rocked and jostled with the wind, and he felt as if he were riding a kayak down white-water rapids.

  The journey seemed to take hours. If he hadn't already known it was there, and if he hadn't been watching Kent's homing beacon so closely, Parvu never would have seen the crevasse himself.

  He pulled the EOV to a stop, slewing it sideways as it reached the crevasse. A wide lip of ice overhung an outcropping of rock. Kent would not have seen it from his own direction, but it covered a gaping maw in the ice below.

  As Parvu climbed out of the EOV into the blasting wind, he grabbed the portable spotlights from the tool compartment, and as soon as he ducked into the lee of the rock outcropping, he shined the beams out to see the mangled rover vehicle.

  The massive machine had gone front-end first, rolling sideways and crushing the driver's compartment against the sharp ice boulders on the chasm wall. It had wedged about ten meters down. The sides of the metal were torn and gaping. All of the transparent windowports were either spiderwebbed or completely shattered from the shock of impact.

  As he directed the bright spotlight into the front compartment of the rover, Parvu could see the dark form of a spacesuited body caught among the twisted controls.

  He turned and reentered the EOV, his hands shaking from the tension. He drew in several breaths before starting the vehicle, trying to calm himself.

  Slowly, he backed the EOV up to the crevasse so he could use the winch.

  Parvu grabbed all the equipment he could and tried to attack the problem, analyzing how he was going to get down to Kent and retrieve him -- if he still lived. Panic and helplessness threatened to seize him again, but he managed to push them aside.

  He anchored the EOV and secured himself with a cable to the winch. He thought briefly about allowing the winch to lower him to the rover, but decided instead to pound pitons into the icewall to use as crude steps. He did one at a time, tying a rope onto each metal spike and praying as he dangled down to pound in another a few feet below.

  He managed to work his way down, step by aching step, until at last he uncoiled the rope in front of him to the wreck. Even in the roar of the storm, he heard the rope slap against the caved-in metal side of the Mars rover.

  Parvu used the ice hammer to smash out the front window plate, since that looked to be the easiest access to Kent Woodward.

  Kent's spacesuit had probably saved his life. The extra padding had protected him from what would otherwise have been a fatal fall. Parvu crouched with one boot on the buckled control panel and the other still outside on the front of the rover. He bent in, unsealed Kent's helmet, and pulled it off.

  Blood had spattered the inside of the glass and streamed down to the young man's mouth. Both of his eyes were shut. As Parvu jostled him to remove the helmet, Kent winced with a sharp intake of breath.

  He was alive.

  All of Parvu's training suggested that he should leave Kent there and wait for professional help. But out of communication, and with the snowstorm roaring around them, they had no choice, no choice at all. Kent would likely die when Parvu took him back to the NIL -- but he would certainly perish if Parvu left him out here any longer. He would have to haul him up with the winch.

  The cold would soon get to Kent. Parvu put the helmet back on. He looked at the torn portions of the spacesuit, at the seeping blood as he wrapped the cable under Kent's arms, around his knees, and over his shoulders so that he could hoist the young man up.

  Kent was definitely bleeding internally. There was no telling how many broken ribs he had suffered, and since he coughed blood, he had probably punctured a lung as well. Parvu hoped that the helmet was padded enough to have prevented Kent from suffering a fractured skull.

  At least, Parvu thought, the cold temperature probably helped. The frigid air would have slowed Kent's metabolism, kept the bleeding in check.

  Parvu felt his adrenaline flowing. His heartbeat pounded inside his head, right behind his eyes. Somehow, he found the energy to haul Kent out of the wrecked driver's seat and pull him from the rover. He left the astronaut dangling as he tied a rope onto the highest piton he could reach.

  This is going to be a nightmare, an absolute nightmare. Parvu drove back the thoughts of panic again, and concentrated on hauling himself up to the next piton.

  Piton after piton, he clawed up the icewall -- the ten meters seemed like a kilometer. Parvu hung there with the destroyed rover below and the EOV

  seemingly an infinite distance above.

  It occurred to him just how alone he was now, stranded. Even when they got back to the NIL, Parvu had nothing more than a sophisticated first-aid kit.

  Reaching the top, Parvu pulled himself over and staggered for the winch. He tried not to think about how tired he was, the aches from climbing in the punishing cold. The EOV's engine coughed as the machinery kicked in, but ever so slowly, the line started reeling in, pulling Kent up from the crevasse.

  Kent's body bounced against the wall as Parvu hauled him up, leaving stains on the ancient ice. Though Parvu tried not to think of it, his mind kept shouting the thought at him -- Kent Woodward would never survive this.

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  PART V

  "It is through disobedience that progress has been made."

  -- Oscar Wilde

  STARS IN HER EYES???

  Could it be? This is an odd couple, if we've ever seen one! Rumors are beginning to fly that "Ice Lady" Celeste McConnell, Director of the United Space Agency, has been seen frequently with Major General Simon Pritchard, the Air Force's Liaison to the United Space Agency.

  McConnell, petite and 49 -- and a full seven years older than the general -- is not known for her romantic entanglements, since the death of her husband Clark in the explosion of the space station Grissom in 2007.

  Unconfirmed reports state that Pritchard is "a nice guy, very intelligent." And here we thought that all generals had to be fat, gravel-voiced, and exceedingly unromantic. We could be wrong. We've been told so in the past.

  After all, maybe the two of them were really just talking business every one of those times!

  -- BELTWAY BABBLE: All the Gossip Not Necessarily Fit to Print

  (information published herein has been neither verified, nor is it guaranteed.

&n
bsp; All persons mentioned in this publication are considered public figures and therefore details of their lives are of legitimate interest to our readers.)

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  CHAPTER 21

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Major General Simon Pritchard given many one-on-one interviews, but this was his first national press conference. Beside him, as she prepared to accompany him to the podium, Celeste McConnell squeezed his arm in support. He nodded to her. Though small in build, with a wiry frame and non-threatening features, Pritchard looked all no-nonsense. His dress blouse was impressive, portraying a man of total authority, someone to be counted on in a time of crisis. That was the persona Celeste had asked him to project.

  Pritchard's normal environment was scientific conferences, closed-door political meetings and military briefings -- nothing like this PR show. He was accustomed to his colleagues jetting in from across the country, all shoved into the same cookie-cutter hotels, meeting each other in restaurants and talking about advanced conventional weapons. The conference attendees wore business suits: the east coasters like a second skin, the west coasters like a hot blanket.

  Pritchard was used to closed meeting halls, messed-up transfers of security clearances, boring multimedia presentations put together by scientists who should better have spent their time doing science than trying to concoct their own dog-and-pony shows. He thought of the stale coffee, the pre-packaged breakfast pastries always provided during morning break, the evening receptions and required social engagements when he would rather have been back in his room curled up with a book.

  Despite the complaints, Pritchard knew how to deal with such situations. This wasn't to be that type of conference, though. Today, he had to sway the public opinion of the entire nation, possibly the world.

  Already, he could hear the press corps waiting to impale him with uncomfortable questions devised by digging into every detail of his life, while completely ignoring the point of the prepared multimedia statement.

  Pritchard should have warned his three brothers on their blue-collar jobs --

  they would probably be targeted for surprise interviews within a day or two.

  He didn't dwell on what the newsnet reps might come up with -- had anybody in his extended family done something appalling? Did his mother wear strange underwear? Did one of his brothers give financial contributions to South American regimes? No doubt he would find out in a few minutes. The newsnet reps would spring it on him.

  "You'll do fine," Celeste whispered in his ear. "Just stick to the topic. They'll try to lead you around by the nose, but you must make sure you get our point across. We have to stand strong. I need your support." She squeezed his arm again.

  "You're on!" the assistant called from offstage.

  Pritchard heard the announcer introducing him and Celeste. The hounds would most likely be after her, since they were familiar with the director of the United Space Agency. He narrowed his eyes in a flash of protective instinct, but then washed it away. The petite dark-haired Ice Lady could fend for herself better than he could help her.

  Pritchard stepped up to the podium. He looked at the crowded people eagerly waiting to misquote him. He stood in silence for a moment, waiting for the right time.

  "Gentlemen, ladies, because of the discovery of an alien infestation on the Moon, you have all heard a lot about nanotechnology in the past several weeks. You have covered that story from many angles already. Now it is time to ask the next question, a topic that seems more unthinkable even than the Daedalus discovery. What would happen if these microscopic alien robots got loose on Earth?"

  Working the controls on the podium face, Pritchard illustrated his points with a slow-dissolve sequence of images from the Daedalus construction, which appeared to be approaching completion. The high-resolution flyby photos of the emerging arches, the diamond-thread superstructure, the sloping petals of the main foundation, and the pit at the center of the complex.

  Next, Pritchard hit them with the invasion scenario, as Celeste had requested. Aliens sending out an expeditionary force of nanomachines, building an outpost on the Moon and waiting for the main ships to follow at a slower speed.

  Pritchard showed them scanning optical micrographs of the Daedalus nanomachines Erika Trace had investigated -- and then subsequent micrographs of the same, or similar, nanomachines lying dormant in her bloodstream. The gathered people already knew the story, of course. Celeste had released the story after only a day of coverup. It was difficult to downplay the abandonment and destruction of an entire space station -- but this was the first the newsnet reps had seen of the actual comparison views.

  Celeste stepped up beside him and leaned over the microphone amplifier.

  "When you look at these alien destructive devices, some of you may recall the old-time videogame of Pac Man." She waited, but no one seemed to know what she was talking about. Pritchard barely remembered it himself, and he had spent a great deal of time studying computer simulations.

  Celeste continued, as if confident that everyone recognized her analogy; that way, the newsnet people felt inadequately informed, instead of Celeste having to admit a mistake. "Like Pac-Man, the alien assemblers zip through their medium -- whether it be lunar regolith or human tissue --

  gobbling up the raw materials they need to self-replicate, molecule by molecule, building copies of themselves or constructing whatever structure they were programmed to build."

  She showed a montage of images from the Daedalus crater. "Given free rein, these alien nanomachines will wipe out everything in their path. You have seen accounts of army ants on the march in South American rain forests, disturbed by the waves of construction going on down there." She smiled sardonically. "Well, think of that devastation covering this entire planet. We have to make sure the alien infestation never ever reaches Earth. That is why we took such extreme countermeasures once they were discovered on the Collins."

  Pritchard summoned another series of images that made him uncomfortable. Celeste had insisted that he pull the heart-strings, and this would certainly do it. But the tactic did not make him feel very admirable.

  The face of a smiling man filled the screen, enlarged from an old personnel record that was never meant to be used for any high-profile purpose.

  "This man was Trevor Waite. You probably recognize him from your first coverage of the Daedalus discovery. His colleagues called him 'Can't Wait'

  because he was always in a hurry to get his work done."

  He advanced to the next frame. "Another familiar face. This man is Siegfried Lasserman. He remained in the hopper as the contact and MainOps. His service record is on file. It is truly exemplary."

  Finally, he showed a young black woman who was smiling a great deal more than the first two men. "And this is Becky Snow. She had been on the Moon for only a few weeks. She was accompanying these other two out to Farside as part of her qualification requirements. The three of them had no warning, no indication that they were heading out for anything more than just a simple repair mission."

  Pritchard fixed his gaze on the newsnet corps in the room, as if demanding their silence and their respect. "Instead, they discovered the alien construction on Daedalus crater." He paused for a beat. "They died for it. The alien nanomachines got them."

  Out in the audience, Pritchard could sense an uneasiness bordering on panic. He was certain that many -- if not most -- of their reports would be heavily slanted, thereby priming the world for drastic measures.

  "We are not taking this threat lightly," Pritchard said, gripping the podium hard. "We have some very serious preventive measures that we are even now putting into place. Perhaps they will seem like desperate actions at first, but these are desperate times. One slip, and our entire planet could end up a seething mass of self-replicating machines."

  He maintained his silence for several seconds longer than it felt comfortable. "Listen to me. This is our proposal to keep control of the situation. This is what we must do."

/>   Beside him, Celeste nodded her encouragement again.

  Simon Pritchard had just made everyone on the planet feel naked and vulnerable -- and he was about to sell them clothes.

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  CHAPTER 22

  ANTARCTICA

  On the day after the storm, Antarctica lay clear, with a star-filled night sky planetariums would envy. A subdued white of moonlit snow covered everything.

  The Mars rover tore across the pristine landscape, chewing tracks into the snow, moving on a bee-line to its destination.

  Inside the vehicle, Gunther Mosby kept shifting his gaze from the terrain to the pilot's seat, where Bingham Grace drove with fixed concentration, probably trying to mask hopelessness.

  On the rover's instrument panel, Gunther saw the tracking grid showing their progress toward Kent Woodward's bleating distress beacon. The signal glitched a few times, then returned. The lost rover's battery would be running down, leached by the intense cold.

  Kent had finally taken one too many chances. He had defied direct orders, failed to report his position at regular intervals, failed to request authorization before deviating from the daily schedule, failed to obtain approval for his extracurricular activities.

  Commander Grace had flatly refused to allow volunteers to search for the lost astronaut in a Class 4 storm severe enough to jeopardize the rugged base camp itself; it was best that no one die searching.

  Gunther had sat beside the rest of the Mars crew and listened soberly, flinching as the storm pressed against the living modules. He thought he saw a tremble in Grace's lips. Everybody knew that Kent could never survive out in this weather, even if the accident had been relatively minor. And Kent's weak initial transmissions had said something about a crevasse.

  By the time the storm stopped hours later, Gunther had started donning his suit. He was surprised to find Grace already suited up. "Woodward is under my command. The others will back us up. We will go find him. I'm driving. You navigate."