Assemblers of Infinity

by Kevin J. Anderson

  "Storage containers, sir," said Felowmate. "They're equipped with PALs

  -- Permissive Action Links, a device that can disable the warheads if they're stolen. There's also some other nasty protective things embedded in the containers in case somebody tries to screw around with them, but we can't talk about that."

  Helschmidt and her team stepped into the chamber. They walked around the containers, using a microbar-code reader to verify each device. Satisfied that the right warheads were where they should be, Helschmidt pointed to six of the containers. "These are yours, General."

  Pritchard nodded. "If the alien nanomachines become a threat, these weapons may be our last hope. If I need to wrestle red tape to get a quarantine ring in place, I'll put up with it."

  "Good luck, General," Felowmate said.

  "Save your luck for the people up on the Moon. They need it more than I do."

  Felowmate nodded to the security policemen still standing guard outside the vault door. "Smitty, get a crew in here to take these away. General Pritchard will give you instructions."

  Francine Helschmidt leaned forward and spoke to Pritchard in a low voice. "Don't make us regret this, General."

  --------

  CHAPTER 31

  DAEDALUS CRATER, FARSIDE

  Bryan Zed would look right at home chewing on a stalk of grass, Jason thought. Even in a spacesuit, the silent shuttle pilot gave the appearance of a good-old-boy as he went alone on his mission across the desolate Farside terrain -- not quite a redneck, just someone who was honest and straightforward to the point of parody.

  After Zimmerman lay down in the rover bed to keep himself from being seen, the vehicle sped away. Agency Mission Control and everyone watching on the newsnets thought the rover was simply a telepresent inspection vehicle commandeered by Newellen. But Zimmerman had volunteered to try something of his own. A long shot, of course, but the people on Columbus really had nothing else to try. Or to lose.

  Jason stood with Big Daddy Newellen and Cyndi Salito on a small rise ten kilometers away from the Daedalus site. Even from this distance, Jason could make out details of the sprawling weblike construction, like a spun-glass sculpture in the middle of the VLF array. The huge flowerlike central structure -- some sort of receiving dish? -- glistened in the harsh sunlight, along with the humps of support buildings. The entire thing was opaque and well defined now. Within the last few days the complex had taken on a new look of solidness.

  "That sucker looks almost finished," Newellen said into the suit radio.

  "And to think it's been only six weeks since we found it."

  From their position, the three spacesuited people also had a good view of where the Agency's shuttle would land. The ship would be carrying six nuclear warheads for them to deploy around the alien construction. To destroy it as a last resort.

  This certainly isn't the reason I came up to the Moon, Jason thought.

  He glanced at the chronometer projected onto his faceplate by the heads-up display. "Five minutes," he said.

  "Right on time," came Cyndi's voice over the radio. "I just hope they land in the right place."

  Newellen snorted in the suit radio. "I'd hate to think what six atomic bombs will do if they miss the mark and slam into us."

  "Bad for you, lucky for me," said Zimmerman from the rover. Jason wondered if he had caught a trace of humor in the man's transmission.

  "They're not armed yet," Cyndi said. "We have to activate the PALs when we bury the devices."

  "Shut up, you guys," said Jason. "We're going live any minute now. We don't want them hearing Cyndi's voice." Salito had worn Zimmerman's namepatch, just in case any remote cameras happened to catch the ID.

  Jason heard a click over his earphones, then Bernard Chu's filtered voice. "Jason, Columbus here. We show the L-2 link has been established. We've got an updated vector on the robotic ship. They're pegged to land right on schedule."

  Chu still sounded nervous about setting the warheads in place. He had changed his attitude dramatically after the first bomb had not caused as much damage as he had hoped, and Erika's nanocannibal "purge" of the site had failed. Jason couldn't blame him -- what if the nanocritters decided to retaliate? They had certainly received enough provocation. Or was Chu perhaps more concerned with Celeste McConnell's agenda, resenting that she was running the show while sitting safe on Earth?

  Jason clicked his chinmike. It would take three seconds for his voice to travel up to the L-2 relay station, all the way to Earth, then back up to Moonbase Columbus. "We're ready out here, Columbus. If anything goes wrong with the landing, you'll know when we do. You'll just be around to enjoy it longer."

  Jason remembered reading about catastrophes that had occurred transporting nukes during the Cold War days -- bombers crashing on takeoff, weapons inexplicably "dropping" from bomb bays, mid-air collisions where some warheads had actually been lost....

  Intellectually, he knew that the frequency of these accidents was far below what the law of averages would predict. But standing out on the surface of the Moon and waiting for an autopiloted machine to bring down the equivalent of more than twenty million tons of high explosive only a kilometer away from him, he felt weak in the knees.

  The nanotech threat ten kilometers away didn't make him feel any better.

  He didn't know how Zimmerman could find the guts to be there when the robotic shuttle landed. Especially when he claimed to distrust autopiloted systems.

  "One minute," said Chu.

  Jason turned away from Daedalus and looked up. He scanned the star-sparse sky. The Sun was still up, glaring down on the landscape, though the sky remained black with no atmosphere to scatter light. Farside had another three days before the Sun would set for two weeks.

  Cyndi Salito's voice broke the silence over the radio. "Got it!" Then she abruptly silenced herself, remembering that she wasn't supposed to be saying anything. She pointed due north of Daedalus, thirty degrees up from the horizon.

  Jason could see a patchwork of stars, fighting the glow from the Sun.

  He caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. There, just below Corona Borealis, a light grew brighter every second. The ship had already passed through the L-1 point and descended through a quick polar orbit about the Moon.

  The giant alien construction towered over the floor of the crater in perfect silence, motionless. On Agency Select and the other channels Moonbase Columbus could tap, Jason had seen signs of the fierce debate still going on back on Earth about the purpose of the structure. Was it some sort of antenna for communication? A giant solar collector? A cosmic ray analyzer? A work of art, like Alexandre Eiffel's tower on Earth?

  The whys bothered Jason even more now than before. He himself was helping to set in motion the destruction of the artifact, and whatever purpose the alien structure had in store. As an architect, it offended him to knock down something so spectacular out of paranoia. As an inhabitant of Moonbase Columbus, though, the thing scared the bejesus out of him.

  The bright spot of the incoming shuttle grew quickly enough that Jason could discern features. What if it misses the landing site and hits the artifact itself? What would happen if the nanomachines got to the warheads before someone had a chance to detonate them? Surely, the Disassemblers could render all the electronics inert in only a few minutes. Would Director McConnell have the warheads already primed and ready for immediate remote detonation, just in case that happened?

  He recalled McConnell's skepticism that the nanocritters had really been purged from the bodies of the moonbase inhabitants. Had McConnell intended to detonate the warheads all along, to wipe out the artifact -- and most of her problems -- while claiming it had been an accident?

  Sweat broke out over his body, forcing the spacesuit systems to work overtime. The possibility sounded so reasonable to him that he could not shake the idea. Jason started to speak his doubts, then decided not to voice them on open line. He barely had time to make out the spindly legs of the shuttle's l
anding pods as it came down, right on target, right on schedule.

  Jason closed his eyes and let out a silent sigh of relief.

  "Another perfect landing," Newellen said, raising his suited arm high in the air. "All hail the autopilot." The movement in the constant-volume suit caused his other arm to cock back.

  A rude noise came over the radio, most likely from Zimmerman.

  Jason clicked his chin mike. "We've got a visual on the landing, Columbus. The rover will reach it shortly to unload the warheads." On cue, he saw the rover bouncing along out to the landing site.

  They still had the task to unload the nukes and deploy them around Daedalus, just outside the hot zone. Six warheads, each equivalent to over three million tons of TNT. If this didn't finish off the "gigathreat via nanotechnology," nothing would.

  Once they had the defensive ring in place, the next move would be up to the alien artifact.

  Lon Newellen sat hunched over the controls of the telerobotic rover.

  "Easy now," Cyndi whispered, looking over his shoulder.

  A thin sheet of sweat glistened on Newellen's chubby face. He didn't look up from the controls. "No shit."

  Jason joined them at the aft of the hopper that had taken them to the Farside. All three had flipped up their faceplates to breathe freely in the sealed cabin.

  "Sorry." Cyndi stepped back and flashed Jason a nervous smile. Jason nodded wordlessly. Newellen was doing fine.

  Newellen used the rover's robotic arms to reach inside the shuttle.

  Zimmerman was nowhere in the rover's narrow field of view -- just as planned.

  The shuttle's hatch slid open. What if the Agency had boobytrapped it? Jason thought of the 'To Whom It May Concern' letter Chu had found in the last supply shuttle. Would they have thought to do the same thing here?

  The six weapons were contained in the white storage barrels from Alpha Base. Everyone had watched the tapes of Major General Pritchard supervising the loading of the nukes onboard the transfer rocket from Cape Canaveral.

  Everyone knew that the weapon cores were supposed to be harmless until armed by the Permissive Action Links, but Jason still felt nervous. He couldn't imagine what Zimmerman must be feeling as he scrambled to keep out of sight.

  Newellen worked the robotic arms. Once he had managed to stand the first on the back of the flatbed rover, a second white container came quickly out of the hold. He was getting the hang of it.

  At one point, Jason caught a flash of a white suit at the fringe of the field of view -- Bryan Zed trying to keep out of the way -- but Newellen quickly swivelled the robot's viewer and focused on hauling the remaining warheads out of the cargo bay.

  Newellen withdrew his hands from the virtual controls and mopped his forehead. "Cyndi, get me a bag of apple chips out of the emergency stash. Then I'm ready to deliver these babies."

  Munching, he took the controls again. Ahead of him on the area map, they watched the blip of the flatbed rover move away from the shuttle's landing site. In bright colors, the map showed the edge of the Daedalus hot zone, along with bright spots to indicate where the warheads should be placed.

  "It'll take me about an hour to drop off all six."

  "Gives Zimmerman plenty of time," Jason said.

  As Newellen drove the predetermined path around Daedalus, he stopped at each designated spot. He seemed a lot less nervous now, stopping for only a few minutes at each point, reaching in back of the flatbed with the robotic arm, and depositing one of the white canisters on the lunar surface. There was no need to place them with any finesse. If the nuclear ring were detonated by Earth command and control, a few feet of powdery regolith would make no difference.

  Jason remained tense as the operation continued. They had heard no word from Zimmerman, nor did they expect to for at least another fifteen minutes.

  One after another, Newellen deployed all six warheads. "I deserve a pizza when we get back to the base," he said.

  Finally finished, he had encircled the three-kilometer-wide danger zone of Daedalus and returned to the remote shuttle. He motioned Salito to silence, then leaned into the intercom. "Columbus, mission accomplished and we're about ready to bring the rover on back."

  "Rog. Have you taken care of everything?" said Bernard Chu. They all knew what he really meant.

  "Just about. We're dropping the L-2 link while we remotely service the rover. Be back up shortly."

  "Good luck."

  As soon as Chu's voice stopped, Newellen flicked off the link. He threw a glance back at Cyndi. "Any luck?"

  She fumbled with her equipment. "I'm trying a direct line of sight now."

  Jason leaned toward the controls. Newellen tapped the panel. "Come on,"

  he growled. He glanced at the clock. "They'll only believe us being out of touch for a few minutes."

  Salito looked up. "Got him." She ran a hand over an array of lights.

  Bryan Zed's voice came over the new radio link. " -- as well forget it. The bastards have done it again."

  Jason leaned into the intercom. "Sabotaged the fuel tank?"

  "That and worse. They have a shitload full of explosives wired up to the controls. I could probably get around it in a few hours, but who knows how happy their trigger finger is? I guess they figured if we found a way to get around the fuel tank being sabotaged, they would just blow the whole thing up."

  With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Jason took in a breath. "Okay, Bryan. Get the hell back here. Hop in the rover and get on board before Earth suspects something's up."

  "Rog," said Zimmerman.

  Jason slumped in his chair. They had hoped to make off with the shuttle after they unloaded the nukes. Once brought back to Columbus and given enough time, they could have found some way to fly it back to Earth. They would have at least had an option.

  But who would have figured that McConnell still wouldn't trust them?

  --------

  CHAPTER 32

  ANTARCTICA -- NANOTECHNOLOGY ISOLATION LABORATORY

  In his wildest nightmares, Jordan Parvu could not have imagined the things he saw inside the NIL's quarantine room.

  Under harsh lights, the sprawling amorphous mass covered most of the floor, viscous and writhing. It seemed to be curious, but it had not yet breached the sealed walls. Parvu knew that the billions of automata could chew through any obstacle in a few moments, once they made up their minds to. But right now they seemed to be reassessing -- plotting?

  The automata had disassembled Kent Woodward the way they had the rat, cell by cell. His bones had turned to jelly, his skin split and reformed.

  Parvu had closed his eyes and shut off the speakers to silence Kent's screams.

  Parvu had caused this himself. He bore the blame. It would have been better to let the young astronaut die in peace, frozen at the bottom of the crevasse in an empty sleep. His companions would have found him eventually, given him a proper burial.

  Instead, Parvu had offered him a few more days of life -- at what cost?

  The hybrids had mutated, turned into destructive monsters. And if they got loose --

  Parvu uncovered his eyes to see the shapeless mass of Kent Woodward oozing across the floor to fuse with the much smaller smear of material that had been the body of the rat. They combined totally. The automata, the white lab rat, and the young astronaut were all one organism now.

  The mass burbled on the floor of the clean-room, simmering like a pot of too-thick pudding. Somewhere inside of it remained what had been Kent.

  Reaching forward, fighting off panic, Parvu found the intercom switch.

  He stopped, trying to rationalize what he was doing, but it did no good. It made no sense, but he had to make the attempt. It gave him something that might provide a solution.

  "Kent? Kent Woodward, can you hear me in there?"

  The surface of the blob rippled. It swelled and strained upward.

  "Kent, I -- "

  The formless mass flowed toward the wall speaker. It bumped
against the smooth vertical surface, waiting.

  Startled and frightened, Parvu switched off the intercom and held his breath. Through the observation window he could see the brownish mass hanging there, pulsating. What if it decided to chew through the wall?

  Sweat dribbled down his temples, plastering his steel-gray hair against his head. He did not want to move -- what if his motion attracted the mass, made it want to disassemble the window and plow through the NIL? The entire room seemed oppressively quiet, with only a distant creak from the wind that had picked up outside. He had not put on any music; silence seemed more appropriate anyway. The entire place was like a tomb, death waiting to happen.

  Parvu sat watching the motionless mass for half an hour. His eyes stung from not blinking, his throat hurt from not swallowing. He wanted the thing to make the next move -- but he was terrified at what it might do.

  Finally, the blob dribbled down the wall and flowed to the center of the room, swelling up and over a toppled lab stool like a blanket of mucous.

  The shapeless entity engulfed the stool, disassembling it like a snake swallowing a mouse. It destroyed the leg of an adjacent lab table as well, bringing the table crashing to the floor.

  The impact and the resulting noise startled the thing, and it sent splatters of itself in different directions, like outlying guards until they drew together again into the large main body. Parvu saw that the organism had increased its mass, growing as it incorporated new material. The stool was completely gone.

  With wraithlike pseudopods, the thing reached out to touch objects that had been on top of the table -- an RF electrode, a broken keyboard, some tools, a laptop flatscreen, and the empty cage that had held Old Gimp. As tendrils of the entity touched each object, the item dissolved, like a powerful funnel sucking material away and cataloging what it found.

  It waited a few more moments, as if gathering its energy, and then in a rush it bulged, redistributed its mass, mounded its center up and extruded from its own body a newly created stool, standing upright this time, as if the thing remembered what a stool was for and how it was supposed to stand.