Farside (24 page)

“That’s not what I meant.”

“The hell it wasn’t!”

“It’s dangerous out there, Trudy.”

“I’m going and you can’t stop me,” she said hotly.

“I’ll get Uhlrich to stop you.”

“The hell you will!”

“I don’t want you going out to Mendeleev,” Grant repeated stubbornly.

“Why not?”

Grant started to reply, but hesitated. “You’re not going,” he said, his voice low, hard, final. “That’s all there is to it. You’re not going.”

McCLINTOCK’S QUARTERS

“Make yourself comfortable, Dr. Cardenas,” said McClintock as he ushered her into his room. “Can I offer you some wine?”

Cardenas stood by the door and surveyed the room in a single swift glance.

“No thanks,” she said. “I’m here to work. I thought we were going to the lab where the damaged space suit was examined.”

Smoothly, McClintock replied, “Professor Uhlrich thought it would be best if you weren’t seen examining the space suit by anyone else. We have some very bright people here; if they see the nanotech expert examining the suit they might realize that we have a potential problem on our hands.”

“Nanofear,” Cardenas said.

“No sense starting rumors,” said McClintock. “This is a very small, tightly knit little community, you know.”

“I understand.”

Gesturing to the sofa, he said, “I can show you all the test results on the wall screen. Any information that you need.”

“And Professor Uhlrich?”

“He’ll meet us here shortly.”

Cardenas seemed to think it over for a moment, then she said, “All right, let’s look at the data.”

Half an hour later she was peering at a photomicrograph of the pinhole in the metal collar of Winston’s space suit.

“What do you think?” McClintock asked.

Her face set in a tight frown, Cardenas said, “Can you pull up an image of the pinhole in the superconductor’s dewar?”

McClintock ordered the computer to find the image.

Cardenas nodded, then said, “Put them side by side on the screen, please.”

She stared at the two images for a long, hard minute. McClintock noticed that the data bar running along the bottom of the screen showed both holes were exactly the same diameter.

“Identical,” Cardenas murmured at last.

“Which means?”

She turned to McClintock, her expression bleak. “Which means that both holes were drilled by nanomachines. The same batch of nanomachines.”

“How can you tell?”

“Characteristic microgrooves. Like the rifling of a bullet.” She sat in tense silence for a moment, then added, “You’re infected.”

“I am?” McClintock yelped.

Shaking her head impatiently, Cardenas said, “Not you personally. Your base is. This facility is. Or at least that spot out there where the telescope is sitting.”

“Mendeleev crater.”

“You’d better isolate the site and send a team of robots in to sweep the facility with high-intensity ultraviolet light.”

“That will kill the nanomachines?” he asked.

“It should.”

Feeling somewhat relieved, McClintock said, “I’ll tell Uhlrich. We’ll get started on this right away.”

“Where is Professor Uhlrich?” Cardenas asked. “I thought he was going to meet us here.”

*   *   *

Professor Uhlrich was still in his office, caught squarely between Trudy Yost and Grant Simpson, who sat on opposite sides of his conference table, obviously glaring at each other.

“I still don’t see why I can’t go out to Mendeleev,” she was insisting. “It doesn’t make any sense to try to do the installation remotely.”

Before the professor could reply, Simpson said, “There’s no need for you to go. I’ll do it, with you directing me from here.”

“That’s ridiculous!” she snapped.

“No it’s not!”

Uhlrich felt torn. On the one hand, he agreed with Simpson that allowing Dr. Yost to go to Mendeleev might be dangerous. One man’s already been killed there; why risk the life of the only astronomer on my staff? On the other hand, it is perfectly true that Dr. Yost is the only one really capable of installing the spectrometer, and I need to get spectra from Sirius C as quickly as possible.

His phone buzzed and announced that Carter McClintock was calling. He’s with Dr. Cardenas, Uhlrich knew.

Instead of putting the call on one of the wall screens, Uhlrich picked up the handset. Yost and Simpson fell silent, but Uhlrich could feel the heat of their anger toward each other.

“Yes,” he said quietly into the phone.

“Professor, I’m in my quarters with Dr. Cardenas. We were expecting you to join us.”

“In a few minutes,” said Uhlrich. “I’m tied up with something at the moment.”

“Oh.”

Lowering his voice to a whisper, Uhlrich asked, “What has she found?”

A heartbeat’s hesitation. Then McClintock said, “It’s nanomachines. The Mendeleev site is infested with them, somehow.”

The professor squeezed his sightless eyes shut. “Mendeleev, you say? Not Farside?”

“Apparently not.”

Letting out his breath in a long, weary sigh, Uhlrich said, “Very well. I will join you in a few minutes.”

He hung up the phone and sat there in silence, wondering what he should do, how he should proceed.

Simpson said impatiently, “Well, Professor? Do you agree that Dr. Yost can direct the job from here? There’s no need for her—”

“Yes, yes, I agree.”

Trudy Yost immediately began to complain. “Now wait a minute, this is my responsibility and I—”

“Dr. Yost,” said Uhlrich, with a firmness he did not really feel, “you will remain here at Farside and direct Mr. Simpson, who will install the spectrometer—under your guidance.”

“That … that’s … it’s wrong!” Yost sputtered. “It’s stupid!”

“That is my decision and you will abide by it.”

From the other side of the table, Simpson said, “Trudy, it’s for your own good. Believe me. I’ll do the job right. You tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”

Uhlrich could sense the young woman sitting there, awash in anger and even shame. She thinks I don’t trust her to install the spectrometer. She thinks I’m belittling her. So be it. I can’t tell her that we have a nanomachine problem. That would start a panic here that could destroy everything I’m trying to accomplish.

Simpson can handle the job. He’s quite capable. With a pang of alarm, Uhlrich asked himself, What if the nanomachines attack him? What if he’s killed out there? It will mean the Mendeleev site is useless, I’ll be unable to get spectral data on Sirius C.

Then a new thought struck him: What if the nanomachines destroy the spectrometer? That would be a disaster! An utter disaster!

CONFESSIONS

As they left the Ulcer’s office and started down the corridor, Grant could see how depressed Trudy felt. What can I say that’ll make her feel better? he wondered.

“Look,” he said to her, “nobody doubts your ability. You’ll still be directing the installation, it’ll just be that you’re directing it remotely instead of being out there.”

“Where I should be,” she said, her voice heavy with resentment.

“Come on, cheer up. I’ll buy you dinner, okay?”

She stopped in the middle of the corridor, eyeing him suspiciously. “Grant, what’s going on? Why’s everybody so set on keeping me away from Mendeleev?”

He wanted to tell her. He wanted to put his arm around her shoulders and explain to her that Mendeleev was too dangerous for her, too risky.

Instead, he merely shrugged and said, “You’re going to have to run the ’scope from here, remotely, aren’t you? So why’re you getting spooled up over directing the installation remotely? It’s no big deal.”

Trudy looked totally unconvinced.

“Besides, you don’t have the experience to work outside. I do. It’s that simple.”

“I don’t believe you,” Trudy said, her eyes narrowed with suspicion.

Grant heard himself say, “All right, I’ll tell you the truth. I don’t want you taking any risks that you don’t absolutely have to take. You’re the only astronomer here, outside of the Ulcer, and…” Suddenly he ran out of words.

“And?” she prompted.

“And you’re too important to be sent on jobs that a technician can do.”

“Or an engineer?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Engineers are expendable. Astronomers aren’t.”

Trudy’s expression softened. Her voice gentler, she said, “So what about dinner, Grant?”

*   *   *

“You’re sending someone out there before the site’s decontaminated?” Kris Cardenas couldn’t believe what Professor Uhlrich had just told her.

The professor was sitting bolt upright in the shiny new recliner that McClintock had somehow acquired and added to his room’s décor.

“Decontaminated?” he asked.

McClintock intervened. “Dr. Cardenas believes we should bathe the Mendeleev facility in high-intensity ultraviolet light. That would kill any nanomachines present there, wouldn’t it?”

“It will deactivate them, yes,” Cardenas agreed, with a tight nod. She was sitting on the sofa, facing Uhlrich across the low coffee table, fists clenched on her lap. McClintock was beside her. He had brought out one of the bottles of wine he had managed to bring in from Selene and three stemmed glasses, but no one had touched their drinks.

Uhlrich looked directly at Cardenas, and McClintock marveled at how the man could disguise his blindness.

“The Mendeleev telescope is bathed in ultraviolet light constantly,” he said. “Solar UV and background radiation from the stars.”

Before Cardenas could reply, McClintock said, “But the shelter, Professor. The underground shelter. That must be where the nanomachines are lurking.”

“Ah, I see,” said Uhlrich.

“The man who died was leaving the shelter and heading for the hopper when he collapsed,” McClintock pointed out.

Uhlrich began to nod, but then asked, “How is it that the person with him was not affected by the nanomachines?”

“That’s a good question,” said Cardenas. “We should examine the space suit she wore, too.”

“I have another question,” said the professor. “How did the nanomachines get there in the first place?”

“From the nanos that built the telescope mirror,” said McClintock. “They somehow got into the shelter and—”

“No,” Cardenas said flatly. “That’s not possible.”

“You don’t think they could have gotten into the shelter?” McClintock asked.

“The nanos that built the mirror are entirely different from the nanos that damaged the space suit,” Cardenas said. “They couldn’t have damaged the suit, not in a million years. In fact, if you examine the mirror, you’ll find that all the nanomachines that constructed it are completely deactivated.”

“I don’t understand,” said Uhlrich.

Patiently, Cardenas explained, “The nanomachines that constructed the mirror are deactivated by now. Dead, if you want to use that term. The nanomachines that damaged the space suit are an entirely different type of nano. Not the same as those that built the mirror. Not the same at all.”

Uhlrich looked confused. “Then … where did they come from?”

“I wish I knew,” Cardenas said.

*   *   *

Dinner was awkward. Trudy knows I’m not telling her the whole story, Grant realized. I can’t. I promised the Ulcer that I wouldn’t. He’s right: if the staff found out we’ve got a problem with nanomachines they’d fly out of here like air escaping from a popped balloon.

A contradictory voice in his head argued, But don’t they have the right to know? If they’re in danger, shouldn’t they be told about it?

“You’re awfully quiet,” Trudy said.

Grant snapped his attention to her, sitting across the table from him. The cafeteria was practically empty this early in the evening, but still its stone walls rang with the clatter of dinnerware, the buzz of conversations.

“Sorry,” he said. “Got a lot to think about.”

Trudy looked squarely at him, her green eyes unwavering. “Grant, you’re not telling me the whole story, are you?”

He almost smiled at her. “The whole story is, I don’t want you to take any risks that you don’t have to take.”

“But you’re willing to take those risks.”

“That’s right,” he said, picking up a fork and jabbing it into his salad.

“How come?”

“It’s my job. It’s what I get paid to do.”

For a moment Trudy said nothing. She too picked up her fork, but she held it like a fencing saber and pointed it directly at Grant.

“Installing that spectrometer is
my
job, Grant. It’s what
I
get paid to do.”

“You’ll be doing your job.”

“And you’ll be taking the risks of working out in the open.”

He shrugged. “I’ve had plenty of experience. You haven’t.”

Trudy shook her head, like a stubborn little girl. “There’s more to it, Grant. I know there’s more.”

She’s like a bull terrier, Grant thought. What in hell can I tell her to get her off this business?

He looked into her green eyes and saw that she was waiting patiently, expectantly, for him to tell her the truth.

“I can work outside without as much risk as you or anybody else would face,” he said.

She put the fork down and folded both hands beneath her chin, waiting for more.

Leaning over the table so close that their heads nearly touched, Grant told her, “My body’s full of nanomachines. They protect me from radiation damage and any other physical trauma.”

“Nanomachines?” Trudy whispered.

“I don’t want anybody to know,” he whispered back.

She nodded. “I guess not.”

“I’m trusting you, Trudy. Please,
please
keep it to yourself.”

“Of course. Certainly.” A flash of confusion showed on her face. “But … I still don’t see why you don’t want me to go out to Mendeleev with you.”

He blurted, “Because I think too much of you to let you take unnecessary risks.”

Trudy’s mouth fell open. Then slowly a smile curved her lips. “You do?”

“Yeah, I do.” And Grant said to himself, Holy god, that might even be the truth.

TO MENDELEEV CRATER

Grant was surprised to see Nate Oberman suiting up in the locker area next to Farside’s main airlock.

“What’re you doing?” he demanded. “Where’s Harvey?”