Alder's World Part One: Mass 17 (4 page)

“It
’
s nanobots. They
are really simple machines. They have to be because
they
’
re too small to do any
advanced programming. You build one to fuse Carbon to Lithium. You
build another to snare water molecules. Self-replicators grab the
same elements they
’
re made
out of and make more of themselves, sort of like wandering DNA.
Those
nanobots
came out of that cube pre-built to eat something that there
was a lot of in Martin
’
s
suit. It happened fast because they were designed to work in cold
space and Martin
’
s suit was
white hot by comparison.
”

“Why does that mean Carol
is dead?”
Reilly asked.
“
She could have made it to the
ship.
”

“Yes, but the
ship
’
s hull is made of almost
exactly the same material as the outer layer of the suits. If those
little...” He searched for the right word,
“
Technoprey ate through our
spacesuits in a matter of a few seconds, getting on the ship
didn
’
t help Pakerson.”
He found he had stood up while speaking. He had
been awake for almost twenty hours before the incident and found he
was swaying on his feet.
“
Sorry.”
He said to
Reilly.

“Thank you.”
Pilton said coldly.
“
I think we understand the danger
but we don
’
t leave crew
behind.
”

“She
’
s not there! And
even if she was, you couldn
’
t
help her.”
Alder punched frantically at
the console in front of him, well aware that his voice was sounding
hysterical. A round holograph of Mass 17 rose up from the
table.
“
This is how the
object looked when we first scanned it.
It
’
s a physical impossibility
but you can clearly see that the density of the object remains
fairly consistent until you reach the small point in the middle;
the sphere Martin landed on. This,
”
he touched his monitor,
“
is what the mass looks like now.
There is no sign of the hard central mass. It has been replaced by
growing bands of some other, electrically charged
material.
”

“So?”
It was Tallen.

“So. Those are the
nanobots. The static electricity in the cloud is being used by the
nanobots to turn the gas and dust into more nanobots and God knows
what else.”
His voice was rising steadily.
Seventeen hours and fifteen minutes.

“So?
”

“So. Going in there is a
suicide mission! Suicide! If even one of those things gets on the
hull of the scout it
’
s just a
matter of time till...” The words ‘catastrophic
decompression
’
and the sound
of Martin
’
s last, squeaking
pleas for help as Jinx struggled with the bubble crashed in his
head and nothing came out. His mouth opened and closed. Hot tears
rose in his stinging eyes.

Pilton spoke over the
stunned silence of Alder
’
s
tears.
“
Thank you for that
observation Lieutenant Commander. You are relieved of
duty.”

Alder sank into his chair and let
black grief roll over him as Dr. Thomas rose from his seat and came
around to help him.

Seventeen hours and sixteen
minutes.

Polyfiber...Fibrous...Thick...Alder
’
s
mouth felt thick and pasty...and cottony, that was the
word...cottony. He smacked his lips and swallowed as consciousness
slowly rolled back into his head. He made a guttural sound. The bed
seemed very deep and warm.

“Hey. There you
are.”
Elana
’
s voice came from
across the room.

Alder
’
s arms felt heavy
like fat sausages.
“
What
happened?”
He asked as her head came into
view.

“Dr. Thomas gave a little
bit of a sedative.”
She said, sitting down
on the edge of the bed.

“A little bit?”
Alder asked, forcing his unwieldy body to roll
over onto its side.

Elana brushed her hand
across his forehead. Her touch was as soft as it had been when he
first felt it sixteen years ago during a crew training drill that
had left the two of them alone in an escape pod for about an hour
too long.
“
You had a really
hard day the other day. He just wanted to make sure you were going
to sleep.
”

A scowl crossed
Alder
’
s face as awareness
tried to force its way back in between his ears.
“
The other day? How long? Did
they...” He struggled to grasp what had happened.

“Shhhh. Shhhh.” You have
been specifically forbidden to worry about the ship for at least
twenty-four more hours.”
She smiled
softly. The lights in their cabin were low and yellow.
“
I have been authorized to tell you
that, at your insistence, no humans were allowed back into the
cloud and that we did, as you predicted, lose all probes that went
too deep.
”

“So Carol is
gone.
”

Elana waited a long
second.
“
Come on Sam.
Let
’
s get you a shower and
some hot food.
”

Although he felt like
rolling back into the bed and the blackness of sleep, he let her
put her hand behind his elbow and help him to a sitting position.
Her role as Dr. Alder, ship
’
s
psychologist, made her soft suggestions about his care something
like an order.

“I need
coffee.
”

“Hmmm. A shower and some
real food first.
”

Thirty minutes in the shower, two
eggs, five sausage links, about a quarter kilo of hash browns, and
three merciful cups of coffee brought new life to Alder. He and
Elana left their cabin in the lower crew section with no particular
destination in mind.

The ship was quiet but
busy as they wound their way around the outside hallway of level
seven of the habitation dome. Even in a crew of seven hundred plus
the deaths of three crew members hit hard. No doubt there would be
a lot of grumbling again about turning the ship for home. Maybe,
with only two communication ponies left to ferry messages back to
human space, the deaths of Martin, Jinx, and Pakerson would finally
bring Pilton around to the idea that
he
’
d seen enough.

The few crew members in
the hall nodded politely as they passed but
didn
’
t stop to chat and the
small cafeteria that served as level
seven
’
s lounge was empty
except for a few knots of crew wrapped up in their own
conversations. While required to wear uniforms while on duty, long
years in space along with advanced printing technology, had led to
off duty gear that was as unpredictable as it was colorful. The
periodic fashion shows hosted in public areas had somehow stayed
fashionable and there was even a bit of competition between crew
members who had proven to have an eye for designing the interesting
or at least improbable. One of the women sitting in the break area
was wearing a dress that appeared to be covered in goose heads. The
man with her was in a kilt. The lounge itself was double duty, it
served both as a cafeteria and a garden. The apparently ornamental
plants were all edible and the fish in the small, ornamental pond
were a custom engineered relative of the perch that thrived in
confined spaces and produced a flakey, protein rich meat. They were
all, humans included, part of a vast, sprawling ecosystem that kept
the crew healthy and productive year after year.

They were silent as they boarded the
lift to the main ring. Since the Duster was not designed for
planetary landing, its space frame was open and built in sections.
One of the quirks of space travel using the framing drive was that
any mass within a sphere slightly larger than the main ring would
travel with the ship when the engine was engaged. The designers had
taken advantage of that fact, spacing the different modules of the
ship out on great lattices of wire and tubing. In part this was to
give the crew as much separation from the insanity crystal that
hung in the center of the ship and its occasional bursts of
radiation as possible and partly to give the crew some much needed
space from each other. While virtual tanks were handy for a quick
break, their overuse tended to lead to psychosis and so real space
and real variety were built into the ship whenever
possible.

As the tube lifted them out of the
crew module, they were greeted with a sweeping view of the
underside of the engineering bay and the science bay built on its
own platform far below and isolated from the noisy, sometimes
radioactive rest of the ship.

Alder unconsciously checked the status
of the equipment that had occupied his waking life for the last
fourteen years. Seven telescopes, four particle detectors, a wave
form reader...dozens of instruments all in order and all pointing
at something out of sight to his right...Mass 17.

The tube stopped during the passage
through the long, flat engineering deck to pick up crew, then rose
on to the main ring.

The main ring ran for
almost three kilometers around the center of the ship. All around,
wave guides, aligned to within a few hundredths of a millimeter
caught
“
frames,
”
naturally
occurring ripples in space, and held them out around the insanity
crystal for an incalculably small fraction of time, allowing
relativity free jumps across space. Outside of the guides, a broad
causeway ran the whole length of the ring. It served many roles. It
was the ships shopping mall, had several small cafes and even a
pair of small stages. Crew could be found here at all hours,
jogging the ring, enjoying a bite or maybe even taking in a bit of
theater or a fashion show. There was also a small aviary where
birds, both edible and pleasant sounding, chittered and
whistled.

Elana tried to make small talk as they
wandered the ring, but Alder was distracted. The mass was visible
from here, but barely. The lights inside the ship masked the dimly
lit object and the glare on the glass occasionally obscured it
completely. It caught and held his attention every time he noticed
it.

After half an hour, Elana
gave up.
“
Come on
Sam.”
She said, pulling him towards a
lift.

“Where
to?
”

“You
’
ve got some
grieving to do.
”

The tube hoisted them up into the
Environment Dome. Keeping a small city sized crew alive and healthy
for any length of time in the depths of space was a major feat not
only of agriculture but also of social engineering. The Duster was
part of a new class of ships, a class designed to function
autonomously for years. It was meant to be a self-sustaining
community and every crew member, right up to the Captain had a job
in the maze of greenhouses, recycling tanks, and gymnasiums that
made up the Environment Dome. Alder did one shift a week in the
livestock habitat. It was surreal, working five days in the science
bay, with its sterile compartments and whirring machines and then
the sixth with pigs and chickens in a yard so large that it
occupied two entire floors of the dome. The lights there were full
spectrum balls that hung in the ceiling and were capable of
delivering a slight sunburn if your skin was unnaturally pasty
after hours spent in the lab. The floor above was a working farm
with pot bellied pigs, chickens, ducks, small goats, and amazingly
large guinea pigs.

The enforced participation
in the maintenance of the biodome was definitely therapeutic.
Members of Alder
’
s own highly
intelligent and notoriously antisocial science team had spearheaded
the
“
Save
Maggie
”
campaign during year
three.
“
Maggie
”
a pigmy hog
with unusual white trotters had been determined too cute to eat and
so, after a successful and sometime boisterous lobby, was allowed
to live out her life as guardian of the pens. When she died in year
nine, there was so much remorse that it was decided that her
remains should be fed, en mass to the recycling system thus
redistributing her resources in such a way that no one would have
to look at their plate and ask if they were eating a part of
Maggie. By now she
’
d been
recycled and re-eaten a dozen times but some crew members still
kept pictures of her. Her successor
“
Ronald Midbits
”
was in year four of his reign. When he had first
seen the social plan for the ship, it hadn’t made much sense to
him, but he couldn’t deny that they really did function as a self
contained society.