Saturn Run

49.

With the Americans leaving, there was no particular reason to rush to the alien planetoid. A number of critical repairs were being completed on the Celestial Odyssey, and Zhang wanted them done before they were distracted by the larger mission. Too many people had already died because of problems with the ship.

The American printer and the extra supply of carbon fiber could be crucial to the effort: the maintenance crew, what was left of them, told Zhang that they could probably repair one of the badly damaged reaction-mass tanks.

They already had plans, the result of a flash-design program in Wenchang. They were also looking into the possibility of fabricating tankless tanks out of water-ice taken from the rings, that could be attached to the exterior of the ship, cut up with lasers, and fed into the internal tanks as those emptied on the way back. That was iffy.

Still, things were looking up.

Finally.

So they took it slow.

Wenchang ground control was understanding; the politicians, less so. The Americans carried on board a very effective and attractive female propagandist who had given the alien information-bot a cute name, which had inspired a number of retail efforts and three copyright and patent lawsuits. She had also subtly and with humor created the impression that the Americans were the generous, idealistic ones, even providing the Chinese with repair equipment. The Chinese had no answer to that: their own trained propagandist had been off-loaded at Earth, part of the weight-reduction program when the ship was being stripped for speed.

Beijing pressed for action. Since the Americans had investigated only the primary, the Beijing brain trust suggested that Zhang’s crew investigate the rest of the constellation of alien artifacts, as well as the planetoid.

The thinking went like this: Zhang’s crew should gain access to one of the moonlets, taking care not to interfere with its operation, while collecting as much data as possible. If the Americans were to be believed, there would be no aliens there—but then, the Americans hadn’t looked.

If there were aliens aboard the moonlets, let the anthropologists and the diplomats do their job. The military was absolutely not to engage unless they were attacked first and retreat was impossible. First Contact was worth a few human lives.

Absent an alien presence, they should pursue a secondary, and more aggressive, goal. The alien facilities deployed uncountable numbers of small autonomous spacecraft. Some of them scavenged Saturn’s rings, apparently for water ice, and brought it back to some of the moonlets. Others shuttled between moonlets. They appeared to lack armament, or even much in the way of tools.

Ground-based analysis suggested that they were simple collection and transport devices—but however simple they were, they deployed alien tech. The large number of such craft, their small size, and their swarm-like behavior, strongly argued that they were not individually important.

They were the station’s equivalent of ants foraging in the grass. The analysts also guessed one ant would not be particularly missed, as long as the rest of the hill was not disturbed. Capture an ant, preferably alive rather than dead, but either way, get one aboard a tug and get the tug and its treasure back to the Celestial Odyssey.

Because the Americans would be periodically watching the Chinese activity around the alien planetoid, it would be best if they never got a hint that one of the ants had been captured. The ant, after all, would probably become the major piece of alien tech actually back on Earth.

After two days of repair work, Zhang signaled to Beijing his willingness to move toward contact. It seemed little enough to get the politicians off his back, especially since the repairs were going well. He directed Cui to draw up plans for two contact parties, one to investigate the planetoid, the other to look at the rest of the constellation.

Cui: “Sir, I would request that I be allowed to lead the first contact to the planetoid.”

Zhang said, “I was thinking of doing that myself. However, you may be right: we need decisive short-term thinking there, rather than a more leisurely process. Put yourself down to lead the planetoid team. What about the other team?”

Cui leaned almost imperceptibly toward Zhang and lowered her voice just a notch. “Sir, thank you for allowing me this opportunity. For the other team leader, I would suggest Duan Me, as a way of forestalling, mmm, personnel difficulties.”

Zhang nodded: “Do that. Your recommendation suggests to me that you may actually have a future in the navy.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“How long will it take you to draw up your crew list and give me a prospectus on your investigations?”

Cui held up her slate. “Sir, I need to put my name at the head of the planetoid list. Otherwise, you could have it in ten seconds. As is, it will take me perhaps a minute to transmit it to you.”

“Excellent, Cui. You do that. I’m going down to the maintenance bay.”

Because the crew didn’t do just one thing at a time, Cui had managed to signal to the prospective members of her crew, and Duan’s, to make themselves ready for their separate missions.

There wasn’t much to do, other than to check the EVA suits and vehicles. Cui would take the tug to the planetoid: they had measured the extruded landing shelf and determined that the tug would fit.

Duan would take a separate group in the shuttle to investigate the antimatter storage units and the service modules known as ants.

They waited until the Nixon disappeared behind the bulk of Saturn, on one of its outward spirals, and launched the shuttle and the tug within minutes of each other. All communications would be deeply encrypted.

Cui took the tug directly into the landing shelf and put it down. Having watched the news broadcasts from the Nixon, they knew the process, and Cui led the crew members through the air lock, and into the main room.

Ahead of them, they saw a machine that resembled an old-time jukebox, such as those they’d seen in museums in Shanghai. Letters formed in the air above the jukebox, and without waiting for the Chinese script to form, Cui said, “We bring you greetings from the People’s Republic of China.”

The jukebox said, “Mandarin. I speak Mandarin. What do you wish to know?”

“Do you have anything to say to the people of China?”

“Yes.”

“What would that be?” Cui asked politely.

“Hello, people of China.”

Zhang watched the shuttle go with some apprehension. Duan was not impetuous, but she was terribly ambitious. An ant would be coming back with them, whether or not it wanted to. He was not sure that an ant was worth the risk. Duan had been told emphatically that she was not to insist, but Duan was ambitious.

Zhang went back to the bridge to watch.

The scopes and radar watched as Duan and the shuttle attempted to match speeds with one of the ants. If they could do that, they could simply pull the alien craft aboard, and bring it back. The ants, however, eluded the shuttle, apparently with an effective proximity control that steered them away whenever the shuttle got too close; and the ants were much more maneuverable than the Chinese craft.

After a few fruitless attempts, the shuttle moved on to investigate one of the moonlets. A few minutes later, there was a burst of traffic from Duan. “Arrived, no incidents. Unpacked. All fine.”

Excellent, thought Zhang. Right on schedule.

Cui went directly to the technology.

“We are told that the humans who just left established an I/O connection between your computers and ours. Can we use that?”

“Yes.”

“What kind of information was transmitted to those humans?”

“They used four trade points to obtain scientific findings in physics, chemistry, and biology. They also received technological information regarding the engineering of interstellar capabilities appropriate to this facility. That information is available to all visitors.”

“Including construction of antimatter manufacturing and storage facilities?”

“Yes.”

“Where is the I/O port?”

“There is a hallway opening to your right. I/O equipment, including that left by the first humans, is there.”

Cui turned to Wong, the senior tech, and said, “Let’s go look.”

The Chinese scientists sent to investigate the moonlets began with surface readings, which showed faint gamma emissions from inside the moonlet. They’d quickly congregated as close to the source as they could get. Although the surface of the moonlet was covered with what appeared to be natural regolith, like any normal moonlet, the soil was studded with plates, protuberances, and sockets, none of whose function was at all obvious to the scientists. In addition, faint light splayed across the regolith, as though the surface of the moon were one giant computer display.

When the scientists brought microscopes to bear on the surface, they discovered it was covered with small organelles, most likely extraordinarily sophisticated nanobots. They seemed to operate like a loose mesh network, neighbor communicating information to neighbor.

Samples of the regolith, including myriad bots, were scooped into isolation canisters. The scientists were delighted to see that the soil kept twinkling, at first with faint random flashes. The flashes started to settle into larger patterns, expanding circles, stripes, checkerboards. Without a signal to drive them, there was no meaning or content to display, but it proved that the bots’ communication network was still functioning.

Duan asked Chang, one of the engineers, what the tech might mean.

Chang grunted and said, “One thing it means is that somebody is going to make another trillion yuan from these things. Just not us. What you’re looking at is microscopic machines. We’ve been talking about them for years but nobody’s got there yet. If we can reverse-engineer these things, we can get fifty years of tech in one leap.”

Duan was pleased by that; still, it wasn’t the big prize. It wasn’t aliens, it wasn’t starships, it wasn’t antimatter technology. Aliens, especially, seemed in short supply. She wondered what Cui was finding on the planetoid.

Cui asked, “We would like a summary explanation of the trade items. We were told by the last human group that you would allow us to trade up to eight points, and that they used four of those points, leaving us another four. Is that correct?”

“That is correct. There is a trade computer down the hall to your left. It can send a list of tradable items, and their cost, that is, their score, to the I/O port you are using. You may select from the list.”

“Are these technological items?”

“Most are not. Most are artistic items involving visual and aural arts, items used in food preparation and sensory stimulation.”

Wong said, “I think he just offered us vibrators.”

Cui: “Shut up.”

At the moonlet: while the biotechnologists were gathering nanobots from the surface, the seismologists were trying to find out what lay under the surface. What their sensitive microphones heard was disappointing: all of it was mechanical or electronic in nature. Not that any of them knew what aliens were supposed to sound like, but steady, repetitive, monotonous sonic signatures were not the hallmarks of active, intelligent life. Furthermore, no definite entry ports had been found. The few possible ports would accommodate nothing larger than a hamster.

Chang said, “Maybe the aliens are hamsters. I always thought hamsters acted suspiciously.”

“Shut up,” Duan said.

Possibly the moonlet was inhabited, by very quiet, intelligent, alien rodents. But probably not. The consensus was that this was not going to be the day for First Contact with another species.

The seismologist determined that the shell of the moonlet was quite thin. The geologists were equipped with drills and even small mining charges.

“Do we crack the shell?” Chang asked.

Duan shook her head: “No. The instructions are quite clear. Nothing that could be interpreted as an attack. We should see to the ants.”

At the planetoid, Cui had gone out through the air lock to call Zhang and the bridge crew.

“The I/O connection is fine. We can hook right in and start the I/O feed back to the Odyssey. The question is, should we do that, or should we fabricate our own equipment? Ours is better—not faster, but more robust. And I worry that the Americans may have done something to the cables. Is it possible to insert something into the cables that would turn the I/O output to garbage, or noise, or add error somehow?”

“Yes, that would be possible,” said one of the Odyssey-based techs. “But we would see that almost instantly. I would suggest you get the specs for fabricating our own I/O, but also, begin transmitting through the American connection. We could transmit to a sequestered computer to make sure that the input is not contaminated.”

On the moonlet, Duan took a call from one of the team members designated as an explorer. One of the ants was sitting on the surface of the moonlet, attached to one of the hamster-sized ports. The machine was less than a kilometer away.

After signaling to the Celestial Odyssey what they were about to do, they moved the shuttle to the site discovered by the explorer. Duan took a message from Zhang: “The Americans are coming over the horizon. You won’t be visible to them for another hour, because of the rings, but then they will be able to see you, if they look at the right place. So, either hurry, or hide.”

Duan signaled, “We will hurry first and hide later.”

At the planetoid, Cui asked, “How long will it take to transmit data at the current output rate of both science and technological information?”

The jukebox—now renamed the Narcissus, for the flower held in Chinese folklore to represent the intellect—said, “At the previous I/O rate, approximately two hundred and twelve Earth years, one hundred and six Earth days, seven Earth hours, sixteen Earth minutes, and 24.5 Earth seconds.”

Cui and Wong looked at each other. “Narcy… uh, how much did you give to the other humans?”

“All of it.”

“All of it? Why would it take us two hundred years to get it, if they got all of it in a week?”

“The first group of humans also received memory modules containing the most detailed technological and manufacturing information, which is the bulk of the information. The fundamental science information only was transmitted on the I/O link.”

“Then we also want memory modules.”

“Only eight physical memory modules and eight physical module readers are allotted per species. More cannot be fabricated on this facility, which is designed for storage, rather than the manufacture of consumer goods. The first group of humans took all eight.”

“What?”

On the moonlet: the ant—the alien artifact, whatever it was—more closely resembled a crab than a worker ant, with a flattened, domed fuselage and multiple mechanical appendages that extended from its midsection. None of the appendages could be interpreted as a weapon. They were all tipped with grapples, manipulators, or sockets, presumably for interchangeable attachments like tools. Nothing that would fire a projectile or a bolt or beam of energy, nothing that even looked capable of delivering a shock.

Duan signaled back to Zhang: “It’s some kind of drone, we think. No visible defensive or offensive capability.”

“How big?”

“A meter and a half long. Appears to be inactive. We’ve probed it with every nondestructive tool we’ve got—millimeter waves, soft X-ray, active sonar and passive sound detecting equipment. There’s a little hum, but not much.”

“Could you, uh, pick it up?”

“We’ll try.”

They tried, but the artifact was immovable. A docking collar locked the fuselage to the port that went into the moonlet. The tips of several appendages were firmly embedded in complementary fixtures arrayed about the port.

“That isn’t going to work,” Duan called. “We need to talk here.”

“Americans are almost around.”

At Duan’s direction, the crew tried to pry the appendages loose and rotate the docking collar, but got no movement with the degree of force the mechanics were willing to risk. The only response of the automaton was that faint internal hum increased when stress was put on the appendages.

They considered the option of cutting it free. Their cutting torches ought to be up to the task. But was it a good idea?

As an option, it was the last resort. They had no way of knowing how much damage they would do to the automaton by cutting away pieces of it, especially powered components, as the hum suggested they were. They might end up with a dead and dismembered spacecraft, pieces of alien space junk. How much could they learn about the technology from an entirely nonfunctional device?

Before going the meat-cleaver route, they opted for precision surgery. The docking mechanisms were active devices. If they could shut down the ant, they might be able to decouple it from the moonlet. The scientists and technicians now had 3-D models of the innards of the spacecraft, the fruits of the multispectral scans. A lot of what was in there was unidentifiable or incomprehensible. Just what was that thing near the bottom front that looked like a kidney?

A lot, though, was recognizable. Conduits and cables look much the same no matter who built them. They could see lumps that they could tell must function as motors or actuators, odd as they looked, just from where they were and what they were attached to.

There were a handful of larger modules. Those had to include fuel and storage tanks, computing and data-handling functions, and a power source. Assuming, of course, that alien engineering design followed anything remotely like human engineering principles. It was a large assumption, but they’d been able to recognize conduits and cables and motors, so it couldn’t be all that different.

There had to be signals to the motors telling them what to do and power so that they could do it. The electrical engineers started tracing conduits back from the motors. One by one they eliminated modules from consideration, as the scientists peered anxiously over the engineers’ shoulders and kept checking the time. They worked it down to two candidates. One was likely the computing unit, the other the main power supply. The one with the larger cables? Probably power.

They might be wrong, but disconnecting either ought to shut down the spacecraft. They had twenty-five minutes to do one or the other before the Americans would be looking over their shoulders. Rebooting the artifact might be tricky, or impossible, but at least they’d have an intact machine.

“Cut the power supply,” Duan said. There wasn’t time to consult with Zhang on the decision.

The engineers worked rapidly, calling out for tools and instruments that were delivered to them instantly by the surrounding team. Like field surgeons, they contemplated their alien patient. They were down to eighteen minutes to complete the operation. They decided where to make the first incision.

Zhang was talking with Cui, with increasing exasperation about the information feeds, and about the fact that the Americans may have tried to sneak away with the most important information dispensed by the information-bot.

He was doing that when the screens carrying the feed from the ship’s telescopes flared white, at the same moment that blinding light poured through the ports on the bridge.

Cui, several kilometers away, was looking toward the ship as she spoke to Zhang, and saw the ship flicker, as though it had been lit by lightning. An instant later, though, the ship remained as it had been.

On board the Celestial Odyssey, the radiation alarm sounded for a fraction of a second and went silent. As it went silent, all the ship’s screens, all the interior lighting, went dark. Zhang heard a panicked scream, he didn’t know from whom; it was almost immediately stifled by the embarrassed crew member.

The windows’ glare had been dazzling; anyone looking out a port had been temporarily blinded, although the flash had been several kilometers away.

After a long five seconds, lights began to come back, as well as the various vid screens.

“Shenme zai diyu?” That was the helmsman, Lieutenant Peng. His voice was high, panicked. Zhang knew who had screamed.

Zhang took a calming breath before he spoke. “Mr. Peng, that was a nuclear explosion. The ship’s systems and power went down because the electromagnetic pulse tripped the safeties.”

“But, sir, the shuttle!”

Zhang managed to keep his voice from shaking. “Cong, there is no shuttle. Not any longer,” he said very softly.

“Admiral?” The navigator on watch, Lieutenant Sun, spoke up. “I’m confirming that. There’s nothing on the scope.”

“No shuttle?” asked Peng.

“Peng,” replied the navigator, “there’s nothing. No moonlet, no shuttle. Everything that was there… everyone… gone. Vaporized.”

The helmsman began to sob. It was not professional. Zhang found it entirely understandable.

“Mr. Lei, ship’s status now, if you please.”

The watch officer was already hard at work. “No physical damage likely, not at twenty kilometers. The EMP might have fried some hardware. We’re pretty well shielded against that—original ship’s design in case it got caught by a really bad solar storm or a coronal ejection mass. But that’s a whole different level from a close-by nuclear pulse. The major systems will be okay or have backups. We could lose some lesser equipment. I’ll have a survey done now.”

“What about the radiation flash? What effect would that have on the crew?”

“I don’t know. The hull would protect us from normal background radiation, but a short, intense dose like this? I don’t know. I will talk to Medical. We may want to start everyone on radiation sickness preempts, just in case.”

“Do that. Mr. Sun, what is it?” The navigator was signaling urgently.

“Captain, we may have another problem. Those small autonomous spacecraft, like the one we were trying to catch? A lot of them, hundreds it looks like, are changing trajectory. They’re moving in our direction.”

Ta ma de, thought Zhang, we kicked the anthill.