The Precipice

NANOTECHNOLOGY LABORATORY

Long past midnight, Kris Cardenas sat alone in her office in Selene’s nanotechnology lab. The rest of the lab was empty, darkened to its nighttime lighting level.

She had agreed to have dinner with Martin Humphries because she wanted to get the man to warn Dan Randolph about the nanomachines that she had planted in his vessel, virus-sized disassemblers that once were known as “gobblers.” They were the reason that nanotechnology was banned on Earth — and under careful supervision at Selene.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? she asked herself. Who will watch the watchmen? Some Roman asked that question more than two thousand years ago, Cardenas knew.

All nanotech work was under very strict control in Selene. No one was allowed to work with gobblers: they had killed people. They had even been used to commit murder. If they ever got loose they could destroy all Selene. The medical work had to be supervised down to the nanometer because the therapeutic nanobugs that took apart plaque in a person’s arteries or destroyed tumors atom by atom were forms of gobblers, nothing less. If they ever got loose, if their programming was ever-so-subtly altered…

That was why Kris Cardenas’s primary duty as head of all nanotech work at Selene was to protect against such a catastrophe. She watched over every aspect of the work done in the nanotech lab.

But who will watch the watchmen? She had produced a microscopic batch of gobblers for Humphries, specifically tailored to damage Starpower 1 enough so Dan would have to turn the ship around and limp back to Selene. Humphries had promised that he would obtain permission for her to visit Earth again, to see her daughters and her grandchildren.

Now he was offering to bring them up here. Even better. But the price! Dan Randolph and the other people on that ship could get killed. Is that what Humphries really wants? She asked herself. If I warned Dan now he’d have to return to Selene. Flat and simple. But Humphries wants to wait another day or so, let Dan get to the inner fringes of the Belt and then tell him that his ship’s going to fail.

Or maybe he won’t warn Dan at all!

Cardenas sat up straight in her desk chair. That’s it, she told herself. He wants to kill Dan and the rest of the crew. She knew it with the certainty of revealed truth. What can I do about it?

Warn Dan, she answered her own question. Warn him now.

But how? She wondered. I can’t just pick up a phone and put a call through to him.

They’re out past the orbit of Mars by now.

I’ve got to get to someone in the Astro office. Someone who can put me through to Dan. Maybe that big Australian bodyguard of his. What’s his name? George something.

Martin Humphries could not sleep, despite the exertions he’d been through with the raven-haired woman lying beside him. Nominally an environmentalist on the consulting staff of Humphries Trust, the young woman’s favored environment seemed to be a bedroom with plenty of furniture to play on, as far as Humphries could determine.

She was sleeping peacefully. He was wide awake.

Dr. Cardenas. Humphries was worried about her. Even the lure of seeing her grandchildren wasn’t going to outweigh her overdeveloped sense of honor, he thought. She wants to warn Randolph; she’s probably figured out that I want the sonofabitch dead.

He sat up in the bed and glanced at the woman sleeping beside him. Slowly, carefully, he pulled the silk sheet down from her shoulders. Even with no lights in the room except the green glow from the digital clock, he could see that her body was smooth, flawless, perfectly proportioned. Too bad she’s heading back to Earth in a few days.

Cardenas, he reminded himself sternly.

She’s going to try to warn Randolph, he felt certain. Maybe that’s a good thing. If Randolph turns back now, Amanda will come back with him. With him. She won’t be coming back to me. She doesn’t want me, that’s why she ran off with him. If Cardenas warns them, they’ll come back here together to gloat at me. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to drive out the mental images of Randolph and Amanda together. I’ve got to think this through carefully. Logically. For Cardenas to warn Randolph she’ll have to get somebody here in Selene to set up the message for her. She’ll probably go to Astro; that’s where Randolph’s people are. And if she asks them to let her put through a call to Randolph they’ll ask her why. Sooner or later she’ll tell them why: Martin Humphries has bugged the Starpower ship with nanomachines. And then they’ll know all about it. Conclusion: For my own protection, I’ve got to stop her from talking to anyone at Astro. I’ve got to stop her from even trying to warn Randolph. I’ve got to stop her. Period.

When Dan awoke from his troubled sleep the solar storm had passed. Pancho was in the wardroom when he shambled in, bleary-eyed.

“Top o’ the mornin’, boss,” she said cheerily, hefting a mug of steaming coffee.

“How’s the weather out there?” Dan asked, heading for the juice dispenser.

“Clear and calm, except for a few rocks we should be passin’ by this afternoon.”

That made Dan smile. “We’re at the Belt.”

“Will be, by sixteen hundred hours. Right on shedyule, as Mandy would say.”

“Good. Great. Where’s Fuchs? We’ve got to make some course adjustments.”

Ten minutes later the four of them were seated around the table in the wardroom.

“I want to get a metallic nugget first,” Dan said.

Fuchs lifted his heavy shoulders slightly. “The metallic bodies are more heavily concentrated towards the outer area of the Belt.”

“So we go to the outer edge of the Belt,” Dan replied, “and search for a lump of iron. We can pick up the stony and carbonaceous rocks on the way back.”

“We’ll have to go more than four astronomical units, then,” Amanda pointed out.

“No one’s gone that far before.”

Dan said, “We’ve got the supplies for it. And the fuel. Everything’s running all right, isn’t it?”

“No major problems,” said Pancho.

His brows rising, Dan asked, “What are the minor problems?” She grinned at him. “The coffee’s pretty awful. A couple of li’l maintenance chores to do. You know, a cranky pump, one of the fuel cells is discharging when it shouldn’t. Nigglin’ stuff. Mandy and I are takin’ care of it.” Amanda nodded. Dan looked from her back to Pancho. Neither woman seemed worried. Well, he thought, if the pilots aren’t worried, no reason for me to sweat. “The sensor suite is in perfect working order,” Fuchs volunteered. “I’m already recording data.”

“We’ll have to do the turnaround maneuver soon,” said Amanda. Gesturing vaguely toward infinity, Dan asked Fuchs, “Have you picked a destination point out there?”

“A general area only,” he replied. “The outer Belt has not been mapped well enough to pick a precise asteroid. Most of them are not even numbered yet.”

“Have you given Pancho the coordinates?”

Fuchs’s face colored slightly. “I gave them to Amanda.”

“I’ve put the data into the nav computer,” Amanda said quickly, looking at Pancho.

Pancho nodded. “Okay. I’ll go check it out.”

“Onward and upward,” said Dan, rising from his chair. “We’ll be breaking distance records, if nothing else.”

“Four AUs,” Pancho muttered, getting to her feet also. She headed for the bridge. Dan followed her, leaving Amanda and Fuchs still sitting at the table.

Pancho slid into the pilot’s chair and tapped on her main touch-screen, the one showing the hunk on the beach. Standing behind her, Dan saw the navigation computer program come up over the muscles and teeth. But Pancho was looking at one of the smaller screens, where an amber light was blinking slowly.

“What’s that?” Dan asked.

“Dunno,” said Pancho, working the screen with her fingers. “Running a diagnostic… h’mmph.”

“What?”

Without turning her head from the display screens, Pancho muttered, “Says there’s a hot spot on one of the superconducting wires outside.” A jolt of alarm surged through Dan. “The superconductor? Our storm shield?” She glanced up at him. “Don’t get frazzled, boss. Happens all the time. Might be a pinhole leak in the coolant line. Maybe a micrometeor dinged us.”

“But if the coolant goes—”

“The rate of loss ain’t much,” Pancho said calmly. “We’re due for turnaround in six hours. I can angle the ship then so’s that side’s in the shade. If the hot spot doesn’t go away then, Mandy and me will go EVA and fix the leak.” Dan nodded and tried to feel reassured.