Dreaming of Atmosphere (10 page)

11.

I was sitting across from Max and Fel at the small round conference table in the Captain’s quarters. As the Captain, Max was entitled to a small stateroom, complete with table and chairs as well as a writing desk. There were star charts and memorabilia all over the compartment, a healthy mix of history and future exploits to come. We were discussing our current predicament.

“So you think these nanites can get enough data about what that bomb is sensing to trick it?” recapped Max, as she turn a container filled with what looked like fine dust.

“I think it’s the only way we’re going to get a good enough idea about what we’re dealing with, yes.” Replied Fel’negr. He took the container from Max and tapped a button on the side of it. Data streams began to flood into our overlays, relaying things such as ambient temperatures, atmospheric content, surface tension, background radiation and other radiant energies.

“They should take about fifty two hours to gather enough data. Eric is sure that we can use another package to etch a cage around the bomb and use the nanites to feed a dummy signal into the probes.”

“Two days without the scoops? That’s a long haul running on only secondary propulsion.”

“I’ve checked with Eric, he says we have plenty of water in the tanks. At least a week’s worth running at full power.”

“Yeah and then we’ll just puff the rest of the way to the Jump Gate.”

“Would I ever make a puffer of you, Max?”

“You’d better not. What’s your take on all this, Seth?”

“Well, we need more information before we can try to remove this bomb, we can halt acceleration for 2 days while we do it, that way we save our water.”

“You don’t think that bitch will know something is up if we just coast for 2 days?”

“I’m sure that I can come up with a plausible story for why we’re not under thrust for a time, but she’s not stupid. Maybe drop acceleration down to one day. We don’t use as much fuel, and we still gain a day of velocity.”

“But you’re sure we should try and remove this bomb?”

“Definitely.”

She sat and mulled it over for a full minute before nodding to herself and gave Fel the go ahead. He left and headed for engineering. I made to leave too, but Max grabbed my arm and nodded to the chair again. I sat, and prepared myself for another one of her chats.

“How are things with you, Donny? Have you managed to have a chat with Zoe?”

“Yeah, I have, actually.”

“And?”

“It…it’s still going to take some time. But I’m working things out.”

She looked surprised.

“I guess you were right. She’s a different person when she starts doing her job, less questions and more conversation.”

“She’s very gifted. We’re lucky to have her.”

“I can see that now. Did she tell you she wants to play with my Augs?”

“She might have mentioned it, yes.”

“Oh, so you knew about the Nano-proliferation thing?”

“What did you say?”

“You did know? Did you put her up to it?”

“What have you got against NP? You don’t think it’s useful?”

“I’ve no doubt that it would be. I just don’t want to be a freak show crazy person is all!”

“What’s so freakish about technology? It’s the only reason you’re still alive, remember?”

“At what point do I cease being me? Where do we draw the line at where I’m still human and not some machine with fleshy parts attached?”

“You already have a computer in your brain, this just takes it up another notch and…”

“And it turns me into a freaking nanite factory!”

“You’ve already seen some of the things we can do with nanites.”

It was true that Nano-technology is used in many tasks aboard a starship. We use it to perform repairs on the hull, for example, instead of welding new plating onto the hull, we simply
grow
it with nanites programed to do just that. Feed them raw material and they convert it into useful shapes and even bonds it to the existing plates. Our shields are projected by a nanite-controlled effect. When a shield is depleted, it’s actually because the nanites that control the field have all burnt out and the generator is producing more. Where Nano-proliferation differs from regular nanites is in the programming.

Nanites are manufactured to fulfil a set task and are then discarded once their power runs out, we call it burning out. Nano-proliferation allows the user to rewrite the programs of the nanites they produce on the fly, allowing for a whole slew of programs to be running at once. It requires intense concentration and lots of training to create effects that regular nanites were never meant to be able to create. What scares me is what if the nanites an NP user creates are able to break free of the user’s direction? They’re not purpose built, so they can pretty much do whatever they want. What if they started to self-replicate to infinity? Theoretically they could consume everything and grow exponentially, become a true scourge on the galaxy. Sounds a lot like NP is playing with fire.

“I’ve gotten through my whole life without NP, and I see no reason why that needs to change.”

“I’m going to flick a data file to you. It’s a series of training videos talking about Nano-proliferation. Not just what they can do, but also the ethical and moral issues that arise from their use. I know you have misgivings about it, but having that kind of capability would be an enormous boon on this job. Power has a tendency to corrupt, I understand that, but the best wielders of such power are those that never wanted it to begin with. I trust you. I believe in you, and your strong sense of right and wrong. If you hold to your principles, you will be an amazing person able to achieve amazing things with this ability.”

I sat there staring at my hands. She’d struck a chord within me. My biggest fear is letting down the people that rely on me. Isn’t this just one more tool that I can use to do my people right? What if the only thing that stands between defeat and success is something I can do with NP? It was a heavy question weighing me down. It was a guilt that I felt was trying to swallow me whole. I’d let down my squad, I wasn’t fast enough or strong enough, or smart enough to get them home alive. Only I was able to come back. I couldn’t live with that kind of pain again.

“I’ll think about it.”

“That’s all I ask.” she said, and she gave me hand a squeeze, “Now, what’s this I hear about you cutting up that bitch’s face?”

12.

That night, while resting in my cabin, I watched a few of the videos that Max had sent me. They looked like they’d been prepared to education someone who was thinking about pursuing the technology, lots of statistics and warnings. There was one video talking about the kinds of augmentations that were needed to take advantage of NP, and what types of implants one could gain. Apparently, there were several different types of Nano-proliferation. This was news to me, I’d always assumed you either had NP or you didn’t. I suppose it makes sense, once I thought about it, most technology was the same. There were always different ways to achieve the same result.

The most common type were referred to as Specialists. They picked a field of applications and modded themselves out to better apply those principles. For example, there were Specialists who focused on thermal applications. Their augmentations tended to grant them resistances to extreme temperature ranges. Movers, Specialists who worked with gravity effects, tended to sport lots of sensors for picking up gravity and support Augs that allowed them to carry extra mass. Analysts, who used their nanites for scanning and data collection, needed massive data storage potential and computational devices built into their Augs. There were literally dozens of Specialist types, and those who take on multiple specialties were called Hybrids.

A minority of Nano-proliferation users were not outfitted for any specialty, usually those who came into the technology through necessity or who found they had Augs that would allow them to use NP with only minor alterations, such as in my case. In the growing subculture that was NP use, these types of users were called G-Types. This was slang for Generalists. They were by far the most versatile, but that lack of focus also meant they rarely gained enough skill in any one field to be considered a true virtuoso of the application. I got the feeling that these vids were aimed at Specialists, since that did seem to be to correct way to get into NP in the first place.

Another thing that I learned was from a conference regarding the capture and subsequent execution of a criminal that used Nano-proliferation to perpetrate his crimes. I remembered something of this case from several years ago, and was one of the horror stories surrounding NP. He was dubbed The Reaper by popular tabloids at the time, because he left his victims devoid of flesh. He used the nanites in his body to eat the meat from his victim’s bones. The video I was watching asserted that the Reaper was an already unstable person, who had a hidden fetish for cruel and unusual torture. As a Corporate man, his access to such technology was unfettered. He already commanded vast resources and it was no difficulty for him to outfit himself in private with the accoutrements and augmentations required to excel at his twisted fantasy. They surmised that it wasn’t the Nano-proliferation that caused his psychosis, but merely an outlet for an already unhinged psyche.

The rest of the same vid included several other documentaries of the same theme, showing how NP was not the cause of the horror, merely the tool used to express it. I wasn’t fully convinced, but I could at least see their point of view. If a deranged star ship captain launched a class 4 weapon strike against a populated habitat, I’m sure there would be plenty of people calling for their outlawing.

This kind of debate occurred all throughout history. It argued that just because man could, should he? As technological advances were made, each new insight into the future became the topic of fierce philosophical deliberation and argument. Ethical reasons why an avenue of technology should not be pursued were weighed against their potential benefits to mankind. The myriad ways that such advances could go awry, or be used to great harm were major obstacles in developing dangerous sciences.

War, however, always seemed to be the great reprieve. History is full of wars that were the driving force behind great leaps in understanding, in the creation of new and terrible ways to rend life from the living. Governments, pushing their scaremongering and fear into the masses, caused the common man to forgo caution in favour of pushing the technological envelope. No other motivator has had as much an influence as war, perhaps besides exploration.

The third great motivator was death. Restoring health, alleviating pain and prolonging life were the great drive in medical sciences, and it was this last cause that bore fruit to Nano-proliferation. The first recorded use of nanites to heal the body was nearly two hundred years ago, although in those early days of Nano-technology the nanites were crude and much specialised compared to today’s devices. They could be used to convert sugars in the body into blood, or remove toxins and repair damage. They could be used to target cancerous cells and infected organs. Eventually, as with other technological discoveries, more uses were found for nanites. The more common use is in the form of Nano-packages; single use nanites that could be programed to perform a function and then burn out, such as the scanner nanites that Fel was preparing to use. Engineering applications began to benefit from nanites as well, all a builder had to do was provide raw materials and a design and the nanites did the rest.

Programing nanites became a much sought after profession, and it remains one of the few technologies and commodities that the Corporations don’t have a monopoly on. Nano-proliferation, still in its infancy, has only been around for a few decades and its worth, or danger, to galactic society is still being debated.

The last of the vids that I watched were demonstrations and instructions on manipulating the nanites themselves. There were many references and techniques that were unfamiliar to me and I didn’t, for the most part, find these useful.

I slept that night and dreamt of clouds of uncontrolled nanoscopic robots tearing me apart from within, and my crew were there with me suffering the same fate. Only they were screaming at me to stop.

In the morning, I was down on Deck 2 sipping a mug of coffee, when Artemis joined me. I let her know she wasn’t welcome by giving her my best sneer. She ignored it, of course, and sat down anyway. She splashed a little hot coffee from the mug she held onto her hand and she swore.

“So you do feel pain?”

“Despite what you may think of me, I am human.”

“And you do bleed.”

“How’s your arm, by the way? I didn’t cut you too deep?”

“I didn’t know you cared.”

“Of course I do. I want your crew to succeed. It may surprise you that I do consider myself on your side, you know.”

“I wish I could say the feeling’s mutual, but it isn’t.”

“You just haven’t warmed up to me just yet.”

“Kind of hard when you’re as cold as ice.”

“I have a warm, gooey centre. I could show you some time, if you’re game.”

“I thought you told Max you wouldn’t try and seduce me?”

“A little white lie. She’s not my mother, and she isn’t yours either. We’d just be two consenting adults.”

“One consenting adult, you mean?”

She made a clucking noise.

“Aw, don’t tell me you don’t find me the least bit attractive?” I swallowed, hard. I could feel my face heating up. She must have seen my face go red, because she laughed. “A woman can tell, you know?”

“Tell what?”

“When a man finds her attractive.”

“We don’t all think with our genitals.”

“Ha-ha,” there was that musical laugh again, “now there’s a little white lie if ever I heard one.”

Zoe chose that moment to walk into the mess room. She walked to the auto-chef and dialled in a steaming hot cup of tea. She walked over to our table and joined us.

“I hope you two are not planning a rematch? I’ve had enough of sewing up wounds this week.”

“No, we were just agreeing to disagree about something.” I diplomatically explained.

“Anything I can weigh in on?” there was Zoe, trying to be helpful.

“Of course! Three is always better than two!” Artemis said and launched into a giggling fit. She took the queue when neither of us laughed with, and she stood up and left, trailing a few more drops of coffee.

“What was that about?”

“Nothing, Zoe, she was just trying to confuse me.”

She stared at the hatch that Artemis just left through for a moment, then turned back to me sipping her tea. I could see it was one of those natural varieties, herbal something or other.

“Is bunking with her giving you any trouble?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

“No, she keeps to herself mostly. You seem to be the only person she talks with. It must be very lonely for her.”

“Don’t tell me you feel sorry for her?”

“Not sorry, per se, more like pity. Is that the same thing?”

“I guess not. What have you got planned today?”

“Eric is taking me through the engineering spaces this morning, but after that I was going to take a look at some research I’m conducting for my thesis.”

“I was hoping to continue our conversation we had the other day regarding my…um…condition.”

“Okay, I can ask Eric for a raincheck…”

“No, your ship duties come first.”

“How about after lunch then?”

“Deal. I won’t keep you from your research for long.”

“Take as much time as you need, my research can wait.”

I thanked her and finished my coffee as Crege came in, ordering a large bowl of cereal from the auto-chef. He sat down as I stood up and began a conversation with Zoe, between beakfuls of milk and sugary grains. I could hear her laughing as I left the compartment.

The next few days were rather uneventful. I started going to see Zoe regularly, for about an hour every day or two, not really talking about much, just working out different feelings. I never really told her my full story, but she never pressed it me for it either. The scanner Nano-package completed its job and Eric and Fel began working on a way to remove the bomb. I kept watching the vids that Max had given me and started to educate myself properly on Nano-proliferation.

I stayed away from Artemis as much as I was able, but I couldn’t avoid her entirely. She came down to watch Crege and me sparring a couple of times, and eventually she must have decided to make it a regular thing. It made me uncomfortable for her to watch me while I trained, and Crege tool advantage of my distractions repeatedly, chiding me each time he tagged me.

Mal stumbled across the third bomb by accident, when we were almost two days out from the Jump Gate. It was mounted below a pressure manifold on the main water tank. We worked out that the bomb could probably be removed by pressurising the bomb and freezing it with nanites. Only problem was we didn’t have that kind of package on board. Max decide to add a cryo-nanite package to our shopping list when we got to the Harakiwa System on the other side of the Jump Gate.