Assemblers of Infinity by Kevin J. Anderson Doug Beason

Author:Kevin J. Anderson Doug Beason
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf

Parvu kept losing track of time. The stereo continued to play random musical selections, letting him work for hours with no interruption.

With the rat inside its cage breathing the filtered air of the clean-room, Parvu had no idea how long he had tinkered with the nanocore’s fail-safe controls. He knew the passwords, the security interlocks—he had designed the system himself, after all. But he couldn’t remember everything.

Finally, when the Klaxon screeched its warning for the fourth time, upsetting Old Gimp inside the cage, Parvu found the main power circuits and shorted across the wires.

The nanocore would allow him access now.

His hands shook as he worked. His actions, the inexcusably risky course he had decided to take by mixing the two types of automata, went completely against his lifetime of meticulousness and care, of rigid adherence to procedures and controls. He himself had been considered a roadblock to other researchers because he insisted on so many double checks.

And now he was sabotaging his own equipment He, more than anyone else, understood the dangers of unleashing the nanotechnology demon. But he didn’t have much time. Erika needed answers now! He couldn’t wait.

Using the microwaldoes and tiny capillary pumps that had been intended for seeding analytical samples, Parvu managed to withdraw a small aliquot of the milky nutrient solution filled with billions of hybrids.

He stared down at the nanocore seals with his fingers trembling on the controls before he keyed in the long command sequence that would release the sample. It required three separate passwords. Each time, a warning message told him the peril of his actions. Each time, Parvu overrode it.

The Daedalus automata had already spread three kilometers across the lunar surface. They had already infected Erika and everyone else on the moonbase and on the Collins—but for some reason they had replicated but otherwise gone dormant in the human bloodstream.

He squeezed his eyes shut, driving back the panic. What if he was wrong? The dean-room dome was sealed and airtight, but by no means would it contain vigorous nanotech samples if they attempted to breach the walls. What if he was starting a chain reaction that would turn the planet into a ball of Drexler’s infamous “gray goo?” Parvu himself would be responsible for bringing a nanotech plague to Earth.

However, he always had the x-ray burst inside the NIL as a last resort. That would disintegrate the hybrid automata, blast himself and everything else with an instantly fetal dose of radiation. It gave him small comfort.

For now, Parvu had to see what the machines would do when they encountered the rat’s bloodstream.

Old Gimp squirmed and made a high-pitched noise as Parvu injected it with the sample fluid. “Hold still, please,” he told the rat “This is what you were brought down here for, after all. Did you not read your contract?”

He put the rat back in its cage, left it in the clean-room, and glanced at the chronometer on the wall. Now he would have to be very conscious of time. He had nothing else to do but wait.

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