Creations (3 page)

They were in a large enclosed space, like an aircraft hanger but with a pool beneath them, floodlit both from above and below its surface so that elusive shapes and reflections danced over the white painted walls. The space was large; there were people in the pool, around a dozen of them swimming in wetsuits and diving gear, and judging by their scale Max put the pool at almost two hundred feet in length. However it was the object they were clustered round that seemed to be the centre of their attention, and it was only as the viewpoint dropped toward the water that Max could begin to see what it was.

Two distinct memories of childhood came to him as he saw the thing floating there under the lights. The first was of the rafts he’d had to build at scout camp, four oil drums lashed to a platform of beams and slats, bobbing on the surface of the water as if ready to topple at any moment. The second was of the constructor sets
he’d played with as a child, pre-drilled sections of metal and plastic held together with nuts and bolts, the same components used dozens of times over to make beams and levers and supports. The upper surface of the raft seemed to be covered with the stuff, boxy mechanical shapes studded with bolt-heads, parts of it operating with jerky, repeated motions, like the interior of a wristwatch magnified a hundred times. At one corner of the thing one of the swimmers was feeding it with sections of plastic, the same distinctive bar shapes it seemed to be built from, while another swimmer was helping to support a vague construction of girders and plates coming out of the far end. It was a flimsy arrangement, bowing and flexing even as the man tried to hold it steady against the slight surface waves of the pool. If these new components were meant to be a copy of the original, they were some way off.

“This is our development facility,” Victor said. “And this,” he added with what he seemed to think was justifiable pride, “is our third prototype: the SRS-3.”

Safi had got out of her seat and had moved down the table, leaning over to try to see the machine better. As the viewpoint continued to descend the details became clearer, although the false perspective of the projection was distorting the overall shape. Max got up too and moved round to her side, also hoping for a better view.

“Is that some kind of rudder arrangement, on the back there?” Safi said.

“Not just rudders,” Victor said. “That’s the propulsion system: four fins, independently actuated, or they will be once we get the motors installed.”

“So it’s mobile?”

“That’s right.”

“Does it need to be? It’s a lot of added complexity, given it’s in a fluid environment. Why not just anchor it and let the water run past?”

This time Ross answered. “Space, that’s why,” he said. “The sea is almost a mile deep in the operating site. If we’re limited to the shallows then we’ll run out of room in no time.”

“Why not anchor them to each other? Like a giant raft?”

“That’s a no go too,” he said. “If they’re all crowded together then only the ones on the edge will be able to replicate. That’ll slow us down too much.”

“And they need to be surface based?”

“If they’re going to get power. We’ve got wind or solar to choose from, that’s all.”

“Plus, there’s another big advantage to making them mobile,” Victor said. “It means they can bring the gold to us instead of us going to them. When the population gets into the millions, that’ll make a real difference.”

“Basically, we’ve just got ourselves into the boat building business,” Ross said.

Safi was still staring intently at the scene in front of her. “Those guys in the water,” she said, “It looks like they’re giving the thing its feedstock straight out. That can’t be right? Or is there another type of replicator that does all the processing and metalwork?”

“No, Safi, that’s it in its entirety.”

“But that’s just an assembler, you give it its component parts and it plugs the bits together. That’s a long way from something that can replicate in the wild, from raw materials.”

“We’re doing an incremental approach,” Ross said. “We started simple. Next we’re going to modify it to add raw materials processing, and finally, the kind of chemical extraction it will need to get those materials out of the sea.”

“And you reckon you’ll have a full end-to-end replication cycle? One hundred percent closure?”

“That’s the idea.”

“And what are you running at now?”

“Well, some way less than that. But we’re working on it.”

Max looked from Safi to Ross, and then to Victor. There was a lot of jargon flying around all of a sudden — assemblers, feedstock, closure percentages — and although Safi seemed to know the subject, Max was beginning to feel left behind. He looked at Oliver, who hadn’t left his seat but was leaning forward watching the exchange with his face screwed up in a frown. He might have been dazzled by the projection lights, or maybe the finer points were making as little sense to him as they were to Max. On one point however, Max felt more than qualified to comment.

“Victor, there’s one thing that concerns me here. When these things — these machines or whatever you want to call them — when they’re building copies of themselves, how do you know those new machines will behave the way you want them to?”

“I’m not sure I understand the question. Their behaviour will be programmed into them, copied from one to another. We’ll decide how the new ones will behave, exactly as we decide how the first ones will behave.”

“But you’re talking about a copying process, and copying always involves errors. Usually they’re small but they’re always there. I don’t think you can take it for granted that every machine that gets made will do exactly what you want it to.”

“You’re certainly right, Max, copying does involve errors, but errors can be corrected for. Whatever replication method we choose, we’ll ensure that the appropriate checksums and digital protection schemes are in place. Built-in error testing is a well established technique. If a machine’s program gets copied incorrectly, we can make it shut itself down.”

Max wasn’t so sure. “Victor, you obviously brought me in on this for a reason. It’s up to you whether you listen to me or not, but my advice would be to think very carefully about what you’re planning here. It’s a lot more complex than the way you’re describing it. Maintaining control isn’t the foregone conclusion you think it is.”

“The reason I asked you to come, Max, is to use your experience in evolutionary design to help refine the plans for these machines. Once we’ve done that, we’ll freeze the design, build the first one, then set it replicating, as close to flawlessly as we can get it. We know very little about how we’re going to achieve these objectives, but we know that the design task which is ahead of us will require some very advanced skills, which very few people are in a position to provide. Of course any views or advice you have will be listened to, but we want to hear about how we can do this, not how we can’t.”

He was making it sound so easy, Max thought, and yet they must have run into problems of some kind, otherwise why call this group together? Why recruit new faces at this late stage, when a company this size should have more than enough brainpower on their regular payroll? He didn’t get the chance to ask any more though; Victor had already climbed down from the dais, his sales pitch complete. He struck Max as someone who liked to play the enthusiastic showman, but his breathlessness and the sheen of sweat on his forehead suggested that he rarely had the opportunity to get up and perform.

“Ross, why don’t you go next?” he said as he retook his seat.

The room was still acting as one giant projection screen, but now the viewpoint had left the pool facility and was flying low over blue sunlit seas, the coast of an island to one side, a small tropical outcrop covered in thick vegetation from the shore right up to its peak.

“This is the place, folks,” Ross said, standing up to take Victor’s place. “If it looks idyllic, well that’s probably because it is. I’ve not been down there myself yet but I’m told there are worse places to earn a living. We don’t own the island, we just lease it, but we’ve worked with the government down there before and we have a standing arrangement, including free and exclusive use of over four thousand square miles of water. This is where you’ll be living.”

The island was small, barely four miles from one end to the other. On one side some small white buildings were visible, but the other side was dominated by a large, grey office building. It was built on terraces cut into the rock, like four huge steps leading away from the water. The lowest seemed to be a harbour; five or six vessels of various sizes were docked there. Elsewhere beaches were visible as little patches of white, tracing the outline of the coast. Max leant in, trying to see the facility better, to see what kind of place he was being asked to go to.

And then the view was gone, as the projectors switched off and the room’s original decor returned. Max found himself suddenly incongruous, up out of his seat, staring at bare wall for no reason. He went back to his place, and Safi did the same.

“So, a few facts and figures,” Ross said. “Basically, what have I been doing for the last six months? Well, if you look at your screens you’ll see some predictions for material production rates, given the kind of extraction techniques I’ve been looking at. Algal cellulose and silicon, that’s what we seem to have most of, so let’s start there…”

By now the words were just washing over Max as he considered the implications of what was being planned. He looked round the others at the table and tried to guess what they were thinking. Victor was smiling and nodding at Ross’s enthusiastic presentation. Safi was leaning forward, looking straight at Ross and hanging on his every word. Oliver was leaning toward Ross as well, but he was frowning and his brow was creased right up to where his reading light was reflecting off the grease in his hair. Nobody said a word as Ross took them through his part of the plan, a spirited and authoritative discourse on the usually tiresome subjects of marine chemistry and industrial materials processing.

By the end of the talk the spotlight was on Victor again, who spent the final ten minutes detailing contracts and terms of employment, the lengthy but necessary logistics relevant to
anyone about to make a career-changing decision. When that discussion drew to a close, Victor called a halt to the proceedings, and called for Jane Glenday to come and lead them back to reception.

Max was last to leave the room as they filed out. He was almost out of the door when he stopped, and went back in to where Victor was shutting down the presentation.

“I want to make sure you’ve thought about what you’re getting into here,” he said. “You’re talking about building something — and you still don’t know exactly what that something will be — that’s going to sit in open water with no constraints or safeguards other than what you decide to build into it, and that’s going to spread exponentially as fast as you can make it spread. Doesn’t that sound dangerous to you?”

“But Max, it’s not as if we’ll have our eyes closed while we’re doing this. Any controls or safeguards that are needed will be in place from the start. That will be part of the job that we’ve set ourselves, planning for every eventuality we can think of.”

“Yes, but it’s the ones you can’t think of that worry me.”

“If this concerns you so much, Max, then surely that’s all the more reason to join us. If you could see things done your way would that make you happier?”

“Implying that if I didn’t sign up then you would go ahead anyway?”

“Certainly. That’s true of Safi and Oliver as well as you. You’d all be assets to the programme, but there are always other people we could call in.”

“Then I guess I’ll have to let you know,” he said, and headed for the door.

* * *

He called Indira as soon as he was out; an open-line omni link wasn’t the place to discuss what he’d learned, but he’d promised
her a courtesy call to at least tell her they were done. She smiled at him warmly when the call linked up.

“Max, it’s good to hear from you. Do I take it you’ve spoken to Mr. Rioux?”

“Yes, we’re finished,” he said. “I just got out now.”

“And do you think you can help them?”

“I’m not sure. In terms of the technical aspects of the project, maybe, but I’m going to have to think about what I’ve heard today.”

She frowned slightly. “So what’s your gut feeling?”

“If I’m honest? That bringing me, Gillian and two other people to Washington for a one-hour meeting was a flagrant waste of their flight quota.”

Indira knew how he felt on the subject. Without intervention the GRACE point would have come just ten years previously, but already people were treating the measures that held it at bay like some kind of marketplace, as if the catastrophic extinction that formed the last two words of the acronym was something for governments and corporations to barter over. And if he took this job, he’d be giving up his place on the international monitoring programme that stopped things sliding back even further.

“But in terms of the project itself,” he continued. “I’ll have to let you know.”

Indira nodded slowly, but didn’t press him for more details. “So is Gillian looking forward to visiting her family?”

“She is, yes. We’re driving out there tonight.”

“Good, I’m glad. She must be as shaken up as you by those letters, some time away will probably do her good. How has she taken it all?”

Max hesitated; he knew the true answer wouldn’t be received well, but the hesitation was obviously answer enough.

“You still haven’t told her? Max, you must! If my husband kept something like this from me I’d be furious. Please tell her.”

“We’ve never had one delivered at home, only at work. I don’t
want to worry her unless I absolutely have to.”

“That’s your decision of course.” To Max that didn’t sound nearly as judgmental as it might have done.

“So if I give you my report when I get back, we can take it from there?”

“Of course. Have a good journey Max.”

Max met up with Gillian later that day, picking her up from the hotel where she’d already checked out to get them on the road as quickly as possible. Then they headed away from DC, out toward West Virginia, the low sun already turning orange ahead of them.