Creations (32 page)

“That’s no surprise. It looks like they put the layers down in powder form, then sinter them together. Clever. But wow, will you look at this place, Max.” She’d stepped back from the thing and was now craning her head back to look up to the top. “It’s huge!”

Max didn’t say anything, but instead looked between the structures, trying to see the interior of the place. The nearest ones were brightly lit on their sunward sides and in deep shadow on the other, but those in the interior were completely dark. The gloom was almost impenetrable.

“Come on,” Joel said walking past them. “Let’s go inside, there is more to see.”

He strode off confidently, entering between two of the trunks while Max and Safi followed cautiously. Oliver and the two rover drivers went in behind them, presumably where they could
watch them more easily.

“You’ll need your suit lights in here,” Joel said. “And watch where you put your feet.”

They switched on the lights in their helmets and looked down at the ground, walking in the pools of light projected around their feet. The place was eerie, and due to the vacuum, completely silent. The movement around them however, was continuous, as countless small robots moved along the narrow walkways which linked the structures and braced them against one another. Every so often someone’s beam of light would race upward as they looked into the darkness above, trying to get a better look at something high off the ground, or in Max and Safi’s case, just to take in the enormity of what they were seeing. When Max looked up he had to stop walking altogether, to avoid tripping over the tangle of pipes and ducts that ran at ground level like tree roots. Instead he stood still and tried to study the canopy of reflectors above him. Then he turned off his light and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

There was some light at the top, after all. Ever so slightly, gaps between the leaves were letting in sunlight, outlining the shapes of the branches that made up the canopy. The branches were still recognisable as engineering structures, with their open framed design and zigzag bracing, but the overall shape was far more organic as the branches twisted and divided to cover the whole area. Safi had stopped to look too, perhaps wondering what had captured Max’s attention.

“Those are optimised structures,” he said. “When we design bridges and buildings by simulated evolution, we always get shapes like that. Maximum strength from the minimum material.”

“That is to be expected,” Joel said, joining them. “If you design things the way nature does, you get the same results nature does. Come on, we should keep going.”

They carried on, keeping a steady pace through the dark grey
forest. As with everything they’d seen, the main structural material was the local basalt rock, ground into powder then fused into shape. Even the robots had the same dull grey appearance and Max was starting to wish for a change of colour. The shapes of the robots, though, were immensely varied, as different designs were put through their paces to see which would work better than others. Some had four wheels compared to the original design of six, whereas others had eight or even more. Some, however, had none at all.

“Look at that component transporter!” Joel called out, pointing up at something on the side of one of the structures. “See how it is moving! It has invented legs!”

The machine he had indicated could clearly be seen climbing up the outside of one of the trunks without needing to use the walkways. The load it was carrying was held firmly to its back by jointed arms, curving out from its side. It looked almost insectlike.

“And I always thought legs came before the wheel! Incredible!”

They watched it for a minute or so as it climbed up the trunk and was lost from view. Then Max took advantage of the pause to ask Joel a question that had been in his mind ever since they’d come to this place.

“Tell me something,” he said. “What does this colony actually do? Apart from just expanding itself?”

“Do? It does nothing! It lives to grow!”

“Then, what’s the point?”

“It is a resource, a store of materials and wealth. Crops and trees don’t do anything apart from grow, but we still cultivate them on Earth to take what we need from them. Think how much valuable metal and other resources are locked away in this construction, having literally pulled themselves out of the ground for us. It’s unimaginable!”

Max looked round slowly, taking in what Joel had said, and
he had to admit that it was true. All those lunar mining projects that had struggled to break even, and yet this stockpile of purified trace elements was literally growing by the day, with no human effort expended whatsoever.

“I’m impressed,” he said, surprised at his own reaction.

“Thank you,” Joel said, and he sounded sincere. “Thank you very much. I hope in that case you will not mind if I make a slight confession.”

“What do you mean?” Max said.

“I must admit to having, ah, borrowed slightly from one of your own research projects when we decided upon the name for this place.”

That wasn’t all that he’d “borrowed”, Max thought. “Go on,” he said.

“Well, we see this project as representing an explosion in the abilities of robotic systems to adapt themselves to their surroundings, an explosion in the variety of function and design that is possible. You will of course be familiar with the equivalent period in our own evolution: the Cambrian explosion on Earth, when hundreds of new life forms appeared from just a few simple ancestors. The subsequent evolution of life on Earth owes everything to the events of those few million years. For that reason, we couldn’t think of a better name for this place than, Cambria.”

It was a name that brought back memories for Max, and few of them were good. However it also reminded him of something else: of another question he’d been meaning to ask Joel but so far hadn’t. He couldn’t believe it had slipped his mind.

“Joel, there’s something else I want to know about these robots.”

“Of course, go ahead.”

“The ones that work outside the colony, like the miners, and the ones that set up new colonies. How do you control where they go? How do you keep them where you want them?”

“Oh, that is easy,” Joel said, as if he’d been expecting a harder question. “We have a chain of transmitters marking the boundary of our operating region. All robots are built to recognise the transmissions and turn away from them. It’s the same method you used. Simple.”

Joel was smiling. Max just looked at him in disbelief. “Please tell me you’re joking,” he said.

Max was silent for the rest of the tour. As soon as he was on the rover for the return trip, he motioned Safi to switch her radio back to the private channel.

“Can you believe how stupid those people are?” he said. “Didn’t they learn anything from what happened to us?”

Safi didn’t reply at first. She looked as if she was trying to choose her words carefully.

“Max, please don’t take this the wrong way. I haven’t forgotten what happened to you, but you’ve got to try and see beyond that. Don’t tell me you weren’t blown away by what you saw just now.”

“Blown away? It’s an achievement, true, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a mistake.”

“But you were impressed by it, Max, you even said so yourself.”

“That was before I realised what a time bomb they’re sitting on. They’ve blindly thrown this thing together to get it working as fast as they can, and they haven’t even thought about what the implications are. They’re idiots.”

“What implications? In the space of six months they’ve outstripped every mining project that’s ever been attempted here. Those are the implications. These people aren’t idiots, they’re geniuses.”

“Even with Oliver on their side?”

“Oliver is the same loser he always was. This place is most likely running in spite of him, not because of him. But Joel Flieger and the others, I reckon we could learn from them.”

Max couldn’t think of anything else to say that wouldn’t start an argument. She was letting her technical fascination get the better of her, seeing other people’s answers to problems she’d faced just months before, but he wished she could see past it. He
didn’t reply, switching his suit back over to the main communication channel and listening in on the chatter running back and forth between the drivers. He couldn’t speak German, but at least it was something to listen to. Suddenly Joel cut in, calling over to the two of them.

“Max, Safi, I’ve been told that there was a brand new colony being set up near to where you broke down, less than a day old. We are going to check it out. It is not far out of our way.”

“Okay, fine,” Safi said, even though the rovers had already started turning.

As Joel had promised, the journey to the place they’d abandoned their rover didn’t take them far off their original course. However, only the navigation systems on the ESOS rovers gave any indication of exactly where they were heading. The landscape itself gave no clues whatsoever. Max was still looking out for any landmarks that he recognised when the rover itself came into view, sitting forlornly on the low ridge where they’d left it. They drew level with it as they headed for the new colony that had been established in the valley beyond. They’d almost gone straight past when Safi noticed that something wasn’t right.

“That’s weird,” she said. “All our tools are gone.”

She called to Joel to get him to stop the rovers, then she got off and went to investigate. Max went with her and saw immediately what she meant. Next to the rover, where Ariel and Harris had left the tools and parts they’d been working on, there was now nothing but stirred up soil. A lot of it was from their own footprints, when they’d been trying to fix the rover themselves, and the rovers that had recovered them had churned up the soil as well as they’d sped in to the rescue. However, nothing gave any explanation as to how their tools had simply vanished. Then Max spotted some familiar looking wheel tracks, running up and over the ridge and heading off on the other side.

“These are miner tracks,” he said. “One of them has been
through here.”

Joel joined him and examined them. “Yes, you are right,” he said. “It must have come through after you were picked up.”

The shape of the tracks was harder to make out right next to the rover. It looked like the machine had doubled back on itself several times, as if trying to cover the whole area. At least that explained where the missing items had gone.

“I think you need to get yourselves a new toolbox,” Joel said, laughing. “Come on, we will send someone out later on to tow your rover back. But first, let’s go down and look at this colony.”

They spent about half an hour looking over the new structure, seeing how the haystack-shaped store piles were being used by the core of the thing to create its own mining and processing infrastructure around it. It had developed considerably in the time since Max and Safi had last been there and already the outline of its first set of buildings was visible in the hard, paved surface it had laid down. Oliver suddenly seemed more reticent about letting them see the thing up close, as if he’d shown them enough to boast about but didn’t want them to learn too much. Max, however, didn’t think he needed to see any more, so just stayed off to the side and watched. Eventually they got back onto the rovers and moved off toward the ESOS settlement.

* * *

One of the ESOS personnel took Joel off to the side when they returned and spoke to him privately while Max and Safi waited by the airlock. Max couldn’t hear what was being said but when they’d finished Joel came straight back over to them, an apologetic look on his face.

“Max, Safi, I am sorry, we were planning to get you back to the base today. However, our long-range rover has been delayed.”

“Delayed?” Safi said. “Why?”

“It is carrying out tests near to one of the colonies and has had
to stay an extra day. But we will take you tomorrow instead, I promise.” He was already leading them away from the airlock.

“You can’t take us any sooner?” Safi said as she followed.

“No, I am afraid not.” He took them the short distance to the rest area, then motioned them to go inside where Ariel had been waiting with Harris and Damon. He didn’t go in with them, but instead left the five of them alone.

“Have you heard what’s happening?” Ariel said as soon he saw them. He looked agitated.

“He told us they can’t take us back until tomorrow,” Safi said. “Is that what you mean?”

“They gave you that story as well then. I think there is more to it though.”

“Like what?”

“Some kind of call came in while you were gone, then they all disappeared into the control room for an hour. We were just left on our own. It sounded like they were arguing.”

“That’s strange. The guy Joel was talking to earlier looked unhappy about something. Maybe we should ask them what’s going on.”

“We should do more than just ask them,” Ariel said, immediately on the offensive. “We have work to do at the base. Tomorrow is too late, it has to be today. We need to make them understand that.”

“We’re in a difficult position though, Ariel, I’m not sure we can start making demands of them. Remember why we came up here in the first place. To them we’re trespassers and yet they’re giving us guided tours. I think we’re lucky they’ve treated us as well as they have done.”

“Maybe that Joel has,” Harris said, “but only because he’s taken a shine to you both and he likes to show off. We’ve been kept in here like prisoners while you were gone.”

“Okay, okay,” Safi said. “Let me talk to him. I’ll see what he can do.”

She went back out into the corridors of the settlement, then returned a few minutes later with Joel in tow.

“Right, how long are you going to keep us here?” Ariel said.

“Please, please,” Joel said. “As I said before, as soon as our transport is available, we will recover your rover then take you and it back to the base. You must understand that we can’t do any of those things with our short range vehicles.”

“We understand that,” Ariel said, “but we need to go today, all of us. What can your other vehicle be doing that is so important?”