Evander was thinking it through. Yamamoto was more interested in extending the pragmatic approach by asking Rose to suggest such a concept to Red. “If it won’t work he will help explain why not, if it has merit he’ll just nod and smile.”
Evander had considered the gains from the deposition accuracy and the possible compensating loss of accuracy at the edges of each pentagon and its neighbour. Although the deposition improvement may not require frequency modulation in the field generator for a single unit it could make it more important than ever for interlocking ones. It would have to become a compensator rather than a pure front line parameter.
Yamamoto jumped in again. “That will require a whole new design for your field generator Evander.”
“I know, but without it I don’t think there will be enough stability to maintain QSD.”
“Ok Rose, explain your idea to Red and just wait for his response. He’ll probably bring up Evander’s concern. Then tell him of the new proposal for the field generator. If he just goes along with your idea then ask him about accuracy at the interlock points. It’s possible that one gain balances another loss.”
Rose caught up with Red and did as suggested. The Symbiant was expressionless. “Why did you choose a pentagon?”
“Well, I began with the idea having deformability in the small units, and for best conformance to the desired deformation, a circle was chosen for the eight metre unit. However when a circle offered no interlock potential I dropped the approach of deforming each component unit.”
Red asked, “Why not a triangle, rectangle or hexagon?”
Rose was a little confused. “Well, if the longest side of any geometric shape will be limited to thirty metres, I simply looked at the areas covered by such candidates and the angles to which they would conform with one another when the specified deformation template was realised. I rejected triangles and squares on the area basis; we don’t want to increase the number of units unnecessarily. I did not like elongated rectangles for the angular conformance aspect. The less number of sides we have to interlock the simpler the engineering and data processing demands. The pentagon seemed reasonable. Why do you ask?”
Red smiled at last. “I just wondered how much it had to do with your familiarity with the number five.”
Rose responded by saying that the fabrication hardware was geared to the base five but that could be altered if there was a better choice. Red didn’t think that was necessary but confirmed Evander’s worry about uniformity of performance at the interlocks. When Rose admitted this and offered Evander’s commitment to re-design the field generator to compensate he replied, “I don’t see why that would not work but it will be a very lengthy and complex job. Four more years will be sufficient.”
Chapter 32
Halfway through the allotted five years the city ship had edged fractionally ahead of schedule. The social situation on Mars in general was better. Kinsey was ready to hand over to Alexandra Vogel. Many were surprised that a female had been elected after such disrespect for the law had just been eradicated. The Martians felt strongly enough judging by the margin of her victory. She had been a disciple of Cheverry in his time of transforming the initial standing of the EU, to what it now enjoyed. This suggested a good relationship with Earth and her reputation was one of a compassionate listener but a tough cookie when lines had been crossed. She was elected from a group who had been chosen to truly restore the meritocracy and the consequent demand for individual integrity through respect for others. In her acceptance speech she warned the electorate that she would not be sidetracked from this, no matter what. Some of her elected support group could have a tricky time surviving the rigours of her pledge.
Not only had the Axis project prospered in technical terms but the very first test tube ‘baby’ had been brought into the world. It had been touch and go but so far it had survived the necessary correctional surgery. The female Pre-Sphere Cleric had eggs fertilised in the lab by many males who had shown progressive restoration and independence from hormone treatment. Only a few proceeded to an embryo and all but one of those had terminated. The survivor had to undergo continual monitoring, but had sufficient genetically transferred organ capability, to mark the birth as an incredibly humbling moment. Pascal 2 had set out the critical stages and life support was gradually withdrawn. After months of being dependent on external stimuli the infant was stable. Pascal 2’s prognosis was promising and if he was proved correct he said the infant’s own offspring would take a small step to the re-genesis of the Axis. His basis for this was the slight adaptation which was clearly visible in the baby compared to her mother. The mother had not yet been given a name by the humans, it was to be Peri.
Echus Chasma was ablaze with monochrome yellow that day and for many to follow. Fav called for a commemoration of this birth and informed the other outposts that Peri wanted the baby’s name to reflect the milestone. ‘Renewal’ became the popular choice. Fav then asked what abbreviation the humans would choose, he guessed Rene, predictable and correct.
The entire community shut down city ship operations for two days to celebrate. They apologised to the human onlookers that this involved rituals for which there was no easy explanation. It was clicking and hopping to the spectators, maybe singing and dancing to the participants.
This had a knock-on effect to the human crew contingent of the city ship. Stella had held discussions about the Pascal 2 code several times in the previous year. This Axis event prompted her to gather their feelings on the subject. Most had no children and felt it was a straightforward decision to go ahead with the switch. Carvalho was typical of the hesitant remainder in deliberating. Stella had consistently told him she was not trying to influence him or the others unduly. She had decided to opt for the procedure and was confident that her children would benefit from it once they arrived on Nexus. She emphasised the effect she thought their childhood, youth and part of middle age would have. “They’ll feel that their life is just starting in some ways and they will want more of it in their new surroundings. They’ll also have grown up with humans and Axis for whom it is the norm. They won’t be encumbered by the expectations or customs of the society we know. I want to see those times with them. It’s that simple.” Carvalho looked hard at this remarkable woman and said, “Put me on the list.”
His concession to the procedure influenced the others and they followed suit. Pascal 2 set up the schedule and Stella asked for a reshuffle. She had persuaded her husband that they should have another child when only one of them had the new code. This would give the first conference in the family of the Pascal 2 hybrid characteristics. Carvalho insisted that he went first. “If there’s a choice, we already have two rocket scientists; maybe we want to increase the possibility of another, just joking.” It was agreed.
The intention of the Symbiants to take all Scarlet O’Hara to Nexus didn’t go down well on Earth. The Martians were not too disappointed, most were in favour of the decision. Alex 2 reminded Alexandra Vogel that Beijing had its own horde. China had raised a legal challenge to commandeer this. “What happened to that?”
She was silent for a moment. “It must have dropped down their priority list following the Korean disaster. I’ll find out.”
The reply was evasive according to Cheverry. “They insist that they had helped to pay for the discovery of the Martian source and as such have claim to at least part of it.”
Alex 2’s riposte was laden with sarcasm. “Indeed. Well we actually occupied Mars over four billion years ago so I suppose we could claim it is our sovereign territory and the crystal with it.”
********
Cheverry smelled some irregularity here and checked with Ayrton de Santos. The Brazilian said there had been no further action on the legal side and it may be related to the bacteria which affected some of it.
“Bacteria?”
“Yes, Kinsey found some containers were infected with these bugs, but most of the experts said they saw no mutat
ion and in any case the affected lots could be incinerated.”
“Experts?”
“Yes, they came from reputable universities and industry. We did nothing, just left the affected quantity in cold storage to avoid amorphous dusting.”
Cheverry asked to inspect the cache and when De Santos opened the vault there was nothing inside. He began to stutter some sort of assertion that this was impossible when he was interrupted. “Maybe you have your explanation for the Chinese non-pursuit of the legal case.”
De Santos recovered sufficiently from embarrassment to utter, “Does that mean they knew it was gone?”
“That’s what we must now find out.”
********
The think-tank had commissioned a new eight metre QSD unit with Rose’s concept. They would use another trip to Europa to check it out. They replaced the former unit from the five seat chassis and Jet offered his place to Rose, the rest were the same. Fav wanted them to bring back more Seaborgium Oxy-chloride as this new vessel had made the reserve from the Pandora’s Rift screens a bit too close for comfort. Yamamoto dropped out to make room for this, stating that Rose’s unit would work, otherwise the Symbiants wouldn’t have ‘sanctioned the trial’.
The ride was even smoother than the last one and they communicated the news to Mars from Europa. It was settled. Ten thousand thirty metre units would be commissioned. On gaining Europa capture Rose noticed a new impact crater. It was quite some distance from the city but there were unusual volcanic signs in many surrounding areas. The landing phase indicated substantial cracks in the terrain which weren’t there last time. The entrance to the city would not respond to the codes or lasers. Rose said it was hopeless trying to open this gate, but the other entrances were a long way on foot and the terrain was dangerous, and there was the extreme cold. She then recalled there was an emergency code to activate the Protector robot inside. This would send the colossus to manually break the gate down. It would of course only obey if the power had not been interrupted. She input the symbols and although the control panel indicated the message had been sent, there was no audible confirmation of the robot’s approach. They waited several minutes and they concurred they would have to get back to the ascent cabin; the suits could not handle these temperatures for long. They started back when an almighty shuddering crack was followed by the heavy horizontal entrance gates assuming an open position. They quickly entered the city and then a communal building with its acceptable ‘off peak’ two degrees Celsius. They rested a while and then looked outside to see small cracks in the roads and fallen signposts. They checked the city map and decided it was going to take them circa eighteen minutes on foot. It would be risky on the trams even if they were operational. Red suggested he should go alone as he did not have short-term difficulty with the cold, and he was not affected if the lead containers for the radioactive material had been compromised. “Oh, and I will not have a problem with their weight.”
He departed and found the bad news immediately. There was radioactivity in the store but most of the containers were hidden by the ceiling having fallen in. He technobabbled Dan and asked Rose to check what the potential shortfall was supposed to be before he started to remove the rubble. It equated to three containers. After several minutes of carefully removing debris he saw that there were only two un-breached lead containment vessels. They would have to leave all the others behind because the non-Symbiants would receive lethal doses in minutes. He decided that if two were not enough another trip with empty containers from Mars would be necessary. The two secure containers were processed through the scrubbing apparatus.
They ascended and returned with the unpleasant information that their Europan settlement would need serious repair. It had the effect of increasing the Axis determination to complete the Nexus project ahead of time.
********
Cheverry asked to see the security camera archives for the cold vault which had housed the crystal. He and De Santos painstakingly viewed them for every shift over the last two years. The pattern which emerged was one of dayshift perimeter checks and nightshift checking of the content. The night checks were always done by the same guard. There were only a handful of personnel with retina scan access, and he was one of the few. The content checks stopped about nine months ago. On scrutinising his personnel file they found that he left the organisation at that time. It didn’t take a genius to figure this out. Zoom facility quite clearly depicted that his oversize uniform trousers appeared distinctly different on exiting the vault.
De Santos muttered under his breath. Cheverry turned. “What did you say?”
“He must have had an accomplice.”
Cheverry looked puzzled. “Do you mean internal?”
“Both really, I already suspected the Chinese lack of pursuit of the legal route was strange, but the guard would have to get the containers through the scanners to get them out. He could not have stored the accumulating quantity here without suspicion.”
When they checked the personnel records again there was another departure in the same period and she worked on the exit scanning channel.
This was an embarrassing mess especially as no follow-up checks of the bacteria contamination had been done. In ignorance, the perpetrators could unleash a pandemic as well as a horde of replicants. De Santos was in the firing line. There was one man Cheverry could trust on this and fortunately he already knew about the bacteria, as he had discovered them. It was fortuitous that Marvin Kinsey was back from Mars.
Chapter 33
With barely fifteen months to departure the assembly of the main framework of the city ship was well underway in orbit. Because humans and Symbiants had contributed so much to this being possible, via the QSD research and the ray of hope for restoration of Axis procreation, they were asked to name the vessel. They eventually settled on ‘Phoenix’. The Axis had to hear the story as they had obviously never encountered anything remotely like a real or mythical version. They were enthusiastic about the symbolism and commissioned one of their engineers to transform a human drawing into a two metre-high ‘bronze’, which was actually another type of durable plastic, and yet it was incredibly realistic. It would accompany them to Nexus. The other outposts would make copies, and all three were to be erected on the Homeworld when they arrived in circa half a century.
Carvalho could now understand the pedantic pursuit of perfection Evander had insisted upon when designing the QSD unit. His Pascal 2 code also gave him a closer insight regarding Stella’s work with the Axis reproduction project. That programme had moved on. The firstborn, Rene was now completely independent of monitoring probes and tubes, and developing well. She was the delight of the Echus community. Others had followed and the laboratory techniques had improved to give higher embryo survival rates. The situation with human genetic adaptation to the code would be allowed to develop at its own pace except for super stem cell grafts to the parents. Stella’s procedure was scheduled for three months after the imminent birth of their third child.
Epsilon Eridani had experienced some teething problems with trial flights in the small QSD version. Now that Evander was satisfied about all design aspects, and had gone back to Earth, the Symbiants took over the task of advising on such problems; it was always done together with a code endowed Axis technician to ensure avoidance of semantic errors in their language. This had become crucial as they had developed ‘dialects’ in each location after three million years. Reports were due from Epsilon on whether the recommendations had fixed the problem.
The predicament of the MDVs had been resolved. They would be taken to Nexus in recognition of their part as the blue touch paper in igniting progress to reproductive recovery. They would enhance any surviving fauna on the planet. The atmosphere on Nexus had to be a concern for all travellers except the Symbiants. The artificially Axis controlled internal Martian environment had been set at nine to ten percent oxygen, three million years ago. This was lower than their natural environment on Ne
xus at that time. It was lowered due to the initial difficulties in Martian sequestering technology. They had acclimatised over the millennia just as humans and MDVs had, to the current Martian levels of circa seventeen percent. The concern was more about whether the Nexus atmosphere had survived and if so what the composition would now be. When the Axis had left it contained 15.22%. The fact that Gliese had picked up radio waves gave some basis for thinking that it had been a mass but not total extinction event. If this was so, there should be a reasonable level of oxygen. Nevertheless contingency preparations were being made to sequester oxygen to storage if the levels were too low to breathe. The mass of red crystal was also important in the event of lack of forestation. Alex 2 pointed out that it would be advisable to determine if there were survivors, or search if not, for any crystal deposit.
********
Kinsey had not taken long to pull in recruits who could ‘blend’ into the investigation. Hong Kong had become a fertile source of double agents. The trail of the two officers who had left Beijing in quick succession had long been cold. This was good news in a way because the extremely belated discovery would serve to make them think they had already got away with the theft. It wouldn’t seem feasible to them, or particularly their employers, that such significant implications could be covered up. The new Hong Kong recruits would start at the family villages of the man and woman. They had photos which had been doctored to include themselves and the thieves together in casual dress at a holiday resort. The ploy would be a reunion bachelor party before the life-changing betrothal.