But Winger had already made up his mind. “No, we move out as a unit. I don’t know what’s around here, what the environment’s like, what the regulations are about uncontained ANAD swarms. Martians may not be so understanding about loose swarms.”
The Detachment continued deploying and checking their gear while Winger and Tallant went off in search of the Detective Price’s office.
The Frontier Corps local office was located in a small red-brick bungalow on Face Cut Street, a block away from Canyon Head Park and its vast Perspex dome overlooking the Bay of Night.
Price greeted both of them. “You’ve done the walking tour of the city, I presume?”
“We came straight from the armory, Detective,” Winger told him.
“Come—“ Price led them outside. “You can’t be on Mars without seeing this.” The portly detective guided them across the street to Canyon Head Park. They made their way through picnic areas, pavilions, gazebos and swing sets to the very edge of a scenic overlook by the dome.
Winger’s jaw dropped. “Wow…it’s the whole valley—“
Tallant let her eyes sweep over the panorama of the rugged Ophir and Candor chasms. Dust devils swirled in pairs on the valley floor, churning up blood red shadows in the fading sunlight. Deeper black shadows had already crept halfway down steep escarpments along the canyon walls.
“Sunset is a magical time here,” Price admitted.
Several families had silently gathered behind and beside them; the children played tag and hide and seek among the picnic tables. One young couple had draped an old blanket over themselves and sat pensively at the edge of the dome, sipping something from a flask they passed back and forth.
In moment, they were surrounded by a silent throng of people, watching the sun drop below the horizon, quietly appreciating how the canyon walls changed color, from ocher and tan to a deep black, all over and done with in seconds.
“Quite a show,” Winger admitted. “This must be a tradition here…people just showed up at the right moment.”
Price nodded, breathing in the spectacle himself. “We call it ‘Night Hands.’ The kids think the shadows are like fingers creeping down the canyon walls. Sometimes, there are concerts here…even a funeral or two.”
Winger was mindful of just how different Mariner City was from anything he had ever encountered. “I didn’t see a lot of loose nano on the way in, Detective. I’m guessing the rules are different here.”
Price seemed to smile faintly. “In a lot of ways, Major. I’ve read about the containment laws…how some Earthside cities and regions are stricter than others.”
“Kolkata doesn’t seem to have any laws,” Tallant said. “The whole city is one big stewpot of uncontained assembler swarms. The air’s thick with them. Actually being here is kind of a relief.”
“We’ve got our factions on Mars,” Price admitted. “Some want to hurry up transformation, like the GreenMars people. They don’t like it that someone’s diverted their asteroid. They want to smash Mars, shake things up a bit and jump start the Big Greening. Others like it the way it is now…they would just as soon Earth get hit and Mars be left alone. Same thing with nanoswarms. Some like ‘em, some embrace the idea of a new life form, sort of a new companion and servant of Man. Some don’t. We’re still hashing the details out here. But we have to be cautious. Mars won’t support life yet, not without a lot of machines and domes. Me…I’m not quite ready to have a swarm of invisible mechs live next door to me. I’m not sure the neighborhood is ready for that big a change.”
Winger watched children playing along catwalks that covered the sheer rock face of the excavation cut beside the dome. “Detective, what exactly did you run into when you found that generator?”
Price described the installation he had encountered. “It was some kind of platform…on the books as a weather station…up in the Candor canyonlands. I had some GreenMars guys with me too. We couldn’t get close. The platform was shielded and the barrier bots were like angry hornets…they came after us. Thank God I had an rf pistol. We got the hell out of there as fast as we could. Then the thing went off—“
“Went off--?”
Price ran a hand through thinning hair. “The platform…the generator…whatever you want to call it. It activated. And something like a wave washed through the valley. For a few moments…I don’t know…it was creepy. Mountains shifting…like someone dropped a mirror and all the pieces were reflecting something different—“
Winger had seen the same thing at Paryang, and Kolkata. “A quantum wave, Detective. Massive spacetime distortion.”
“Exactly. It even wrecked our marscat. Like some giant just picked it up and dropped it to the ground. I never saw anything like it before.”
“We’ve seen it,” Dana Tallant said. She told Price about the Paryang assault ten years before.
“The Kolkata machine was similar,” Winger added. “But we figured out a way to ‘fix’ the generator in place long enough to disable it.”
“I’ve got the reports in my office, Major…pictures, video, everything. I’ll show you what we’re dealing with.”
The three of them left Canyon Head Park and walked two blocks to the spartan offices of Frontier Corps. There was a bakery on one side and a hobby and craft shop on the other.
Price showed them into his sparsely furnished office. “It’s not much but it’s home. Coffee? Tea?”
A small servbot whirred into the office bearing a tray of sweets and assorted teas. It navigated piles of paper expertly and beeped happily when Winger and Tallant selected items from the tray. Then it whirred off to a tiny kitchenette.
Price ran some video footage of his encounter with the Candor generator.
“One of the GreenMars guys—Hamil, I think it was—took this. There’s the thing—“ he pointed out a thick blur of light and dark in the shaking image. “—Hamil must have been running when he took this.”
Winger remembered their last encounter at Kolkata. “The device itself is actually a swarm of nanobots, Detective. There’s no solid structure beneath what you see—only a swarm in constant config change.”
Price clucked thoughtfully and sipped at scalding hot tea. His face was wreathed in steam from the cup. “Interesting…no solid structure…I didn’t get close enough or have time to notice. The barrier bots came at us pretty aggressively. What exactly does that mean: no solid structure?”
“It means—“ Tallant told him, “—that attacking the thing is a real bitch. The barrier bots can fight off almost anything. And if you try coilguns, HERF, or other anti-swarm weapons on the generator, you find it changes config so fast, they’re almost useless. It’s like trying to blow up a fog bank.”
“We did some pre-mission recon at a fab lab in Kolkata. Our own ANAD unit was able to penetrate the generator swarm’s operating system and decrypt enough to figure out how the thing replicates. When we did the assault, ANAD was able to interfere with its config changes, at least enough to ‘fix’ the platform so we could engage it. It was touch and go but we were finally able to put the thing out of commission. ANAD disassembled it into atom fluff.”
Price considered that, pulling thoughtfully on his chin. He looked like he hadn’t shaved in days. “And you think the same technique will work here?”
“It’s our best option,” Winger said. “We don’t know that much about who designed the generators but it’s reasonable to suppose they’re pretty similar.”
“I’ll have to run this by PubSec…and the Council too. Public Security people will want to have their say. And probably GreenMars too. Can you work up a plan to present?”
“Already done,” Tallant said. “We’re ready to go through every detail, every contingency…right now.”
Price smiled faintly. “You Quantum Corps guys don’t waste time. I like that. Here on Mars, we waste lots of time, mostly arguing. Everybody gets a say.”
“We don’t have much time to waste, Detective. That asteroid gets closer to Earth impact every minute. If it gets too close, the GreenMars engineers say the impulse motors can’t deflect it away in time…takes too much delta-vee.”
“I’ll ask Rudd to call a full meeting of MarsFed. That should shake the trees enough to get every nut out in the open…that’s how things work here on Mars, Major.”
The meeting was set for 2200 hours that night, at the MarsFed council chambers on Central Street. Winger and Tallant arrived early with Duncan Price. They nodded to Christopher Rudd who was button-holing several council members in one corner of the chamber room.
“He’s always working some angle,” Price told them. “Like everybody’s favorite uncle, Rudd always has something in his pockets to hand out. By the way, that’s Benoit over there—“ he indicated a tall man with a gaunt face and a hawk nose, which supported a pair of ancient-looking glass spectacles. “Head of PubSec.”
“What’s with the specs?” Tallant asked. “He looks like Ben Franklin.”
“That’s Benoit. It’s an image thing…who knows: wisdom, sagacity, integrity…you name it. The man’s a predator. Some people think he’s actually got X-ray vision and he doesn’t discourage that kind of speculation. He’s a nosy, pretentious bastard. PubSec and Frontier Corps have never gotten along well here.”
“So I gathered,” Winger said.
Within minutes, Rudd had flicked the lights on and off and gaveled the session to order. The assembled dignitaries bustled about taking their seats.
“I called this session to give Detective Price and our visitors from Earth an opportunity to present their plan for dealing with this…device…up in the canyonlands.” Rudd was speaking from some prepared notes. “Greg here…our GreenMars rep, tells me this thing we all saw on the vid is responsible for diverting our asteroid from Mars intercept. UNIFORCE sent some troopers from Quantum Corps to help us shut it down…they apparently have some experience with this, as I understand it. Duncan, you’ve got something?”
Price had raised his hand to be recognized. “Greg Nygren and I found this platform on a little trip up into the Tectonic Hills. It’s some kind of generator…I don’t understand all the details. Maybe Greg can explain them. But this thing is well protected with a nanobotic shield. Somehow, it’s diverting Wilks onto a course to hit Earth…that’s why UNIFORCE is involved. I found out Quantum Corps had recently encountered something similar, on Earth. So I proposed the Corps send someone here.” He indicated Johnny Winger and Dana Tallant, sitting together at the far end of the oval table. “Major Winger and Major Tallant arrived yesterday, with a small detachment of troopers from Quantum Corps. They’ve got a plan for shutting down this generator…” Price glanced at Nygren, the young blond engineer “…and giving us our asteroid back.”
Pierre Benoit scowled through spectacles at the end of his nose, at Price and the nanotroopers, barely disguising his contempt. “Chris—“ he directed his words toward Rudd, this year’s chairman of MarsFed, “we really don’t need any help from outsiders on this. PubSec can take care of it.”
“PubSec didn’t know anything about it, until Greg and I stumbled onto the installation,” Price retorted. “This thing’s bigger than we can handle…I couldn’t even approach the generator without getting attacked. The technology’s way beyond us.”
Benoit shook his head. “I don’t like it. You never gave us a chance, Duncan. Come on—you know what happens when you let outsiders meddle in our stuff. You could have at least come by.”
Rudd held up a hand. “That’s enough of that.” He smiled apologetically at Winger and Tallant. “We’ll continue this line of discussion off-line. For now, Major Winger—I have been informed—has a plan for dealing with this…thing.” Major--?”
Winger was handed a small control pod to run the displays in the chamber. He fingered several buttons and imagery scrolled across all the workstation screens in front of the Council members.
“You’re looking at tactical footage from our recent assault on a temple compound in Kolkata, India, a few weeks ago. In the center of the imagery is a platform—a quantum state generator—that is one node of two. The other node is apparently the device Detective Price came upon here on Mars.” Winger, with help from Nygren, briefly explained the theory behind the generators and how they were tugging 2351 Wilks-Lucayo off course.
“I have to emphasize that Quantum Corps is still running an investigation into what these devices are, how they work, who installed them and who’s operating them. Current thinking is that, working together, the two generators are pulling this asteroid onto an Earth-intercept trajectory, despite all efforts to counteract them. UNIFORCE believes this is part of an effort by the cartel Red Hammer to cripple Quantum Corps or force UNIFORCE to close down the Corps and give them a free hand in their criminal enterprises.”
There was a stirring of murmurs about the room as the assault footage scrolled on.
Price spoke up. “Major, you told me these generators aren’t even solid structures.”
“That’s correct. During the assault, our embedded ANAD unit found that the generator was actually a very sophisticated swarm of nanobots, just like ANAD, but with a configuration beyond anything the Corps had ever encountered before.”
“A swarm—“ Benoit shook his head, bending closer to squint at the screen in front of him. “Extraordinary…and how did you combat this swarm, Major?”
Winger described the pre-assault recon they had conducted. “ANAD had decrypted part of the replication algorithm before the assault. Basically, we had an idea of how the device or swarm would react, before we went in. ANAD, and our own anti-swarm weapons, were able to disrupt the generator and eventually disperse it.”
Dana Tallant added, “And we left swarm elements there to keep it dispersed.”
Greg Nygren was intrigued with the technology. The engineer rubbed a stubbly blond beard. “And this swarm was able to generate quantum state waves…literally grab hold of spacetime and twist it around and extend that for billions of miles---I read the reports, Major.”
“So I‘m told,” Winger replied. “I’m not an engineer. UNIFORCE thinks the device here on Mars works the same way…that they were both part of a pair of devices, or a network.”
Benoit frowned. “You think there could be more?”
“Unknown, sir,” Winger said. “There are two nodes we know of. And there’s evidence from the Farside Observatory on the Moon that measurable changes in the asteroid’s course happen after each generator pulse is emitted. At this point, we don’t have much choice but to go with the intel we have. Destroy the installation here and hope your GreenMars guys can take back control of the asteroid…before it’s too late.”
Chris Rudd had an idea. “Duncan, you came to me a week ago about this case of the Chinese meteorologist. What’s his connection to all this?”
Price had his case notes with him. He beamed them to the chamber server and the Council saw the sanitized version of his case report.
“Dao Wen-Hsien was the name. You see the particulars in front of you. I’ve got strong evidence that Dao built this device up in the canyonlands. He was here for weather research, you know—before the Big Smack and all that—but that must have been a cover.” Price went over the Hellas expedition and the six fatalities from that expedition, then covered his own interrogation notes and Dao’s latest field trip. “The man just disappeared from the face of Mars.”
Winger joined in. “Quantum Corps Q2 did some digging when Detective Price contacted us. They think Dao was a Red Hammer agent, operating under cover here, to get this node of their quantum wave network up and running.”
Rudd was studying the files, scrolling down through Price’s notes and evidence. “You say he just disappeared.”
“We can’t find him,” Price admitted.
“Nor can PubSec,” Benoit added. “He’s
not on Mars.”
“But his handiwork is,” Rudd said. “Major, what about your plan?”
Winger fingered more studs on his controller and the details appeared on all screens. “We want to take the same tactical approach as Kolkata, but with one important exception. We want to make the final assault from below ground.”
Benoit was skeptical. “Underground? What’s the sense of that…how is that even possible?”
Winger laid out the tactical plan. “In many cases, where we encounter barrier bots like this, we find the installation isn’t shielded below ground level. We first tried this approach years ago at the Paryang monastery in Tibet…at the time, that was thought to be Red Hammer’s main base.” He briefed them quickly on the details of that assault. “We’ll do a little recon before, but it’s likely this installation is the same. We use our ANAD unit to tunnel below the complex and initiate our assault from that direction.”
“Doesn’t that take time? My understanding of current nanobotic technology is that solid structures take time to penetrate.”
“They do,” Dana Tallant told him. “But over the years, we’ve optimized ANAD’s configuration and replication algorithm to handle it. What we lose in time we gain with the element of surprise.”
Benoit considered that. “Public Security should be a part of this operation. We’re responsible for law enforcement here, with all due respects to my college from Frontier Corps.” He nodded faintly in Price’s direction.
“No argument from me,” Price said. “I plan to be there too.”
Rudd could sense an argument developing. “Gentlemen, I think we should defer to the expertise of Quantum Corps on this. They’ve come a long way with all their gear to help us and we should let them help us.”
Winger glanced over at Tallant. Politics, their eyes said.
“We’re both UNIFORCE,” Price reminded them. “My office has to be involved regardless.”
Before Benoit could retort, Johnny Winger spoke up. “We appreciate help from anywhere we can get it. Have you got maps of the area…this Candor canyonland? Especially, subsurface structures, topography, that sort of thing?”