Dust

  Chapter 02 - Hush

  Jon Davis stood behind a podium “Ladies and gentlemen this facility is in lock-down. All visitors, not privy to the recent event, have been escorted from the site. I called this group meeting to impress on you the necessity for discretion. I must ask you not to tell anyone what you have seen in the feed from Europa. The news that a huge system of apparently intelligent nano material capable of disassembling anything it encounters is on its way to earth shall not be revealed to anyone outside those in this room. In the absence of an executive council, I have informed certain government officials of our findings and we have been told this information is now top secret. HLS people are on their way to our location.

  “Anyone found violating this gag order can be dealt with by all means necessary. Is that clear? It's that important. So if you're thinking you can make a good buck giving an interview to the media consider that you and whomever you talk to could suffer an immediate disappearance. This goes way beyond your employment nondisclosure agreement. Anyone who made phone calls or received them on this facility within the last day will be questioned by experts from homeland security.

  “The information that earth will likely be attacked by this intelligent substance would undoubtedly cause a panic so severe it would shut down what’s left of the world economy. It might even cause governments to collapse. Other than the consideration that this would be very bad for the population, it might mean the difference between our survival and our extermination. We need a working world economy in order to build a defense against this threat. If the world falls into chaos, we are doomed.

  “Currently we have no way to defend the planet from such a threat. In the time we have, we must come up with an effective defense or we are all dead. Yours is a great responsibility because you are on the inside. We have counseling available in-house for those who feel the need to talk out your feelings or get pointers on how to act around your family. You, of course, cannot talk about this to anyone outside.

  “Are there any questions?” Everyone seemed to have questions. Jon raised his hand. One at a time, please. May I have hands, please?”

  “What kind of defense can we come up with?” came a voice.

  “There aren’t many options if it arrives here as a dust. Fighting fire with fire is the best idea we've had in the short time we’ve had. We could build our own nano defense system. We have the technology. My friend Doctor E Steven Rice is with us. He is head of engineering at Nanothink International Corporation. Without his help we wouldn’t have the radiation hardened ultra-miniature artificial intelligent processors on our probes and on the European space probes. It will be his discipline that will take on the defense task. But we as part of the whole scientific and industrial community have a lot of work to do to deploy such a system.”

  “I have two questions: Do you really think you can keep something like this quiet? Are we reacting to the public's fear or to your own?”

  “I certainly hope we can keep it from the public at least until we have reasonable expectations of success. I don't know what you are getting at with your second question but anybody who isn't scared by the prospects of having the planet wiped clean of all biology isn't sane.”

  “How sure are we that this invasion is actually going to happen?”

  “No future is certain. That's what leaves room for hope. We are attributing the actions we have observed to biological motivations – trying to work their way up the food chain. But maybe they are just going to stop by to say hi.”

  “Umm” Jon stumbled embarrassed by his attempt at sarcastic humor.

  “Now we are going to break up into smaller groups for more discussion and for instruction on how to act when you leave here. You are a very select group of individuals. I have every faith in you and your ability to pull off the greatest scientific enterprise of the human race. There are folks at the doors to take names and to direct you to your group meetings.

  “Good afternoon.”

  Jon put down his notes and said, "Well, what do you think?"

  Jon wasn't speaking in front of the site personnel. His podium was in his own conference room and there were only four others there.

  “No one in the room looked happy. But only the visitor, Steven Rice, spoke. "It's too bad your guys didn't find that this was a hoax. It wouldn't be such a problem if it were shown to be a hoax."

  "But we analyzed all the data and it looks valid and it came from the Jupiter system.” Pointed out Jon.

  "But we would have a more controlled situation if this were shown to be a hoax." repeated Steven just a little louder. Jon got it. He knew Steven wasn't a slow or inattentive person. Jon got what Steven was really saying. When Jon got the message, everyone in the room, to one degree or another, got it.

  Steven continued, “There is no way you can keep this from getting out even under pain of death. There are just too many people and media paths to lock down. The only way to contain it is to invalidate it. We have to make it look like a hoax.”

  He went on with only a second’s pause. “If we present evidence that it is a hoax we can kill the idea in the general population. People tend to believe what they want to believe and no one wants to believe that tinny little machines are coming to earth to gobble them up. It is true some people prefer to believe the worst possible scenario but people have become used to their hysterics and those that aren’t as loony as they are will treat them as entertainment. Those with enough ambition and intellect to delve into the truth we will take into our confidence and gain their silence and perhaps their help. If we can get this business dismissed as a manufactured hoax, we can begin our work on a defense. If anything slips out along the way we can point to the sensationalism of the original hoax.” Steven paused for comment.

  Jon looked relieved. “I don’t like lying to people. But I like threatening them less. This, I think, is the better approach.” said Jon interrupting the general murmur of agreement in the small group. “It’s doable but we probably have less than twelve hours to set the stage. I’ll give you six hours to come up with something then we will get back together here. Send anyone you will need to help you to me. I’ll brief them personally about what we are up to. We will have to see to it that everyone else believes the hoax thing. Now Get to it. I'll tell the team what we have decided at the two o'clock.

  "Meeting adjourned. Steven, can you stay a minute?"

  The others left closing the door.

  “Head of engineering?” Asked Steven, putting his phone into a pocket.

  “I didn’t think your stature would be improved in this group by telling them you were also the owner of the company.”

  Steven’s eyes widened.

  "What if people don't believe the hoax story?" pondered Jon.

  "Like I said, some won’t. To them everything is a conspiracy. I checked…,” said Steven patting the phone in his pocket. “There are already web pages and blogs about smart dust lose in the world. We can point to these to discredit the unbelievers. But even if the general public won’t buy in, it doesn't really matter. In their fear, they will demand that something be done to save their petty little lives. We will have the answer." encouraged, Steven. "It will just be a little rougher to work with the tide of fear sloshing about. But I think they will buy the hoax story.

  People just want to feel good. Feeling in control makes them feel good. That’s why thousands of mothers believed the hokum, put out by a liability lawyer trying to drum up business, about measles inoculations causing problems. Thousands endangered their children’s health by mistakenly denying them inoculations. But they felt good because they had taken charge of the problem. The same people refused to believe in climate change or financial irresponsibility because they couldn’t see anything they could do to control the situation. That did not make them feel good so they refused to believe.

  In this case, there is nothing people can do to prot
ect themselves from a threat from outer space. They will welcome any excuse not to believe it. I think we are good to go"

  Jon and Steven smiled at each other; then hugged each other; then kissed each other on the lips. It was firm but it wasn't a tongue swallowing sexual kiss. It was a short duration comfort kiss as loving married people exchange at times of stress.

  Still in an embrace, Jon said, “Well, I have a meeting to do. I’ll tell everyone that I think this is a hoax and that I have people looking into it and they should keep their mouths shut in the mean time.

  Steven patted Jon on the ass and left the room with his usual brisk walk.

  Not a lot of people knew Steven was gay because he preferred it that way and did nothing to reveal it in the workplace. Steven grew up a native Texan in a place and time when being gay was not something you put on your bumper sticker if you wanted a mainstream job.

  Steven and Jon met in Houston while Steven was teaching at Rice University. He was there because of Rice's long involvement with nanotech not because there was a family connection. Steven really wasn't all that interested in teaching and the pay wasn't terrific but the university afforded him the facility to do research. And graduate students could be free workers.

  Jon was in Houston on assignment during the closing days of the US manned space shuttle missions. Perhaps a few of the hundreds laid off could get jobs in California. Steven and Jon met when Jon attended a lecture that Steven gave on the new era of intelligent machines and nothing was ever the same for either of them. Jon was smitten.

  Steven was older by six year, as tall as Jon, distinguished looking, oozing self-confidence, and unable to take his eyes of Jon.

  Jon was tall dark and handsome, a quality that got him a lot of notice from nubile, and not so nubile, females. Depending on the situation, he would tell them he was gay or show them a wedding ring he wore. When he met Steven, he took off the ring. He just knew by the way Steven looked at him.

  Steven found Jon good looking, delightful, and interested in him. Nothing makes a person more attractive than to have them interested in you. Jon was also interested in other things that would keep him an interesting person even when the infatuation wore off. Chief among those interests was space.

  For Steven, space exploration was one branch of science that had never interested him before Jon. Now he couldn't get enough.

  NASA needed intelligent space probes to control remote and complicated scientific exploration. Artificial intelligence using nanotechnology was Steven's prime field of interest and expertise. NASA was considering nano space probes. Steven’s work was a good fit. Maybe Jon could get him connected.

  Steven and Jon were a perfect match. Neither ever looked further and felt truly lucky to have found each other. When Jon's assignment was over at the Houston Space Center, he returned to Pasadena. Steven followed and was glad to put Texas behind him. It had been uncomfortable for him in a conservative state but he had learned skills for blending in in a straight world.

  In California, Steven's fortunes changed. He found backers and started a small company making intelligent controllers, which were sold, to military suppliers. Soon Rice 3D processors and software were running battlefield devices for multiple branches of the armed forces. To offset the distaste of military use for his A.I. Steven also provided controllers for robot surgeons – machines whose purpose was to save lives not take them. Two of his processors were on NASA's EJSM probe that had discovered the alien nanos. Steven and his backers had done well.