“It was not that hard,” said Lax-Gugliborc. “You did the right thing. I understood immediately.”
“But how…?”
“Better for the mice not to know. In the vernacular of criminals, the mouse should know that his accomplice is not a double-crosser. We have before us different pieces of a puzzle. The owl will go first. The dust isn’t dust. It’s silicon micropolymers of very curious structure doped with selenium so that they superconduct at room temperature. Some joined with the remains of our poor molecular remote on the moon.”
“What does that mean?”
“Too soon for a definite answer. I have a few ideas. I was able to obtain a pinch of the powder through a friend. We have half an hour before the thing enabling our connection goes behind the mouse’s horizon. I couldn’t get in touch with you during the day. We would have had more time then, but the risk would have been greater.”
I was dying to know how the professor sent me this metal insect, but I realized I shouldn’t ask.
“Continue, Owl, I’m listening.”
“My fears were confirmed, but in an opposite way. I figured that something on the moon would arise out of the chaos, but I never dreamed it would be something able to make use of our messenger.”
“Can’t you be a little more clear?”
“Not without getting very technical. I’ll make it as simple as I can. It was an immune response. Not on the whole surface of the moon, of course. At one location, and from there the antibodies spread. What we’re calling the dust.”
“Where did these antibodies come from and what do they do?”
“From the rubble of bytes and logic circuits. Some draw their energy from the sun. Which is not that surprising because there were plenty of photoelectric materials there to begin with. How should I put it? The moon gradually built up an immunity to any kind of invasion. I’m not talking about intelligence. We conquered gravity, we conquered the atom, but we haven’t conquered the common cold. If self-regulating ecosystems developed on Earth, you could say that one developed on the moon, albeit nonliving, out of that whole tangle of attacks and tunnelings. In other words the strategies of sword and shield indirectly gave rise, in their mutual destruction, and this without the intention or knowledge of the programmers, to these cybernetic antibodies.”
“But what exactly do they do?”
“Well, in the first place I think they acted like the most ancient bacteria on Earth and simply multiplied, and there must have been many varieties of them and the majority perished, as in natural evolution. After a while, symbiotic species emerged. The kind that work together for their mutual benefit. But I repeat: this is not intelligence. They are merely capable of an enormous number of metamorphoses or mutations, like the flu virus, for example. But unlike earthly bacteria, they are not parasites, for they have no host, if you don’t count the computer ruins that first nourished them and let them breed. The situation was complicated by the fact that meanwhile the weapons being produced by the programs still functional underwent a division.”
“Yes, a division into weapons directed against living opponents and weapons directed against nonliving opponents.”
“The mouse is quick. Correct. From the first antibodies that arose many years ago probably nothing remains. They evolved into — let us call them selenocytes. These joined into multicellular forms to survive, to become more versatile, much as ordinary germs increase in virulence by growing resistant to the antibiotics used against them.”
“But what played the role of antibiotics on the moon?”
“An interesting question. The main threat to the selenocytes must have been those products of the military self-evolution which were designed specifically to attack and destroy them.”
“You mean, they treated them as an enemy.”
“Or as good target practice. Think of the artillery with which the pharmaceutical companies bombard bacteria. This accelerated the selenocyte evolution. And the selenocytes won, because they proved to be more viable. A person can have a cold but a cold can’t have a person. Or can it? The persons on the moon were the great, complex systems.”
“And then?”
“A most curious and completely unexpected development. The resistance went from passive to active.”
“I don’t understand.”
“From defense the selenocytes switched to offense. They hastened, and very quickly, the demise of the lunar arms race…”
“That dust?”
“That dust. And when only the expiring remnant of the vaunted Geneva project was left, the selenocytes received an unforeseen reinforcement.”
“Which was?”
“The dispersant. They made use of it. Not destroying it so much as assimilating it. Or, to put it better, an exchange of information took place. Hybridization took place. A crossbreeding.”
“How is that possible?”
“It’s not really all that strange. I too was working with semiconducting silicon polymers. Different, yes, mine were doped with rare-earth elements, but the adaptability of my dust was not unlike the adaptability of the lunar dust. There was an affinity. Similar starting materials, similar results.”
“And now what?”
“That I don’t know. The key could be your landing. Why did you land in the Mare Ignium?”
“The Japanese sector? I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
“Nothing?”
“Not a thing.”
“And your right hemisphere?”
“Also nothing. I can communicate with it now. But please keep that under your hat.”
“I will. I’d love to know
“That when I returned to the ship I had a pocketful of that dust. How it got there is a mystery.”
“You could have scooped it up yourself. The question is why.”
“And the Agency. What does the Agency think?”
“The dust caused quite a sensation, and a panic especially when it followed you. You know about that?”
“Yes. Professor S. told me. He came to see me a week ago.”
“To get you to submit to tests? You refused?”
“I played for time. There’s at least one other character here. He advised me not to be tested. I don’t know who he works for. He pretends to be a patient.”
“There are more of them around you.”
“You said, ‘Followed me.’ The dust is spying?”
“Not necessarily. One can carry a disease without knowing it.”
“And the part about the spacesuit?”
“That’s a tough one. It was put into your pocket or you did that yourself. For some reason. Just as you landed for some reason. And found something. And someone erased your memory afterward. With the callotomy.”
“Then there are at least three parties?”
“It is not the number that matters but how to identify them.”
“But why is this so important? Sooner or later the failure of the whole lunar project will become public knowledge. And even if those selenocytes are the moon’s ‘immune system,’ what does that have to do with Earth?”
“It affects us in two ways. First, it means a return to the arms race, which is no surprise. Second — the surprise — the selenocytes have begun to take an interest in us.”
“In the human race? Earth? Not just me?”
“Precisely.”
“What are they doing?”
“At the moment, only multiplying.”
“In the laboratories?”
“Before our scientists knew what was happening, the dust had got out and spread to all four corners of the
