CLINIC
Katherine Westfall found Dr. Mandrill in the middle of his morning rounds, accompanied by two women in white while moving slowly through the clinic’s sole ward. Only three of the ten beds were occupied.
With a polite little cough she caught the portly doctor’s attention as she stood by the ward’s main door. He frowned at first, but immediately smoothed his expression into a forced smile. After whispering a few words to his aides he waddled up the aisle between the rows of beds to her.
“This is a surprise,” said the doctor, in a low tone. “I didn’t expect you—”
Westfall cut him off. “My time is important, Doctor. I need some information from you. Quickly.”
“As soon as I finish—”
“Now,” she snapped.
Barely suppressing his anger, Dr. Mandrill dipped his double chin and acceded, “Now.”
He led her out of the ward and down the short passageway to his office. Once the door was closed, Mrs. Westfall said, “My informants tell me that a Dr. Muzorewa has arrived here from Selene.”
“Muzorewa? Himself?” The doctor’s brows hiked up. “He was director of this station, before Dr. Archer.”
“He came with two nanotechnicians.”
“Indeed?”
“That’s what I’ve been told.”
“What would bring the respected Zareb Muzorewa back to station
“That’s what I’m asking you.”
Mandrill went to his desk and slid heavily into its swivel chair. “Selene is a center for nanotechnology research and development,” he said. “But Muzorewa was a fluid dynamicist, not a nanotech man.”
Still standing, Westfall asked, “Could nanotechnology be used to kill the rabies virus?”
The doctor blinked his red-rimmed eyes once, twice.
“Well?” she demanded.
“I suppose it’s possible … if one engineers nanomachine disassemblers specifically to attack that particular virus.”
“They’d need samples of the virus, wouldn’t they?”
With a heavy-shouldered shrug Dr. Mandrill replied, “Perhaps not actual samples. Three-dimensional imagery would do, most likely.”
Westfall leaned both hands on the back of the chair in front of the doctor’s desk. “So they could produce therapeutic nanomachines and use them to kill her virus.”
“Her?” Understanding dawned on Mandrill’s dark face. “Ah! You’re talking about Ms. Ambrose.”
“Nanomachines could wipe out her specific type of rabies virus?”
Mandrill nodded warily. “If the nanos were specially designed to attack that variety of virus. It all works by shapes, you know. Like keys and locks.”
“They could cure her,” Westfall muttered.
“But nanomachines can be dangerous,” the doctor pointed out. “The type of nano you’re talking about might be able to disassemble other types of organic molecules, as well.”
Westfall’s eyes brightened.
“In street slang they’re called gobblers. The great fear has always been that gobblers would get loose and tear apart everything they come into contact with. It’s been called ‘the gray goo problem.’ That’s why nanotechnology is forbidden on Earth. They could reduce everything they touch into a slime of broken molecules.”
“Gray goo. Yes, I’ve heard of that.”
“But of course in Selene the nanomachines are handled with great care. Tremendous care. The same would apply here, naturally. Dr. Archer wouldn’t allow—”
“He already has,” Westfall snapped, with a hint of triumph in her voice.
As Deirdre opened the door to Grant Archer’s office, she saw he was deep in conversation with a tall, handsome black man. He looked like a statue carved in ebony: very grave, very powerful. Then he turned toward her and smiled, and his face became delightfully human. She recognized him as Zareb Muzorewa.
“You must be Ms. Ambrose,” he said in a deeply resonant voice as he rose to his feet.
“Deirdre Ambrose,” said Archer, waving Deirdre to a chair beside the black man. “Meet Dr. Muzorewa.”
Archer was smiling broadly. He seemed wonderfully pleased to have Muzorewa in the room with him. “This is the first time Dr. Muzorewa’s been out here in … what is it, Zeb, ten years?”
Muzorewa’s brows knit in thought. “Closer to twelve. I must say that you’ve enlarged the station far more than I ever could, Grant.”
Archer shrugged modestly as Deirdre took the chair beside Muzorewa.
“I’d like to thank you,” she said as she sat down, “for coming all this way to help me.”
Quite seriously, Muzorewa replied, “I must confess that it wasn’t only to help you. I want to disabuse my idealistic friend here of his notion that the leviathans are intelligent.”
“You’re wrong, Zeb,” Archer said gently. “They are intelligent.”
“Without tools?” Muzorewa scoffed. “How could a species develop a high order of intelligence without tools? Tool-making is a hallmark of intelligence.”
Archer countered, “A hallmark of
“Now you’re saying that dolphins are intelligent?”
“They pass knowledge on from one generation to another,” Archer said. “Deirdre made that discovery just recently.”
Muzorewa looked unconvinced. “Tool-making was a key to our developing intelligence. My anthropologist friends tell me that making tools made us intelligent. Dolphins, whales, the leviathans—they live in an environment where tool-making is impossible. They’ll never utilize fire. They have no energy source available to them outside of their own bodies.”
“But they tell stories to each other, Zeb. The dolphins do that. And the leviathans flash pictures to one another. They’re conversing, exchanging information. That takes intelligence.”
As Deirdre wondered how long this argument would go on, the office door slid open and two people—a man and a woman—stepped in.
“Dr. Archer,” said the man. “Are we interrupting? You did ask us to come to your office.”
Muzorewa got to his feet again. “Grant, Ms. Ambrose, I’d like you to meet Franklin and Janet Torre, nanotechnicians from Selene.”
Deirdre nodded toward them. Siblings? she wondered. Maybe twins. Both of the Torres were short, delicately built, with round faces that had a sprinkling of freckles across their snub noses. Both wore identical pale blue one-piece coveralls.
As they pulled up chairs, Muzorewa said, “Back at Selene they’re called the Terrific Torre Twins. They’re the best nanotechs in the solar system.”
Janet Torre started to object, but her brother grinned jovially and said, “I’ve got to admit that they’re right, since I’m not afflicted with false modesty.”
“Or true modesty, either,” his sister wisecracked.
Everyone laughed, and Deirdre felt at ease.
“Now then,” said Muzorewa, getting serious, “we are here to get this modified rabies virus out of your body.”
