Creations (11 page)

Once the island was behind them Max turned back into the cabin. Now all that surrounded them was featureless ocean. He switched on the microphone on his headset and spoke to Garrett.

“So how much have they told you about what’s going on here?”

“Just that there’s gold in them thar waters,” Garrett said. He didn’t have to change his Western States accent much to make the line sound right. “And you guys are gonna dig it out for us.”

“Yeah, that’s the plan. I guess you weren’t brought here just for this bit of work then.”

“No, I’ve worked for Victor’s little outfit for a few years now. I was here when this place was built.”

Most of the people that Max and the others were working with had been there from the start, working on the manganese mining project that had seen ESOS first arrive on the island. Some of them still got called away when that project needed them, sometimes for days at a time.

“What did you do before then?”

“I was in the military for ten years,” he said. “That’s where I learned to fly. Then I did a couple of years in Southeast Asia, and then I came here.”

“Which part of Asia were you in?”

“Singapore and the floating cities, mainly. But I got tired ferrying tourists around between the islands so I took this job instead.”

“And now you’re ferrying us around.”

Garrett looked over at Max and grinned. “That’s right,” he said.

They carried on in silence for another five minutes, then one of the other islands came into view. It was tiny, no more than a barren rock sticking up out of the sea.

“What do you want me to do?” Garrett said. “Just follow the boundary at low level?”

“Yeah, that’s right. I want to make sure the boats have laid the buoys out in the right places. And that none of the gaps are too large.”

“Okay, no problem.”

The flight lasted about fifty minutes as they took in all the small islands and reefs that formed the boundary inside which
the Prospectors would be operating. Their almost ring-shaped distribution formed a convenient natural enclosure for the area, sealed off by the acoustic boundary markers strung between them.

At one point a tanker was visible in the distance on one of the shipping lanes to the west. They could only see it because of their altitude, Garrett explained. And with the local territorial waters extending many miles beyond the island chain, that was the closest anyone was expected to come.

* * *

When Max arrived back at the island he headed up to the top floor, to the room Oliver had chosen as his office. On the way he passed a group of three ESOS workers from Oliver’s engineering team, striding purposefully as they came round a corner. One of them was talking animatedly as they approached, a young engineer called Mayaan who had worked on the original ESOS replicator design. He just had time to say, “Who do those people think they are, coming out here —” before he saw Max and shut up quickly. The three of them passed him, then carried on in silence. Oliver must have made an impression on them, Max thought.

Oliver was sitting hunched over his desk, peering at a schematic display on his screen. Max walked over and took up a position just behind him, waiting for him to look up from his work.

“Yes?” Oliver said, not taking his eyes off the screen.

“Hi, Oliver, I need to talk to you about something. Mind if I sit down?”

Oliver sighed heavily, shut down the program he was using, and pulled another chair up to his desk. “Go on.”

“I’ve just been out to look at the boundary chain. The spacing looks fine, there’s no gaps or anything, but I’m starting to think
we need something else, another layer of protection. I’m not the expert on this, but I think it needs to go into the navigation system.”

“And you want me to do that for you?”

“I’d like your advice on it first of all, you or one of your staff. Right now I just want an idea of what’s possible, how we can contain these machines if the boundary fails. I remember you mentioned this as a concern yourself, right back at the start.”

“Look, I know what you’re saying, but I’m really busy with everything else right now. If you want to do this you’ll have to figure it out for yourself, okay?”

He looked back at his screen again. As far as he was concerned, Max might as well not have been there.

“Right, I’ll leave you to it then,” Max said.

Max was halfway down the corridor when he heard footsteps behind him, not running, but walking fast, trying to catch him up. He turned to see another of Oliver’s staff, a young South African called Isaac, gesturing for him to stop.

“I heard what you were saying to Oliver,” Isaac said, keeping his voice low. “I think you’ve got the right idea, doubling up on the controls. Look — Oliver’s got us stretched pretty thin right now, but what if I took a look at this for you? I think it’s worth spending some time on at least.”

“If you could, that would be really helpful. Do you have any ideas for what we could do?”

“A couple. I’ve got to get back now, it’s probably best if Oliver doesn’t know we’re talking, but, how about if we meet up this afternoon? I can come to your office, about two pm?”

“Sure, I’ll see you then.”

Max went to his own office after that, wondering what working for Oliver must be like if half his staff were either ranting about him in the corridors or sneaking around so they could talk to other people without getting in trouble. It didn’t suggest a happy workplace.

He got to his desk, then sat down and dialled John Olson’s number back in L.A. John’s face erupted into a broad smile when he saw who it was.

“Max! We thought you’d disappeared! How are you doing?”

“Really good, John. And you?”

“I’m good too. So are you going to tell me where you are this time? Or are you still being mysterious about this new project of yours?”

Max was having to concentrate to hear what John was saying; the audio was crackling for some reason, and the image kept flickering on the screen.

“Oh, I’ll tell you one day. I don’t want to spoil the surprise just yet.”

“Well, whatever it is, they must have made a good offer. What are you doing, making diamonds for a living?”

Max winced slightly. “Yeah, something like that.”

“So what can I do for you?”

“I was wondering how things were going back there.”

“You mean the Eden rocks, I guess.”

“The Eden rocks? Is that what they’re called now?”

“It was a good name to use in the press releases. Someone thought so anyway. But yeah, we’re seeing some pretty spectacular stuff in there.”

“Like what?”

“Well, there’s the kind of bacteria you’d expect to see, but with completely different species mixed in, types we’ve never seen before. It’s really weird, Max. Whatever they were they obviously died out pretty fast. There’s nothing like them anywhere else in the fossil record.”

“How different are they?”

“See for yourself, I’ll send down some of the images we’re getting.”

One by one, the grainy x-ray images appeared on Max’s screen. Also included were chemical analyses of the material,
plus a selection of electron microscope shots, tiny segmented structures familiar to him as bacterial fossils. He could see at a glance that John had been right about the diversity in there; the range of organisms was far too large. Rocks more than three billion years old usually showed nothing more than cyanobacteria or fossilised algae, not the menagerie he was seeing here.

“What are those other structures?” he said. “Those narrow streaks and lumps?”

“On the x-rays? Crystalline deposits mostly. We opened up a couple of the rocks and that’s what we found running through them.”

“Could you do a chemical scan on them? See if they have some catalytic effect on RNA formation?”

“Still trying to get that Karman-Lowrie number down? Don’t worry, we’re already working on it.”

“Good. And you’re absolutely sure about the age?”

“The age is a dead cert, it’s definitely early Archaean.”

“That’s good work, John, keep it going. And thanks for the pictures. I’ll keep calling you back for updates. If you need any help just let me know.”

“Sure thing.”

Max was about to break the connection when suddenly he remembered the other reason he’d called.

“Before you go, John, there’s something I wanted to ask you.”

“Yes?”

“Have you ever heard of the Earthrise program?”

John thought for a second. “Yeah, I think so. Isn’t that the research site on the Moon? Where they had that accident?”

“What do you know about it?”

“Just what was on the news at the time. There was an explosion in an airlock, I think, five or six years ago. A couple of people got killed. Why? That’s not where you’ve gone is it?”

Max laughed. “No, I’ve not quite gone that far! It just got mentioned recently, that’s all.”

“Oh, okay. Anyway, keep in touch, Max. And say hi to Gillian.”

“I will do. Bye, John.”

He’d already broken the connection when he saw a message waiting for him from Indira. There was nothing of note in there, just a request that he call her next time their time zones matched up. He dialled her number, waiting for the ESOS encrypted line to link up to California for a second time.

“Max, thank you for getting back to me, how are things going on the project?”

“They’re good, it’s, ah, exciting work.” Again, the audio and video were distorted, not much, but enough to notice. Max made a note to check with the building support staff.

“That’s excellent news. Look, Max, I wouldn’t normally trouble you with this but I thought you should know, we’ve been getting more threats. They’re delivering them to the department again, all in your name. Security have been opening them for evidence.”

“And what do they say?” Max’s mouth was dry; he thought he’d left those problems behind when he took this placement.

“Well, they know you changed your plans, whoever had got hold of your GRACE schedule seems aware of that fact. But don’t worry about this at all. Our security have spoken to ESOS security and they’ve assured us you’re in a safe location.”

“Well, it’s pretty remote, assuming that equates to safe.”

“Good, good, I’m glad. I just wanted to keep you informed, even though, God willing, this won’t have any direct effect on you.”

“No, I’m glad you did,” Max said. “Thanks for letting me know.”

“No problem at all, Max. Just take care of yourself. And of Gillian too, of course. You have told her I presume?”

“I will.”

“Make sure you do.”

Max got up to go for lunch after that. He had to go back past Oliver’s office, right next to the transmitter room where all calls, including the ones he’d just made to John and Indira, were coded and sent out by anonymous satellite link. He went in briefly, looking for anyone from the support team. No one was in there, so he logged in and left a quick message noting the audio problems before continuing to the canteen.

It was an hour or so later that he was back in his own office with Isaac.

“So you’ve worked with Oliver before?” Max was saying.

“Yeah, a few years ago, in a previous life. Quite a piece of work, isn’t he?”

“Is he really as useless as he seems?”

“No, he’s brilliant. I mean really brilliant, but a pain in the ass to work with. I’ve been involved with him on two projects now, that Pan-African desalination site was one of his, and also the inter-island mass transit line for Japan, and on both of them he was the same. But he got the job done, both times.”

“I really can’t imagine anything useful coming from him, I’m sorry.”

“That’s because you’ve only seen him here. He thinks this is a load of bull, the whole project. He’s only doing it because of what he’d lose if he walked out. But there’s more to him than you’ve seen.”

Max nodded silently, trying to fit Isaac’s description to the boorish arrogant fool they’d seen so far.

“And you’re willingly working with him again?”

“Well, you need to be pretty thick skinned, that’s for sure.”

“I bet you do,” Max said. “Anyway, the boundary chain, what have you got for me?”

“Okay, it’s an interesting problem, but like most problems there are good ways and bad ways of approaching it. If we put additional measures in, it’s best if a number of them are autonomous, like independent navigation programming that
each Prospector follows, in addition to global measures like the boundary chain. A mix of autonomous and global will give us the most robust solution.”

Max nodded in agreement, it made sense; make each Prospector responsible for keeping itself in place, and then draw a line around the operating site as well: controls within controls. “Okay, so let’s start with the autonomous features. What kind of thing are you thinking of?”

Isaac didn’t even have time to answer. The door opened, and Oliver strode in, face livid as he looked from Max to Isaac and back again.

“Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?” he said, marching over to Max and bearing down on him.

“We’re discussing the control system,” Max said. “I asked Isaac to —”

“So you thought you could come and steal my staff off me, just because you’ve hit a problem you can’t sort out for yourself?” Oliver was close to shouting now, rage filling his face with blood.

“Professor Rudd,” Isaac said, “Max asked me to help because this kind of control system design is outside his area of expertise.”

“And you don’t think the jobs I’ve given you are important enough? Is that it?”

“No, it’s nothing like that. This work runs alongside those tasks, not instead of them. That’s why I’m —”

“If I’d known you were going to pull a stunt like this, I would have had you thrown out of my group right at the start. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t do it right now!”

Isaac hesitated, clearly lost for words. Oliver made for the door as if he’d had enough. He was about to leave when he turned to face Max. “Don’t think this ends here, Lowrie,” he said. “People who cross me end up regretting it.” Then he stormed out of the room.

Isaac hurried out of his chair to follow him. “Let me talk to him,” he said to Max as he left the room. “I’ll sort this out.”