10
The atmosphere in the inflatable triple cabin was stuffy with the unusual number of bodies crowded inside, and heavy from the sense of uncertainty hanging over the expedition. After a strained night during which Banks was no doubt awaiting instructions, he had retaken possession of the two shacks left by Zorken and moved the Mule alongside them. The cluster formed its own small camp apart from the scientific expedition’s, enclosed inside a perimeter of metal stakes linked by infrared beams to detect intruders. There could be no real argument, since the shacks were unquestionably Zorken’s property. Hence, the expedition had seen no option but to concede and vacate them. The next challenge would probably be to contest their access to the Hole. Accordingly, in case worse should come to worst, Hamil had gone down there with Juanita to photograph and record the findings to date. In this, Kieran noted, Hamil had also removed the most fierily disposed member from the immediate scene while a chance remained of working something out diplomatically. To this latter end, Trevany and Jean had gone across to the Mule with the aim of establishing some grounds for reciprocal accommodation. Hamil’s reasoning was that Trevany’s standing as an investigator come specially from Earth might underline the importance of the finds. Harry Quong and Chas Ryan were outside, reinstalling the electrical and air recirculation equipment displaced from the shack in one of the two trailers. The rest of the expedition, doubtless reflecting the human tendency to group together in anxious times, had collected in the messroom of the inflatable-frame shack to await events. They were Kieran, Dennis, Rudi, Katrina, and the five site workers. The need for the services of the latter was effectively suspended for the time being.
“Harry told me once that Pierre was a good friend of you and Jean,” Kieran said to Dennis. They were sitting a little apart from the rest, who were immersed in a discussion of legalities and land rights.
Dennis nodded. “Jean knows him from way back. They used to belong to some European student club.”
“Apparently, you know something about the work Pierre’s involved with in Lowell—some kind of nano-scale biological research.”
“Self-assembling artificial molecular structures. Why?”
“Oh . . . I’m just curious about everything, I suppose. Harry said something about pieces coming together inside body cells. Is that where the self-assembling comes into it?”
“Right. The components are small enough to be taken in through ingestion or inhalation, and get transported into the body cells via the regular mechanism.” Dennis paused with an inquiring look that asked if the concepts were familiar. Kieran nodded for him to go on. “There, they use the cells’ metabolic machinery to assemble into protein synthesizers.”
“You mean like artificial ribosomes?”
“Exactly. But the unique thing is, they can be directed remotely,” Dennis said. Kieran looked puzzled. Dennis explained, “As to what proteins to synthesize. Part of the structure is actually a resonant molecular circuit that decodes externally applied electronic signals. So the kind of proteins that get made inside the cell can be programmed from the outside.”
“That’s a new one on me,” Kieran said.
“Neat, eh?”
“So what would you use it for?”
Dennis made a tossing-away gesture. “They’re not sure of all the possibilities yet. One might be remote-directing a regimen of medication. Instead of having to hope you’ve got all the right drugs with you for whatever problems you might run into, the instructions to make whatever you need can be transmitted from a diagnostic center far away. Think how useful that could be with people scattered around the Solar System getting themselves into all kinds of messes.”
Kieran was intrigued, and sat back to see what other lines he could think of. But before he could come up with anything, Rudi turned and called across from the long table where the others were gathered. “Hey, Sir Knight, you tell us—how do things like this work here? If there’s no overall authority to issue land titles, then Zorken can’t actually own this site.” He made a careless gesture with an open hand. “So they were here before us and sank a few shafts. What of it? That doesn’t sound like much of a case to me. They went away and left it. You can’t have people going around making claims on anywhere, just because they happen to have been there before.”