Millions of thumbs were pressed onto waiting sticky patches, and in each sticky patch a hundred thousand Pistach nanobots waited, quiescent. At the moment of pressure, chemical restraints dissolved, allowing the nanobots their freedom. Chemical sensors detected warmth and blood and crawled upward, following microfi-bers that had already penetrated the skin to obtain blood and DNA samples. When the hand was pulled away from the sticky patch, a hundred thousand nanobots tunneled rapidly into the flesh, where they began harvesting atoms from the surrounding flesh, assembling more of themselves until they totalled several millions and had spread to all parts of the body.
Millions of questionnaires were puzzled over and answered. By the time each person had finished the first dozen or two innocuous questions, his or her body was completely colonized. During the answering of each successive question, nanobots measured blood pressure, respiration, endocrine function, brain waves, and subvocaliz-ations to determine if answers were true or not. If any answer was false, it was ignored.
Some of the nanobots migrated to the palm of the hand and emerged at the surface of the skin as a complicated dark red ideogram. Cheaters, parents who had tried to fill out their children’s forms, or family members who had taken it upon themselves to speak for other family members, plus those who had discarded the questionnaire or simply ignored it, received on the following day a stern note and a new questionnaire. Though the questionnaires were in fact returned to a central depository, from which they subsequently disappeared, the work of tabulation had already been done. Newly assembled nanobot structures inside each person now identified that person. Roving structures migrated throughout each person’s body, correcting minor physical problems as they went. Crippling diseases were ameliorated. Incapacitating pain was relieved, but fatal diseases were let alone. No attempt was made to reduce drug addiction, alcoholism, smoking, or any other self-destructive behavior.
When anyone shook hands, hugged or kissed, took a receipt from a cashier’s hand, took a ticket from a parking attendant or money from a teller, nanobots passed from one body to another. Except for a few thousand eremitic individuals, within a few days even those who had resolutely refused to fill out a questionnaire were colonized and identified. Since the opinions of the hermits could, the Pistach thought, be accurately inferred, they were not required to answer questions.
Except for the clearly visible marks on the palms of their hands, the nanobot invasion went totally unnoticed by the people of the United States.
Law enforcement—MONDAY
Captain Riggles, Morningside Precinct, looked up from his desk impatiently. “What?”
“This box for you, Boss.”
“What’s in it, McClellan?”
“I don’t know, Boss. Says it came fromthem.”
‘Them who?”
“Them, sir. You know. The ET’s.”
Captain Riggles smiled grimly and commented, “As I was just saying this morning to Lieutenant Walker, McClellan, I’d be really surprised if you make it through the next few weeks to retirement. Aren’t you a little old for—”
Mac drew himself up, scowling. “Captain, the box says it comes from the ET’s. Right there. Ex-tra-ter-rest-rial En-voys. Now if you don’t want it, sir, you just say so, and I’ll dump it down in the basement with the old files.”
“Give it here.” He frowned at the box, a sizeable one. “Maybe it’s a bomb.”
“No, sir. It’s been through the scanner. I’ve slit the tape, you just need to…”
“McClellan, I know how to open a box.”
He opened it, disclosing a great number of closely packed smaller boxes, one of which, on being upended and shaken, dropped a wrist-watch on his desk. Something that looked like a wristwatch, at any rate.
“What th . . .” He picked it up and turned it in his hands. An expansion band. A round dial. A single hand, pointing down. Left-hand side of the dial green, no numbers. Right-hand side red, numbered from the top down, one to ten. Legibly lettered on the left, the words, “No probable cause.” On the right, “Probable cause.”
“There’s directions, Boss.”
McClellan handed him the thin booklet that had been wedged between the smaller boxes and the carton.
Introducing the Causometer, for use by police, drug enforcement officers and the U.S.Customs.Provided with our best wishes by the Extraterrestrial Envoys.