“What kind of things, Marvin?”
“Things like you, Colonel Kyle Riggs.”
I stared into the tank for a few seconds. “You mean like my foot?” I asked.
“Yes. Anything biotic. Given a few cells, they can grow duplicates and attach them into appropriate structures.”
I swallowed hard. “What am I supposed to do? Put my foot in there?”
“There is a feeding port on top of the tank. Insertion into that orifice would allow them access to your injury.”
I craned my neck, but couldn’t see the orifice he spoke of. I rubbed my face thoughtfully, feeling my stubble. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d shaved. Sandra would never have put up with it if she’d been around to complain. I blinked as I thought of Sandra. “Could these little guys fix anyone?” I asked.
“No. They must have living cells to duplicate. They require complete DNA strands to read as models. Complex creatures such as yourself with a great deal of cell differentiation provide them with a serious challenge. But they are capable of duplicating every cell in your body if they have the blueprint.”
“The blueprint? Meaning what?”
“A single living cell. Each of your cells contains all the information to build all the others.”
I shook my head. “Marvin, how did you learn all this in such a short time?”
Marvin pointed with his new, solitary forearm built of construction nanites. I noticed it ended in the traditional three-thumbed hand. The hand pointed at the tank in front of us. “I learned most of it from them. They know about your kind. They have tasted your flesh before. They have leeched away your genetics as part of Macro dissections.”
I stepped back and stretched until I could see the top of the tank. There was a fleshy bulb up there. It looked like a rubbery orifice all right. “There’s no way I’m going to climb up there and shove my foot into that tank. Especially not with you down here in trigger-happy mode with that shock-rod.”
Marvin didn’t object to my distrust. He simply turned and stared into the tank. I assumed he was communicating with the tiny beings inside, so I didn’t interrupt.
“There is another way,” Marvin said. “I will extract a sample of them and deposit them into a container, where you can insert your damaged appendage.”
“Um,” I said, not really liking the idea. But I thought of Sandra and Kwon and all the others aboard that could be helped if this stuff worked. I figured I owed it to them to try. “All right,” I said at last. “I’ll get a bucket or something.”
“You will also need a good source of biotic compounds to work with. Make sure the proteins and sugars match in chemical composition.”
I blinked at him. “You mean I need a human body as raw materials?”
“That would work best. If unavailable, any biotic base-material from your world will suffice.”
In the end, I found myself with my bare, charred foot bathing in a bucket full of slime. I shared the bucket with several billion terrified microbial creatures and a raw pork chop from the ship’s stores. The pork chop provided the organic materials, and my good cells provided the blue print.
The microbes tickled as they did their magic. It felt as if I’d put my foot into highly carbonated soda water. I figured if this worked and these bugs were able to turn raw pork into a living piece of Star Force marine, we would have an even better reason to call ourselves Riggs’ Pigs.
34
Less than two hours later, I had a new foot. It was almost as odd a sensation as losing it had been. I walked on it experimentally while it dripped and tingled. The nerves were far from happy with the new connections. They were positively pissed, in fact. If you’ve ever had a foot go to sleep on you due to a shut-off blood-supply, you’ll know the sensation I’m talking about. It could be described as walking on pins and needles.
I toweled off my new pink foot and put my boot back on. That felt better. The less direct sensation the better. I supposed in a day or two, I would be back to normal. I looked at the tank and I looked at Marvin, who was studying me with his camera.
“Is the appendage satisfactory?” he asked.
“Yes. Absolutely. Please transmit my thanks to the microbes for their efforts.”
Marvin whirred for a moment, using his Macro-salvaged legs to turn his body to face me. “That might be counterproductive.”
“What? Thanking them?”
“Yes. They might construe themselves as deserving of payment.”
“Well, they are deserving. They performed an amazing service.”
“My understanding of biotics is they operate best under duress. They will-”
“Look, Marvin,” I snapped, then stopped myself. I tried to stay calm. He had a very different way of thinking. I believed the heartlessness of machines was based in their inability to feel real pain or anguish. How could they hope to achieve empathy if they had never felt discomfort? I wished I could curse these machines with some pain circuitry. It would make them much easier to deal with.
“Marvin,” I said, starting again in a calm voice. “Let’s put these biotics in the bucket back into their tank at least.”
“Ah, an excellent suggestion!” Marvin said. He clanked forward and took the bucket up in his three-thumbed hand. It swung and creaked, the noisome liquid sloshing inside.
“Excellent?” I asked, suddenly suspicious. He’d never been excited about anything that I’d suggested to help the microbes before. “Why is it such a good idea?”
“Punishment in a less drastic form is always preferable. Also, they will naturally be plotting to counter our electrode. In time, they will minimize their dead due to its employ. Notice the membrane they’ve been building nearby, keeping their population away from the applicator? I’ve already been considering moving the electrode to the dorsal area of the tank to create maximal carnage.”
I shook my head. “Why is putting the bucket of microbes back into the tank a punishment?”
“Because the toxins will cause a die-off in that region.”
“What toxins?”
“By-products of the process. The microbes are not terrestrial. They have a different set of base proteins. The essence of any toxin is an alien protein.”
I stared at him as he carried the bucket around to the far side of the tank. There was a small, tubule there. He put the bucket down and lowered the tubule toward the liquid in the bucket.
“Hold on,” I said. “Are you telling me the stuff left over in the bucket will poison them? What about the microbes that did the work?”
“They are already dying. Their purpose has been served.”
I sighed and rubbed my head. I’d killed a billion sentient things to replace my foot. “Just go pour the bucket into the waste chute, Marvin,” I said.
“But-”
“Those are my instructions. I command this vessel.”
Marvin clanked away without another word. I left him with further instructions not to cause the prisoners any more harm. He seemed miffed, but did not argue.
Afterward, I hobbled down to the medical bricks. There were more of them set up now. We’d suffered a number of serious injuries. Sandra was still comatose. Kwon was missing two limbs. I had a hard decision to make. Were my friends worth a few billion microbes? It wouldn’t have even been a question, except they were sentient. It was one thing to eat a yogurt, knowing yeast had died en masse to satisfy your appetites. It would have been quite another to understand the yeast knew it was dying and could feel the pain of it. Worse, the yeast was thinking about you, plotting-possibly even reporting to a yeast fleet crewed by quadrillions of the vengeful critters. What kind of interworld polices was I setting up? How could I get all smart lifeforms to unite against the machines when I abused them freely for my own purposes? How was I better than the Macros, from their point of view?
I stared into Sandra’s coffin and steeled myself. I had to give it a try. I marched back up to the chamber.