Excellent, thought Zhang. Right on schedule.
Cui went directly to the technology.
“We are told that the humans who just left established an I/O connection between your computers and ours. Can we use that?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of information was transmitted to those humans?”
“They used four trade points to obtain scientific findings in physics, chemistry, and biology. They also received technological information regarding the engineering of interstellar capabilities appropriate to this facility. That information is available to all visitors.”
“Including construction of antimatter manufacturing and storage facilities?”
“Yes.”
“Where is the I/O port?”
“There is a hallway opening to your right. I/O equipment, including that left by the first humans, is there.”
Cui turned to Wong, the senior tech, and said, “Let’s go look.”
The Chinese scientists sent to investigate the moonlets began with surface readings, which showed faint gamma emissions from inside the moonlet. They’d quickly congregated as close to the source as they could get. Although the surface of the moonlet was covered with what appeared to be natural regolith, like any normal moonlet, the soil was studded with plates, protuberances, and sockets, none of whose function was at all obvious to the scientists. In addition, faint light splayed across the regolith, as though the surface of the moon were one giant computer display.
When the scientists brought microscopes to bear on the surface, they discovered it was covered with small organelles, most likely extraordinarily sophisticated nanobots. They seemed to operate like a loose mesh network, neighbor communicating information to neighbor.
Samples of the regolith, including myriad bots, were scooped into isolation canisters. The scientists were delighted to see that the soil kept twinkling, at first with faint random flashes. The flashes started to settle into larger patterns, expanding circles, stripes, checkerboards. Without a signal to drive them, there was no meaning or content to display, but it proved that the bots’ communication network was still functioning.
Duan asked Chang, one of the engineers, what the tech might mean.
Chang grunted and said, “One thing it means is that somebody is going to make another trillion yuan from these things. Just not us. What you’re looking at is microscopic machines. We’ve been talking about them for years but nobody’s got there yet. If we can reverse-engineer these things, we can get fifty years of tech in one leap.”
Duan was pleased by that; still, it wasn’t the big prize. It wasn’t aliens, it wasn’t starships, it wasn’t antimatter technology. Aliens, especially, seemed in short supply. She wondered what Cui was finding on the planetoid.
Cui asked, “We would like a summary explanation of the trade items. We were told by the last human group that you would allow us to trade up to eight points, and that they used four of those points, leaving us another four. Is that correct?”
“That is correct. There is a trade computer down the hall to your left. It can send a list of tradable items, and their cost, that is, their score, to the I/O port you are using. You may select from the list.”
“Are these technological items?”
“Most are not. Most are artistic items involving visual and aural arts, items used in food preparation and sensory stimulation.”
Wong said, “I think he just offered us vibrators.”
Cui: “Shut up.”
At the moonlet: while the biotechnologists were gathering nanobots from the surface, the seismologists were trying to find out what lay under the surface. What their sensitive microphones heard was disappointing: all of it was mechanical or electronic in nature. Not that any of them knew what aliens were supposed to sound like, but steady, repetitive, monotonous sonic signatures were not the hallmarks of active, intelligent life. Furthermore, no definite entry ports had been found. The few possible ports would accommodate nothing larger than a hamster.
Chang said, “Maybe the aliens are hamsters. I always thought hamsters acted suspiciously.”
“Shut up,” Duan said.
Possibly the moonlet was inhabited, by very quiet, intelligent, alien rodents. But probably not. The consensus was that this was not going to be the day for First Contact with another species.
The seismologist determined that the shell of the moonlet was quite thin. The geologists were equipped with drills and even small mining charges.
“Do we crack the shell?” Chang asked.
Duan shook her head: “No. The instructions are quite clear. Nothing that could be interpreted as an attack. We should see to the ants.”
At the planetoid, Cui had gone out through the air lock to call Zhang and the bridge crew.
“The I/O connection is fine. We can hook right in and start the I/O feed back to the Odyssey. The question is, should we do that, or should we fabricate our own equipment? Ours is better—not faster, but more robust. And I worry that the Americans may have done something to the cables. Is it possible to insert something into the cables that would turn the I/O output to garbage, or noise, or add error somehow?”
“Yes, that would be possible,” said one of the Odyssey-based techs. “But we would see that almost instantly. I would suggest you get the specs for fabricating our own I/O, but also, begin transmitting through the American connection. We could transmit to a sequestered computer to make sure that the input is not contaminated.”
On the moonlet, Duan took a call from one of the team members designated as an explorer. One of the ants was sitting on the surface of the moonlet, attached to one of the hamster-sized ports. The machine was less than a kilometer away.
After signaling to the Celestial Odyssey what they were about to do, they moved the shuttle to the site discovered by the explorer. Duan took a message from Zhang: “The Americans are coming over the horizon. You won’t be visible to them for another hour, because of the rings, but then they will be able to see you, if they look at the right place. So, either hurry, or hide.”
Duan signaled, “We will hurry first and hide later.”
At the planetoid, Cui asked, “How long will it take to transmit data at the current output rate of both science and technological information?”
The jukebox—now renamed the Narcissus, for the flower held in Chinese folklore to represent the intellect—said, “At the previous I/O rate, approximately two hundred and twelve Earth years, one hundred and six Earth days, seven Earth hours, sixteen Earth minutes, and 24.5 Earth seconds.”
Cui and Wong looked at each other. “Narcy… uh, how much did you give to the other humans?”
“All of it.”
“All of it? Why would it take us two hundred years to get it, if they got all of it in a week?”
“The first group of humans also received memory modules containing the most detailed technological and manufacturing information, which is the bulk of the information. The fundamental science information only was transmitted on the I/O link.”
“Then we also want memory modules.”
“Only eight physical memory modules and eight physical module readers are allotted per species. More cannot be fabricated on this facility, which is designed for storage, rather than the manufacture of consumer goods. The first group of humans took all eight.”
“What?”
On the moonlet: the ant—the alien artifact, whatever it was—more closely resembled a crab than a worker ant, with a flattened, domed fuselage and multiple mechanical appendages that extended from its midsection. None of the appendages could be interpreted as a weapon. They were all tipped with grapples, manipulators, or sockets, presumably for interchangeable attachments like tools. Nothing that would fire a projectile or a bolt or beam of energy, nothing that even looked capable of delivering a shock.