ARK

8. Truman: Life-Sucking Void

I sit back, my eyes stinging. I rub until I see stars. I've been staring way too long at plant cells and what's inside them on this screen.

Right from when I start preparing for launch, Starke sets me to work with him on his "special project."

That means I don't see much of Radar and Nibs, who are in computer and engineering. Yes, that's right, Radar and Nibs are joining the Return. We're all a little tweaked at how easy this was. In fact, it was so easy, I feel un-easy. I have the sense that Starke manipulated things to make it happen, but I can't figure out why.

But then, as Nibs said when he was practically jumping up and down, "Who cares how? This is the most fantastic adventure of our lives!"

I see almost nothing of Mia, who's busy working in operations, but just to know that we'll be going together, that's enough for me.

Starke's lab on the ship is where I learn what I'll be doing.

"I've spent my life developing a serum that'll immunize us against the nanorobots," he says. He holds up a vial with something the color of watery blood. "We've been running tests on animals and humans and it works. It'll neutralize all bots that enter our bloodstream. This is the main focus here, Truman. We're conducting the ultimate test when we get there. If it's successful on Earth, we can all go home."

I whistle. "By the gods." This is impressive. I think about the implications. My parents, the Ark, what it would all mean. "But what about the bots in the plants?"

"That's where you come in," he says. "I need you to set up another smaller lab on the ship where you can work undisturbed. I think I may have found a way to control the bots in the plants, and you're going to help me run tests when we get to Earth." He gestures to the rows of plants behind me. "In the meantime, in your own lab I want you to check these for the presence of nanorobots on a daily basis. And keep these plants alive."

"Not a problem," I say. Corn, young green shoots of some kind of grass. I'm not sure why these are special; they send me no signals at all. Not like Mac, and not even like Mac's apple seedlings I've hidden with my stuff - along with Milton.

Back during the Expulsion the Ark was thoroughly decontaminated, since the great fear was that our enemy would follow us. Nanorobots are really, really tiny, and can be programed to hide and then reactivate when they pick up instructions, so Arkians have been vigilant. No bots have ever been unearthed on the Ark. We've got tracking dyes and radioactive tags but there have always been worries about some super-evolved bot of high intelligence and reproductive and swarm capability, so there's no slacking off.

Super-evolved bot. I rub my eyes again. The first nanorobots were a good thing, but they evolved, and when they did they went destructive. There are the rumors of an even more highly evolved bot left on Earth, one so frightening it made it impossible for humans to live there. No one talks about it; it's not in any books I've read on the subject. Even Mom knows nothing.

As far as Arkians are concerned, the only good bot is a dead bot.

So here I am checking for bots, the kind of thing Mom does all the time. It's tedious, painstaking work, even though we've got small-scale optics, miniaturizing what in ancient times took gear that would fill up a room. Starke has great equipment. The Elders have given him the best, first-class stuff, despite the fact that we're running low on this and that. Mom has to fight for every scrap. I can locate bots with equipment that fits in my pocket, fluorescent marker scopes and nanoscale cameras, and all wirelessly transmitting to my net pad.

Another little piece of the picture: that Starke and the others who are preparing for this Return have been given the best of everything, while the rest of the Ark struggles.