John Cramer - Einstein's Bridge

“The SSC beam is still off, right?” Alice asked. She was trying to remain calm. She remembered Iris’s assurance that they would have a year before the Hive attempted a Bridge.

“Yeah,” said Dan. “At last report, they’re almost finished fixing the dipole in the north segment of the ring that quenched last night. They should be starting another ramp-up cycle soon.”

“Could we go down to the SDC detector, then? I need to have a look at the place on the wall where that track would have hit.”

“Sure,” said Dan. “I can assure you there’s nothing to see on that wall, but you might as well have a look at the detector itself while you have the chance. When they get the dipole fixed, they’ll turn on the beam again, and there’ll be no access for many days.”

Alice tried to call George, setting the urgency level to maximum, but got no answer. He was probably down in the tunnel at the LEM detector, where his cellphone wouldn’t work. She recorded a message telling him where she was going and suggesting that he link to an SDC remote and join her.

Ten minutes later Alice stood with Dan in the vast SDC experiment cave. Beside them was a tall remote. George had received her message, finally, and linked to an SDC remote. He said that Roger and Iris were with him, watching. His bearded face was visible on the remote’s headscreen.

Dan consulted a printout and reached up to touch a spot on the wall of the concrete-lined cave wall. “As nearly as I can tell,” he said, “that blue track should have hit the wall about here.” He took a felt-tip pen from his pocket and drew a red X on the wall.

Alice had been getting weak positive signals from the Bridge detector ever since she had stepped out of the elevator. Now she stood on tiptoes and held the soap-bar device up to the spot. It produced a remarkable sensation. As it moved it closer to the mark, she could “see” that there was indeed a Bridgehead behind the wall. “It’s here,” she said, turning to the remote, “about five meters in. It must have been here for several days. What should we do now?”

The image of George on the headscreen frowned. “Hell, I guess we’ll have to bore into the concrete and limestone. That won’t be easy. It will interfere with accelerator operation and make a big mess next to delicate equipment. Hold on a minute. Let me ask Iris.”

“I wonder if…” said Alice. She walked to a nearby tool board and returned with a medium-size ball-peen hammer. She began to tap the wall, starting well away from the spot of interest and working her way toward it. As she approached the red x, the tapping sound changed from a dull thunk to a more resonant hollow sound.

Dan looked surprised. “Let me try,” he said. He took the hammer from her hand. She was too startled to protest.

“Dan, wait!…” said George, looking up to realize what was happening.

Dan struck the X a solid blow, and the wall crumbled like a broken eggshell, falling away to leave a jagged hole about forty centimeters across. Behind the hole was darkness.

Alice realized that Dan had never heard of the Hive. He had no idea that there was any danger.

Dan pulled a small flashlight from his pocket and shined it into the hole. He leaned forward, inserting his head in the opening. “I don’t see anyth…” he began, and then screamed. His whole body lurched forward, and he was pulled through.

The mechanical arms of George’s remote reached for Dan’s feet, but missed. The remote, its work lights beaming forward, its tractor treads spinning, thrust itself into the hole after Dan. A shiny gray cylindrical pseudopod snaked out of the hole, wrapped around the remote, and pulled it inside.

“Dan! George!” Alice shouted, stepping back. It had all happened so fast. She looked around for help. There was a red alarm button on the wall nearby, and she pressed it. In the distance an alarm signal began a slow whooping sound.

She heard a loud electric-motor noise and turned. Behind her another remote was driving in her direction on an electric vehicle containing a large cylindrical gray tank. As the vehicle stopped before the hole, she recognized the face of George on the headscreen.

“I switched to another remote,” he said. “Dan is dead. Cut to pieces and dissolved into the floor, along with my remote.” The remote rolled around the tank and uncoiled a long steel-mesh-covered hose. “Liquid nitrogen,” he said. He rolled to the hole and began to direct a stream of the clear cryogenic liquid inside. Alice had a feeling of deja vu.

Clouds of steamlike condensed water vapor poured out of the opening, obscuring Alice’s view. She held out the Bridge detector. The Bridgehead was still in the place where she had first detected it. “George,” she said, “can you tell me what’s going on?”

“The Hive sent a Bridge through the SDC and planted it behind the cave wall. By manipulating through the Bridge, they’ve put together nanomachine assemblers, and they’ve had several days to build Hive Workers. Iris thinks there’s a good chance that there hasn’t been enough time for the Hive Mind to become conscious. Something grabbed Dan and my remote and disassembled us for molecular spare parts, but perhaps that was an automatic response of the nanomachines. I didn’t get much of a look before the remote link broke, but there are structures in there and what look like folded-up dormant insects.”

“Perhaps those are the Workers,” said Alice.

“I’m hoping this liquid nitrogen will lower the temperature enough to immobilize the nanomachines,” George said. “It’s our only hope of stopping this. Alice, you’ll have to help. I can’t use a Bridge detector through a remote. I want you to go down the cave about fifty meters to the left. When you come to a sign on the wall that says ‘Cryogenics,’ there should be a cabinet with some cryo-protection suits and respirators. Put on a cryo-suit and come back here as quickly as you can.”

Alice raced down the cave. She returned wearing a silvery cryo-suit. The remote, the headscreen now dim, was frozen in a fixed position, still hosing liquid nitrogen into the hole. Another remote bearing George’s image on the headscreen stood near a smaller cryogenic dewar. It was swinging a sledgehammer to enlarge the opening, which now looked like a tunnel.

“Now,” said George’s voice from the remote, “we’re ready to try. I’ll go in first. However, you’ll have to use your Bridge detector. What you have to do is find the Hive’s Bridgehead and tell me where it is, so I can put it into this liquid helium dewar. If we can do that, everything will be okay.”

“Okay,” Alice said doubtfully. The remote turned off the flow of nitrogen, approached the tunnel, and rolled inside, carrying the small liquid helium dewar with it. Alice followed, crawling carefully through the rough opening, her one ungloved hand holding the Bridge detector before her. Once inside she was able to stand. It was hard to see much because of the mist of condensed water vapor left by the liquid nitrogen, and her ungloved hand felt very cold. There was a huge rounded area behind the wall lined with strange organic-looking structures. Along one side Alice could see the huge dormant insectlike creatures George had mentioned. They seemed to be frozen in place. The floor felt yielding, jellylike. Alice touched the floor and Read. She realized that the surface was lined with tiny molecular machines programmed to disassemble whatever they met and reconstruct it into something else. They had been shut down by the low temperature. These things had killed and dissolved Dan. She felt sick at the thought.

Alice crawled forward to a rough stone extrusion that extended up from the floor like a stalagmite. Scanning it with her detector, she sensed the Bridgehead just within its tip. “It’s here,” she said, pointing. “Now what?”