Moonrise

“He’ll be cured?”

“If that’s the word you want to use, yes. He will begin to function normally again.” Zimmerman gri

Joa

“He’ll be all right,” Cardenas said to her. “The nanomachines are working inside him.”

For an instant Joa

“Let me go home,” he snapped.

Laughing, Joa

“Yes, yes. You have virtual reality equipment here. I can examine him using VR.”

“But won’t you want to see him in person?” Joa

Zimmerman shook his head violently, making his cheeks waddle. “I am not coming back to this cavern! Never!”

“All right. Doug can see you in Basel, then.”

“That will be impossible, I fear.”

“Why not?”

“A young man who is carrying millions of self-replicating nanomachines in his body would not be a welcome person on Earth. I doubt that he would be able to get past your own customs and immigration inspectors.”

Feeling confused, Joa

Cardenas sat next to her. Zimmerman remained standing. Greg was staring at him now.

“Your son is carrying nanomachines,” Zimmerman said. “He would not be permitted to land on Earth. Every nation has laws against nanomachines in the human body. They are all afraid of nanomonsters.”

“But the bugs will flush out of his system once they’ve finished their work,” Joa

Zimmerman would not meet her eye.

Joa

With a careful sigh, Cardenas said, “You know about the laws against injecting nanomachines into human patients, don’t you?”

“Oh, that stupid stuff.”

“It’s stupid, all right, but it’s still the law. If Doug still has any trace of nanomachines in his system, he’ll be stopped by the immigration inspectors at any rocket port on Earth. They’re terrified of nanobugs ru

“But—”

“May I point out,” Zimmerman interjected, “that perhaps these laws are not so stupid after all. How many military establishments have supported research into nanoweapons? Nanotechnology could make biological warfare look like child’s games.”

“But there are laws against military applications of nanotechnology,” Greg objected. “International treaties.”

“Yes, of course. Those are precisely the laws that do not allow nanomachines to be injected into human patients.”

“But Doug isn’t going to hurt anybody!” Joa

“’Still, he will be carrying these self-replicating nano-machines for as long as he lives.”

“What?” Startled, Joa

“That,” said Zimmerman, bending to put his cigar-clenched face close to hers, “is the payment I extract from you.”

“Payment? What are you talking about?”

“Your son is my living laboratory, Madam; my lifetime experiment. He carries self-replicating nanotnachines within his body. Forever.”

“What have you done?” Joa

“I have given your son a great gift, Madam,” Zimmerman replied.

Before Joa

Zimmerman took the soggy cigar from his mouth. “Yah, but there is more to it than that.”

“What?” Joa

Almost smirking, Zimmerman said, “Frankly, I do not know. No one can know. We have no experience with self-replicating nanomachines in the human body.”

“You’ve turned my son into—”

“An experiment. A living laboratory,” Zimmerman said. “A step toward the perfection of nanotherapy.”

Before Joa

Zimmerman nodded. “Perhaps. The machines should be able to adapt to destroy microbes and viruses that invade his body.”

“But you don’t know for certain what they’ll do,” Greg said, his voice hollow.

“They should also repair effects of aging and any injuries he might incur,” Zimmerman added, still speaking to Joa

Greg muttered something too low for Joa

“But mat doesn’t mean he can’t return to Earth,” Joa

“Yes it does,” said Cardenas. “They’ll never let him off the rocket.”

“They don’t have to know.”

“They already know,” Zimmerman said. “I have informed my colleagues and by now the authorities know.”

“You informed… why?” Joa

“I have my own fish to fry, Madam. My own agenda. Your son will be a living advertisement that nanotherapy is not dangerous and not undesirable. I will see to it that his case is broadcast all over the world. Some day, sooner or later, he will jecome the cause celebre that will lead these ignorant politicians and witch doctors to lift their ban on nanotherapy.”

Feeling fury rising within her, Joa

“Healthy, he will be,” said Zimmerman. “Normal, never.”

Trying to cool her down, Cardenas said, “Think of it, Joa

Joa

Slowly Doug woke from a long, deep dream. He had been swimming with dolphins the way he’d done when he was a kid visiting Hawaii except that the water was cold, numbingly cold and so dark that he could only sense the dolphins swimming alongside him, big powerful sleek bodies gliding effortlessly through the cold black waters. Don’t leave me behind, he called to them, but somehow he was on the Moon and it was Bre

And then his eyes opened.

He saw that he was in some kind of hospital room. Moonbase. The infirmary. Low rock ceiling painted a cheerful butter yellow. A wide mirror took up almost the whole wall on one side of his bed. He could hear the humming and beeping of electronic monitors over his head.

The door opened and Bianca Rhee stepped through.

“You’re awake!” she said looking happy and surprised and awed and curious, all at once.

Doug gri

“How do you feel?”

“Hungry!”

Bianca’s smile threatened to split her face in two. Before she could say another word, a medic in crisp white coveralls pushed through the door angrily.

“What’re you doing in here?” he demanded of Rhee. “No one’s allowed in here without—”

“Shut up!” Doug snapped. “She’s my friend.”

The man glared at Doug. “No one is allowed inside this cubicle without specific permission from the resident M.D., friend or not.”

Over the next ten minutes, Doug learned how wrong the young medic was. Rhee dutifully left his cubicle, but his mother, Greg, and several strangers poured in, including a fu

His mother fell on his neck, crying for the first time he could remember. Greg smiled stiffly. The others stared at the monitors while they checked his pulse, thumped his chest, and performed other ancient medical rituals.