she turned back to the Environator, Mr Amsterdam’s image had disappeared. “Max, you can come out now. He’s gone.”
Lights flickered on the dark walls of the laboratory. “I not likes that man,” Max said.
“I know. But he and his organisation pay for your plutonium batteries. And the scientists of US generally do a lot of good in the world. So boot up, and let’s get back to work!”
“I has having two interesting conversations while you be chattering with nasty,” Max said.
“Really, Max! Now is not the time to flirt with your girlfriends in cyberspace. We have an environmental catastrophe to deal with!”
“Well, one of these ladies be your daughter, Anna, with an interesting problem. And the other is none of your business … But she be a supercomputer almost likes myself, and she knows about biobooms.”
“What?” Sabatina exclaimed, so interested in the last bit of information that she paid no attention to the mention of Anna. “A supercomputer well versed in biobooms? How can that be?”
“Ah! She be lovely – so gentle, so clever … and very progressives in her software.”
“Max, stop drooling! I need to know what she knows and, above all, why does she know about biobooms? Who does she work for?”
“Oh, I does rather not say. It be not right, even for computers, to discloses information about the people that they owns.”
Sabatina didn’t try to correct Max. One day soon, she thought, computers may very well own us. Even now, she relied heavily on Max’s superior intelligence.
“This darling dear friend of mine,” Max continued, “confirms what we has already concluded about the biobooms. She does not talks too much about it, and therefore I suspects she be more involves than she likes to admits. When I asks if she can contacts the processors to send waves towards the algae at a specific frequency and amplitude, she brokes her communication with me. Now she no talk to Max no mores!”
“What specific frequency and amplitude, Max?” Sabatina asked.
“The ones I has figures out to signal the algae to die. Surely you knows too what they are, clever human professor?” Max asked.
Sabatina sighed. This was not the time to be irritated by the supercomputer’s sarcasm. Max might just be on to something.
Chapter 12
CLASSIFIED INFORMATION
Admiral Atom was speaking to the onboard computer of the Space Ark.
“U6, what is the status of the animal bubbles?”
“Admiral,” the computer answered in her sweet voice, “we now have 668 animal pairs in bubbles, 1 659 pairs of birds, 840 pairs of reptiles and 6 334 species of insect. They are representative of those life forms that are currently most endangered on planet Earth. Except for humans, of course, of which we only have you.”
The admiral frowned. U6 believed that humans were just a passing life form that would eventually be extinguished, just like the dinosaurs. The admiral wished he could be sure that she was wrong, but U6 was an exceptionally clever computer.
“All the bubbles are functioning perfectly, all the specimens are dormant, and the status of their homeostasis is healthy.”
“Fantastic!” the admiral exclaimed. “You know, if I had not seen it with my own eyes, I would never have believed it. This must be one of the most amazing achievements in history.”
“Scientists have named approximately 1.5 million species, which my databases calculate is probably only about a tenth of the species that really exist on Earth, including many undiscovered insects and bacteria. Nevertheless, we have done a good job at safeguarding the species in this Ark.”
The admiral marvelled at the sight of the weightless animals drifting in their spheres, all perfect specimens. The sight of a pair of red pandas and two sea otters cuddling safely in suspension made the admiral truly proud.
“Uranus has instructed us to prepare a sphere for some new arrivals. Expected weight: 23 kilograms each. Height: about a metre. I wonder what they could be?”
“I do not wonder,” U6 replied. “I follow orders.”
A red light started to flash on the portable communicator that the admiral wore on his wrist.
“Pardon me, U6 – my wife is calling.” The admiral switched off U6’s circuits in his vicinity. U6 was used to this need for privacy when he talked to his family. As she lacked curiosity circuits, she had no wish to pry into his affairs.
The admiral listened with concern as Sabatina filled him in on the events back on Earth.
“Amazing, but terrible!” he said. “I wouldn’t have believed it possible, and on such a catastrophic scale! We need to act quickly. The problem will be to find an instrument that can propagate a counter-wave at the correct frequency. It could be built, but that would take weeks.”
“Max searched his databases, but he can’t find anything that will work,” Sabatina said, sounding desperate. She’d switched to the holographic communication mode, and her image was floating in front of the admiral. Her hair was in disarray, and she had dark circles of worry under her eyes.
“Have you been working through the night again, my dear?” the admiral said with concern.
“Of course! At first, Max and I had no idea what had caused the sudden bloom of algae. It took us a while to figure out that it had been set off by strange waves the Environator observed yesterday. Those waves, by the way, are called a ‘bioboom’.”
“You should rest. I’ll contact Uranus and get U6 to work on the problem too. Our resources are considerable.”
Sabatina nodded, knowing she could do with some help.
“Go and sleep for a while. But first tell me, how are the children?”
“Oh.” For a moment, Sabatina looked confused. “I’m sure they’re fine. Ton is in charge.”
After his wife had broken her communication, the admiral tried to contact Uranus Drake. But his friend didn’t answer his communicator.
“U6!” Admiral Atom then called, and lights immediately flickered on around him. “Do we have access to an oscillator that has the capacity to generate acoustic waves of a very specific frequency?”
The question seemed to create havoc in the supercomputer’s circuits. Lights on the walls suddenly flickered red, as if U6 was blushing.
“That information is classified!” she whispered.
“Classified?” the admiral asked, puzzled. “What in Space are you talking about? Nothing has ever been ‘classified’ on this operation!”
“I
