Читать книгу The Adventures of Anna Atom - Elizabeth Wasserman - Страница 16

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 am sorry, Admiral, but that information really is classified,” U6 confirmed.

The admiral frowned. The only person who could classify anything was Uranus Drake, and he couldn’t imagine why his old friend would hide anything from him.

But in his years of working with artificial intelligence, the admiral had learnt a few tricks. He knew that computers couldn’t lie, and therefore he tried a very direct approach.

“What else is ‘classified’?” he demanded.

“The whole of Sector 16,” U6 replied, slightly embarrassed.

The admiral had always been under the impression that Sector 16 of the Space Ark was a storeroom. He’d never even taken notice of it.

Something very odd was going on, right under his nose!