Stone’s mind raced. He was looking at the mind of a computer, with programs and data spread at random across its hard disk, capable of performing hundreds of tasks at once.
‘This is very impressive, Oyang,’ said Stone. ‘You didn’t mention you were an engineer.’
‘Indeed I am no engineer, Mr Stone,’ with a small laugh of self-deprecation. ‘I am an old-style Chinese intellectual, a Confucian,’ said Oyang. ‘I labour with my mind and not my hands.’
A Confucian who likes Japanese girls in bikinis. ‘In that case,’ asked Stone. ‘Where does it come from? All this technology?’
Oyang looked almost embarrassed to talk about it, but continued, ‘These developments are — incredible. Even more incredible than they look to you. The true value of Semyonov’s facility here is its flexibility. The ideas we create on computer design systems can be made reality by the robot workforce. Otherwise we would need thousands of highly skilled engineers just to design the process… But here, inspiration goes to idea, to design, to reality. All in record time.’
‘And the workforce builds you more workers if you need them,’ added Stone.
‘Up to a point, yes,’ nodded Oyang. ‘It’s a good system.’
A good system? That was an understatement. The implications would make an economist’s head spin.
‘ShinComm has five hundred thousand workers between Shanghai and our plant at Dongguan, yet the Development Center makes more money. That's because it creates high value goods.’
‘Tell me more, Oyang, I’m fascinated,’ said Stone to distract him. Oyang was so cultured, so image-conscious, almost a parody of himself. But intelligent nonetheless. ‘How many people know about this place?’
‘A few senior managers in ShinComm. Semyonov needed a few people to work with him, and he showed it to me only once. I didn’t see at first how important it was. The key to the system,’ explained Oyang. ‘Lies in massively parallel computing software. Each of the machines and robots is connected in a huge wireless system.’
Stone thought of Semyonov, with his intelligent search systems built from thousands of machines hooked together.
‘And all of the computing power — every chip in every robot and every flying bug — can be used at once,’ said Stone. He was beginning to get his head round it. The theory was one thing — but as a practical achievement, it was preternaturally impressive. Whole research labs, universities — whole industry sectors had worked on this kind of thing for years and made only baby steps forward. Yet here was the future — fully realised.
‘So this is the Machine, Oyang?’ asked Stone. ‘This is why Semyonov came to China?’
Oyang looked mystified. ‘No. This is not the Machine. Just a manufacturing facility. But I can tell you all the innovations you see here were Semyonov’s ideas. All his doing. He was a remarkable man, Professor Stone. We shall miss him a great deal.’ Oyang gave the impression that he missed Semyonov personally. Although anyone would miss a human money-tree, which was what Semyonov had been to him. ‘Everything here came from Semyonov xiansheng. But now he’s dead.’
‘So now Semyonov is dead, all this technology just — stops?’ asked Stone.
‘Possibly. Where can you find a person to understand it all?’ said Oyang, looking to left and right. ‘You can’t. So perhaps it is finished.’
‘What about the Machine? Is that finished too?’
‘The Machine, I believe is different. Steven Semyonov told me they had discovered something very important, and that was why he wanted to invest in China. And the Chinese scientists needed Semyonov.’
‘They needed him? Or his money?’
‘Money?’ Oyang laughed. ‘The money was simply evidence of his good faith. Nothing more. No one needed money.’
‘Twenty-five billion. That’s a lot of good faith.’
‘One, five, twenty-five… The amount was not important. The important thing was that it was all he had. And he was forbidden to leave China. That was the second condition that China imposed.’
‘It must have been a hell of a discovery they’d made to tempt him here,’ said Stone. ‘So what is this thing — the Machine?’ asked Stone.
‘I do not know. Like you, I would like to know,’ he said. ‘But let me tell you something, Stone. Semyonov said none of this would be possible without the Machine. That is why it matters so much. Especially now Semyonov is dead. We have to find it.’
It was like Oyang wanted to unburden himself. He’d already said that the Machine was extraordinarily powerful, and that the Americans and Russians and Chinese would fight to get it. But the Machine was already here in China. The Chinese leadership knew that, and that made it an extremely dangerous topic of discussion for Oyang, or anyone else.
Now, with the information he’d given to Stone back at his house, Oyang had just handed Stone the job of finding the Machine. A job which, rightly or wrongly, he thought was too dangerous to take on himself.
Chapter 33 — 9:26pm 2 April — Shanghai, China
Oyang’s men dropped Stone near the Pujiang Hotel on the river. It was the only one he could remember from his backpacking days. He had no intention of staying there of course. He waited till they’d gone and then made his way across the city in the darkness. The Shanghai evening took him into its dark, humid bosom. The warm breeze, the roar of traffic, the ambient smells of car exhaust and fried noodles from a thousand eateries open to the streets. Like Hong Kong, Shanghai teemed with even more people after dark.
For Stone it was the best time. He could go about as just another person in the hoards, rather than a “yellow-haired Ouzhouren” — a European, as Ying Ning termed him. He made for Xizang Street. The apartment block where Ying Ning had told him to stay.
The apartment was bare — just a single room and tiny bathroom. Stone checked it for bugs or hidden cameras as best he could. Found nothing — not that it mattered. He was hardly going to be chattering to anyone in there. For Stone this kind of lonely paranoia was normal life.
He took out Semyonov’s cryptic writings and connected his laptop to the Internet. Stone wasn’t about to take any notice of Robert Oyang’s injunction against making Internet searches. Especially not now.
Ironstone Forest 328 19.2 9.8229
Field Well 15 8.3 9.8218
Silvermine Field 169 15.9 9.8229
2 Trees 3 Trees 97 6.7 9.8219
Sitong 44 0.7 9.8249
It looked easy — so easy in fact that Stone wondered why Oyang hadn’t figured it for himself.
But it turned out it wasn’t easy. Stone tried sections large and small, and found, amongst other things, information on the Silvermine Bay Hotel, in Hong Kong, the fossilised trees in the Isle of Wight, and the web site of an Australian rugby league player named Malcom Twotrees. In other words, nothing.
— oO0Oo-
In the end Stone went out to eat. He went across some grass, picked his way through the cars and scooters across a snarled-up four-track road, and made for a cluster of street traders, stir-frying under the elevated highway. He ordered squid with chilli, noodles and beer and sat down at a trestle table. The cook shot oil into the pan from a squeezy bottle, and flames from the wok flashed in the darkness, half shutting his eyes against the smoke.
Stone’s watch said ten-thirty. He took out Semyonov’s hand-written note again, and looked at it, the light of the fire flickering on the paper. Something about the numbers had been playing with his subconscious. All the 9.8 figures on Semyonov’s scribblings. The values were almost the same but not quite. The differences were counted in ten thousandths of the total. A millimetre in a metre, or less than a metre in a kilometre. There must be significance in these tiny variations.