The Binary Born

* * * Two Years Later * * *

The first nearly invisible, gossamer nanotube came down over their heads and sparkled where its length crossed the disk of the late-afternoon Sun. It proceeded slowly over the next hour to its final connection point atop the man-made mountain in the middle of the ocean. As he watched, Dr. Evans thought of Quinn, a habit that he practiced just about every 5 minutes of every day. To quell his boredom, Quinn had created several more Artificial Intelligences like himself. He even used his army of nano-machines to construct for each of them their own computers from the rock material surrounding the ship. At turnover, he and a few of his companions took a new craft they had assembled en route and continued powered flight towards the next asteroid where they restocked and rebuilt, readying for the next leg of their journey. Out into the cold Kuiper belt they swung, where, hopping from rock to rock, building more and more ships to house the expanding family Quinn had created. From here on, Jacob relayed messages between Dr. Evans and Quinn. Scattering through the belt, they constructed the largest interferometer ever imagined. Hundreds of small radio-telescopes, placed in stable orbits. Combined, their effective lens size was 50 AU. His army of hundreds of AI ships helped create this wonder in just over a year. One year later, the signal Quinn had hoped for came.

* * *

Just as the tip of man's first stairway to heaven locked itself into place, balanced a few meters below the ground and stabilized by heavy electromagnets, a cheer went up, and a huge party went into full swing on the island. Dr. Evans was there, but he wasn't celebrating, he had stepped off to the side to answer a call. It was from Jacob. The message was pre-recorded and short, a forward from Quinn.

Dr. Evans,