By Linda Chamberlain

This story appeared in the first issue of LifeQuest, May 1987, published by Linda Chamberlain and her husband, Fred Chamberlain, both of whom are now Life Members of CI. Linda Chamberlain was the First President of Alcor, and she served again in that role in 2001, after four years as its Executive Director, Manager of its Suspension Team and (later) as its Membership Administrator.

Linda was first certified as a CPR / First Aid Instructor in the early 1970's, as an EMT in 1996, and now is employed by a major hospital in its hand therapy unit, where rehabilitation of those with disabling hand injuries is the main focus.

Her other lifeextension related activities have included serving as a Founding Director of the Southern California Aging Association and as a Director of the Longevity Foundation during the late 1970's, as the President of Manrise Corporation during its support of Alcor in the mid1970's, as a Director of Trans Time, Inc. in the early 1980's, and as the President of the Lake Tahoe Life Extension Festival in the later 1980's, where an annual gettogether was hosted for cryonicists of all groups. Linda has been active in cryonics ever since she served as the Administrative Coordinator for the Los Angeles Third National Cryonics Conference in 1970, sponsored by the Cryonics Society of California.

Several openings began to appear in different areas of the spherical automaton's surface. Out of these openings grew slender, rigid, cylindrical pigtails spreading in different directions, following the paths of the disassembly robots. Alongside the pigtails grew broader, flatter appendages which would function like conveyor belts. At a distance from the computersphere of about ten times its own diameter, pods at the ends of the pigtails opened like hands with eight opposing fingers, in four sets of two.

Back at the main computersphere, the parts it had been disassembling and stockpiling were being passed along by the conveyer belt fingers to the robotic assemblers at their ends. Here, these pieces were being assembled back into the same types of objects from which the parts had just been disassembled. The difference, obvious from the dynamic behavior being viewed on the screen, was that the original objects were defective and couldn't function, while the reassembled objects functioned perfectly.

As the assembly progressed, the remote assemblers began to put out their own tethers and conveyer belts at the ends of which other assemblers and disassemblers began to develop. A network of robot appendages, rather like a living, working scaffolding, thus grew within the work area, all controlled by the original computer sphere which first entered the cell. The display shifted from work area to work area. Other computer spheres continued to enter new work areas. Bill could envision thousandsor could it be tens of thousands?of computerspheres, disassemblers and assemblers, all working in concert in an uncountable number of work areas, to repair those work areas and all the floating, functional parts within them. "Are they excavating beneath the hospital?" Carolanne asked Bill. "I don't know what it is," Bill replied. It's ridiculous, but what else can it be?"

"Nothing I've ever seen on the surface of the Earth," replied Bill. Bill and Carolanne exchanged looks of astonishment.

Carolanne drew back from the screen and noticed her surroundings. From the time the nurse had left Bill and Carolanne here in the observation room to wait for Dr. Van Deusen, their intrigue with the drama on the screen had eliminated all sense of waiting.

The door opened and a tall, white haired physician entered. His face was round and florid and his deep, blue eyes sparkled more from merriment than from illumination. The corners of his mouth broke open in a broad smile as he looked at his patient, so occupied by the ballet on the screen that he had not even noticed the doctor's entrance. He nodded a greeting to Carolanne.

"Ahhh, Dr. Van Deusen." Bill whirled his wheelchair to greet the doctor. "It may not look like it at first glance, but that is, without a doubt, a hard hat area!" Bill's face glowed with appreciation for what he had been observing on the screen in front of him. "It's not exactly the kind of construction work I understand you do. You build houses, don't you?" Bill nodded. "But I thought you would appreciate it." The smile on the physician's face was like that of a father watching a small child fascinated with some new wonder he had discovered.

"That's the healing process going on inside your leg, Mr. Cross. You've probably noticed the nurses switching the device on your cast on and off. We're monitoring progress in your leg by telemetry through a sterile microlead that penetrates to the vicinity of the break."

"That?" Bill turned his wheelchair back to face the screen. "That's going on inside my leg?" "It's just one small application of what we call nanotechnology." Dr. Van Deusen walked up to stand beside Cross's wheelchair.

"What kind of technology?" Caro lanne asked. "Nanotechnology. Nano means very small. A billionth. Nanotechnology refers to those types of technologies which deal on the molecular level.

In this case, we're watching molecular repair machines inside your cells." "That's actually going on inside Bill's leg, right now?" Carolanne asked the doctor incredulously. "Do you have nanoTV cameras in there? How could you do that?"

"What you're watching is a computer simulation. The exact positions of repair machines and their working surfaces are available from millions of repair sites, and a small computer in your cast is constantly switching from one site to another, keeping track of the process.

This information is usually piped to a lab where technicians study the repair processes, but we can view it in this room, too, so patients can better understand what's going on.

Concluded in the next issue.