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cargo-cult aspect puts a new spin on the old Lunar von Neumann factory idea, but Bingo and Marek say they think it should work until we can bootstrap all the way to a native nanolithography ecology; we run the whole thing from Earth as a training lab and ship up the parts that are too difficult to make on-site as we learn how to do it properly. We use FPGAs for all critical electronics and keep it parsimonious—you’re right about it buying us the self-replicating factory a few years ahead of the robotics curve. But I’m wondering about on-site intelligence. Once the comet gets more than a couple of light minutes away—”
    â€œYou can’t control it. Feedback lag. So you want a crew, right?”
    â€œYeah. But we can’t send humans—way too expensive. Besides, it’s a fifty-year run even if we build the factory on a chunk of short-period Kuiper belt ejecta. And I don’t think we’re up to coding the kind of AI that could control such a factory any time this decade. So what do you have in mind?”
    â€œLet me think.” Pamela glares at Manfred for a while before he notices her. “Yeah?”
    â€œWhat’s going on? What’s this all about?”
    Franklin shrugs expansively, dreadlocks clattering. “Manfred’s helping me explore the solution space to a manufacturing problem.” He grins. “I didn’t know Manny had a fiancée. Drink’s on me.”
    She glances at Manfred, who is gazing into whatever weirdly colored space his metacortex is projecting on his glasses, fingers twitching. Coolly: “Our engagement was on hold while he thought about his future.”
    â€œOh, right. We didn’t bother with that sort of thing in my day; like, too formal, man.” Franklin looks uncomfortable. “He’s been very helpful. Pointed us at a whole new line of research we hadn’t thought of. It’slong-term and a bit speculative, but if it works, it’ll put us a whole generation ahead in the off-planet infrastructure field.”
    â€œWill it help reduce the budget deficit, though?”
    â€œReduce the—”
    Manfred stretches and yawns: The visionary is returning from planet Macx. “Bob, if I can solve your crew problem, can you book me a slot on the deep-space tracking network? Like, enough to transmit a couple of gigabytes? That’s going to take some serious bandwidth, I know, but if you can do it, I think I can get you exactly the kind of crew you’re looking for.”
    Franklin looks dubious. “ Gigabytes? The DSN isn’t built for that! You’re talking days. And what do you mean about a crew? What kind of deal do you think I’m putting together? We can’t afford to add a whole new tracking network or life-support system just to run—”
    â€œRelax.” Pamela glances at Manfred. “Manny, why don’t you tell him why you want the bandwidth? Maybe then he could tell you if it’s possible, or if there’s some other way to do it.” She smiles at Franklin. “I’ve found that he usually makes more sense if you can get him to explain his reasoning. Usually.”
    â€œIf I—” Manfred stops. “Okay, Pam. Bob, it’s those KGB lobsters. They want somewhere to go that’s insulated from human space. I figure I can get them to sign on as crew for your cargo-cult self-replicating factories, but they’ll want an insurance policy: hence the deep-space tracking network. I figured we could beam a copy of them at the alien Matrioshka brains around M31—”
    â€œKGB?” Pam’s voice is rising. “You said you weren’t mixed up in spy stuff!”
    â€œRelax, it’s just the Moscow Windows NT user group, not the FSB. The uploaded crusties hacked in and—”
    Bob is watching him oddly. “Lobsters?”
    â€œYeah.” Manfred stares right back. “ Panulirus interruptus uploads.