“Now that we’re all here, let’s get started,” Wilson said. “If you’ll check your PDAs, you’ll see some images I sent to you.” Everyone in the room aside from Wilson, Stone and Lowen reached for their PDAs. “What you’re seeing there is a sample of Liu Cong’s blood. In it you’ll see red and white blood cells, platelets and also something else. That something else looks like SmartBlood nanobots. For those of you from Earth, SmartBlood is the non-organic substance that replaces blood in Colonial Defense Forces soldiers. It has superior oxygen-handling properties and other benefits.”

“How did that get into his blood?” Meyer asked.

“That’s an interesting question,” Wilson said. “Almost as interesting as the other question I have, which is when did it get into his blood.”

“If this is a Colonial Union product, then it would seem that it would have gotten into his system out here,” Bourkou said.

“I would have thought so, too,” Wilson said. “But then I got a closer look at the nanobots. Go ahead and look at the second image I sent you.”

They turned to look at the second picture, which showed two similar-looking objects, one next to the other.

“The first object is a close-up of what we found in Liu’s blood,” Wilson said. “The second is a close-up of an actual SmartBlood nanobot, which was taken from me, a couple of hours ago.” He held up his thumb to show the pinprick there.

“They look the same to me,” Meyer said.

“Yes, and I suspect they’re supposed to,” Wilson said. “It’s not until you look inside of them, in substantial detail, that you notice particular differences. If all we had was the Clarke’s equipment, we wouldn’t have been able to see the differences. Even with the Colonial Union’s top-of-the-line equipment, it would have taken some time. Fortunately, we have some new toys. So go ahead and flip to the next image.”

Everyone forwarded to the third image.

“I don’t expect any of you to know what you’re looking at here, but those with some technical experience with SmartBlood will note two major differences with the internal structure,” Wilson said. “The first has to do with how the nanobots handle oxygen sequestration. The second has to do with the radio receiver in the ’bot.”

“What do these differences mean?” Abumwe asked.

“With regard to oxygen sequestration, it means the ’bots are able to hold on to substantially more oxygen molecules,” Wilson says. “It doesn’t do anything with them, though. SmartBlood is designed to facilitate oxygen transfer to body tissue. What’s in Liu’s blood, however, doesn’t do that. It just holds on to the oxygen. It goes, grabs the oxygen in the lungs, and doesn’t let go. There’s less oxygen for the actual red blood cells to carry, and less for the body tissues to take in.”