The best working hypothesis was still that it was some kind of massively advanced replicating technology, endlessly self-repairing, running on a substrate far finer than the atomic granularity of the Chinese nanotech in the forge vats. Nuclear-scale femtotech, perhaps, or even some kind of replicating machinery cobbled together from the basic structural units of space-time. Working with such materials would, Nick Thale had told her, be akin to trying to build a functioning lathe out of wet spaghetti.
