by Melissa Good
Dev looked at the letters on the screen for a while. “There seems to be a pattern, but I am not sure what it is. I would like some time to study it.”
The annunciator chimed.
“That must be the doc.” Jess stood up and locked the pad, slipping it into her backpack and locking that as well. She set it down next to Dev’s and went to open the door. “Morning,” she greeted Doctor Dan.
He looked slightly amused. “It is, and a relatively amusing one for me, having to read the night operations report.”
Jess smiled and shrugged. “We were hungry. Those vegetable things don’t do much for me. “I kept thinking about Jonton’s jumping shrimp.”
Kurok had his Drake’s Bay overshirt on and he leaned a shoulder against the door opening, his hands in the front single pocket of it. “Well, I can’t promise breakfast will be any better, but let’s go get it over with so I can give you a tour and then get my programming review with Dev done.”
Dev settled her scanner over her shoulder. “Doctor Dan. I don’t think I’m qualified to review anything you have done,” she said. “I only just barely got out of the basic class.”
“Tch tch tch.” Kurok made a clucking noise with his tongue as they joined him in the hall. “Dev, that’s not at all true. If you hadn’t ended up being assigned so spectacularly, I had you marked down for a place in the lab with me.”
Dev caught her breath in surprise.
“What did you think? That I was going to let you work in the kitchen?” He smiled at her expression. “Come on now. You knew you were an advanced student.”
For a moment, Dev took herself out of that space they were walking through, her mind throwing her into the sudden question of which she would have liked better. Staying at station? Working with Doctor Dan?
That had been her dream of dreams.
Now? Dev glanced at Jess, who was blinking into an errant beam of sun, a brief flash of it lighting up her pale blue eyes as they never did downworld.
“But I’m sure you’re glad things worked out as they did,” Doctor Dan said placidly. “Am I right?”
Dev cleared her throat gently. “I really like my assignment very much, Doctor Dan.” She saw Jess’s lips curve upward. “But thank you for letting me know about working with you.”
He chuckled. “Well stop being so modest. You’ve got no reason to be.”
Jess grinned at him. “I’m trying to talk her into going for the senior rank they just opened. She thinks it’s going to piss them all off.”
“Well, she’s got a point,” Kurok admitted. “But I suspect they’ll get over it.” He eyed Dev. “After all, they did with me.”
“Hah!” Jess chortled. “She tell you what they all call her?”
Dev felt her skin warming. “Jess.”
Doctor Dan’s eyes twinkled at her. “Now, Dev. How bad could it be if Jesslyn puts up with it?” He clapped his hand on Dev’s shoulder. “I want to show you the structure outline for what will become your colleagues some day, and I very much value your opinion about it, since you know how it feels from the inside.”
Dev didn’t deny how excellent that made her feel. “The other techs refer to me as Rocket,” she admitted, as they moved down the passageway. “I don’t quite understand why.”
Doctor Dan muffled a laugh. “Really?”
“Rocket Raccoon,” Jess said. “I think it’s cute as hell.” She eyed Dev. “Just like she is.”
Dev sighed. “I don’t think I look like that animal, Jess.”
Kurok patted her shoulder again. “Did your cohorts give you this name on their own, Dev? They came up with it?”
“Yes.”
“That’s excellent,” he said in a serious tone. “That really is, Dev. It means they accept you as one of them.” He led the way past the drop tube and around the curve of the station, toward the center. “I remember when they started calling me DJ, you know? After I came to Interforce.”
Dev listened with interest. “Really?”
He nodded. “You could of course use my first name, Daniel, or Dan, which is a short version of it, but they found something completely different to call me, and it took me a while to realize what that meant.”
“Hm.” Dev glanced at Jess. “I remember you asked me what I wanted to be called.”
Jess nodded. “I liked Dev. It’s short and sounds good. But Rocket is a lot of fun.”
Dev dropped a step or so behind her companions as Doctor Dan explained the parts of the station they were passing. They were on the residential level, and most of the people they passed were natural born, often turning to watch them go by.
“So, up at the apogee of station, we have the classrooms and the common areas,” Doctor Dan said. “All the children learn up there. I’m sure Dev has told you about it.”
“She did,” Jess said. “All the kids?” She sounded skeptical.
“Actually, yes,” Kurok said. “Until they’re around six or seven, all the children learn together. Why make separate classrooms? They all learn to read the same way.”
“We all don’t read, Doctor Dan,” Dev said, as they came to a cross path and turned. “I remember some of the sets in my classes couldn’t.”
“Well that’s true.” Kurok led them into a clean, brightly lit cafeteria that wasn’t too different than the one at Base Ten. “Come, let’s get some breakfast, and then we can finish talking.” He took a tray and they followed him, taking a selection of items and moving along the line.
Doss saw them and hurried over. “Good morning, Daniel. I see you have our guests with you.”
“Incredibly observant of you, Randall.” Doctor Dan smiled gently at him. “Will you join us? I was just explaining to agent Drake how our school framework is set up. Doctor Doss developed the class structure, Jess. His specialty is developmental sciences.”
Caught between pleasure and a suspicion he was being made fun of, Doss managed a slightly plastic smile. “Well yes, of course.” He followed them to a table near the wall of the café where they had a good view of the outside of the station. “I hope the accommodations were acceptable, Agent Drake?”
Jess settled into her seat next to Dev, pausing to look outside as she caught sight of motion. “What’s that?” She pointed at a vehicle moving past the plas panel with mechanical arms extending from it.
Dev glanced past her. “Maintenance. I think they’re cleaning the exhaust vanes.”
“Huh.” Jess watched a moment then focused back on Doss. “Bunk’s fine.” She studied his round, moonlike face. “So you the guy in charge?”
Kurok chuckled, but kept his attention on the toast he was putting jam on.
Doss sighed. “That’s the theory, you know. I’m the director of the science part of the station, of Bioforce.” He took a sip of his tea. “Is this your first time in space...ah...”
“Call me, Jess.” Jess bit gingerly into the protein cubes on her tray. “Yeah, so far it’s pretty cool with all the floating around stuff. I’m not so crazy about the chow.” She swallowed then shrugged and forked up another cube.
“Is it so different downworld?” Doss seemed very glad to be on a safe subject. He was dressed in a space jumpsuit, pale blue in color, with the soft space boots everyone on station wore. “The food I mean?”
“Very,” Kurok answered. “Jesslyn is far more accustomed to fungus, seaweed and animal protein.” He munched his toast. “I actually prefer that myself.”
“Really?” Doss studied him. “I’ve never heard you complain about the food here, Daniel.”
“What would the point of that be?” Doctor Dan inquired. “This is where I live.” He glanced at Dev. “Which do you prefer, Dev?”
Dev didn’t even have to think about it. “Downside. Jess has introduced me to some really excellent meals.” She straightened up a little in her seat. “And at the base, they make special things called brownies.”
“Oh!” Kurok broke into a grin. “They still make those?”
“Th
ey do,” Jess said. “Only on special occasions, but they do.” She scooped up more of the cubes and swallowed them without chewing much. “These don’t taste like anything.”
Dev had to admit that was true. She had always enjoyed meals on station, but now that she had downside to compare it to, the items did seem bland. “I had clam stew at Jess’s birthplace. That was really excellent.”
“It is,” Doctor Dan said, with an easy smile. “One of the few places they make it with all those shallows to clam in.” He glanced at Doss. “Drake’s Bay has all sorts of surprises, you know.”
Doss eyed him warily.
Jess regarded her now empty tray. “We done here? What’s next?” She leaned on her forearms. “Gonna show me how you grow stuff up here?”
Her eyes were on Kurok, her senses were pinned to Doss, and her ears picked up the increased breathing and the shift of his body against the chair.
“If you like, sure.” Kurok stood and picked up his tray. “But first, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get a scan of you into our analyzer, with all your specialness.” His eyes twinkled at her. “I’m going to enjoy scaring the living daylights out of every colleague I have.”
Doss stood up as well, glancing from him to Jess. “Daniel, what do you mean?”
“You’ll see.” Kurok waved them along. “Let’s go, you two. Maybe I can figure out how to get this damn machinery to cough up some brownies later.”
DEV SAT ON a stool behind the genetiscan console. She watched Doctor Dan tune the leads for the sensors poised above Jess’s relaxed body as it lay on the examining table. “Just a moment more.”
“What’s Doss’s background?” Jess asked, her eyes studying the machinery over her head.
“Eh?” Kurok looked up from his fiddling. “Early brain stem development. I wasn’t kidding. He did design the class structure.” He paused. “Why?”
“He got family downside?”
“I have no idea. Never thought about it. I’ve known Randall for many years, and he’s got the imagination of a sea slug.” Kurok finished his calculations. “Just lie still for a moment, would you?”
“Sure.” Jess closed her eyes and to all intents and purposes went to sleep.
“Perfect.” Doctor Dan started the scan, leaning forward and watching in fascination as the advanced heuristic device parsed through Jess’s biology. “Look at that bone structure.”
Thus invited, Dev hopped off the stool and came closer, peering past her mentor’s shoulder at the screen. “Is it different?”
“Oh yes, look.” Kurok traced a pattern on the display. “It’s five or six times denser than average, and do you see this structure here? In my knee, or yours, Dev, we’d have far less of these arches.” He traced another line. “And there are ten times more ligament attachment points here.”
Dev looked over the console at Jess, who had one eye open peering back at her in some amusement. “That’s amazing.”
Jess closed her eye and shook her head.
The scan moved up Jess’s body, slowing a little as it came over her chest and recorded the double lung structure that allowed Jess to breathe water. “Just amazing.” Doctor Dan shook his head. “I’ve been wanting a look at those since we were in that water.”
“My gills?” Jess queried.
“Exactly.” Doctor Dan came around the console and approached her. “I don’t know who did the work, but I will tell you, as someone who has done a bit of this, they were good.” He leaned on the table, regarding her. “That’s not an easy change.”
Jess folded her hands over her stomach. “Always surprised me it worked as well as it does,” she said. “First time I got my head held under the water to force it, I thought I was going to croak.”
Kurok studied her. “She did that?”
Jess shook her head. “My father did. It got picked up in a scan, and he had to prove it had a purpose.”
“Hm.” Doctor Dan frowned. “No way was that a random mutation. It’s far too specific.”
She shrugged slightly. “I tested in the year after that so it just became a note on my med.”
A soft sound chimed overhead. A female voice followed it. “Doctor Kurok please contact the Director, Doctor Kurok, please contact the Director.”
“All right I heard you.” Kurok went back to the console and pressed a few keys, putting a commlink into his ear. “This is Dan Kurok.”
Dev moved away from the console so as not to appear to listen, even though she thought Doctor Dan probably did not mind. She went over to Jess and put her hands on the surface of the table.
“Hi,” Jess said. “Like my insides?”
“I like all your sides,” Dev readily responded. “Does this make you be in discomfort?”
“Nah.” Jess stretched out a little and then relaxed. “Doc’s okay. And I don’t mind, my guts are what they are, you know?” She twiddled her thumbs. “I got over them being a novelty a long time ago, though I gotta tell you it was worth the look on the medic’s face the first time I got sent to the tank.”
“Okay.” Kurok put the comms link down and went back to the console. “We’re invited to lunch with staff.” He rolled his eyes slightly. “I think he’s just anxious to get the sign off on Dev’s design to tell the truth, and he knows if he keeps annoying me I might speed that up.”
“Make ’em wait,” Jess said. “Dev promised to show me the floating place up top.”
“Ah, the null grav gym.” Doctor Dan lauged. “You do enjoy the null, don’t you?”
“I do. It reminds me of being under water,” Jess said. “Only less wet.”
“That knife wound finally completely healed I see,” Kurok commented, his eyes on the screen. “Bet that was a relief.” He glanced up over the screen. “All done.”
“You’re faster than the meds at base.” Jess levered herself up off the table and got onto her feet. “Now what? We get to see your side of the business? I wanna see where Dev came from.”
Kurok was typing on an entry pad. “Absolutely.” He finished and saved the dataset, sending it to his privately coded storage. “I even have pictures of Dev as a baby. Interested?”
“Hell yes,” Jess said cheerfully. “She’s seen my snotty infant shots.”
“Yes, I have, too.” Kurok’s eyes twinkled a little. “So let’s go give you the backstage tour, shall we? And, Dev, I got a note from your friend Gigi that she’d love to meet up with us to have some tea.”
“Excellent.” Dev put her hands behind her back and rocked up and down a little in her issue boots, glad she was in her Interforce uniform, with its dark piping, her insignia neatly polished on either side of her neck. “I would like to see Gigi. Is she still assigned to the Director?”
“She is.” Kurok marshaled them out the door and led the way down the hall. “She’s anxious to hear how you’ve been doing.” He glanced at Dev. “You’re free to tell her what you like, but I’d go a little light on the details if I were you.”
“The gory details?” Jess asked. “That’ll be a short conversation.”
“Mmm.”
“I can tell her about the bear,” Dev commented. “That should be pretty safe.”
“Except for the two-inch-long fangs.”
THE CRECHE MADE her squirmy, Jess realized in relatively short order. She paused inside the door to a large, light hued chamber, full of rows upon rows of small mechanized units, where workers wore white jumpsuits and headcovers as they moved down the lines.
“So, these are the incubators.” Doctor Dan led them over to the nearest set, peering inside one. It was full of a rosy colored fluid and contained a small, twitching form. “That’s a pre-natal bio alt.”
Jess’s eyes got wider as she regarded the thing inside. “A what?”
“A baby, before it’s born.” Kurok muffled a smile. “When they’re close to birth stage, we transfer them into a birthing unit for their last month of growth before being born.”
Jess gave Dev a sideways look. “Is
that the egg thing?”
Dev nodded. She’d been in here many times, of course, and it was a little funny to see Jess’s somewhat alarmed reaction. “I told Jess I came from an egg in space and she thought I was making a joke.”
“This is weird,” Jess said. “Can we see an egg?”
Kurok motioned them on along. The tenders turned to watch them as they passed, the pale walls and floors making the dark jumpsuits Dev and Jess were wearing a startling contrast. “There are a thousand individuals in here, representing fifty different sets.” They passed the last row in which the units were empty. “And those are waiting for Dev’s successors.”
Jess peeked inside one. “So that’s supposed to mimic a uterus?” She sounded dubious.
“Mmm...except the fluid is artificial amniotic and the embryos are fed artificial nutrients.” Kurok palmed another door and gestured them past him. “And it accelerates the process. Only takes three months instead of nine.”
They went through a connecting passage and into a second chamber, this one quiet and dimly lit, and full of rings in motion, with plastic ovals turning slowly as they rotated. Each one was roughly arm length in size, and here the minders sat at consoles full of screens they intently monitored.
One of them got up and smiled as they approached. “Hello, Doctor Dan.”
“Hello, Seth,” Doctor Dan replied. “This is Jesslyn Drake, from Interforce, and you will remember her partner, Dev.”
“Yes, of course,” Seth said. “We were told you would be visiting. Welcome back, Dev.”
“Thank you,” Dev replied. “Jess was interested in seeing a hatching chamber processed.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” Jess muttered.
“We’re about to open one,” Seth said. “Would you like to watch?” He didn’t wait, but led them over to a table surrounded by technicians. They’d removed one of the ovals from the moving rings and had it cradled in holders.
“You moved around like that before you were born?” Jess whispered, pointing at the rings.
“Yes,” Dev said.
“Explains your flying style.” Jess made sure she was well behind the rest of them. As they clustered around the egg, it was popped open. She warily eyed the interior, which seemed to be a large ball of goo, quickly wiped down by a technician to reveal a small, naked, gasping baby.
