Flinx in Flux

by Alan Dean Foster

  She blinked. “You mean besides the people who buy our products?”

  “That’s right. Which big firm is going to be pulling money out of this world’s DNA?”

  “No big firm.” She eyed him in surprise. “I thought you knew. Coldstripe is an independent self-contained setup. Amee has backers and runs the whole operation here. Maxim and Derek and myself and the others—we are Coldstripe. Each of us owns a piece of the company. Do you really think they could hire people of that quality to come and live in a place like this for just a salary? We’re here because we have a chance to make our fortune. We’re all dependent on each other’s work. That’s why I was missed so much.”

  She put a hand on the shoulder opposite Pip, and he felt it burn into him. She had beautiful hands, with long graceful fingers and neatly trimmed nails. He did not try to shrug it away.

  “You warned Ms. Vandervort about your abductors?”

  “She’s taken steps. We were prepared to cope with industrial espionage, but ecofanatics don’t play by any rules but their own. They talked to me a lot when they weren’t asking questions. Trying to brainwash me, I guess. Their program, insofar as it could be called that, was to preserve the purity of all worlds ‘untouched’ by the Commonwealth. Whatever that means.”

  “To some people,” Flinx murmured, “purity is an end in itself.”

  “A dead end,” she said sharply. “Whether prodded by reasons of commerce or simply a desire to know, science always advances. If it stands still, then civilization dies. There’s no such thing as ecological purity on any world. Something’s always on top, socially and via the food chain. Oh, it’s not all one-sided. I’d be the first to agree with that. There are always the unscrupulous, who’d exterminate an entire species for a few million credits. We’re not like that here. Coldstripe is Church-certified. We’re not interested in damaging the natural order, only in using it. But we’re an easy target because we’re new and small.

  “Keep in mind we’re not interfering with sentient or even semisentient creatures here on Longtunnel. We’re dealing with fungi and slime molds and very basic organisms. We have a chance to use them to benefit all mankind. Developed under proper supervision, the lifeforms of Longtunnel have much to offer civilization, and I’m not just saying that because I have a chance to make a great deal of money while doing so. We’re not just involved with the decorative arts. Coldstripe is much more than Verdidion Weave.” Her expression wrinkled.

  “I guess some people can’t see that. They’d rather leave a world untouched, ravaged by an impossible climate, forever dark and unused. It’s the old story about the tree falling in the forest. If there’s no one around to hear it, does it make a sound? I say that if no one’s here to study and learn from Longtunnel’s beauty, then that beauty doesn’t exist. The people who kidnapped me want all that beauty left locked up and unseen. I can’t understand an attitude like that. Our work hurts no one and nothing. Those organisms we modify thrive in their altered states.” She sighed sadly.

  “The goal of these fanatics is to stop all research in our fields. They want to bring gengineering and its related disciplines to a dead halt. There are half a dozen branches of science they’d ban if they could. As for the ecological ‘purity’ they want to preserve, do they propose to ban evolution, too?

  “If they can stop Coldstripe, they can stop development here. The private research groups will pull out fast. Universities don’t want their people involved in a shooting match.”

  “What about requesting peaceforcer protection?”

  She laughed, not at him but at the idea. “Longtunnel’s so small that the outpost here doesn’t even rate official recognition yet. There’s just not enough people or development to warrant that kind of expenditure. We’re trying. We’re expanding as fast as we can, even trying to bring other, nondirectly competitive firms in so we can attract some attention. Until that happens we’re on our own.”

  “I can see why they’re so anxious to put a stop to your work here.”

  She nodded. “If they can shut Coldstripe down and drive us out, then the other outfits here will follow. The Commonwealth won’t step in because there isn’t enough property and personnel to justify intervention. The fanatics will seal up the whole place. No one will try to reestablish. Eventually it’ll all be forgotten.” She spread her hands in a gesture of helplessness.

  “All this potential will be lost. No more Verdidion Weave. No Flavor Cubes, no toxin-eating fungi, nothing. The floats will drift back to the wild, only their population will fall off in this area because they’ll no longer have easy, protected access to food.” There was sadness and passion in her voice.

  “Only a tiny portion of the caverns have been explored and charted. It takes so much time. This is the first world we’ve tried to settle where aerial surveys and mapping satellites are useless, because the only part of the planet we’re interested in is buried. Like a treasure chest. Even Cachalot could be mapped from orbit. You can’t do that with caverns. Some of the techniques the cartographers are having to use are thousands of years old. Longtunnel is Aladdin’s cave, Flinx, overflowing with biogold instead of coins. The jewels here are alive and mobile and need studying. We can’t let a bunch of madmen take that away from us. We won’t.”

  “They got to you once before. They may try again.”

  “We’ll be ready for them this time,” she said confidently. “You heard Amee. Security is in place. They won’t slip past port authority this time. Everyone coming in is to be triple-screened. Luggage is being hand searched. Now that the word’s out about what happened to me, everyone’s checking on everyone else. If the fanatics do have an operative working here, he or she won’t be able to go to the bathroom without being observed. They’re going to have to keep a low profile, or they’ll be noticed and brought in for questioning.” Her gaze rose to meet his.

  “I just want to be sure you understand what it is we’re trying to do here, Flinx. You sounded unsure, or at least questioning. It’s not just a matter of making money; every week, every month we make a major discovery that adds to the general store of human knowledge. Not just in ecology or geology but in a whole range of sciences. Longtunnel is unique. There’s nothing else like it anywhere in the Commonwealth.

  “Take the airway sensors. Nobody’s ever seen anything like them. The taxonomists are going crazy trying to decide if they need to create a whole new class to explain them. It’s tremendously exciting. Lifeforms living in ways we never suspected existed. That’s reason enough to fight to keep this installation functioning. We’re adding daily to humanx knowledge and humanx comfort. The thranx who are working here, they think they may have a line on a sulfide eater that can be gengineered to rebuild broken exoskeleton. You can’t regenerate chiton, but this stuff secretes it as a by-product. You plant the wound, wait, and it grows together like new.

  “Do you realize what that means to a thranx? You know how afraid they are of damaged exoskeleton. It’s about the severest kind of external injury they can suffer. They haven’t cracked the problem yet, but we’re trying to help. We’d split the profits from such a discovery. It would be a major medical advance in the treatment of thranx trauma and would save many lives. Isn’t that worth fighting for?”

  “I wouldn’t know.” He turned away from her and studied the wall. “I’m a little young to be debating the great ethical issues. I have enough trouble sorting out my own sense of ethics, let alone humanxkind’s.”

  She was obviously disappointed. “Then you don’t agree that what we’re doing here is worth the slight alterations to the ecosystem?”

  “Certainly they’re worth it to Coldstripe. All the rest—it’s not for me to say.”

  “But we’re not tampering with the ecology,” she said in exasperation. “The fungi that became Verdidion Weave still exist in a ‘natural’ state. We’re only growing the gengineered variety we developed. There’s no impact on the subterranean environment whatsoever.”

  He
turned so sharply that it startled her. “I’m only here because of you. I have no right to an opinion on the matter either way.” He took a step toward her, halted abruptly, and eyed the floor. “Also, it’s about time I was on my way.”

  “Leaving?” She looked puzzled. “You just got here. You said you were a student. I thought you were enjoying your tour of the facilities, meeting the other workers and learning about their projects. If that’s boring you, why not study Longtunnel itself? Check out an outfit and go spelunking.”

  He glanced back at her. “What do you care? Why are you interested in what I do?”

  “Because you saved my life, of course, and in doing so probably saved the whole installation. Because I like you.” She frowned at her own words. “That’s odd. I usually prefer older men. But there’s definitely something about you, Flinx. I’m talking about more than what we shared on the journey here.”

  “What?” He spoke more sharply than he had intended, but as always he suspected perception where there was only guilelessness.

  “You’re just—different.” She moved close to him. Pip fluttered her wings but remained on his shoulder as she slipped both arms around him from behind, not trying to pin his arms to his sides, just holding him. The contact made him shiver.

  “I guess I’m not making myself clear,” she whispered. “I’m better at making myself understood on the Hydroden. What I’m saying, Flinx, is that I more than just like you. I want you to stay here. Not to study. To be with me. We haven’t had much time to talk about that, about us. I’ve been so busy since I got back. All I’ve talked about is Longtunnel and its importance and my work. It’s time to talk about you and me.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about.” He wanted to sound utterly calm, cool, uninvolved, but the proximity of her body made that impossible.

  She sensed it, hugged him tighter, and pressed herself against him. “Isn’t there? You’ve become special to me. I like to think I’ve become a little special to you. I think ours is a relationship that, if nurtured, could grow into something really spe—”

  “Stop it!”

  The violence of his reaction shocked her into letting him go. “I thought. . . .”

  “You ‘thought.’ There’s nothing to think about, Clarity. You don’t understand. You don’t understand anything about me.”

  Alarmed by her master’s emotional outburst, Pip took to the air in search of an unseen enemy. In this instance the enemy was not visible because it was Flinx himself.

  Clarity’s confession of almost-love shattered the emotional balance Flinx had carefully nurtured the past weeks. It had nothing to do with the fact that she was so obviously attracted to him. He had dealt with that previously. It was because he was so deeply drawn to her, mentally as well as physically. She was intelligent and beautiful and older, but she did not talk down to him. It was the first time in his life he had experienced that kind of all-enveloping emotional surge in a woman. More than anyone else could know, he knew it was genuine. So he coped the only way he knew how to cope with what he perceived to be an intrusion—by pushing back, pushing away, and trying to maintain objectivity. It was frightening to discover that he could not be half as cold as he wanted to be. The reality of love was infinitely more difficult to deal with than the philosophical concept.

  “What’s wrong, Flinx? Tell me.”

  “You don’t really know me. You only know what I’ve let you see.”

  “Then let me see everything so I can understand,” she implored him. “Let me have that chance. I could get to know you well enough for us to be happy together.”

  “We could never be happy together,” he said decisively. “I can never be happy with anyone.”

  Hurt joined confusion in her voice. “You’re not making any sense.”

  There was nothing to do but plunge on ahead. The small craft that tossed and flung him down the rapids of his life never seemed to put into shore.

  “You’re a gengineer and a good one. Surely you’ve heard of the Meliorare Society.”

  “The—” She hesitated. Clearly that was not what she had expected him to say. But she recovered quickly. “Outlaws of the worst kind. Renegade eugenicists. They did genetic alteration of unborn human beings without consent or approval.”

  “That’s right.” Suddenly Flinx was very tired. “Their intentions were honorable, but their methodology blasphemous. They violated every law covering gene splicing and cosmetic DNA surgery that exists. I understand a few new ones were added to the code specifically to cope with their offenses.”

  “What about them? As I recall, the last of them was hunted down and hospitalized or mindwiped a long time ago.”

  “Not so very long ago. Not as long ago as the official records suggest. The last of them were active up until a few years back.” He eyed her strangely. “As a legitimate gengineer I expect you disapprove of what they did far more than would the average citizen.”

  “Of course I do. The details of their work were never made public. The government kept it as quiet as possible, but being in the field I had access during my studies to bits and pieces of information that fell through the cracks in security. I know what the Meliorares did, or tried to do. They were replicating the barbarities of the twentieth-century b.a. on a much larger scale.

  “Now they’re history. The Meliorares were criminals with scientific training. None of their work will ever make it into the legitimate gengineering journals. The government ordered all of it sealed.”

  “True. The only problem they couldn’t solve was that while they could lock up all Meliorare research, they couldn’t account for the results of all their experiments. Oh, they caught up with most of them, cured those they could, put those who were damaged beyond hope of a normal life out of their misery. But they didn’t find everyone. At least one of the Meliorare’s experimental subjects reached adulthood without giving himself away or manifesting any serious illness. There may have been others. Nobody knows. Not even the Church.”

  “I wasn’t aware of that. The final report on the matter, which is standard reading in gengineering histories, says that the last of the Society members was rounded up and dealt with years ago, and that all their work had been accounted for.”

  “Not all of it,” Flinx corrected her. “They didn’t get everyone.” His eyes were fastened on hers. “They didn’t get me.”

  Pip had finally settled down on a nearby railing. Scrap had moved away from Clarity to be close to his mother. He was confused and frightened by Flinx’s outburst and allowed Pip to shelter him beneath one wing.

  Clarity stared at the young man who had suddenly moved away from her. Finally she smiled—but it was a crooked, uncertain smile.

  “What kind of talk is that? ‘They didn’t get me.’ You aren’t old enough to have been a member of the Society, not even in its final days.”

  It was his turn to smile humorlessly. “I told you you didn’t understand anything. I wasn’t a member of the Society. I’m one of the experiments. Funny, isn’t it? I look normal.”

  “You are normal,” she replied with conviction. “You’re more normal than anyone I’ve ever met. Shy, yes, but that’s just another sign of normality.”

  “I’m not shy; I’m careful. I wear shadows to hide my self, I keep to the darkness and try not to leave even memories behind.”

  “You’ve certainly failed in my case. Flinx, you can’t be serious about this. There’s no way you could know in any case.”

  “I was on Moth when the last Society members fought the authorities and both groups blew themselves to hell. They were fighting over me. But I didn’t get blown up. I got away.” He did not tell her how he had escaped, because he still had no idea how he had done so, and it troubled him to think about it.

  Her eyes were searching. No doubt seeking the bulging forehead, the extra fingers, any physical manifestation of the possible mutations he was alluding to, he thought sardonically. She would not find anything. The changes that had been wrough
t in his system had been made while he was still in the womb. Only he thought they were visible.

  “I wasn’t born, Clarity. I was built. Constructed, conceived in a design computer.” He tapped the side of his head. “What’s up here is a perversion of nature. I’m just a working hypothesis. The people who thought me up are dead or wiped, so there’s no one left who knows what they were trying to make of me.

  “Naturally I’m as illegal as the Society members. Guilt by birth instead of association. If the authorities find out what I am, they’ll take me into custody and start poking and probing. If they determine that I’m harmless and certifiably normal, they may let me go free. If they find otherwise . . .”

  “You can’t be sure of this, Flinx. No matter what you’ve seen, or learned, or been told, there’s no way to be sure.”

  But he saw that besides shocking her, his confession had made her uncertain. Her attitude toward him was still hopeful, still affectionate, but more considered now. The unrestrained emotions had faded beneath the weight of the questions he had planted in her mind. It was shaming to spy on her feelings like that, but he could not have stopped himself had he wanted to. No longer was she certain of the man standing across from her. The simplistic lens she had been seeing him through had been permanently shattered. With it had gone something he feared might be lost to him forever.

  Not that any choice had been left to him. It was important for her to back off, to realize what a freak she was dealing with. Because he knew he had been on the verge of falling hopelessly and dangerously in love with her, and he was not yet in a position to permit that. He might never be.

  “Flinx, I don’t know what to make of what you’ve just told me. I don’t know how I can believe any of it, even though you obviously do. All I know for certain is that you’re good and kind and caring. That much I don’t have to submit to inquiry! I’ve observed it, experienced it. I don’t think any of that was . . .” She hesitated before hazarding the word. “. . . programmed into you before you were born. Those characteristics are functions of your personality, and they’re what attracted me to you.”