Analog Science Fiction and Fact - March 2014

by Penny Publications

Neriah touched a control on the side of the receptacle. Its top half slid aside, revealing Jeremy lying there on his back, arms folded, earphones cupping the sides of his head, dark goggles covering his eyes.

  "This seems primitive," Mike said. "Why can't he just be on a holodeck?"

  Neriah said, "Those are fine for training or if you're immersed in something that takes place within a single room. But if you're supposed to be traveling cross-country or just inside a large building or a starcraft, you need more space. In this case, it's virtual space."

  "Should we wake him?"

  "Opening the receptacle closes the virt program. He'll come around in a moment."

  Sure enough, Jeremy began to stir; even through the darkened goggles, Mike could see his eyes fluttering. His hands fell to his sides for a moment, then Jeremy groaned and he took off the headphones and goggles. He looked up at Mike and Neriah. "The hell with both of you! You have no idea what I was experiencing in there—no right to interrupt it."

  Neriah said, "This is important."

  "It had better be—" He sat up expectantly. "Is it Julia? You've heard from her, haven't you?"

  I really didn't want to witness this, Mike thought. As much as I dislike the man, I wouldn't wish this pain upon anybody.

  "Jeremy," Neriah said. "We haven't heard from her. We've heard about her." "That means... she's dead, isn't she?" Neriah cleared her throat. "Yes. I'm afraid she is."

  Jeremy clasped his hands over his eyes and began to weep. "I knew it," he muttered. "The goddam Jenregar. I knew it. I... I was with her just now. In the virt. It was our honeymoon— on the Moon. Watching the Earth go through its phases in the same spot in the sky day after day..."

  "I'm sorry," Neriah said.

  "And—in the goddam virt, I was so happy— but none of that happiness carries over once you leave it. It's as if it's all a wonderful dream—but nothing more." Jeremy fell silent for a moment, then asked, "How did it happen?"

  As Neriah explained the circumstances of the discovery of Julia Sheffield's body, Mike stood silently. He couldn't find any words, and didn't want to intrude upon Jeremy's grieving, anyway. After a time, Jeremy swung his legs over the side of the receptacle. "I want to hurt them," he said. "I want to kill them all."

  "Then think, " Neriah said. "Is there anything you saw while you were on that Jenregar ship that might help us?"

  "I... had to wonder how they were getting Human and Jenregar genetic material to bond together. I don't know much about biology, but wouldn't they be pretty different?"

  Mike said, "We still don't know that much about their biology. We don't know if it uses some analogy to our own DNA, or whether there's another way of transferring characteristics down to the next generation."

  Jeremy slid down to the floor and stood on shaky legs. Neriah started to grab his arm, but Jeremy waved her away. "Why are you here, Mike?"

  Mike hesitated, and Neriah broke in: "I asked him to be here."

  "Have a look at the freak, huh, the virthead?"

  Mike said, "Jeremy, I'm here for the same reason as Neriah—is there anything you know that can help us fight the Jenregar?"

  Jeremy said, "The only thing I can think of is to copy what they're doing. They're becoming more Human in a way. We have to become a bit like the Jenregar."

  "I was saying the same thing with Damian and Luisa. We have to figure out how to use their abilities against them."

  "You make it sound so academic, Mike. What do you know of real suffering?"

  It was all Mike could do to keep from reciting a litany of his own life's tragedies, large and small, from being targeted for a beating by a group of three other seventeen-year-old boys at school, to being sentenced to death in absentia from countless pulpits of various religions to going on an exploratory mission to witness two star systems colliding that ended in the death of his longtime lover. But I won't be that petty, Mike thought. To Jeremy, he only said, "This isn't about what you think of me."

  Jeremy said, "What do you know of real sacrifice? What would you ever be willing to commit to, to save the world—or at least, the world that matters most to Humanity?"

  Sacrifice, Mike thought. That's it! He looked at Jeremy, then Neriah, and said, "That's exactly right. That's what it's going to take to really hurt the Jenregar."

  Neriah asked, "What do you mean?"

  "Sacrifice. Listen, Damian and Luisa suffered tortures almost beyond understanding—not just the pain and suffering, but being made into something that's almost not Human."

  "Damian's mouth," Neriah said. "Luisa's arm."

  "Exactly right. We have to sabotage the Jenregar's most distinctive feature—how it uses pheromones to communicate with itself and adapt its surroundings."

  Neriah said, "Like somehow giving its individuals a message telling them to retreat from Earth, or something?"

  "When I took them on at Korolev Habitat, we sprayed some of the Jenregar individuals with pheromones that signaled all the others that they'd died. They ran all over themselves, half of them trying to carry the other half into the recyclers."

  "They won't fall for that trick again," Jeremy said.

  "You're right," Neriah said. "We have intel that shows us they've taken precautions against any attempts to spray their mounds— plenty of sensors, force screens—we have to come up with a different way of delivering those pheromones, or whatever we use."

  Mike said, "And I'd bet we could sure come up with plenty of new ones—dozens or hundreds, maybe—keep the Jenregar guessing, and so busy that it can't adapt quickly enough to fight us effectively."

  Neriah asked, "But how do we target them?"

  "We know the Jenregar are looking to experiment on more Humans. But what if we, say, infected some of those Humans with bio-weapons—something that could spread through a Jenregar hive before they could stop it?"

  Jeremy said, "Like a disease, or at least one of those pheromones—something that would damage them or keep them from fighting."

  "The only problem," Mike said, "is that you're looking at a suicide mission—in fact, worse than that, because you're essentially going to be tortured and mutilated before you die."

  They stood in silence for a moment, among the virtuality receptacles. Then Mike noticed Jeremy was looking all around, as if seeing those long rows of receptacles for the first time. Jeremy said, "Hear me out. It seems to me that what would make a lot of people hesitate to take one of these missions is the part about the torture. Doesn't that seem right?"

  Mike said, "The part about dying makes me hesitate. But I take the point. There are things I might die for. But I'd want it to be quick and painless if at all possible."

  Jeremy slapped the side of his virt receptacle. "Here's your answer. You don't have to have a big chamber like this to lose yourself in a virt. We do it this way because people spend hours and days in them. We monitor people's vitals, we make sure they're hooked up to food drips and that their waste flows away from them—don't look at me with that disapproving expression, Mike, virt addiction isn't what we're talking about here."

  Neriah asked, "So what are we talking about?"

  "We can implant chips inside people that can run virt programs. You said it yourself, Mike—it's a suicide mission, so we don't need them hooked up to a receptacle to monitor their vitals or take care of them. They can be running the most intense virts we can give them, and they'll never realize where they are or feel a bit of the torture. We take volunteers—"

  "It's still a suicide mission," Mike said.

  "But it's not a suicide plus torture mission. Even so, I don't suppose you'd want to volunteer."

  "I have to admit, I don't. I hope to live a little longer. And I'd like to think we can find an other way to do this—one that doesn't require people to sacrifice their lives."

  "Maybe you can," Jeremy said. "Or maybe you just have to find people who don't have that much to live for."

  "You can get past this, Jeremy," Neriah said. "I know it's difficult to lose
your wife, but—"

  "No, it's more than that." Jeremy looked at Mike. "I guess you were right, Mike. It looks like I've been fooling myself. The greatest virt tech in the world, making me feel like Julia was right next to me—I could see her, smell her, touch her—but when it ends, it isn't enough." He tapped the side of his head. "In fact, I found it pitiful. I found myself pitiful."

  Mike said, "But Jeremy, Neriah's right. I've been through this, myself. Given time—"

  "No," Jeremy said. "Time's up. And I'm going to show you how a real Human reacts to a threat against his homeworld."

  Mike and Neriah stood on the tarmac of an out-of-the-way corner of the Brussels Starport, watching from about two hundred meters away as a line of thirty people waited to board a large personnel shuttle. The wind whipped across the wide expanse of the landing pad, roaring just loud enough that Mike leaned in close to tell Neriah, "I can't believe you found this many people for a suicide mission."

  These volunteers, along with hundreds of others launching elsewhere, were to be dropped near selected Jenregar mounds to be "captured." Once the Jenregar started working on them, their bodies would begin to release pheromones that would give various commands to the Jenregar individuals—instructions to dismantle their hives, or to consider other Jenregar individuals as sick or damaged, and dispose of them. As Mike had suggested, those and dozens of other commands would bring chaos to the otherwise unified Jenregar hive mind—or so it was hoped.

  Neriah looked stricken. "I can't believe I proposed it to the Unity—and that it accepted the idea. Or that a few of these volunteers decided to forego the virt chip."

  "Are they so desperate?" Mike asked as the line moved forward to enter the shuttle. "Do they have so little to live for?"

  "Some are that way. Damaged somehow. Others consider it their patriotic duty to their homeworld."

  "Then they're better than I am."

  "Don't say that, Mike," Neriah told him. "You've risked your life plenty of times. Look, there he is."

  Jeremy Sheffield moved forward slowly as the line advanced. He looked toward Mike and Neriah and gave a casual salute. Neriah waved back and, after a moment's hesitation, so did Mike. Though I doubt my gesture provides him with any comfort, he thought.

  Mike told Neriah, "I wonder what his Julia would've thought about him doing this."

  "I don't know anything about her. Maybe she'd be horrified. Maybe she'd be proud."

  The final person boarded the shuttle, and within moments its gravitic drive lifted the craft from the landing pad. As it arced away to the west, Mike said, "We all come to an end eventually. At least Jeremy won't suffer. I wish I could be so certain of that whenever my time comes."

  (EDITOR"S NOTE: Mike Christopher has appeared previously in"The Unfinished Man"[January/February 2011], "No Traveller Returns" [May 2008], and "Some Distant Shore" [September 2007].

  * * *

  Cryptids

  Alec Nevala-Lee | 10606 words

  I.

  A wisp of white smoke rose up from the carton as Amanda Lurie removed the lid. Reaching inside, she pulled out the specimen that had been packed in dry ice. "What can you tell me about this?"

  Karen Vale accepted the package, although she also kept one eye on the younger woman seated across from her at the table. Through the plastic, she could make out the stiffened remains of a dead songbird, its plumage orange and black. She indicated the sealed top of the bag. "May I?"

  When Amanda nodded, Karen undid the flap and slid out the bird's tiny body. She had recognized it right away, but just to be certain, she peeled off one of her gloves and ran a hand gently along its feathers. When she lifted her fingertips to her mouth, her lips began to tingle at once.

  She saw that Amanda was looking at her curiously. "It's the only way to be sure. There are a number of mimics with similar coloration, but they lack the poison in the skin and feathers. It's a hooded pitohui."

  "Correct," Amanda said. "We found it outside Port Moresby. Have you caught any in your nets?"

  "A few. We release them after taking blood samples and swabs. But you haven't explained why you're asking me this."

  "It's very simple," Amanda replied. "I want you to catch more of them for me."

  Instead of responding, Karen glanced down the darkened beach. Her team had set up camp near the cottages by the water, where children with sandy eyelashes were playing with the dogs that wandered freely through the gardens. At the moment, the two women were seated apart from the others, but she could tell that Emily, one of her graduate students, was watching them closely.

  Sliding the bird into the bag again, Karen handed it back to Amanda. "I'm sorry. But we have work of our own to do. And I imagine that someone like you has plenty of other resources."

  Amanda put away the songbird's remains. "You don't remember me, do you?"

  Karen paused, studying the other woman in the candlelight. Amanda had approached them that afternoon with her colleague, a slim, bespectacled man named Patrick. The strangers had introduced themselves and ventured a few polite questions, but they had clearly wanted something more, and Amanda had finally asked if they could talk privately.

  At first, Karen had nearly declined, but there had also been something familiar about the younger woman's face. Looking at her now, she finally recalled where she had seen it before. "You were a student of mine."

  "Yes," Amanda said. "I took one of your seminars ten years ago on evolutionary biology.

  Three weeks on Umboi Island. It was just before you cut back on teaching. I always thought that was a great loss."

  Karen began to remember more. The woman here was older and more confident than when they had last met, attractive and fit, thirty or so, her hair pulled back in a blond ponytail. She looked, in fact, a great deal like Karen did in photographs from twenty years ago, although a number of important differences were also evident at first glance. "I'm sorry I didn't recognize you. But I can't say I expected you to end up in drug development."

  Amanda set the carton down on the sand by the table. "What gave me away?"

  "The logo on your bag," Karen said. "What brings Allelon to New Guinea?"

  "I came here to find you," Amanda replied. "You weren't easy to track down. But I've heard you've been having some funding problems. And there may be a way for us to help each other."

  Karen didn't care for the look in her eyes. "Maybe it's time for you to explain exactly what you want."

  "You've already gathered what I do for a living. The hooded pitohui is of considerable interest to my company. It's one of four known bird species that use a chemical defense to repel predators, an alkaloid called batrachotoxin. The poison is present in minute quantities in the bird's feathers and skin, but it's also one of the most potent neurotoxins in the world."

  As Karen listened, she found herself less interested in the words themselves than in the woman who was saying them, whom she was starting to remember now as ambitious, bright, and competitive. "The locals call it a rubbish bird. You can't eat it unless you pluck the feathers and cook it in charcoal."

  "And the same toxin also occurs in frogs in Colombia. The natives use it for arrow poison. At first, no one knew how the same alkaloid could occur in two unrelated species on opposite sides of the globe. Later, it was discovered that neither the birds nor the frogs produced the chemical in captivity, which meant that they had to be getting it from somewhere else."

  Karen knew the rest. "Melyrid beetles. They're eaten by the birds and frogs."

  "Yes. Except that the beetles don't produce the toxin on their own, either. They can't synthesize steroidal skeletons, so they must be deriving it from another unknown source. A host plant."

  Karen began to see where she was going with this. "And you want to find it."

  Amanda nodded. "We know very little about the life cycle of these beetles, let alone where they feed. But Allelon has an interest in finding the source of batrachotoxin. It's an attractive candidate for drug development."
<
br />   "I still don't know what this has to do with me. I'm not a botanist or entomologist."

  "But you know birds as well as anyone in the world. And birds are easier to follow."

  Karen weighed this for a moment. "It isn't that simple. Even if we can tag and follow birds to where they roost, there's no guarantee they'll lead you to the beetles, much less the underlying toxin. They're likely to nest in one place and feed somewhere else. You'd end up chasing them from island to island."

  "I'm aware of this," Amanda said. "But I'm willing to take that chance. And there are ways in which it could work to your benefit as well, give some of the issues you've been facing." She glanced at the graduate students seated on the sand. "They don't know, do they?"

  Karen didn't reply at once. Looking over at Hitoshi and Emily, who were talking with Amanda's colleague Patrick, she reflected that she had never wanted to be in this situation. She had been counting on one final grant to come through, and for much of the last week, she had been in frantic touch with the university, scrambling for funds in precisely the way she had once hoped to avoid.

  It was the price, she knew, of spending so much time in the field. She had never been good at the political side, and in the past, she had survived by scaling back her work as much as possible. In the end, however, the grant had been declined, and it was looking increasingly likely that this trip would be cut short, halfway through its survey of birds in Milne Bay. "How did you know?"

  "Allelon keeps an eye on all grant applications in its areas of interest," Amanda said. "When I saw your name, I flew out here at once. If you're willing to help us tag and follow these birds, we'll fund your work to the end of the project. Even if you can't find the birds we need, we're happy to compensate you for your time. All we're asking is a few days."

  Karen considered this proposal in silence. Finally, she looked back toward the others. "If I do this, there can't be any confusion. I'll remain in charge of this team. All decisions will be mine."