"The yacht's not operational," Ronnie said. "Don't you remember? Some kind of harebrained terrorist attack or something."
"So it could be one of the others, come by commercial passenger service." George peered out the tiny window. Ronnie, looking past his head, could make nothing of the strings of lights. Finally—not that long by the clock on the forward bulkhead—he felt the slight bump of docking. When the status lights turned green, he led George out the access tube to the reception lounge. Across from the access tube was the door into the public corridor that led to the concourse. A status screen above it showed that Lord Thornbuckle's shuttle was docked to their right.
Ronnie headed that way, receiving a polite nod from the man at the door to that lounge. He didn't see Brun anywhere.
Brun saw Ronnie and her brother at the same moment. Buttons, looking happy and relaxed, with his fiancée Sarah on his arm, strolled along the concourse from the commercial gates toward the entrance to the private shuttle bays. Ronnie was just coming out, looking around.
Brun had just had time to notice Sarah's outfit—flowing rose silk, a corsage of fresh white roses—when Sarah staggered, and the corsage blew apart, leaving a single red rose. Buttons threw himself on top of her; the tough-looking man who had spoken to Brun rushed at them, weapon in hand. People in the concourse screamed; some dove for the floor. Brun pushed away from the table and tried to get to her brother, but the people in the doorway were backing away. She pushed and shoved, using elbows and sharp kicks to move them.
Over their heads, she could see Ronnie turn toward the trouble, and then make a flying tackle on the armed man. George erupted from the corridor behind him; the two of them were on the attacker by the time Brun got free of the tangle and staggered across the concourse, cursing her new shoes. In the distance, whistles blew; she hoped someone had had the sense to call Station militia. And medical help.
"Help me!" Buttons was saying. "She's bleeding—!" Brun fell on her knees beside him and unzipped her duffle, pulling out her last clean shirt.
"Here," she said, stuffing it in the wound. The months she'd spent with therapists and doctors gave her more knowledge than she wanted of what lay behind the blood. But Sarah had a pulse, and was breathing. Buttons looked at her and his eyes widened.
"What are you doing here?"
"Saving Sarah," Brun said. Sarah opened her eyes.
"That really hurts," she said, and closed them again. Typical of Sarah, Brun thought. No wasted words, no unnecessary fuss.
"It's my fault," Brun said to Buttons. "He thought I was Sarah—I mean, the other way around."
"Who?" But he had already turned toward the continuing tussle between Ronnie and George and the attacker, who had acquired allies from points unknown. Just as it looked like spreading into a wholesale brawl, the militia arrived.
The same tired-eyed man Brun had met before took their statements after Sarah had been taken to the Station clinic. His gaze sharpened when he recognized Brun and the blood on her clothes.
"Did you expect to meet your sister here?" he asked Buttons. "Was that your purpose?"
"No—Sarah and I had legal business to transact before our wedding. Brun's been out of touch quite a while; I frankly didn't know where she was."
"Ah. And you . . . gentlemen . . ." Ronnie and George were attempting to look innocent and noble through their bruises. "You . . . were coming up to meet this young gentleman, perhaps?"
"No . . . actually . . ." Ronnie's eyes slid toward Brun's. She nodded. "We had come up to meet Brun. She called me."
"I see. You are also . . ." He was clearly groping for the word. Brun spoke up.
"We aren't engaged, but we've been friends a long time. I didn't want to call our people until I'd had a chance to clean up and change—"
"Yes," drawled Buttons, looking her up and down. She recognized that tone; he was going to back her, but have his own fun. "I can see why. Mother would have had a fit. Where have you been, anyway?"
"Working as transient crew," Brun said, holding up her calloused hand for him to see. "I was hoping to get my hair done and so on before she knew I was anywhere around. Besides, there was a little trouble when I arrived."
"Do you have any idea why someone shot your fiancée?" The militia officer interrupted.
"No," Buttons said. Brun wondered a moment about that flat negative, but she didn't challenge him. Instead, she answered.
"I do. I think he meant to shoot me, and didn't have a good description." The man's eyebrows went up. Brun explained. "A man stopped me after I left the militia station earlier and asked if I'd seen a rich young woman in there. He knew my name, and a rough description, but the way I was dressed then, he didn't recognize me. It scared me; it's one reason I called Ronnie."
"Well, then, miss, do you know why someone might want to shoot you?"
"No—but it's clear someone did, and since Sarah and I are both blonde, and about the same height, he probably figured someone heading for our shuttle, with my brother, was the right person."
"I see. If you'll thumbsign this report, then—" With a sideways glance at Buttons, Brun pressed her thumb to the pad, and the man nodded. "That's it for now—I presume you'll be available downside if we need you?"
"Yes, of course."
"I'm staying up here," Buttons said. "Until Sarah's released. I don't know how long it will take—if they'll do the regen here, or ship her down. Brun, since Ronnie's here with their shuttle, could you ride with him?"
"Of course." Something in his voice suggested he needed to talk with her alone. "Do you mind if we come with you to the clinic?"
"No . . . that's fine . . ." He stood, and looked about uncertainly. The militia had dispersed the crowd and the four of them stood alone. Then he looked down at Brun. "The thing is, I'm still worried about you. Did you know Lady Cecelia had filed for reinstatement of competency?"
"What? I thought she'd wait until—"
"She didn't wait; it was on the nets four days ago. There's been an uproar you wouldn't believe in the press and among the Families. Dad's afraid she's in danger—and you, of course. We didn't put a query on your ID because we didn't want to call attention to it, so we haven't known where you were—"
"But somebody did," Brun said. "Or at least they were watching for any word of me."
"Yes. Dad's convinced now that you were right—he's had his doubts—but that means whoever did it will be moving. You and Ronnie are both prime targets. Frankly I think you'd better get in that shuttle and go—and then stay on the estate. Don't go into town; we don't know just how hard whoever it is will come after you."
"But you and Sarah?" Should she tell him about Lorenza now? Or would it make it more dangerous for him? She was too tired to think.
"We should be safe now that they know she's not you."
"Buttons, there's something we need to tell you—" Ronnie had lowered his voice. "It's really important. George and I think we know—"
"Not here. Take Brun, get down to our place, and stay there. I'll be along as soon as Sarah can travel. They'll probably send her down for regen treatment when she's stabilized. Dad's on his way, too."
Buttons turned away with a little wave; Brun suddenly felt the weight of fear and exhaustion settle back on her shoulders. Her feet hurt.
"He's right," she said. "Let's go home."
Chapter Seventeen
The grounds of the Institute of Neuroscience had lush green lawns and flowering shrubs. A few low domes protruded through the greenery, and a stubby blocklike building rose from a grove of trees in the distance. Heris rode a silent electric car hardly big enough for her and the driver from the public transit stop to the entrance, and wondered aloud at the spaciousness.
"A bomb attack thirty years ago," the driver said, over his shoulder. "The Benignity, of course. They thought they were getting a manufacturing complex . . . we rebuilt underground, even though that's no real protection against modern munitions. But it was all ugly and crowded before; thi
s way we have something pretty to look at."
At the front desk, Heris handed over her official documents, with the Royal Seal of the Familias Regnant. She had noticed three nondescript men in the waiting room . . . Geralds all, scattered among the other patients.
"Ah—are you the patient, Captain?"
"No. But I would prefer not to explain here."
"Of course. Perhaps you and . . . is the patient here?" The clerk managed, heroically Heris thought, not to peer into the waiting room.
"Yes."
"Then perhaps you and the patient would come this way." Heris gave the hand signal the Geralds had taught her, and one by one they ambled up to the desk, leaned over, and took the colored card the clerk held up. Her eyes widened but she said nothing.
* * *
Doctors Koshinsky and Velun. Male and female, short and tall, thick and thin, dark and fair. Koshinsky's dark beard was only slightly darker than his skin, and he came up to Velun's elegant silk-clad shoulder. Heris wondered what they thought of her and the clones. The clones had shed their disguises, and now wore identical coveralls; they looked like a frieze of tall blond princes, to which she was a short dark punctuation. Or, in the metaphor of music (she still thought it was strange to name a planet Music), "da-da-da-dum."
"Can you describe the problem any more precisely, Captain?" asked Dr. Velun. Height, blonde hair, a glacial beauty . . . she could be mother or aunt to those princes.
"I thought that was in the king's letter."
"Unfortunately not. What it says is that he was given a demonstration of a drug to inhibit higher cognitive processes, and its reversibility, in a person of his son's age. Then that same drug—he thinks—was administered to his son, causing a relative inability to learn and perform cognitive tasks at the level his innate abilities warranted—" She broke off and gave Heris a hostile look. "Quite frankly, Captain Serrano, we would regard such a use of any method of lowering intelligence to be quite unethical. In our culture, intelligence is respected."
"If I understand correctly," Heris said, "the king was given a choice of having his son partially and temporarily incapacitated or assassinated; his older sons had both died, one by assassination and one in . . . er . . . dubious circumstances. It was not an easy choice."
"Even so," Dr. Velun said. "And now, I understand, he wants to see if the effect can be reversed by someone other than the . . . mmm . . . perpetrator?"
"That's right. I should also mention that the use of clone doubles is not only unethical but illegal in our society."
"Not here," Dr. Koshinsky said. "We grow clones all the time; we've nothing against clones. They have full legal identity."
"The problem is, these clones have been trained to be the prince's doubles. Now each of them claims he is not the prince, that the prince is somewhere else. I was twice informed that the person I was taking aboard was the prince, only . . ." Heris nodded at the three. "Only I have no way of telling the difference. And I think it likely that they are somehow programmed or conditioned not to reveal the prince's identity."
"Were the clones also treated to inhibit their intelligence?"
"I don't know. I wasn't even told there were clones."
"Hmm. Then, the first step is to examine these young men—with their permission of course—"
"Certainly," said the three princes, or clones, or Geralds. And, still in unison, "You won't be able to distinguish us from one another." Heris had her doubts. Anyone who could scan weapons an R.S.S. ship would miss might well have new and better ways to tell a prime from its clone.
Two days later, Dr. Velun called Heris in for another conference. She had a stack of data cubes and a cube player already set up.
"Let me tell you what we've found out so far . . . do you have a medical background, by any chance?"
"No, sorry."
"Well—I'll do my best. Do ask questions when they occur, will you? Now. We know that the prince is a Registered Embryo. Now in the Familias Regnant, that means an embryo guaranteed to carry the genetic markers of the certified biological parents. All known flaws eliminated, and enhancements included—"
"Enhancements?"
The doctor was glad to explain. "Legally, all the genes—whole genes—must come from either the certified mother or the certified father. Given a sufficiency of sperm and ova, from almost anyone, it's possible to select desirable—even outstanding—gene fragments. Humans are superbly heterozygous; it's only a question of knowing which sequences correlate with which desired trait. But there are practical limits on the quantity of genetic material . . . time constraints, for instance. By the time you've located the single recessive gene you want, in one of the fifty million sperm you examined, the ovum may be overripe. If it's not to be a gamble, much like the original, you use enhancements."
"And those are?"
"Gene fragments, not whole genes, which means they can be substituted—with the usual techniques—" Heris had no idea what the usual techniques were and didn't really care. "For instance, intelligence. Everyone has known since Old Earth times that intelligence is not a single entity, a single faculty. There are modules, specialized clumps of neurons which preferentially work with certain inputs." That made Heris think of the yacht's scanning computers—this one for detecting one kind of input and interpreting it, and that one for another. She said that and Dr. Velun looked pained. "Not really. Or rather, in a way, but not completely. The human brain has developmental preferences, but it's also remarkably plastic: it responds to experience, so that the more experience in a cognitive domain, the more likely that function is to work well. But more important, to this patient, is what happens when things go wrong."
Heris nodded. She found it hard to concentrate, even though she needed to be able to explain to the king later. What had gone wrong was the prince got stupid: simple, and—if not reparable—the end of the king's hopes. The doctor talked on and on, and Heris felt herself falling more and more behind. What was a dedicated neuron? What did Dr. Velun mean by saying that some of them were supposed to die off?
Dr. Velun began to talk about drugs that might have caused the prince's problem. "One thing that would work is a protein that blocks the production of a given neurotransmitter by tying up the RNA on which the protein would be constructed—I presume you do know something about biochemistry—?"
She must have recognized Heris's glazed incomprehension at last. "Sorry," Heris said. "My specialty lies elsewhere. I know what DNA is—" Sort of, she thought to herself. A spiral molecule of genetic material, that was about it. "But the function of different kinds of RNA—that's beyond me."
Dr. Velun looked pained, started with a chemical description, stopped short, glared at her, and finally shrugged. "You won't get it, not in the time we have."
Perversely, Heris was now determined to understand. "Look—if you'll give me time to read something—even a child's version—I'm sure I can learn. It's just that it's so far from my own background—"
Velun's face contracted in a scowl. "Right. Warfare. I suppose you know how to kill people."
This sort of hostility was familiar; Heris smiled at her. "Well, yes, but so do you. Any medical researcher knows as many lethal tricks as I do. No, my expertise is in the equipment and the personnel—to take just one system, knowing how the environmental system aboard each class of ship works, where the pipes are, how many technicians are needed to service it, and what to look for to be sure it's working correctly. I must know the interactions of all shipboard systems, so that if the electrical system goes down for any reason, I can keep the ship's crew alive without the electrically powered pumps and blowers in the environmental system."
"Engineering," the doctor muttered.
Heris let her smile widen. "Yes, it is. So is clinical medicine, to my view: know the systems, recognize when something's wrong, and know what to do about it."
That coaxed a tiny smile. "Well . . . I suppose. We like to think of ourselves as researchers, too."
"I'm
sure you are. So are some of us—spacefleet officers, I mean. A friend of mine solved a century-old problem in oxygen exchange systems. That's never been my talent—I can keep on top of existing systems, but I'm not an innovator. But I know and respect those who are."
"Well." Velun seemed to be considering that fairly. "If you really want to know, then, there's an undergraduate course on cube—I have a copy because my second daughter's going to be taking it next year. Or, if you want a fast take, there's the induction trainer."
The induction trainer gave Heris a headache. Still, it was fast. She agreed.
When she came up from the course, the first thing she thought of was not the prince, but Lady Cecelia. She had a glimmer of what might have been done to her, although she recognized her own inexpertise.
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