by Nancy Kress
“I worked with epidemics on Rand, before I took over as president of Galt University. I’m familiar with most of them, at least in the forms they had five years ago—microbes evolve really quickly—and I’ve kept up with the literature. You said you’d lost soldiers to this bioweapon. Did you take tissue samples? Or at least have information about symptoms, incubation period, kill rate, anything? I might be able to identify it. If you have samples and a gene sequencer, I might even be able to tell how it’s been altered.”
“To what end?”
“I don’t know until I see it. But surely the more information you know about the plague, the better you can prepare for it.”
“And why would you be interested in helping us, the enemy, do that?”
All at once her calm cracked, so completely that only now did Martinez become aware of how much energy she’d needed to keep it in place. Her voice erupted into fury. “Because it’s a bioweapon, you idiot, an epidemic! Epidemics are only containable with large-scale and timely efforts, and sometimes they’re not containable at all! This thing could spread through an entire world, or more. Even if it doesn’t spread and Jane wipes out just New California, do you think I don’t know that you Peregoys will retaliate? This war will end up doing what biowarfare helped do to Terra! Don’t any of you people read any history? This is evil! Evil!”
She was sincere. He said, “Lex talionis.”
Surprise replaced fury, at least momentarily.
“You think,” he said. “that no one besides you reads Terran history? The ancient law of retaliation… I’ve already thought of everything you said, Ms. Landry. And don’t ever call me an idiot again.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, and it was his turn to be surprised. She looked as if she meant it. “Will you tell me what you know about the pathogen? It’s not like I can do anything harmful with it—I’m your prisoner. And if Jane has her way, none of it will matter anyway.”
“Is your sister insane?”
She looked him straight in the eyes. Her chest still rose and fell with emotion. The small top was too tight across her breasts.
“Yes,” she said finally, “I think she is, if vengeance and ambition are insane. But my grandmother is not. Can I see your information on the pathogen?”
He made a sudden decision. His anger at the deaths of Gonzalez, Wilson, and Haller was not gone; it would never be gone. But this person was not the target, and someday he would settle scores with Jane Landry. Meanwhile, even if Caitlin Landry lied to him about the results of her examination of the pathogen data, Peregoy scientists on New Utah would have the samples soon. Whatever she told him could be proven or disproven—but he didn’t think she was lying. At least, not yet.
“Yes, you can see the pathogen data.”
Her eyes brightened. “What have you got? Tissue samples?”
“Yes, but you won’t have access to those. You can talk to Dr. Glynn, ship physician, the closest thing aboard to a virologist. She can tell you what equipment we have. The only thing I can tell you about the pathogen is the kill rate.”
She waited.
“One hundred percent, Ms. Landry. Everybody.”
41
* * *
THE ELEVENTH GATE
The Observer is more diffuse. Its field, all fields, undergoes change. For the Observer, change is decay of its pattern.
It no longer has the coherence and energy it once did.
Energy is needed to affect the gates. The Observer has been using its energy to counteract that of the Others and keep sixteen gates closed to dangerous ships. It can no longer do this.
The Others do not decay. Now the Observer understands why the Others did not translate completely into the base level of reality, proto-consciousness. The Others do not leave the gates, which are neither matter nor energy but something else, something made of—maybe—sheer probability. Within the gates, the Others do not interact with other fields. They stay intact.
The Observer contracts itself into a single gate, the one closest to the point where it was translated. Before it does so, it expends a single huge burst of energy to alter the gates once again. Now they cannot stop matter from passing through. But they can still stop dangerous radiation, including the quantum signatures of matter that emits dangerous radiation.
It is all that the Observer can do to protect the tiny nodes of consciousness, the beings it once resembled.
The Observer contracts itself into the gate closest to the translation machinery. Within the boundaries of perpetual probability, where only the basic field of observational consciousness fully exists, the Observer does not decay. Here, it is safe.
42
* * *
DEEP SPACE
Caitlin hadn’t expected Captain Martinez to agree to let her see the pathogen data. But then, nothing about her capture, or him, was expected. Rachel had feared torture—if not for her, who could be held for ransom, then for everyone else. Before her transfer to the other Peregoy ship, the Skyhawk, she’d been allowed to see the others for a few minutes. They were crammed into a room with too few bunks, all except Veatch, who must be housed elsewhere. They were unhurt, being fed the same meagre diet as the ship’s crew, dressed in castoff Peregoy clothing. Veatch’s six security guards had loosely bound wrists and ankles; the pilot and Princess Ida crew were free.
For the ship-to-ship transfer, she put on the boots given to her. They were too small and pinched her toes. Her mother had, alas, developed bunions early in life, and it looked to Caitlin like she might do the same. Nonetheless, she crammed her feet into the boots, under the watchful eyes of her guard, Henderson. Caitlin wouldn’t have known Henderson’s name if she hadn’t heard Martinez use it; the guard did not respond to conversation.
Caitlin didn’t even try to talk to Martinez on the short trip to the Skyhawk. Immediately afterward he strode off, and Henderson led her, silently, to a tiny cabin as bare as the one she’d had on the Green Hills of Earth. Caitlin pulled off her boots and inspected her sore feet. A few moments later a woman entered. Middle-aged and short, she had a long braid of graying hair and sharply intelligent eyes.
“I’m Dr. Glynn,” she said, without warmth. “I am under orders to tell you what we know about your bioweapon and the tissue samples it destroyed. This tablet contains the available data on the engineered pathogen, plus the usual viral-analysis tools. The captain has also had it loaded with recreational reading. That is absolutely all that is on the tablet, and it won’t reach ship’s library or any other data base or comm device. If you have anything to report or any questions, Spacer Henderson will send someone for me. Do you understand, Ms. Landry?”
“Yes.”
Dr. Glynn left, and Caitlin brought up the data. She recognized the pathogen almost immediately from the electron microscope images: a version of joravirus. The original had killed her father on Rand. What went on in Jane’s twisted mind that she would weaponize this particular microbe? The accompanying data from a Landry ship called the Galaxy had been carefully collected. The photos of the victims’ faces, covered with purple pustules, sickened her. The pathogen was airborne, which the original Joravirus randi, had not been; that suggested changes to the cell walls, among other alterations. Dr. Glynn had estimated the incubation period at three days, and an r naught of 5.1, which accounted for its rapid spread on the Falcon. Each infected person infected 5.1 others.
She studied all the data, which seemed incomplete. When she was sure she’d learned all she could, she had Henderson send someone for Dr. Glynn.
“It’s a poxviridae,” Caitlin said.
“I know it’s a poxviridae,” the doctor snapped.
“Your identification is correct—it’s Joravirus randi. It first turned up on Rand twenty-two years ago, a spillover from mullins, small mammals native to Rand. We eradicated it there within a few years, since then it wasn’t airborne and mullins are the size of small dogs and could be locally contained and eliminated. The pathogen never even made it to Gal
t, let alone the Peregoy worlds. The incubation period was short, the same two days that you recorded, but back then the kill rate was about thirty percent. Before the epidemic ended, only a few hundred people died.” Including my father.
Dr. Glynn nodded brusquely, as if she’d already known some, maybe even most, of this. There were scientific journals, after all.
“How was it weaponized?” Captain Martinez said.
Caitlin hadn’t heard him enter. He stood by the cabin door, behind Dr. Glynn. Caitlin said, “Without a gene sequencer, I can’t tell that. I’d also need the genome of the original, which isn’t here and I don’t remember in detail. Still, even without a sequencer I might be able to figure out some things.”
“Such as what?” he said.
“Since it’s airborne, the cell wall was probably altered. I don’t know what else was done.”
“Sir,” Dr. Glynn said, “there are complete genescans in the data taken and decrypted from the infected Landry ship. I didn’t include them on the mobile because—”
“Show them to her,” Martinez said.
The little doctor had a big stubborn streak. “Sir, with all respect, this could be construed as giving wartime intel to the enemy.”
Martinez said coldly, “The responsibility is mine, Doctor.”
Caitlin said, “Do you have genescans of various unaltered forms of the virus?”
Glynn said, “Yes.”
“Did you run a comparison?”
“Yes. There are differences, but I’m not a geneticist.”
Caitlin said, “I need everything you have. Plus time to study this.”
Martinez said, “Take her tablet and put everything on it. Everything, Doctor, this time.” There was no mistaking the finality in his voice.
“Yes, sir,” Glynn said unhappily.
They left with her tablet. When it was returned to her, Caitlin sat cross-legged and barefoot on her bunk, working on the data. Streams of base pairs—UGGCCU on and on—poxviridae were large viruses. The additional algorithms she needed had been loaded onto the device.
Henderson stood stiffly by the door. Caitlin worked for hours, stopping only to eat the few mouthfuls of food that were brought to her. Her back grew stiff and her head began to ache, but she kept at it, making careful notes, looking for certain patterns. Everything she had not done in years came back to her, all the pattern seeking and biodata manipulation she had once loved, before her grandmother had insisted she take over her share of familial duties by running Galt University. Family first. Libertarian freedom only for each granddaughter to run her own division without interference.
A belief that had brought the family to Jane’s monstrous actions.
How could Jane—no, don’t think of it. Concentrate on the data.
There was something here. She could feel it, almost smell it. Jane’s virologists had worked in haste once the war began, and they had not been top-tier scientists to begin with. Caitlin knew where all the most eminent researchers were posted, and that none of them had left recently for Prometheus. Nor would any of them have created a bioweapon. Only—one of them had.
She slept, woke, went back to work. More than once? Maybe.
There was something here.
There was—
Yes.
She’d forgotten the sense of lightness, of something close to joy, when you discovered something significant. Not joy, because nothing about this abomination was joyful. But a sense of triumph, of possibility.
“Henderson,” she said to her impassive guard, “please send someone for Dr. Glynn. No, for the captain. No—for both.”
• • •
On the bridge, Martinez had Captains Vondenberg and Murphy on viewscreens. The Green Hills of Earth was only a few hundred klicks away, the Zeus days ahead. Murphy’s young, beardless face looked puzzled.
Martinez said, “What is it about communications with New Utah that seems to you somehow off?”
“I’m not sure, sir. The station had all the right codes and they said they can resupply our ships, but I haven’t been able to raise them since I spoke to the OOD. Even before then…I don’t know. Something.”
“Could be equipment breakdown and shortage. They were cut off for three months, too.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who was the OOD you spoke to?”
“Lieutenant Stock.”
“I’ll make contact,” Martinez said. “I know the station commander; we’ve served together. She’s competent. Anything else, Murphy? Vondenberg?”
“No, sir.”
“No, sir.”
“Stand by.”
The Skyhawk tried to raise New Utah Planetary Defense. For an hour he received no answer, and then a recorded message, no visual: “Skyhawk, New Utah is able to resupply you. Proceed. Lieutenant Commander Naomi Halstead is incapacitated; Lieutenant James Herndon in temporary command. We are having commlink failures. Apologies.”
Murphy was right. There was something “off” here.
What was happening on New Utah?
• • •
When Martinez finally came to Caitlin’s cabin, she was asleep. For twenty-four hours she’d been studying data, performing virtual holographic experiments on it, waiting for the captain or Dr. Glynn. Eventually she fell asleep without even knowing it, her head on her arms at the cold metal table. Someone shook Caitlin’s shoulder, and it took her a long, fuzzy moment to realize it was Henderson, grim as ever. Behind her loomed Martinez, who didn’t look any happier.
He said, “You wanted to speak to me? About what?”
Caitlin tried to clear her head. It was hard to think, after such a long session of doing so much of it.
“Ms. Landry? What did you learn about the pathogen?”
She sat up. Every muscle felt stiff, and her mouth tasted like something had died in there. “It does have changes in the cell wall to make it airborne. Its virulence has been amplified, which means it produces more toxin, faster. You do that by engineering the cell to create more toxin-producing organelles. I think I’ve also identified the surface protein that unlocks entry into cells. Viruses can only reproduce inside other cells, you know, hijacking their reproductive machinery.”
“Yes, I know. What else?”
“Nothing else, yet.” What else she’d discovered, at least tentatively, she would keep to herself. Could he tell she was withholding information?
Evidently not. He said, “You will explain all this to Dr. Glynn. When we reach New Yosemite, there’ll be scientists and doctors with more and better equipment. You’ll work with them, under strict guard.”
“What will these scientists and doctors be doing?”
“Looking for a cure, or a vaccine.”
Caitlin gaped at him. “But…that isn’t possible. Developing a vaccine takes a long time. The researchers on Rand never succeeded in doing so.”
“Nonetheless, that’s what you’ll do.”
“Why aren’t you taking the samples and data to New California? Your best research facilities are there.”
“I’m not risking contaminating the Peregoy homeworld.”
It was an inadequate answer. Caitlin studied Martinez. She saw a man under tremendous strain, who was nonetheless in control. Abruptly he said, “Did you know Philip Anderson?”
Caitlin blinked. “No.”
“You merely received reports from Dr. Hampden? You didn’t know him personally?”
“No. Did you? How did you even know to ask me about him?”
Martinez didn’t answer, asking instead, “Did he ever tell you, through Dr. Hampden, what he was looking for?”
“Only a few people know about Anderson’s delusions. How do you?”
“Are you positive they were delusions?”
“‘Were’? What happened to Philip Anderson, Captain Martinez?”
“I don’t know.”
She sensed his puzzlement. There was something here, some connection, and it was clear he wasn’t going to tell her w
hat. Anderson had been a Polyglot citizen; Martinez might have met him there. But that didn’t explain why he knew about Anderson’s quixotic “quest,” or why he was asking Caitlin about it now.
After a few moments, she worked it out. “You learned about Anderson from Sloan Peregoy. The deal that he and my grandmother made to get Anderson to the eleventh gate.”
“You’re quick,” he said, neither confirming or denying.
“Were you at the gate? What happened to Anderson?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you must have some idea of—”
“That subject is closed, Ms. Landry. I’m here only to learn what you discovered and tell you on what, and how, you’ll be working on New Yosemite. Let me reiterate: You will touch nothing. Only advise.”
Caitlin snapped, “I don’t think I’m up to much sabotage as a prisoner under heavy guard.”
“Oh, I don’t know—you strike me as a pretty resourceful woman.”
She was astonished to find that his praise warmed her. Confused, she attacked. “You said two Freedom Enterprises ships were carrying the bioweapon toward New Utah when you destroyed the ships. That’s how you got the pathogen data, isn’t it? And the soldiers you said you lost on the ships and on Prometheus—they died of it, didn’t they? What were the names of the ships?”
“Why? I thought you knew nothing about Landry fleet activities.”
“I don’t. But I have a good friend who’s captain of a warship…a childhood friend…what harm can there be in telling me the ships’ names?”
“The Dagny Taggart and the Galaxy.”
“Thank you.”
“Was your friend commanding either?”
She was surprised that he’d asked. “No.”
“You people,” he said bitterly, “name your ships after selfish and discredited heroes.”
“Dagny Taggart wasn’t exactly a hero. She was—”
“I know who she was. I read that novel.”
More, and greater surprise. “You did?”
