Admiral Rice looked at the second inception of her daughter for a long moment. Her curled long hair was kept out of her face using mild fluid control so she could see her innocent heart shaped visage. She was so afraid of who this young woman would be, what would become of her. There would be no sickness, no guilt over genetic modifications she'd ordered for her daughter. Hopefully just the opposite. The guilt over the first Ayan gripped her, filled her with fear when she tried to think about what she would do differently given a second chance. “You should explain it to her. We weren't close five years ago.”
“All right,” he said softly. “But only if you're certain. Waking her up yourself and explaining things could be a good way to start things in the right direction.”
Admiral Rice shook her head; “I don't know what I'd say. Besides, coming from you it would be less of a shock.”
“All right, just keep it in mind.”
“Does she have dimples?” Admiral Rice asked, looking more closely. Her daughter was smiling at some unknowable experience.
“Yes, and she'll have a little acne and probably need to exercise more than before to keep in the shape she's used to or take fitness medication.”
“You couldn't keep any modifications?”
“I told you, nothing. If she's going to have another chance without any disorders everything had to be reverted to her ancestrally developed genetic makeup. I had to go back centuries for a reference point. Standard modifications like anti-ageing, disease fortification and chemical balancing can be added later, it's up to her. When she wakes up she may not feel the same, that's a foregone conclusion, in fact she should feel much better,” he looked at the young woman through the many gelatinous layers of the artificial womb and smiled. “Ayan will have the chance at life she deserved.”
“She was so beautiful before.”
“So much more now,” he stepped back, inviting her to do the same and closed the chamber off. “Is it true that Ayan stole the Silkstream Four?”
Admiral Rice looked at him unknowing for a moment, then realized he was talking about her original daughter, the first Ayan. “Yes, her and Laura. They're off to find Jonas.”
“From what my connections tell me they'll find him. His home port is public. We should have had a message sent weeks ago.”
“I tried everything I could to help her find him.”
“If that were the case it would have happened a long time ago.”
“You have no right to accuse me-”
“I have every right. You abandoned her when you saw a better option come along. I should have tried to delay this project until Ayan, the Ayan that matters right now, had passed on. You should be at her side, even if it takes you across the galaxy. Instead you wrote her off and started over.”
“There was nothing I could do,” Admiral Rice said helplessly.
“Bullshit! Even with that tactical computer they stole Ayan's dead by now. Where are you? You're standing beside a replacement, not even taking the time to mourn. Your daughter is dead, dead and you have no idea where she lived her last moments, how she was feeling or who, if anyone, was watching over her!”
Admiral Rice just stared at him, her wide eyes tearing up.
He went on, stepping to within just a meter of her. “Do you know why I really took this project on? Because I knew this would happen! I knew that days before this young woman's birth you'd stand there criticizing what you consider flaws, picking at perceived imperfections. Look at her! Just look! She's a perfectly healthy woman and when she feels comfortable in her skin she'll be charming, unique, intelligent and possess all the skills and personality traits she valued. If she wants any permanent genetic modifications made when she's able to decide for herself they'll work much better than they would on any of us. Why? Because you allowed me to strip away all the extras and modifications, revert her genetic code back to what nature intended. There will be no complications, no strange diseases or mutations to consider. She will be everything she's meant to be in this second chance. That's everything we want our children to start with. Now go, mourn your daughter somewhere where people aren't saluting you, where no one knows who you are. I'll be here making sure this young woman's entry into this universe is as it should be. She'll know where she comes from. Eventually, when she asks, I'll even tell her what happened to the first-”
“No,” Admiral Rice croaked.
“Damn right she'll know! All the while she'll have someone who'll do anything to make sure she has the opportunity to be her own person, just as Ayan should have! You're not the only one who feels guilty about Ayan being left alone, I should have been her trusted friend just as much as you should have stayed at her side. Instead I was on an unmarked ship inside a wormhole designed to compress time so her body could have thirty years to mature inside the altered space while four years passed outside of it. The only real difference between you and I is that you ordered all this out of guilt and I did it out of love, because I know your daughter would want this.”
“I'll shut the project down.”
“You know you don't mean that.”
Admiral Rice regained a little of her composure and glared at Doctor Anderson. “Until she opens her eyes she's just a piece of meat. I can pull the plug any time,” she whispered harshly.
Doctor Anderson just stared at her, searching her face for the woman he'd known and loved as a close friend years before. She simply wasn't there. “I believe you,” he whispered as he stepped back and turned to his holographic work table.
She watched him, knowing she'd crossed a line that changed everything. He couldn't even look at her, what she'd said hurt him more than she could have ever expected.
“I'll contact you if there are any changes,” Doctor Anderson said quietly, it was almost a whisper.
Admiral Rice turned on her heel and left the room.
Doctor Anderson sighed. “Thank God the chamber was closed. The last thing you need is an environment where people are yelling at each other,” he turned and opened the wall concealing the artificial womb. “You'll have a good future ahead of you if I have anything to say about it, and you'll be free. The forms declaring you an independent sentient are already processing. By the time you're born she won't be able to do anything to you,” he whispered gently, looking at the sleeping face of his charge. He chuckled. “You know, I was pretty sure this would happen when you were just a few cells. Getting attached was something I accepted when your genes sequenced in a match to their natural state for the first time. I get the feeling that, even though I'll offer you everything a father should, you'll be travelling between the stars before I'm ready to see you go. All I can do is make sure you get the start you deserve.”
He punched his clearance code into his personal command unit and opened a communications link to an old friend.
“Doctor Anderson, it's been a while since we've had a face to face!” said the cheery fellow on the other end. “I got your burst. That's an interesting hypothetical situation you brought up.”
“Hello Peter, how is Fleet Intelligence treating you?”
“Good, good. So what's this I hear about you processing clone rights forms?”
“I'll be honest. I'm doing damage control here and I need help. Admiral Rice is threatening to cancel a sensitive project that involves some of her daughter's genetic material,” he said, continuing in a gentle tone.
“How far along are we talking?”
“I'm being honest and forthcoming with you here, Pete, it's important this doesn't get out the wrong way.”
“We've known each other a long time, I'll keep it under wraps until it's safe to shed light on whatever this is.”
Doctor Anderson sent Peter a holographic image of Ayan in the artificial womb.
He took a moment to look at it and his eyes went wide. “Is that who I think it is?”
“In a way. I've managed to create a perfect generation of her with no genetic modifications. She's been created from base historical genetic
code. I used the new age modification and memory implementation technology we acquired a few years ago.”
“Admiral Rice might shut you down? Now? That's her daughter in there for all intents and purposes. When will you be birthing her?”
“Next week, sooner if there are no signs of neural fatigue. I don't want her mother within ten light years of here when it happens. In fact, I don't want her to see Ayan until she decides she's ready to meet with her mother.”
“You know I can do that for you, but it'll be political war. Admiral Rice still has friends here, and outside of dealings with Regent Galactic or Jonas Valent, she has a lot of power. Just getting her reassigned again-”
“I know, I'm asking a lot. You know me Pete, I wouldn't even mention it if it weren't life or death.”
Peter thought quietly while looking at the hologram of the young woman then nodded. “I'll get my staff on it now. We'll have to vilify Admiral Rice to justify access restriction and reassignment. There's no way back on this once it's done.”
“There's been a lot of that going around. I'm sending you a classified security clip from just a few minutes ago that should take care of vilification,” he selected and forwarded Admiral Rice threatening to pull the plug then went on. “Thank you Peter. This makes us more than even.”
“You know it. Just make sure this young lady knows how many people helped her get her freedom, and that she deserves it.”
“Knowing Ayan, she'll thank every one of you in person.”
“I bet she would. You know she's going to be popular, right Doc? The only human alive without genetic enhancements. Who knew we'd have to take a thousand steps backwards to take a meaningful step forward.”
“I did.”
“And that's why my kids grew up with you as their family doctor,” Peter laughed. “Well, I'm not sleeping tonight, I'll start working on this right away. Admiral Rice won't be able to so much as set foot in Freedom Tower by morning.”
“Thank you again,” Doctor Anderson smiled. The communication closed and he started the Summer movement of Vivaldi's Four Seasons. “Just because you favour Wagner doesn't mean you shouldn't experience other composers,” he said to her quietly.
Ayan shifted in her peaceful chamber, moving her head closer to the sound.
Anderson smiled and looked at her closed eyes. “You have a long, interesting life ahead of you. I can't wait to meet you again.”
Epilogue
A miracle of modern technology. There was no other way to describe it. At its core was a reserve mass reactor with enough fuel to last over thirty years. From there it was easy to wire up one of the materializers, and using the materializer it was even simpler to create high efficiency lighting.
The rest, well, the rest was a little more difficult. The problem with being trapped in an old reactor room that had been turned into a garden was that you had all kinds of plants all around. The materializer could produce water, food, but no living matter. Once those plants died that was it, there was no bringing them back.
Not knowing much of anything about taking care of plants, he started with watering them regularly. After nearly killing all the tomato plants he finally got the right idea. Plants don't like to drown.
His living space consisted of five levels of grated decking with a couple storage closets and a nice flat floor across the bottom. The mass reactor was built into the center, right on top of the main bracing for the infrastructure.
After three years his thumb finally turned green and a few months after that the materializer was making a fourth composting bin section by section and a few new flower pots. Another two years passed and Minh-Chu found himself laughing aloud as he laid out another pot filled with fresh earth. His hair had grown long, his patience longer, and as he drifted through the absolute black of space with only two small windows to see through, he found himself wondering if anyone would ever find him.
The vines crawled up the sides of his home, every meal included natural foods. The three apple trees he had started with stretched up to the middle of the third deck, the tomatoes yielded a wonderful crop, several squashes did the same and his favourite, the rhubarb nearly grew out of control.
He had been trapped in a place of peace, he realized before long, and after a few years he managed to embrace that peace. There were a few things to read on his command and control unit and he managed to go through everything of interest, and some things not so interesting after five years.
He started entertaining himself by imagining all the things his friends might have gotten up to while he was trapped in a section of the station drifting through space. He also learned to play guitar thanks to the lessons he'd had on his materializer since he was a teenager. He'd never gotten to them but with so much time on his hands he materialized a narrow classical electrical guitar and began to learn.
When the First Light was about to puncture the research station with its wormhole generator he looked for the thickest bulkheads he could find. As luck would have it, the old reactor room was it, and he sealed himself inside. Everyone else on the station was either at combat stations or busy hopping into thin hulled escape pods.
The station sheared and twisted away from the old reactor room as it was ripped apart by the gravity circling the rough wormhole, and he was pulled in right behind the First Light. How far, he couldn't know, but it was far enough to get him clear of the Blue Belt, that's for sure. When the section of station emerged from the wormhole separate from the First Light, he was adrift. The Blue Belt couldn't be seen from any angle. After doing some math and recalling what he was able to see as he held on for dear life he was fairly certain that he had been tossed out the side of the worm hole, and there was no way for him to accurately estimate how far he had travelled.
Thanks to all that time he had to watch Jonas Valent work on his shuttle during the All-Con Conflict, and the many sessions where he'd go on about engineering marvels, he was able to wire up the materializer, life support and gravity to the emergency reactor. That was not quite the hardest part.
There were a few other compartments still attached to the one he was in. Some of them looked pressurized, his command unit said they were most likely safe, and he had a good vacsuit, but taking the unnecessary chance to explore could lead to him getting sucked out when the pressure of the two compartments tried to equalize. If there was a weak point in those outer compartments, he might get shot out into space, and he wouldn't last more than a week in a vacsuit.
He'd still stand in front of those doors for hours, just staring, considering the idea of opening them up just to beat the boredom. Then he'd consider his plants, how hard he had worked. If they were to suffer from low temperatures or decompression there would be little chance of recovery for them.
Minh had just cut some fresh rhubarb and was chewing the end when a sound came from two decks below.
“This is Lorander Survey Ship, Intrepid to. . .” the voice coming from his command and control unit paused for a moment. “what do I call this thing?”
“I don't know, address him as occupant,” said another voice.
He clamped the rhubarb stalk in his teeth and ran frenzied down the steel grating stairs. His long black hair flailed out behind him, the leafy end of the rhubarb stock bobbed in front of his face.
“This is Lorander Survey Ship Intrepid to wreckage occupant. Do you require assistance?”
Minh got to the bin he had left his command and control unit in and rummaged through the various extra parts and reusable containers from his meals. “Well, not really, but since you're asking, actually meeting someone who isn't imaginary would be nothing short of the best thing to happen to me in about seven years!” he shouted out as he looked for the unit as fast as he could. “Just hang on and. . . Found it!”
“This is Lorander Survey Ship Intr-”
“Oh God, tell me you're real, tell me you're real and even if you're not real at least be convincing!” Minh shouted into the communicator.
T
here was silence on the other end.
Minh brought his face very close to the command and control unit and tried to sound very calm even though his heart was beating a tattoo against the inside of his chest and he was so desperate to hear the people on the other end, to be saved. “Hello? Please help, I'm not crazy. Well, not dangerous crazy, just been living with plant life too long crazy.”
To his relief the voices came back, he could hear laughter in the background. “We'll get you out in a couple minutes. Do you have a pressure suit?”
“I do, but please don't kill my green friends,” he couldn't believe what he was saying at first, but then he looked around from the bottom of the five level reactor room and realized he could barely see the walls for the vines, trees and other shorter plants. The apple trees had grown tall and strong, and the decks were so laden with pots and plants that there was really only the smallest walking path left. In the middle of the bottom level was his materializer and the cot he made with it seven years before.
“We can make a seal and the deck officer tells me we can rescue some of your plants, maybe even use them for re-seeding on a colony,” the voice on the other end said eagerly.
“Wait, you're from Lorander? How far away am I?”
“I'm sorry, how far away from what sir?”
“From Starfree Port or Freeground, or even the Blue Belt?”
“Give us a minute to calculate that.”
Minh's eyes went wide. “They need to calculate it?” he whispered to himself.
“About twelve hundred light years from Starfree Port. From what we can tell there's evidence of a high energy event about seven years behind you. Sounds like you have one hell of a story to tell.”
Spinward Fringe Broadcast 3 Page 33
