She supposed, given the dire situation and the limited time they had to complete their project it was only understandable that they’d focused on survival of the species and reclamation of their civilization, not the lives of individuals.
She sighed despondently. It didn’t really matter why. She’d been given a sacred trust. She would have to focus on that and set her personal feelings aside until and unless such as time as she had fulfilled her part. She would be much better off not even thinking along the lines she’d been thinking in the meanwhile.
* * * *
Since he showed no signs of problems of any sort, Dionne coaxed Khan into a second session with the ICTD on the third day. He was not pleased when he demanded a third session with the ICTD the following day and Dionne refused, explaining that, for safety’s sake, she felt that it was best to allow at least a day to lapse between sessions.
She had mixed feelings about it. It was heartening that he was eager, almost hungry, to learn, unsettling that he seemed both angry and suspicious of her motives when she insisted on waiting, and distressing in a way that she didn’t really want to analyze to watch him change before her eyes.
The changes were fairly subtle, but profound nevertheless.
By mid-week Dionne had finished her testing of the seeds and was ready to begin environmental studies. Here her job was somewhat easier. For the most part, the equipment gathered the data through a series of sensors, analyzed the information and fed the results into a growing data bank.
Khan followed her step for step, tense, alert, and armed to the teeth. His behavior unnerved her far more than wandering about the wilderness. She knew that there were most likely animals that roamed the woods that presented a potential threat, but she had Nomi and Sachi. The noise she and the equipment made and her scent were enough to drive most any wild thing deeper into the woods. The cougars were there to protect her if any wild animal should feel threatened enough to attack.
Khan’s people had struck her as peaceful and since the gathering outside the bio-lab when she’d emerged had included several tribes, she assumed the populace was, for the most part, peaceful.
Khan greeted that assessment with an expression that was difficult to read. “Precisely how did you arrive at that conclusion?”
Dionne was in the process of collecting plant specimens. She stopped what she was doing and lifted her head to gape at him. For several moments, she was so pleased at his improved vocabulary and diction that she didn’t even consider what he’d actually said. “Conclusion?” she echoed finally, realizing that she’d missed the gist of the question.
Khan glanced around and finally squatted beside her so that they were face to face. “This is a dangerous conclusion you’ve made, and based on nothing but the most rudimentary observations. None of the tribes are peaceful when compared to what you’re accustomed to. Our survival is primarily dependent upon the food supplied by nature. If we don’t guard our territory, other tribes will encroach and we will suffer for it.”
“Oh,” Dionne responded, blinking rapidly as she considered the information. “That’s going to make things more difficult. I’d assumed I would be able to interact freely with the specim--people and gather my data.”
Something flickered in his eyes at her near slip. Feeling a twinge of color surge into her cheeks, she looked away, focusing on carefully placing the specimens she’d collected in the hopper of the analyzer.
“I will just have to figure something out,” she said finally. “It’s important that all survivors be tested for sicknesses, inoculated against disease, and analyzed for genetic defect before we can proceed to phase three,” she said absently.
Khan stood, staring down at her. His gaze seemed to burn into her. “And phase three is?”
She frowned, bracing herself for the anger she expected. “The introduction of superior genetic stock. The ‘mothers’ were bio-engineered to ensure quality, but there wasn’t enough time or money to pair them with their male counterparts. It was all the project committee could do to produce the twelve they considered a bare minimum of what was needed--and the one they had designated as their fail-safe and project leader.”
“And this is phase one?” Khan asked after a fairly prolonged silence.
Dionne nodded without glancing at him. There was a tightness in his voice that hinted at displeasure if not open hostility, but she didn’t feel up to any sort of confrontation. “Phase one: I am to collect data for analysis so that the main computer can determine if any necessary building blocks are missing--in order to create a new civilization, the natural resources must be there to be collected and used--but they must also harmonize with what is here to avoid creating an imbalance like the one that contributed to the downfall before.
“Once that has been determined, I’m to implement phase two--which is to begin reintroduction of key species of plants, insects, and animals, location of necessary ore and mineral deposits, and education of the survivors via the ICTD devises--assuming their brains have not regressed and they have the capacity for learning what’s needed. If there has been some regression, then I must still do what can be done and hope that the introduction of superior stock will eventually produce the desired results.”
“Timing is critical. In order to maximize the benefits of the project, it’s important that everything be in place at the right time for utilization. If the clones reach maturity before the tools and building blocks are in place, their genius could go untapped.”
“For now, you will confine yourself to my tribe and tribal territory.”
Dionne surged to her feet. “That isn’t part of the plan,” she said, keeping her voice even with an effort. “Renewal is for mankind, not merely a handful.”
Khan gestured to the world around them. “Did they envision this when they were formulating the ‘grand design’? Did they consider the human factor, human nature--at all? Did they consider that the only possibility of survival, the only ones likely to survive, would be those strong enough--animal enough--to use their instincts? These traits that ensured survival will also make it next to impossible for you to implement the ‘grand design’ on a full scale. They are wild, untamed, and dangerous. They will not simply walk into your lab like--domesticated cattle and allow you to do whatever you like--or need to do.
“I am chief of my tribe. Most will trust me enough to do as I ask of them--but not all. Even in my own village there are those who will refuse and those who will have to be coaxed.
“Among the tribes that are our allies, some cooperation is also possible. Beyond that, the only way you will collect your ‘specimens’ is by force, which will result in a great deal of bloodshed and loss of life.
“This is not a lab where all the animals are contained in cages awaiting their fate.”
Dionne stared at him in dismay, knowing he was right. She was a scientist, and as alien to his world as if she’d been dropped here from a world across the galaxy. She knew what to do and how to do it in a lab setting, but how was she to carry out her assignment in the real world? This savage garden of Eden?
Chapter Eight
It took a full week for Dionne and Khan to work their way across the wilderness that separated the bio-lab from Khan’s village. Khan used his tracking skills to determine the points most frequented by the denizens of the forest seeking water and after carefully de-scenting the probe, they set it up near enough to the spot to track and record the animals as they came to the stream to drink. Khan and Dionne spent much of those nights perched on a platform Khan had constructed high in a nearby tree, so that they could guard the probe from the possibility of human intervention and observe the variety of species that inhabited the woods.
Setting the probe near the water supply was Khan’s contribution to Dionne’s efforts after she’d observed that it could take months or years to catalogue them all if she could do little besides sit in the woods for hours at the time and hope an animal wandered by.
As helpful as Khan’s sug
gestion was in rapidly accumulating necessary data, the job was still a miserable one. The platforms Khan constructed at the various sites were small, barely wide enough for one, much less the two of them, forcing them into a false intimacy that Khan seemed to find as uncomfortable as Dionne did. When one added the limitation of movements, the impossibility of even talking as a diversion, the cool night air, and the long, muscle cramping hours they had to perch there, Dionne arrived at the conclusion that very few situations could even come close to it in terms of absolute misery.
The one thing Dionne had in plenty was time for thought. Part of that was expended on the problem Khan had pointed out with the project. The other part revolved around Khan, much to her dismay.
Since the day he’d done--whatever it was he’d done that had made her feel so desperately achy and needy that had culminated in such a wonderful explosion of ecstasy, he hadn’t made any attempt to repeat the experiment--at all. Of course she supposed that might be partly her own fault, because she’d gone out of her way to keep as much distance between them as possible after that. But it seemed to her that he’d accepted her refusal of intimacy far easier than he should have if he’d truly been attracted to her to start with.
He didn’t strike her as the sort to be easily dissuaded. He’d been interested enough up until that last devastating encounter that he’d ignored her weak protests and introduced her to a whole new world of sensations.
Why had he simply backed away then? Shouldn’t he have been as desperate to experience it again as she’d was?
She supposed she shouldn’t complain. She’d said no. He’d backed off. That was that. It was much better than the alternative.
It made working with him easier.
It was irritating as hell to have to suffer alone.
He seemed very different since he’d begun the sessions with the ICTD. She wasn’t certain she approved of the change, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was about him that was different, or more precisely, that she didn’t consider an improvement. There was nothing she could see that seemed symptomatic of neurological problems, and she felt no particular anxiety that he’d been injured in any way.
That thought did lead her to one she began to think might be closer to the answer.
He’d erected a wall of indifference, she finally decided. It was the sort of premeditated, carefully contrived emotional distance people manufactured to protect themselves from something, or someone, that was hurtful.
She glanced at him at that thought, but her eyes had adjusted to the gloom as much as they were going to and she couldn’t make out much more than a vague outline of his face. The movement attracted his attention, however, and he turned to look back at her--questioningly, probably.
There was no point in asking him what she’d done, she realized. It was very unlikely that he would tell her anything at all. Most likely, he would pretend he hadn’t any idea at all of what she was talking about.
Mentally, she shrugged. It was probably the rejection thing. That was always a low blow, no matter how carefully worded. It didn’t make anyone feel any better to be told that it wasn’t them, it was something else, because they never believed it--mostly because everyone knew that kind of excuse was almost always just a polite lie.
The confusing thing about that theory was that Khan understood far more than he had in the beginning. The ICTD had not only brought him through basic education, but it had familiarized him with the civilization she had been born to. Surely he had learned enough to understand the importance of what she’d been sent to do?
But perhaps that was it? He’d been interested, but now he realized that her mission was too important to jeopardize with personal feelings and he had distanced himself emotionally because he knew it could come to nothing?
She looked away from him again after a moment, staring down at the creek running along the forest floor. It took an effort to put him from her mind when it was his body heat keeping her warm and she could feel the brush of his arm along hers, or his hip butting hers whenever either of them shifted to a more comfortable position.
She was fortunate, she realized, that it had been Khan who’d awakened her and that he had not simply abandoned her when he’d realized her mission prevented her from giving him sexual gratification. She’d made a great deal of progress and most of it was due to him.
His insight about the current situation wasn’t something she could dismiss either. She supposed it had been in the back of her mind all the time and that was why she’d had to fight a sense of hopelessness all the while she went through the motions of her assignment. She had considered the magnitude of the problem. She had also realized that the scientists had not really considered the human equation as they should have. She just hadn’t considered how much of a road block this barbaric society would present to her.
There were certain points of the original plan that were critical, even though she saw that executing it as it had been laid out for her probably wasn’t going to work. It seemed probable that she could bring Khan’s people out of the wilderness, possibly some of his tribe’s allies--and likely no more. That was enough for a start, but even she could see that reaching so few would mean that she’d only succeeded in dividing the civilized from the uncivilized, which could create as many problems as it relieved.
She began to think it might have been better if she had not argued with their belief that she was a goddess. At least if they’d believed that they would have been concerned about displeasing the goddess, which, theoretically would have made them all more cooperative.
That thought led her to an idea she hadn’t considered. She dismissed it at first, knowing it was unethical, probably immoral, but it kept returning, impossible to ignore.
She glanced at Khan again. “What if--assuming they’re still alive--we allowed the people to believe the ‘mothers’ were goddesses?”
Khan frowned thoughtfully, seemed to consider it, then shrugged. “It would be dangerous.”
Dionne pursed her lips in irritation. “As you pointed out, everything on this world is dangerous now, completely savage and uncivilized. I need to get them into the different tribes if they’re going to do any good. If the people believe they are goddesses, or gifts from the gods--whatever--aren’t they more likely to try to please them? Something could be worked out. I know it’s--morally wrong, what I’m saying, but wouldn’t the end justify the means?”
Khan studied her in silence for several moments, his face taut. “Exploit their beliefs, you mean? Use their ignorance and child-like trust to manipulate them?”
Dionne felt her face redden. “You think it’s less wrong to deprive them of what we could give them? To give the gifts only to your people?”
His lips tightened with his own anger. “How much of a ‘gift’ is it to bring dissatisfaction to people who were reasonably satisfied with the lives they had? To show them what might have been? What they don’t have that they should?”
Dionne’s jaw slackened in stunned surprise. She’d thought Khan, at least, would understand that she only wanted the best for everyone. She hadn’t thought for a moment that he was actually against everything she was doing.
She lurched to her feet so abruptly she almost went off the platform and had to grab the trunk of the tree to steady herself. “If you had no interest in learning, why did you risk your life to enter the bio-lab? If you were completely satisfied with the life you had, why did you go to the forbidden land? How do you know what they want?”
“They are my people,” he said quietly, though the words were no less angry for being spoken low.
Dionne swallowed against a lump that suddenly formed in her throat. “They are my people, too!”
Her exit was nearly a grander one than she’d planned. The climb down the tree was treacherous enough under any condition. Angry and hurt, she was too distressed to pay as much attention as she should. Halfway down, she stepped on a branch too thin to hold her weight. It snapped. Fortunatel
y, she had a good handhold and caught herself, but she scraped a good bit of hide off on the rough bark. Muttering curses under her breath, she did her best to ignore the burning scrapes and made the remainder of the climb more carefully. She was still shaky from the near fall when she reached the ground, however.
Khan landed on the ground only a few feet from her, having dropped the last several feet. Ignoring him, she stalked angrily along the narrow path they’d followed to the stream. Nomi slid from the brush along the path and fell into step on one side of her. A few minutes later Sachi wedged himself between Khan and Dionne on the narrow path, nearly pushing both of them down.
Dionne barely glanced at either cat, but a sense of satisfaction filled her that Sachi had so effectively distanced her from Khan. They walked the two miles to the bio-lab in offended silence. When she reached the bio-lab and realized that Khan had fallen back, Dionne stalked through the entrance and ordered the door closed before Khan could reach it.
To all intents and purposes, it was her lab. He could take himself back to his damned lodge if he was so frigging satisfied with living in a hut!
He came in through the escape hatch, glaring at her when he landed at the foot of the shaft. As startled as she was that he’d not only climbed the building and entered it despite the fact that she’d slammed the door in his face, arriving in the main lab at the center of the building at almost the same time she did, Dionne wasn’t about to let him know he’d unnerved her. She merely glared back at him and stalked through the lab and into her quarters. Without pausing, she headed for the shower, peeling the tunic she wore off as she went and tossing it to the floor. She was chilled, despite her anger, and her palm, forearm and thigh still stung from scraping them on the tree.
Twilight's End Page 8
