The Genetic Imerative

by P. Joseph Cherubino

  I am here because I need you. The program might not, but I do. I just need you to be a soldier again,” Rachel said, struggling for her words. “All the humans that I love, all the people here who are truly friends, none of them matter when it comes down to what we have to do. With you, I can believe this can be done, even if you don’t. I’m sorry, but I just need you in this. Please, Donna.”

  And there it was. Donna looked through the glass wall at her love chatting amicably with Penny. Everyone and everything needs something that it can’t do without, Donna thought.

  “I need a day to get things in order,” Donna said, still looking through the glass wall.

  “Of course.”

  Donna thought for a moment, letting the new reality sink in. She was already changing.

  “I will be under your direct command,” Donna said. “I will follow you, but you won’t call me by my signal or my rank. You will use my name.

  And I absolutely will not take orders from humans.”

  “I can promise the first, but not the last part. You might have to make a concession there.”

  “I Definitely will not take orders from that little whelp who tried to shoot me.”

  “She did shoot you.”

  Donna raised her eyebrows and brought her fingers to the bullet hole in her t-shirt and then rubbed the small red mark above her eye.

  “Yes. I guess she did. I’ll think about that second thing then.”

  Donna stared through the glass, and Carmen turned to meet her eyes. Carmen had seen the look before, but never from Donna. Donna’s face said that she was going away. Carmen suddenly left for work through the back door of the gym. She didn’t say goodbye to Penny. She didn’t wave at Donna. Penny looked around, surprised by the abrupt exit. She found Donna's face staring back at her through the plate glass.

  “Uh oh…” Penny thought.

  Chapter 12: Homesphere, Arrest

  Nina stood in the kitchen area with a cup of Earth wine in her hand and stared into the great square face of an ancient Warrior. She understood why the statues looked the way they did. The statues were accurate. This soldier was like mass itself. She was a presence displacing a volume of significance in the scene of her installation. This old Advocate was an immovable certainty. They stood there silently a long while, moving only to sip wine and rarely breaking eye contact.

  “General Zebrak, if I am to be arrested, I’d like to see the gardens in this chamber before newcycle.” Nina said, stopping short of asking to be excused. It would be impertinent to ask the General to walk with her, so she left the statement open as an oblique invitation.

  The General said, “I will walk with you then.”

  The two soldiers fell in together as they walked through the apartment. The General allowed their pace to remain even, and they walked nearly touching shoulders. The formation told the other soldiers present in no uncertain terms that Nina deserved respect. The general fell back a pace and allowed Nina to leave the room first. Nina didn’t bother trying to find her sandals again in the crowded entry room. It would have broken the spell, and she doubted she’d find them any time soon. Nina enjoyed the direct contact with the stone beneath her feet.

  Nina and the General walked side-by-side down the spiral walkway as the railing did its automatic work of casting yellow pools of light around their feet like upended halos. In spite of the tension she found, Nina wished to call this chamber home. She got the sense that the current drama she was passing through was simply one scene in this place that was a very peaceful stage. The place was designed to be peaceful.

  “Was this your doing, General?” Nina said, indicating the chamber with scanning eyes.

  “Not entirely. I can’t claim it. My part was allowing it to happen.”

  “And the other new construction I’ve seen since my return?”

  “A trend. Happening on its own. High command had never seen it before, so they didn’t understand what it meant.

  Requests that don’t seem to directly impact the mission are not considered important, so they are simply approved in the name of simplicity.

  It is assumed that the Warrior chooses all her actions for efficiency and the overall good. It’s part of our code of honor and pride. High command is realizing that the code has changed.”

  “Do you believe this is no longer true—our honor and pride?”

  “Never,” the General said firmly. Nina apparently touched a nerve. “We will always be Warriors, but we now understand a deeper truth.”

  Nina waited. There was no follow. Her expectant silence implied a question.

  The General chuckled, and it was like the purr of a large cat.

  “How quickly you forget,” the General said, “I have already told you, but I see that you don’t fully understand. I don’t expect you to. You may understand soon.”

  All this cryptic double-talk made Nina’s head spin. They wound their way down the spiral path towards the train platform. They passed the stairway down to the train tubes and the platform became a staircase that did a quick switchback making a counter-spiral down into the lush garden.

  The path was made from lightly-polished flagstone that was obviously a product of the chamber’s excavation. The stone was cool on Nina’s feet. The lightcasters at the top of the dome high above created a silvery light in the garden section. While the ambient light along the walkway was soft and yellow, here it was whiter and a bit more intense. The light lent more contrast to the garden.

  The garden seemed to have its own micro-climate as well. It felt a bit more humid but much cooler. A breeze played along the path through short, coniferous green trees along the path’s edge. Set back from the path, taller trees rose almost to the main walkway. These trees were various types that Nina had never seen before. All their trunks were slender, being the captives of this confined space, but their bark varied from peeling white to rough and cracked gray.

  “These trees are also from Earth,” it dawned on Nina, and her ears became attuned for the first time to the sounds of creatures rustling in the forest.

  “Not only the trees. The entire garden contains plants from Earth.”

  Trees, vines, shrubs and low-lying plants with long stems lined with hundreds of small, oval leaves grew in well-tended flower beds. The black soil between the flagstones stuck to Nina’s feet and its fertile scent tickled her nose. She found the dark color of the soil and the many shades of green relaxing. The sights put her at ease and she almost forgot the brewing intrigue she found herself in.

  The path wound gently out towards the chamber wall, then began to guide them around to the right. Smaller paths cut between the spiral leading to small clearings. One of them contained a small pond. They moved toward it.

  “Koi,” General Zebrak said, looking down at the fish. “A creature from Earth bred for centuries to become an ornamental species. Produced for the purpose of looking pretty in ponds just like this.”

  Nina agreed the fish were pretty. She saw plump creatures about half the size of her fist. Some were bright orange, others dappled red and white, with short flowing tails. One of them suddenly rushed towards the surface and swallowed an insect that landed on the water.

  “Violent predation,” Nina noted with some appreciation.

  “Yes. Most of the life on Earth is prone to this. Other than the Silicoids, life such as this is rare in the galaxy.

  What predation there is in the galaxy certainly doesn’t happen on the scale that it does among the species of Earth.”

  Nina shook her head. She finally reached her limit. The General had turned this walk into another way to deliver some kind of message. Nina subtly stepped a bit further from the general, putting the pond between them.

  “General, I mean no disrespect,” Nina said, “But I have had enough of this.

  One of my closest friends brings me here under false pretense and suddenly, I’m being drawn into some conspiracy having something to do with life on the Seed Planet and private living qu
arters?

  You can’t even look at fish without trying to give me some mysterious message.

  Just what are you planning to do? How can you be sure that I won’t tell the tribunal everything you’ve told me?

  What makes you think I want any part of your petty intrigues?

  I am an Advocate Warrior. I fight. I die. I was born to protect and preserve life in the galaxy. That means something to me.”

  Nina stood back, ready for a fight.

  The General suddenly looked tired. She lost the look of stone and became an old woman before Nina’s eyes. General Zebrak made her way slowly to a large bench that was formed from a flattened boulder. She reached into the right sleeve of her arm and slowly removed two halves of a staff that were bound in a spinstone bag. Nina noted with great respect that her forearm was large enough to accommodate the staff section length. She set the staff on her lap and stared into the pond. She said nothing. Nina waited for some reply. When there was none, Nina carefully walked around the pond and sat beside the old Warrior.

  They sat and in the garden before the pond. More insects appeared. They were of very strange varieties. They flew and hopped around as insects will, but Nina did begin to understand their struggle as more desperate than other insect forms she had seen. They searched for food and tried to avoid being the food for others. Somehow, Nina found their patterns of struggle beautiful. Nina was startled when the old Warrior spoke.

  “I wouldn’t have you mistrust your friends,” the General said. “That is unacceptable risk. Please don’t blame Chanise,”

  Zebrak looked up at Nina with large, moist eyes and a soft smile that really was a smile. Nina saw that she had extended the bagged staff towards Nina just a bit.

  “I want you to have my staff,” Zebrak said.

  Nina nearly gasped. She didn’t know what to say. This was a gesture one Advocate had to accept.

  “I’m sorry, but this is all I will ask of you further. Please take it,” Zebrak said.

  Nina accepted with silent reverence. The staff was heavier than her own, and she closed her hand around it tentatively as if it were a fragile thing.

  “Whatever you choose, I am proud to know you,” the General said.

  They sat for almost an hour. Nina grew tired.

  “It is late,” The General said softly. “You should go back to the chamber and sleep. Nobody will bother you. Come,”

  Zebrak guided Nina from the bench by the arm. They didn’t separate, arms, and as they walked, the old warrior began to lean against Nina. Being this close made Her realize that the old woman’s gait was a bit uneven, and her legs moved with some stiffness. She was still very strong, but Nina detected slight tremors of pain in the places where their skin made contact. Walking was difficult for the old woman. She hid it well. Nina began to read more signs of age on the General’s face.

  They reached the chamber again, and the crowd was down to less than a dozen soldiers talking quietly. They gave Nina and the General little but respectful notice as the general led Nina down the round hallway at the end of Cordelia’s chamber. They passed a series of rooms on either side of the hallway, some with curtains drawn on dark sleeping chambers and others with soft light peeking around the corners.

  Soft voices drifted from some chambers and the susurration of sleeping breath drifted from others. Nina finally found a comfortable cubby behind a beaded curtain of sea creature shells. She turned to the old warrior, who simply nodded her head with the faintest smile, turned on her heel and faded down the hallway into the shadows. Nina found a nest of soft blankets and cushions in the sleeping cubby and burrowed down into the soft mass. She loosened the robe and pulled its hood over her head. Nina curled into a semi-fetal position and pulled the halved staff close to her chest and slept fitfully for the first time in months. She dreamed of the times spent out on the volcanic plains beneath the dome of her personal shelter and safe from the violent skies of Venus. Nina dreamed she could see the stars.

  The sound of jingling bells drew her slowly from deep sleep. At first she thought she was on deployment somewhere in a humid jungle, bivouacked in soft underbrush. Then she felt Zebrak’s staff between her breasts and things slowly came back to her. She could see dim light through the hood of the borrowed robe and the cracks between the cushions she was buried under. She released her embrace of the staff and pushed some pillows away from her face with it. Chanise was standing in the doorway of the cubby pushing the beaded curtain of seashells back and forth. She saw Nina poke her head slowly from the mass of pillows and laughed freely. The sound was good to hear and Nina emerged fully from her nest with a long stretch of her arms and a yawn of epic proportion.

  Chanise tried to say something to her, but she stumbled by, practically shouldering her friend aside.

  “Bathroom is the other way,” Chanise called, and Nina instantly reversed course. She tapped Chanise on the shoulder as she passed. Nina was still non-verbal.

  The bathroom was a large, with a squat-toilet at the far end opposite a sizable bathing pool. A stand-up wash basin ran the length of the wall to the left of the exit. Nina made a direct line for the privy, removed her robe, relieved herself, then washed quickly at the basin with a fresh, rough cloth. She was up to her shoulders in the bathing pool in under five minutes with a contented smile on her face as the warm water swirled around her. In a few minutes, Chanise slipped into the tub beside her.

  “I knew you would get stuck in here,” Chanise declared.

  Nina made some non-verbal noises of confirmation and dunked her head beneath the water. She scrubbed her mane of jet black hair for a few seconds. Nina broke the surface again and slicked her hair back.

  “I might not leave,” Nina said earnestly.

  “If only that were possible. Newcycle came two hours ago. We should head back soon.”

  “Yes. Can’t keep the tribunal waiting,” Nina said ironically.

  “I heard you spoke with General Zebrak.”

  “Yes,” Nina said.

  She looked where the borrowed robe covered the staff General Zebrak gave her. Nina hadn’t unwrapped the staff yet.

  “She told me to bring you here, but I also really wanted to see you.”

  “Did you follow me after Middle Ceremony?”

  “Yes.”

  “And placed yourself in my path?” Nina asked.

  Chanise hesitated.

  “Yes,” Chanise said quietly, eyes down.

  “It is good to see you, Chanise. I hope to see you every time I come home,” Nina said.

  With that, she left the tub, rinsed herself at the wash basin, then dried with the outside of the borrowed robe. The robe worked to shed the water as Nina arranged her hair well enough to keep it out of her eyes.

  “I could eat,” Nina announced

  The two old friends walked back out into the living chamber. A few soldiers milled about, representing points on a spectrum from awake to groggy. The food from the night before was nowhere to be seen. In its place was a range of nutritional wine, some traditional, some not. Nina poured from a pitcher of thick, green and oily wine that was fermented from the algae and mineral-rich water of home. Nina found it tangy and delicious as she chewed on the soft clumps of algae colonies. It was her first traditional breakfast since arriving home.

  She had just lowered the cup from her mouth when she felt a slight movement of air. The beaded seashells of the entrance curtain jangled. A blur appeared in the room. A soldier standing in the shallow living chamber collapsed to the floor as a fan of blood spread from the side of her head. Two shimmering blurred forms shifted through the chamber and two other soldiers nearer to the kitchen collapsed screaming as their right legs folded beneath them at improper angles. The shimmering forms disappeared, then suddenly showed up on the stairs to the kitchen.

  Chanise was already moving away from the forms. She jumped through the window opening between the kitchen and living room. Nina instinctively threw her cup at the approaching form and a sp
lash of wine soaking spinstone revealed part of a shoulder and arm. The blurred forms could only be Intelligence Division soldiers using special camouflage cloaks. They were the only soldiers trained to use camouflage so effectively.

  Nina ducked as the exposed arm flashed out at her. The wind from a staff strike whistled above her head. Nina launched forward at the blur, making solid contact with it. Her lunge cancelled the attacker’s motion and drove her back against the low kitchen wall. Her shoulder sank into the opponent’s belly and there was a loud “whoof” of air escaping lungs. The two bounced off the wall and slid across the kitchen floor.

  Nina rose to her feet while the attacker was still trying to breathe. The attacking soldier lost concentration from impact and her camouflage failed. The soldier on the floor was definitely from Intelligence Division. Nina reached into her robe for Zebrak’s staff just as she saw another blur moving towards her from the opposite end of the kitchen. Nina turned to the side, brought her left knee back, her arms swinging out to the right. As the blur crossed the plane of her center mass, Nina brought her arms forward again, and drove her left knee hard towards the blur. Her hands found purchase on the back of a robe and she gripped it firmly as the body was caught between the piston of her knee and her grasping hands. There was a deep thud and the snap of cracking ribs, and the soldier went down, her camouflage compromised by pain and the bloody spit spraying from her mouth. Nina did not slow down.

  She reversed her motion, forgetting about the collapsed staff in her robe and lunged for the staff dropped by the second disabled attacker. Running footsteps thundered from the hallway and shouts filled the formerly peaceful chamber. Six more Intelligence Division soldiers clad in black robes, with hoods over their faces, burst into the room. They no longer bothered with camouflage. They stood, staves ready, in the entrance and along the base of the stairs. The resident soldiers, in casual robes and without weapons, formed a line and faced their armed intruders. Nina pushed through the crowd and stood between them. Nina pointed the captured staff at the attackers. The intruders were faced with a sudden unexpected stalemate. It looked as if two were sent in to capture Nina but failed. The others rushed in to the rescue.