She turned to Charlie. “Dr. Rampling, of all of us here, you are probably more aware of the possibilities than most. You've been off world; you know the wide range of possible life forms.
“We don't have any sure knowledge of what has happened here, but it is clear to me, at least, that someone found a key that unlocks the genomes of all DNA life. The first two groups were chimera. I'm not sure what this is; I suppose this third group could be chimera as well... but I suspect that they were designed from the ground up.”
“And it's dangerous just to look at them?” Charlie Rampling said.
“Dangerous to more than your psyche, Dr. Rampling. Supreme Court Justice Taylor took one look at them, realized what had been done to them, and was dead by the time her body hit the floor. Another man ate his pistol. More people than you want to contemplate have left like the last doctor; flat on their backs and sedated.”
Joe Stark spoke first. “I've seen enough to make me as angry as I can ever remember in my life. I'll pass.”
The other two had to see.
It was anticlimactic. Charlotte Rampling stared at the fluttering pixies, her face stone. “And now I know why we call it 'Stone Face,' don't I?” she said softly.
“Yes, Dr. Rampling.”
“This is going to be devastating.”
“Yes,” Stephanie agreed. “At the very least, every bio-tech scientist is going to have someone standing over their shoulder from here on out, watching their every move. Most likely, a year from now, it'll be a dead field, about like Egyptology is these days.”
“We can't lose it all, Steph! Off world! We'll kill ourselves if we don't have the ability to understand what we're seeing.”
“Charlie,” Steph said, glad that Charlie had at long last remembered her name, “think about this for a second. What was done here was bad enough. Leaving their subjects behind for someone else to deal with is just as monstrous -- as terrible a crime as anything else they've done. They're gone, Charlie! Do you understand? They've decamped! Sometime in the last day or so a starship left the solar system with a true destination other than the one they reported to the Fleet.
“These were schemers and plotters, Charlie! When you put one with the other... people are going to be howling for blood. The Europeans were never comfortable with genetically modified crops. Asia needed them, but their endorsement was half-hearted. South America and Africa? Frankenfood, Charlie! That's what they call it.”
“Can you keep your daughter -- my granddaughter -- safe?”
Stephanie laughed. “And you thought all those Marines outside were for show?”
General Bierbaum cleared his throat. “That's an amusing thought, Admiral. Please, I have a favor to ask. I would like a moment of your time in private.”
“Of course. Charlie, I know you have an MD; anything, anything you can do at all here will win you the eternal gratitude of the Federation.”
“Can I spend my time looking after my granddaughter?”
“Charlie, do you think you're here to hold my pencils?”
The biologist laughed. “No. You should beware, Steph. One day you'll pull someone's strings and they'll be more than just a little angry.”
“Right now, I need to talk to General Bierbaum.”
“Go ahead, I have work to do.”
Stephanie led the general to one of the upstairs offices. It had tape on the door, showing it had been searched; Stephanie ignored it.
“General.”
“Admiral, you will hold my life in your hand after this. I ask only that you do your duty as I do mine -- to the best of my ability.”
“You're Mossad?”
The general blinked in surprise. “Yes. Admiral, I have very secure communications. I need to transmit this to the government of Israel.”
“Well, you have my permission; I can't speak for my military or political superiors, much less yours.”
“That's okay, Admiral. You understand why this is important; I can see it in your eyes.”
“Aye, I know why it's important. The Israeli government is going to have to do yeoman's work not to overreact to what the German government has done... or more fairly, not done. Like most governments these days, they stand around, shoveling out money hoping to buy enough votes for reelection.”
The general grinned. “And there is a move afoot to adopt the Federation charter for Germany's government, without reservations.”
“Undoubtedly a coincidence. I know President Campbell well; I'm sure he thinks he has enough headaches as it is.”
“Undoubtedly, Admiral.”
“I'll leave you here alone, General. A word of caution: I wouldn't try to use the any of the phones or computers in this building.”
“I won't,” he assured her.
Chapter 6 -- Revelation
The day went with dizzying speed. At four in the afternoon, local time, President Campbell called a meeting. “First,” he told them, “a report on the medical situation.”
A colonel arose. “I am Colonel Jeremiah Sanderson, the assistant surgeon general of the Fleet. Admiral Carson is indisposed.” There were no laughs or smiles; everyone knew why now. As more people had become involved, the casualty count crept steadily upwards.
“Initially I thought Admiral Kinsella was an enthusiastic amateur; a layman out of her depth. I find myself currently in awe of her acumen and perspicacity. I have a list of the subjects now, as well as evaluations of how they appear to be faring. Where there was concern, additional assets were assigned, to include vets and species-specific biologists.
“All of the victims continue in stable condition, so far as we can determine. Quite a few are agitated; our shrinks say that's because there are no familiar faces. Again, I am indebted to Admiral Kinsella's quite correct decision, early on, to assign dedicated teams to each group.
“The medical staff is unanimous -- the victims have been subject to enough new faces; from here on out such decisions will have to be most carefully made.
“The science is -- rudimentary. Where we think we could help, we've gathered DNA samples. With this many samples that are going to have to be analyzed in far greater detail than is common, labs around the world are going to be swamped; worse, there is a concern that this was a conspiracy and while most of the leading conspirators appear to have decamped, there may be agents-in-place left behind. We have been coordinating with police forces around the world; none of them have quite the magnitude of a problem as there is here in Erfurt.
“I have reported to Admiral Castleman that it is my belief that the Koop lab is the origin; but it's only my conjecture.
“What isn't a matter of conjecture is that it is clear that we have a number of victims with varying degrees of human genes included in their biology. As bad as that is, there are also victims who quite clearly are 'made-to-order,' that is, resembling fantasy or mythical subjects. We can’t be sure of their genetic composition.
“Again, I have reiterated Admiral Kinsella's early decision that all of the victims are to be treated as if they are human beings until we are positive otherwise to all of our staff.
“Some groups of victims present special problems; I refer in particular to the 'Tinker Bells.' You can number the people able to deal with them by counting the big toes on your right foot. They aren't the only group that is difficult to deal with.”
He bowed to Stephanie. “I discussed this with Admiral Kinsella for about two seconds. She said, 'use Chinese doctors.' That's working. We are trying now to be more cognizant of cultural issues.”
“In short, though, none of the victims appear to be in serious or more critical condition?” President Campbell asked.
“Not so far as we can ascertain, sir. I know this sounds like an excuse, but we have a very large and varied group of victims. I'd like to say we have a firm grip on all of the issues, but in fact we don't. We think we do, but it's still early in the medical evaluation process.
“About an hour ago, a frog-like individual tried to
croak a word that sounded very much like 'hello.' I'm sorry, Mr. President, but the researcher assigned to that group lost his cool and ran screaming from the facility, vowing vengeance on those who did this. He wasn’t the first and I’m afraid he won’t be the last.”
“Admiral Kinsella, you are our liaison with the various national police forces. What can you tell us?” the President inquired.
“Mr. President, it is early days everywhere. Even though we have a half-day lead on the rest, we still have little to report.
“All of the individuals known to have participated in the research have vanished. We believe they have fled. They used a variety of stratagems, but the bottom line is that none of these individuals -- or their family members -- has surfaced in over 24 hours to any form of scrutiny. No bank activity, no credit card activity -- no nothing. We have expanded our search, using significant local and international resources, but so far, none of the named suspects have been either heard from, much less located.”
“And none of the national forces have had any luck?” asked the President.
“No, sir, none. We might have a break, but the data is... uncertain.”
“Uncertain, Admiral?”
“A Frau Doktor Mueller was a reported suicide last night here in Erfurt. The early thinking was that she was the one who made the initial report.
“However, a number of anomalies have occurred that make us think that wasn't the case.”
“What wasn't?” President Campbell asked.
“She was reported to have leaped off a 20th floor hotel balcony. The bellman told us she made a point of indicating her purse... yet, she was wearing a shoulder bag as well, one that the bellman said seemed to be strapped very securely to her body.
“A medic from an ambulance pronounced her dead at the scene -- except that the ambulance service said they didn't send anyone. An attempt to locate the body has proven fruitless.
“There is, Mr. President, a company called 'Chang Industries,' founded by Mr. John Chang, that produces very small Benko-Chang fans, to be used in models -- those are mostly used in movies and toys.
“Nonetheless, some of the turbines are both small and robust. There are grapefruit-sized devices that give full control over local velocity. That is, you could, with such a device engaged in your vicinity, ascend or descend as the mood took you, although you would have a decidedly limited range.
“A review of the Fleet traffic watch data has shown that at 2300 Zulu last night a ship departed from Earth orbit, ostensibly headed for a colony in the northern part of the sky. It was a private charter; we have only a list of passenger names. So far as our investigators can determine, all of the names on the passenger list are bogus.”
“You think they have decamped in mass?” the President asked.
“Sir, I think so. On the other hand, this appears to have been an extensive conspiracy. We have no real idea how many people actually shipped out on the City of Kursk but it appears to have been in excess of the thousand or so warrants we've issued.”
“A Russian ship?”
“Sir, in fairness, it was a legal Russian ship, with certificates for their fan royalties.”
“It's a terrible thing contemplating a plot this massive,” President Campbell mused.
“Sir, we know they committed a crime against humanity; they had to know it as well. Clearly they didn't care about the morality of their research -- their main concern seems to have been 'We don't want to get caught.'
“I think we can safely say that they had time to remove any of their victims that they wished; clearly they didn't wish to be bothered with very many. They left the rest of them for us in such a manner that we would find them. I can't help but think that we're expected to, at some future time, give some sort of constructive credit to their descendents for not having tossed all of their subjects into an incinerator.”
“We wouldn't have tolerated that,” President Campbell said emphatically. “We'd have done whatever we could to hunt them down. Not that we won’t hunt them down anyway.”
“Sir, space is huge. A properly designed and crewed ship could easily move more than 300 light years in a year. We've surveyed now out about twenty-five light years from the solar system. There are about a thousand stars in that volume of space. In a sphere seventy-five light years in diameter that number will be closer to thirty-five hundred, and a sphere with a diameter of hundred light years will hold close to twelve thousand stars.
“I'm talking a sphere seven hundred light years across... that's three million stars. We might not see them again for a millennia. Considering their technology, we might not even recognize them after all that time.”
“Do you have a recommendation, Admiral?”
“Check with the heads of government; if they've got their people alerted, just go ahead and spit out what happened here. We need to get as many people working on the response to this as we can get; we'd never be able to contain it if we tried to get enough people to do the necessary work while trying to keep it secret.
“This will be a media and PR event after today. We need to control the spin on things in such a way that we mute as much of the anger as we can. Obviously, we'll throw Herr Doktor Koop and his compatriots to the wolves. To the extent that we can demonize the individuals and not their research we'll be better off.
“We need to control the public reaction to this grave misuse of bio-technology as much as possible. We can't, sir, afford to lose our ability to do research in the field. We're opening new planets, founding new colonies at a furious rate. Two or three a year now. Each one of those places will present its own challenges and opportunities. We can't afford to miss either, sir.”
“Europe -- and I must say, Australians as well -- have never liked genetically modified anything,” the President mused.
“Sir, humans have been genetically modifying plants and animals since the first person tamed a dog or cat; since the first hunter-gather noticed that he could plant grain seeds close together and gather the resultant plants a lot easier than hunting for them in the wild.
“In the last generation or two, we've just gotten a whole lot better at it.”
“Gene therapy is going to take a decisive hit,” he told her.
Stephanie nodded. “Sir, on the first interstellar expedition we lost someone to allergies. Two years later we had developed a nasal spray that we could give people that would desensitize them to almost all allergens for the rest of their lives. Not only did we prevent any more allergic deaths off world, but we also saved tens of thousands of lives here on Earth -- and virtually eliminated 'hay fever' as a seasonal complaint.
“Further, that research has opened a lot of paths where we are making steady progress on auto-immune diseases like arthritis and very many others. There are hints that we are, at long last, be getting a solid handle on cancer -- all because one moron sniffed a faux rose and died.
“That was one man on one planet. Everywhere we go, we have potential treasures to discover. But we won't even be able to save any further idiots if we kill the field.”
“And you're telling me this because you think I need to go to extra lengths to make sure we don't cut off our nose to spite our faces.”
“Yes, sir. Well put.” Stephanie hesitated. “I haven't seen the third justice yet, sir.”
“She's come and gone. She listened to the description from her peers, saw some still photos and decided that anything that killed a peer could safely be handled remotely. She concurred, sight unseen.”
Stephanie grimaced. “It's hard to imagine a judge who doesn't understand the value of precedent.”
“Perhaps she was more concerned about the precedent Justice Taylor set.”
Stephanie turned up her lip. “If she should ever wonder what my opinion of her is, please tell her one word: 'wuss.'”
The President of the Federation laughed. “On landing, the Marines treated her with great respect. On the way out, she was treated like a bag of grain. The Chief Ju
stice was incensed -- I told her 'What did you expect?'”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Admiral, you are an example for us all.”
“Not in the way you think.”
“Perhaps so, but you do in a pinch. Give me a few minutes; I'm going to call a news conference. You can safely sit out of the spotlight today, Admiral... but I want your candid opinion afterwards if I've stepped in it.”
“No problem, sir,” Stephanie said jovially. He shook his head and went to his aides.
Stephanie thought that the President had perhaps been unduly influenced by her ways of doing things. His press aide was stunned when President Campbell just held up a scrap of paper with a few bullet points that he was going to use for a speech.
“You can't do something like this off-the-cuff, sir.”
“Since you don't know what 'this' is yet, just like most people, you should hold off further comments until you know more.”
“The rumors...” the press aide started to say, only to be cut off when President Campbell held up his hands, his fingers in a sideways “V” and then mashed them shut.
“You of all people, David, should know that our job is to provide accurate information and step on the rumors. I'm going to give a brief description of what we've found; there will be no questions.
“The other world leaders agree: there is no good time to do this press conference. We'll be in early evening in Europe and Africa, early morning in America, nighttime through most of Asia. China wants more time to prepare its people, although I'm not sure what can be done.
“Tomorrow morning, European time, we will hold another press conference. I won't speak at it, but you will read a prepared statement from me, then you will introduce Admiral Kinsella and she will read a prepared statement and after that you'll open the meeting for sixty minutes of questions.
“You will take all of the political questions; Admiral Kinsella's responses will be confined to the events and the Fleet response and other mitigation efforts. You will do your level best to downplay the seriousness of the events without seeming to. You will squelch as many of the rumors as you can. We are playing for time, here. The longer we can draw out a muted public response, the better.”
Rescue Branch (Kinsella Universe) Page 36
