The Chromosome Game

by Hodder-Williams, Christopher

  ‘ “There’s a bomb in everything, understand? It’s never what it seems.”. His exact words.’

  ‘And that’s all?’

  ‘That’s all. But we were discussing what those hell’s angels were planning down in the ravine.’

  ‘The night Eagle was murdered?’

  ‘That’s the night.’

  ‘You think Kendip … was trying to tell you something.’

  ‘And I should have got there by now.’

  ‘Trell, it could mean anything.’

  ‘None of it good.’

  ‘Check. You know I’m terrified, don’t you?’

  ‘And Krand is pacing. Won’t stop. Just paces endlessly, Kelda. He’ll go on doing it until those imbeciles get back in the boat. And I just can’t get rid of this feeling that Nembrak walked straight into a trap.’

  ‘Building it.’

  ‘Yes. You know what? His judgement has gone. It went when he made up his mind he’d sentenced Eagle to death.

  ‘There’s something … else. In the Computer.’

  ‘Kelda! What? … I’m not following you.’

  ‘There’s something we’ve overlooked, Trell. Something about Huckman. I can’t explain. Grotesque and twisted. What?’

  ‘Okay. Noises. Noises no one can explain.’

  ‘You have heard them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Not Sonar this time, Trell.’

  ‘I know. I didn’t want to —’

  ‘— You didn’t want to worry me. I know. Same with me, Trell. I thought you had enough on your plate and —’

  ‘— Kelda. Where do the Noises come from?’

  ‘I’d rather not say until I’m sure.’

  ‘Skip that, you’re sure.’

  ‘Okay.’ Kelda went to the closet and took out a short length of deal.

  Trell said, ‘That’s the first bit of seasoned timber I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘I found it buried in the rubble — the stuff we ploughed up and cleared. Trell, I used this bit of wood like —’

  ‘Kind of like a stethoscope.’

  ‘Right. Every time the Noises started, I held one end to my ear — like so — and pressed the other end against the walls.’

  ‘And was it the walls?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So where do the Noises come from, Kelda?’

  ‘Underneath.’

  ‘Underneath?’

  *

  An unfamiliar buzzing sound from Cubicle E caught Trell on the hop and for a second he broke out into instant sweat. Then he realised this must be the new phone-line put in by Nembrak.

  ‘Can you hear me okay, Trell? I’m down in GM.’

  ‘Yes that’s fine.’

  ‘Trell … I had a thought. We have to keep the duds on our side —’

  ‘— silent majority —’

  ‘— Right. Also we want to be kind of … careful when those hoods get back from Corsica with the supplies.’

  Trell thought, so far, so good. The hell with it, what were Kelda and I worrying about? Nembrak is right on the ball. ‘On the nose, Nembrak. So?’

  ‘So I’ve briefed that little guy Frume — he’s one of ’em, one micron from a zombie — I’ve briefed him to make sure all watertight doors and bulkheads are locked by the time that boatload of hoodlums gets back.’

  ‘But … why Frume?’

  ‘He’ll keep the other little guys on our side. Thrilled to the eyeballs that I gave him the job. Practically wearing gold braid. We need friends, Trell.’

  ‘I’m with you there. But can he be trusted?’

  ‘If there’s no one we can trust beyond ourselves the show folds from here to eternity. With me?’

  ‘Sure, Nembrak. Sure I’m with you …’

  *

  In the glare of the fluorescent tubes of ZD-One, Krand and Hallow nearly went flying in head-on collision.

  Krand checked Hallow’s blanched lips. ‘What is it? The twins?’

  ‘It’s Cass. He left here on the double, stumbling he was, lurching all over the place. Then made for the passenger elevator.’

  Krand said, ‘Coma. He’s been lying about the insulin. Must have run out altogether.’

  Hallow didn’t move. ‘And didn’t say so.’

  ‘My God. Okay, we get a shot from Nembrak.’

  ‘It may not work. He’s only got samples, Krand.’

  Krand said, ‘It has to work! Get Cass to hang on somehow!’

  Krand leapt for the new hot-line. Feverishly he buzzed it, got Fulda immediately.

  She said, ‘I’ll dash over with a dose.’

  ‘We’ll need a syringe. And we don’t know where he keeps them.’

  ‘Get one from an auto-nurse.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Where do I meet you?’

  ‘By the elevator.’

  ‘Why’d he go up?’

  ‘I don’t know, Fulda, we’ll work it out. If necessary we search the entire ship. Better not waste time now …’

  *

  The Thing seemed to be approaching Krand with an air of cunning. Instead of zinging along its overhead tracks and jerking to an abrupt halt, it inched its way through the nursing arena and sidled to a standstill, saying nothing.

  Krand felt as if his stomach was somehow emptying, not into his bowels, but into nowhere. He could hear nothing except his own heartbeat as it raced. Even the sonar ‘pings’ had stopped now.

  Furtively a single microphone lowered itself from the ceiling. A camera swivelled contemptuously on its tongs, to thrust a turret-lens toward Krand’s face. Its red light glimmered.

  The numbing sensation wouldn’t disperse. Something had locked Krand’s lips. All he could feel was the degree to which the auto-nurse hated him.

  He tried to unfreeze his mind … I’m a philosopher, I should know what this terrible hatred is all about: All this machinery is Guilty, it loathes itself. It knows; and the self-disgust that was once human has been faithfully transplanted; so that machines with the conscience of uncleansed faeces express it with superhate.

  Krand glared at the auto-nurse and said, ‘I need a syringe.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘That is what I said.’

  ‘For whom?’

  ‘You know.’

  ‘I know many things.’

  ‘Then don’t let’s waste time.’

  The auto-nurse seemed to sway slightly on its tracks. ‘You think Nembrak is pretty clever, do you not?’

  ‘He is dedicated.’

  ‘To what?’

  ‘Preserving life.’

  ‘Mine?’

  ‘You do not live. You are a machine.’

  ‘And now you are asking a machine for favours;

  ‘I am asking it what it was built to do.’

  ‘You do not know what I was built to do.’

  ‘Please dispense a syringe for me now. It is needed urgently.’

  The auto-nurse swayed again.

  When it spoke it seemed to be amused. ‘You shall have your syringe with which to further puncture yourselves.’

  A packet was released from the base of the auto-nurse. It lay there on the floor. The auto-nurse departed through the incision in the bulkhead. The microphone was withdrawn.

  Krand retrieved the syringe and made his way to the elevator. Fulda was waiting there. Neither could speak. Krand pressed the call-button and waited. The car appeared and they got in. The gates clicked together.

  Fulda said, ‘Which deck?’

  Krand pointed to the indicator. A blue light was showing for A-Deck. ‘It knows,’ he said, ‘where it took him.’

  ‘A-Deck? — Why there?’

  Cass was on the bridge. What was left of it. In its putrid-smelling carcass, Cass writhed.

  Fulda, calm, white-faced, aesthete of the incubants, ripped off the plastic covering of the syringe, assembled it, inserted the needle into the rubber lid of the phial she held in her hand.

  ‘You must keep him still.’

 
‘Okay.’

  ‘Tear his sleeve clear … Grip that. Hard. Feel the pulse okay?’

  ‘Thumping.’

  ‘Pump his arm twice.’

  ‘Like that?’

  ‘Yes, but keep him still.’

  ‘I’ve got him.’

  The shot went in.

  They waited.

  *

  Cass said, ‘How much is there of that stuff? Go on. You can say.’

  Fulda said evenly, ‘The plant … the apparatus we’ve been using for producing it … Cass, it overheated.’

  ‘And exploded?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  Cass said, ‘That’s a pity … You know what, you two? There’s something wrong, I mean about this boat trip. Supplies. Can’t say exactly what. A few minutes ago I interrogated the computer. No game.’

  Krand said, ‘It said nothing?’

  ‘No voice-out, no printout … nothing. I’d asked it what the inventory was, you see.’

  Krand’s voice was a murmur. ‘Then you had a coma?’

  ‘Not before I got the message.’ He tapped his forehead. ‘In here.’

  Fulda said, ‘What’s the message?’

  ‘Can’t be sure. Only a feeling.’

  *

  They met halfway up the articulated gangway — Nembrak and Trell. Nembrak’s latest product, an unprepossessing brand of cigarette packed tight with experimental tobacco, glowed like a sputtering cinder in the darkness. Then it arced through space as Nembrak took a final draw at it and slung it down into the gully. The night was so quiet you could hear it fizz as it extinguished itself in the water near the submarine’s hull.

  ‘What’s up, Nembrak?’

  ‘In the sub.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Only we don’t want to run into anybody.’

  ‘Most of them are sleeping.’

  Nembrak said, ‘Or pretending.’

  Trell led off into Kasiga. To him the ship seemed somehow more hollow now, as if some unseen force had evacuated its interior of normal air. It didn’t even smell. Instead it exuded a curious impression of Nothingness, as if it didn’t really exist. The illusion got him in the spine; a tiny voltage that scanned through each nerve-end so that the electrical discharge instigated by each heartbeat sent a coded signal up to the nape of his neck.

  It felt as if there were a hole in the back of his head.

  Nembrak kept his voice low but did not whisper. Aboard Kasiga, sibilant sounds carried around the interior skin as if the ship were a dome. ‘I was running the new phonelines up from GM … See? I’ve run them along here, by the main cable duct that passes from the passenger hatch all the way down to the pumping room.’

  ‘And you found … what?’

  Nembrak produced a small electrical screwdriver from the pocket of his jeans. ‘Take the flashlight from the Emergency Rack.’

  ‘Yeah, only take it easy, Nembrak. You’re shaking.’

  ‘Shine the thing on the strip of polythene just above the duct. Notice anything?’

  ‘Filler.’

  ‘Right.’

  Trell held the flashlight within an inch of the patch. ‘Damn neat. What’s there?’

  Nembrak fought to control his nerve so he could hold the screwdriver steady. Then, very delicately, he dug it into the plastic and eased something out without breaking it. ‘See?’

  ‘What the hell is it? Looks like a bit of fibre.’

  Nembrak’s concentration had returned and he didn’t move his head as he answered. ‘Yes. And very brittle. Only it’s silicon. Conducts information, just like a wire. Someone swiped it from the main stores aft.’

  ‘Why use silicon?’

  ‘Trell, you said yourself it just looks like fibre. Don’t you see? If anyone exposed it by accident they’d think nothing of it.’

  ‘What do you think it’s for?’

  ‘I don’t just think, I know. Someone with more brains than we thought has hooked up the electrical system that works the watertight doors.’

  ‘But they’re derelict.’

  ‘Looked at them lately?’

  ‘But who would do it? Who could do it? — and why?’

  ‘Sladey buys people.’

  Trell stared. ‘For God’s sake, not someone in General Motors?’

  ‘We can’t know.’

  ‘How much of this … silicon wiring have you traced?’

  ‘Enough to know that if we cut it now we’d have no means of closing the bulkheads. And we may need to. In a hurry.’

  ‘You’re saying that if you cut the silicon —’

  ‘— they’ve fixed it so that those doors connected up to it will engage the “locked open” position.’ Nembrak’s eyes showed glinting fury in the lights from the lamp. ‘Which would make you sitting ducks.’

  ‘Against what?’

  ‘Against whatever the hell it is that’s among those supplies in Corsica. Take my advice, Trell, and tell no one. They might try cutting the wire. Panic measures like that won’t improve matters. I’m going back to GM.’

  ‘Nembrak?’

  Nembrak paused, swaying slightly at the ship’s entrance. Trell thought, God that guy looks ill.

  Aloud, Trell said, ‘How many traitors do we have around?’

  Nembrak cast his eyes down. ‘Eagle might have been able to answer that.’ He stood there for a moment; then turned and made his way erratically back down the gangway. Halfway down he paused, lighted one more of his foul-smelling cigarettes, then went back to the beach. Trell watched the pinpoint glow of the cigarette till it disappeared into the General Motors hut.

  *

  The Interrogod scanned the Telex quickly, then took the travelator to Operations. The C-in-C was waiting for him in there.

  Without preamble the Interrogod said, ‘Is there no way of warning them?’

  ‘Not in time. There’s not a damn UFO on the ramp and we wouldn’t get there anyway.’

  ‘You saw this on the stellascope?’

  ‘Right. And the only one of those guys we could reach via quantum was Eagle. We could tune him direct.’

  The Interrogod glanced up at the relevant sector of the operations map. A red light was flashing at the southerly edge of Provence. ‘Do you have Sladey’s boat on the scope?’

  ‘Yes. There. Countdown is on computer. Who was it who preached we were omnipotent? With a Defence Budget like mine I’ve a few things to say on that score.’

  ‘I know the feeling.’

  The C-in-C smashed his fist savagely on the console. ‘This guy Trell-484. If he weren’t such a damn do-gooder he would have wrecked that boat. Why can’t I damn-well get through to him?’

  The Interrogod said quietly. ‘Eagle was a do-gooder and we tuned him direct, all right.’

  ‘Yeah, with the wrong message. I sent him with no air support. Nothing.’

  ‘How could you when you didn’t have any?’

  ‘I’m gonna cook the budget if this kind of thing goes on.’

  ‘You saved Planet Truth.’

  ‘If you tell me you can’t win ’em all I’ll bust a gut. What’s with this universe? Is it bent, or something?’

  The Interrogod glanced through the stellascope. ‘Trell’s gone to bed.’

  ‘Yeah, with staring eyes. And that little broad of his is sleeping. Even smiling a little.’

  The Interrogod said, ‘That’s trust. You see, General? They’re not all of them rotten.’

  ‘Check. But I’m damned if I’m going to watch this.’

  Trell got out of bed without waking Kelda.

  The illuminated clock on the wall — synchronised with the startime clock way beyond — indicated a few minutes after four a.m. In less than three hours it would be dawn. Krand had said, ‘They won’t risk trying to navigate up this stretch in the dark. It’ll be dawn I should think — if they don’t wreck that barge off Corsica. I wouldn’t have thought it would even make it up the Hudson.’

  Trell went up aloft. Conditions were dead calm. An
d even Sladey could navigate to Corsica and back.

  Trell realised he wasn’t really thinking of the illicit boat-trip. What had woken him? Had it been the Noises?

  Underneath ZD-One? …

  He tried to shrug it off. Maybe Kelda had been hearing rats. They must have acquired a few by now, surely?

  But she would have thought of rats, too. It just couldn’t have been that kind of a sound. And he’d heard it a couple of times himself.

  No, not rats.

  Trell stood there, atop Kasiga in the biting wind, watching a squadron of super-gulls coming into land beneath the stars. He thought, if they can form themselves into an organised community, why can’t we? What’s the difference? … I never saw an Atlantic Gull attack its brother …

  The gulls wheeled around on base leg and disappeared in the darkness for a formated night-landing.

  Trell was left with just the sky. And although the stars were there in profusion, lensed to perfection and crisp as a laser, he wasn’t seeing them.

  Rather, for the first time, did he feel that space was a hollow, dented in millions of places where neutron stars had literally fallen through it. In these regions of the sky, vortices had sucked Matter itself into oblivion. Like Eagle?

  Somehow he linked this thought with the Noises.

  His mind could not free itself from the notion that whereas the incubants needed Life, the computer did not. However intelligent, however self-aware, the Controller was dependent on nothing save electrical power — and there was plenty of that. The second nuclear reactor lined up for the sequence on ZD-One wouldn’t come live for at least another twenty-five years.

  He took the elevator back to ZD-One … Why worry about noises in the night at a time like this, when everything depended on how things went once the boat came back?

  Or did it?

  Now who’s got the spooks? … And I do not understand why I am so close to tears, I’m suddenly lonely, needing Kelda’s warmth so much, just holding, and telling her about these my tears, and asking her if she can understand them …

  This computer room, never figured on hating it this much, there must have been love in it once, it somehow nursed Kelda into existence, didn’t it?

  That was when he noticed that the Bulkhead Door Indicators were not at ‘Closed’ but ‘Open’. Frume had left them open!

  Super-alert, Trell flashed his eyes around for more clues.

  He stood there, allowing his brain to be tuned at every sensor, absorbing every nuance of that tungsten environment.