“We’ve been working the jungle together ever since.”
A small dot at the top of the tree-tunnel began plummeting toward them. For a brief moment Bryce feared that a cosmic billiard ball really was dropping upon them. Then the expanding dot began to resolve itself into a bright-colored diving parrot. Harold soared to land briefly on top of Jaron’s apparatus. It didn’t react with any flexibility as a tree would and the bird began complaining loudly.
“Hey, Jaron,” Bryce pointed upward. “Is that bird breathing? He’s respirating CO2 all over the place.”
Jaron shrugged as if he hadn’t a care in the world.
Finding the perch not to his liking, Harold swooped down to land in the grass beside Jaron. He tugged once or twice at the gold band around Jaron’s middle finger.
“Done okay up here, haven’t we old boy? So you see, Bryce, it was my passion that has kept Harold and me alive. Nothing is more important than keeping the jungle alive.”
Bryce was about to point out that Robbie’d had a large hand in keeping Jaron alive.
Then he knew.
Knew as if he’d been slapped hard across the face. Which he had been, he just didn’t understand why.
He knew someone who felt with even more passion than Jaron. Someone who believed so intensely in the importance of life that he half believed it himself in her presence. More important than keeping the jungle alive, was keeping his own species in that state. He’d argued as much with Jaron and not seen the truth of it, not understood the truth of it until this moment.
He jumped to his feet.
“I may not have an overwhelming passion, but I know someone who does, and needs my help. Thanks. Thanks a lot.” He shook Jaron’s hand before turning to go. Then he turned back.
“Um…could you let me out of here?”
# # #
Ri had been surprised at the call, but had cut short her meeting with Hammel in the Savannah biome. Now she faced the full contingent of scientists aboard the Icarus; alone at the head of the conference table. There were no empty seats to indicate the distance, but it was there nonetheless. Apparently the crew was not welcome at all.
Bamker at the far end was flanked by the wiry Jenningson and Tenna and Veller, she tall and spare, he short but with a flowing beard that made him look larger. After they had all sat in silence for too long watching Bamker twiddle his thumbs, Ri jumped in.
“Look. I’ve been trying to help but I don’t have the data, and I don’t have any other ideas.”
Bamker held up a hand to stop her. He returned his hand to the table and tapped his fingers together with a nervous energy surprising in the normally unflappable man.
“Actually, we are facing a different dilemma this morning.”
“What!” There was no way she could scrounge more equipment. She took a long slow breath and looked at the group before her.
“What?” she repeated with a bit less of the acerbity.
The chief scientist looked to the others. Of the eleven present, it seemed only Jenningson would meet his gaze, but Ri knew he was a slow and reluctant speaker even when given time to form his thoughts. Bamker finally decided no one was going to come to rescue him from being head of the team.
“Personally I think this meeting is a waste of time, but several of this room’s occupants, who now insist on being silent, have voiced a concern I am unable to address.”
Ri closed her eyes for a moment to steel herself. Bamker was far more verbal than his chief assistant, yet no faster in reaching the point.
He twiddled his thumbs together for a moment longer before looking her in the eyes.
“I shall make my point simply, what I lack in wit in this situation shall be made up for with brevity. In its simplest form: if we do find a solution, should we make use of it?”
“What?” She felt like an automaton with a one word vocabulary, but could make no sense of the question.
“Assuming we can safely do so, is it ethical for us reengineer humankind? Further, is it advisable to actually alter something genetically that will then be passed down through gene-based heritage for the rest of time?” Bamker tapped his thumbs together a few more times before continuing.
“Should we take the risk? And even if we should, have we the right?”
Ri forced her sagging jaw closed with a snap that hurt her teeth. “But you are all trained bioengineers. You must have thought this through long before now. I don’t understand why this is suddenly a concern. Did you find a solution?”
He shook his head. “Regrettably we are no closer than when last we spoke this morning. Though that would not change the question. For myself, I must admit that despite all of the commissions and citizen inquiries I have served upon that I have not given the matter much thought. Humanity has not been a factor in the equation since the WEC’s purge of the data half a century ago. I believe that risk has a place in any procedure or investigation.”
Tenna slapped her hand on the blue tabletop. The sound echoed about the hold.
“You keep saying that. But how can you know? Yes, it was easier to be less concerned when humanity was spreading outward, into existence upon four worlds and fleets of ships. A mistake could be constrained, even reversed in such a multi-faceted environment. That’s why altered crops were never allowed on Earth, after the bio-plague quarantine and eventual incineration of Ireland with its population. Mankind went on.
“Now we have one home and there are only ten thousand of us. And none of us are trained to deal with human genetics, are we? My specialty was corn and yours was near-extinct species. You know as well as I do, one mistake and we’re screwed. Forever.”
Bamker looked to Ri and had the decency to shrug his apology for dumping this in her lap.
She stood and walked away from the table. Five steps later she had arrived at the bulkhead and read the only decoration in the entire room: “At alarm, you have thirty seconds before you will be evacuated out the cargo doors. Stay alert.” The red letters were painted above the long seam that bisected the entire wall.
Perhaps that was what she should do. She could evacuate the whole problem into space with a simple command and be done with it. Ri knew it was just frustration speaking, and that it wouldn’t solve Jackson, or the way she’d treated Bryce, or the dropping population figures. They’d be under ten thousand in just a few more days.
Everyone expected something of her. Except Bryce, and he expected nothing of anyone least of all himself. Jackson, Olias, the biome leaders, the bioengineers; the lot of them were sucking her dry.
She turned her back on the sign and focused upon the table’s occupants. It was quieter and cleaner than R4U, but the people were no less confused about what they wanted. She started walking toward them.
“I will have an answer for them by the time I reach my chair,” she told herself. After the first step all she could do was repeat the mantra in her head. They all watched her expectantly, waiting for her to reach into some deep reservoir of wisdom that, if she ever had, was long since tapped dry.
They weren’t angry with her, they simply wanted guidance. Humanity wasn’t angry, they simply wanted to be told what to do and that it would all be okay. A task that would provide the comfort of being useful at the very least. Even if it wasn’t a solution.
As she rested her hand on the back of her chair, she began speaking hoping something useful would come out of her mouth.
“Thank you for bringing your concerns to me. Yes, these are difficult questions and I understand why you are asking them. I regret that I do not have the answers.”
Tenna looked triumphantly at her team leader and Bamker clenched his jaw firmly. His tapping thumbs reached a near frenzied rate.
“In their place, I would offer questions of my own.” She had no idea what to ask, but if she didn’t stop to think, they might come out on their own.
“Second, if we give up the search, no matter how difficult and unlikely it is starting from scratch, might we never know if there was a better solution?”
The nods were even less enthusiastic, but they were there nonetheless. Only Tenna glared at her, her short, curly brown hair practically shaking.
“Third, should we find a solution, might it not then be obvious what constitutes correct action?”
Bamker’s thumbs slowed. She was on the right track, finally.
“Next, if the correct action is not obvious, is it not likely that we do not have the right solution and must continue our research?”
Bamker’s thumbs stopped in mid-tap.
“And last,” she wondered what part of her mind knew this was her final point. She directed it at Tenna. “We’ll be nearly all be dead in nine months if we don’t do something anyway. And you can trust me when I tell you from personal experience that you won’t like it if you are one of the unfortunate who survive past the threshold of the Nara Effect.”
A silence filled the room. Tenna glared at Ri for putting her on the spot. The woman scanned the other faces, looking longest at Veller. He met her gaze without blinking. Or speaking.
Ri held her breath as the angry scientist finally turned to face Bamker. He raised an eyebrow and waited for her to speak first. She was obviously reluctant to do so, but Bamker seemed to want his pound of flesh back at being forced to bring forth this problem himself.
Tenna’ scowl darkened until Ri feared Bamker’s pride might cost her the victory. He apparently reached the same conclusion and cleared his throat.
“It seems we have some work ahead of us. Thank you for your time, Commander Jeffers. I believe that we shall take it from here.”
Each of the scientists offered her a brief nod as they rose and moved to the ladder up into the Icarus’ stern passage. Tenna and Bamker were the last to depart. Ri heard him distract her about a particular line of research until they were clear of the room.
Ri dropped down into her chair and closed her eyes against the pale green walls that were supposed to be the best for visibility in open space. It was very close to the color she vomited when the vertigo was especially bad. Ever since Commander Levan had kicked her out of a flitter without parachute training, her equilibrium had hated anything that reminded her of those forty-three seconds of uncontrolled tumbling or the pain as she hit the ocean barely fifty meters after deploying her chute.
A pair of hands gently poked at the base of her skull and began to dig into the worst of the knots that she used for muscles. She rolled her head forward and the fingers traveled down her neck and into her shoulders. Jackson finally got something right as he kept his silence and dug in hard enough that it passed the point of pain and began to go numb. She exhaled until she was out of air. He backed off as she inhaled and she was able to move her head side-to-side for the first time in recent memory.
“You never told me you could do that.”
“You never asked.”
She jerked out of the chair and landed against the table as she turned to face Bryce.
He was watching her, his expression neutral.
“How did you get in here?”
His eyes narrowed merrily. “No magic this time. I just kept waiting for someone else to key a hatch and then followed alongside. My reputation for handing out the occasional free beer proceeds me. Most people are glad of a chance to rub shoulders with the barkeep of R4U.”
“But…”
He rested his hands on the back of the chair she had just vacated. “I was thinking about—”
There was a loud clatter on the stairs. Jackson and Donnie ran down into the hold only to be closely followed by the other crewmembers.
“What? Who the hell are you? How did you get in here?” Jackson crossed over until he was toe-to-toe with Bryce.
“I walked.”
“Impossible. We have high security on this ship.”
Bryce glanced at Ri and she could see him fighting that smile of his. It would be easy to laugh at the strutting blond peacock, sharp and dashing in his black shipsuit; blue eyes snapping with indignation. Bryce’s sloppy stance and unkempt hair almost masking his quiet humor. How two men could be so different was beyond her.
“Shut up, Jackson.” She turned to face the crew. “Out. Everyone out. C’mon.” She herded them up the stairs. She shoved Jackson hard to the side to get him moving. Once they were gone and she’d closed the airlock, she returned until once again only the chair separated them.
“So that is the famous Captain Turner. Jaron doesn’t like him much.”
Ri could feel the heat rising to the tips of her ears. Bryce made her blush more in a day than she had in her entire previous life.
“You’re blushing right up your part.”
“I’m what?” She placed a hand on top of her head.
“It started on your face and went right up the part in your hair like a thermometer. I’ve never seen anything like it, Ri. It’s so damn cute.”
She moved her hands, which felt surprisingly cold, to her burning cheeks. Bryce did not make her suffer for too long. His broad smile was so unlike Jackson’s leers.
“I was thinking about what you were trying to do versus the Old Bast… Versus my parent.” He waved her back into her chair.
She sat at the next seat and he settled into hers. He shifted several times. It was nice to know that her body heat affected him as well.
“Bryce Sr. was trying to improve humanity in the only way he could imagine. I’ve looked at his memories. When he started, he truly believed that his policies were the only actions that could save humanity from itself. Spreading to the stars was my mother’s, your Angel-lady’s idea. Once she planted the idea, Stellar One got such a push to be done. He wanted this ship safely away while he was still alive. Still in control of the world government. He would have loaded it with his genetically-tested Homo superior. I guess we’re both lucky he never had the chance.”
Ri wondered at the change in Bryce. He’d never before been thoughtful while talking about his parent.
“You, like him, are trying to save humanity by the only method you can. His method was to exterminate the bad elements, you would have us rise to our best.”
He leaned forward until he could rest his elbows on his knees. She couldn’t look away from his intense, blue-gray eyes.
“You are the first person, other than my mother, who ever forced me to confront my father’s memories with my own beliefs. It is the only thing that makes me feel strong. I want that.” He reached out and wrapped one of her hands in the warmth of his. “And I want to support any effort that will give us more time to know one another.”
This time the warmth didn’t burn her face, but rather filled her chest like a deep breath of the first warm spring day to reach Nara.
“Shall we see if we can unlock that file?”
All she could do was nod before she led him up out of one hold and down into the other. Work ground to a halt as everyone turned to stare at the intruder in their midst. Every workstation was filled, the full team was here, even Tenna, though her scowl remained in place.
The Icarus crew followed them down the stairs until the room was quite crowded. She spotted Donnie.
“Shut us in.”
The woman chased someone off a console, tapped a few keys, and thumbed the pad.
“We’re sealed. Locked for space.”
“Could you bring up that file I showed you?”
Everyone seemed to be leaning in toward them.
“But that’s WEC code locking it down. We can’t open…” Her voice tapered off as she looked at Bryce. At Ri’s nod she turned back to
the console and called up the file.
“What about the virus?”
“Hunh?” Ri looked up at Bryce.
“That’s how he cleared it off all the other computer systems. The WEC set up an intensely invasive computer virus and had it built into all new operating systems and upgrades for a full decade as well. Then it auto-triggered worldwide on a preset date. Every installation of this data, except on the WEC’s isolated computers, was wiped. It had been around so long that it was integrated with all the backups as well.”
Ri could only shrug. She’d never heard of such a thing.
“This system’s clean, boss.” Donnie spun her chair to face him. “I burned out that code long ago. Don’t like that kind of crap cluttering up my system, even if it doesn’t matter anymore. And don’t worry, cleaned up Stellar One too so I wouldn’t have to think about it before linking into their vid libraries.
“You know, whoever set up that library had no imagination. Almost none of the old two-dee stuff, never mind the really old monochromes. Can you believe they didn’t even have sound in the early days. Thankfully I had a nearly full set of my own that—”
“Donnie.” Ri knew only too well how far the woman could go on her favorite topic. She looked only a little chagrined.
“This system’s clean. That’s all that matters…” She flashed a smile at Ri. “…to some heathens at least.”
Ri couldn’t resist returning her smile.
She leaned forward and whispered into Donnie’s ear. “If I find out his print was recorded, tracked, or logged anywhere outside of the bounds of this document, I’ll erase the entire video library up to ten years ago. Clear?”
Donnie was suddenly very serious and a little paler. “Clear.” She worked the keys for a bit and then nodded she was ready.
Bryce placed a hand on Ri’s shoulder and squeezed it gently as he leaned in to thumb open the file. Ri became aware that Jackson’s narrowed eyes were locked on the hand Bryce was not using on the screen.
# # #
Ri’s hand was warm on his wrist when she stopped him only a few centimeters from the pad.
Nara Page 49
