by Timothy Zahn
"The package?" Scharn exploded. "My God—these are human beings you're talking about. People you've deliberately warped." She glared at Halian. "And it is most certainly illegal."
The director didn't flinch. "As a matter of fact, Parallax Industries has a special exemption from the general laws on genetic engineering. And if it helps any, I was just as outraged as you are when I first found out about this."
"You've done a good job of silencing your conscience, then," Scharn said coldly. "Does Parallax pay that much?"
"It's not a matter of personal bribery. It's the simple fact that the benefits of interstellar trade vastly outweigh the costs."
"Oh, of course," she retorted. "The costs are negligible—unless you happen to be one of those people out there."
"I'd advise against hypocrisy, Doctor," Halian said, a touch of irritation showing through his executive mask. "You benefit as much from the trade as anyone else, and I doubt you've ever given two seconds' thought to the people who provide you the goods."
"Don't shift the burden to as," Scharn bit out. "If people knew you were using genetic slavery they'd give up their precious furs and exotic foods like a shot."
"And their last fifteen years of life, too?" Ross asked quietly.
Scharn turned to him. "What?"
"Fifteen years is the extra life expectancy that outsystem medicines have provided us," he amplified.
The first hint of uncertainty began to play around the edges of her anger. "Medicines can be synthesized, though, once the molecular structure's known," she pointed out. "Intersystem lasers can transfer the knowledge at that point." "Usually," Ross nodded, "but not always. Have you ever heard of Willut's Chaser?"
Scharn frowned. "I think so. Isn't that that weird semiliving chemical that seeks out cancerous cells?"
"That's the one. Revolutionized the whole treatment procedure, made it possible for the first time to really root out an entire tumor without doing even a scrap of damage to the surrounding healthy tissue. And after sixty years we still can neither synthesize it nor successfully cultivate the Altairan nematoid strain that produces it."
There was a moment of silence. Scharn tried to whip up her righteous anger again, but her sister's face kept getting in the way. Maia, who had spent a couple of days in a hospital ten years ago for the routine treatment of brain cancer... "Why don't you build larger ships, then, so that you could use normal people running the ship as a group?" she asked. "Better yet, how about complete automation?"
"Because we'd need freighters the size of the original colony sleeper ships to give a normal crew the kind of room they'd need," Ross told her. "Anything smaller and you'd have violence and psychoses within the first five years, no matter how carefully you screened the crews." He hesitated. "Parallax tried that once; the records of those voyages aren't pretty."
"Then why not automate?" Scharn persisted. "Surely a powerstat TPL computer and its mobile units would be able to handle whatever maintenance a starship needs."
"The problem," Halian said, "is that a TPL, or any computer that powerful, requires an extremely high-density memory system, and high-density systems are notoriously vulnerable to radiation damage. On a powerstat that's not a problem because you can afford the weight of extra shielding and you have continuous error-weeding by ground-based systems. On a starship—well, the drive radiations aren't really dangerous to biological tissues, but your TPL would be out of commission in two years at the outside. Putting multiple units aboard would slow the process, but not enough."
"But..." Scharn raised a hand in a frustrated gesture, let it drop impotently to her chair arm. "It's still immoral to do that sort of thing to human beings."
Ross shrugged uncomfortably. "Would you rather we try putting normal people in what amounts to solitary confinement for ten years? Risk their going permanently insane or else drug them to their eyelids and never mind the physiological consequences? Don't forget, the mainters truly like what they're doing. They really are happy out there."
"All except Tomo," Scharn said.
Halian nodded grimly. "All except Tomo. He's an unknown, Dr. Scharn; and along with being worried I don't mind admitting I'm scared. What other supposedly impossible thoughts might he be having? Could he be going paranoid, too, or even homicidal?"
Scharn pursed her lips tightly. She still didn't like what had been done to Tomo... but her immediate responsibility was not for his past but for his present. And if he posed any danger to either himself or the station... "Do you have anything like a standard psych profile for the mainters as a group?" she asked.
Halian's response was to reach for his desk's control ball, fingering the classified-access section. "We've got both that and Tomo's own last profile."
"Good," Scharn said. "I'd also like any previous readings on Tomo that you might have."
Halians screen lit up with lines of print, and he swiveled it to face her. "I'll have the Goldenrod's computer send us up a complete dump. In the meantime, here's the general mainter profile."
Putting her feelings on standby, Scharn began to read.
—
It had been nearly an hour since the others had left him; long enough for Tomo's panic to have subsided into emotional fatigue and then resurface as restlessness. Scharn had said they would talk again later, a statement that could qualify as either a promise or a threat. Whichever, he wished they would hurry up and get on with it. Waiting like this was worse than docking—then, at least, Max could keep him informed as to what was happening. Here at the port, they were both in the dark.
Or were they? "Max?" he called impulsively, sliding into the desk chair.
"Yes, Tomo?"
Just as quickly, he recognized the absurdity of what he'd been about to ask. "Oh, never mind. Um... how's the unloading going?"
"Unloading and refurbishing operations are proceeding smoothly. Is there anything I can get for you?"
"No, no. I'm just—I'm fine."
"I see." Max paused. "Tomo, would you mind coming back aboard ship for a few minutes? There's no one in your pod at the moment."
Tomo frowned. "Why?"
"Your tone of voice indicates stress. My biosensors can't take readings outside the ship." "I'm all right, Max," Tomo snapped. "Why is everybody so interested in me all of a sudden? The second I get here Halian calls me up, then he smothers me in doctors, and now you—"
He broke off abruptly, seeing for the first time the pattern there. But how...? "Did you tell them that I was talking about going dirtside?" he asked suspiciously. The computer remained silent. "Max! Answer me!"
"Tomo, I had no choice. I cannot keep secret information that indicates you may be suffering physical or emotional dysfunction. Under such conditions I must report my findings in coded form to a company grade-one executive as soon as possible—"
"Wait a second. What physical or emotional dysfunction?"
There was a short pause. "Your thoughts about a planetward trip were judged to be four sigma outside normal range. A two-sigma deviation is considered—"
"Max, how many times do I have to tell you that there's nothing significant about that?" Tomo snarled, barely controlling his anger. This whole thing was becoming ridiculous. "Why are you making such a major operation out of it?"
Max's answer, when it finally came, was a complete surprise. "I'm sorry; I cannot continue this discussion."
Tomo's anger vanished into puzzlement and a slowly growing uneasiness. "What is it, something I'm not supposed to know?"
"My programming requires me to protect your emotional well-being. There are certain topics of discussion which would unduly distress you, such as descriptions of warfare or—"
"But this is something a lot more personal than warfare, isn't it?" Tomo interrupted, blocking Max's attempt to sidetrack the conversation. "Something having to do with my physical or psychological makeup, right?"
"I'm sorry; I cannot continue this discussion."
Aha, Tomo thought. For a moment he gazed i
nto space, searching for a usable loophole. "All right. The information might—might—bother me. Correct?"
"I'm sorry; I cannot—"
"Shut up! It might bother me—but now that I know something's wrong with me, the uncertainty is definitely bothering me." He paused, but Max remained silent. "The tension alone—you know better than I do what prolonged tension does to blood sugar and adrenaline levels. Did your programmers anticipate this kind of situation?"
"They did," Max said in resignation. "Very well, then, but the information must be kept secret from the Goldenrod's other mainters."
"Agreed. So?"
"In order to endure the solitude of starship service, you have undergone a kind of mental conditioning which has made you less dependent than the average person on social interaction."
For several heartbeats Tomo just sat there, attempting to assimilate the rightangle turn his private universe had just taken. Egocentrism, he thought through the numbness. The assumption that you are basically the norm. He'd known the people on planets and ports were different; but somehow he'd never considered the possibility that he was the odd one. And to have been deliberately made this way... "How much less dependent?" he asked.
"It allows you to spend long periods of time alone, which is necessary for your job." Max's voice was soothing, as if he were doing his best to soften the shock. But his best wasn't very good. "But it also makes it extremely difficult for you to interact with others at close range."
"So because I wanted to do something you didn't think I could do, you slapped a 'dysfunction' marker on me and yelled to the authorities." The mental numbness was fading now, anger once more rising to take its place. "Is that it?"
"It has nothing to do with what I personally think," Max protested. "Your conditioning places specific limitations on your actions, limitations as laser-cut and well defined as—"
"As your own programming?"
"I wouldn't have put it quite that way—"
"But that's what you were thinking, wasn't it? Well, I've got fresh input for you. You may be defined down to twelve decimals, but I am not. I'm a human being, and I can do anything any other human being can do."
"Tomo, your vocal stress levels are becoming—"
Tomo cut him off with a well-aimed slash at the control ball. Getting to his feet, he stomped over to the exit door. For a moment he stood there, anger battling common sense for supremacy. But the anger was far stronger. Slapping the touch plate, he stepped out into the port corridor. This time, no one was in sight. Picking a direction, he started off, determined to find his way to Halian's office. Halian, Scharn, Ross, even Max: he'd show all of them.
—
The deviation between the two curves was small—well within the one-sigma accepted tolerance—but with the advantages of hindsight it was obvious to Scharn that that was where it had begun. "Right there," she told Halian and Ross, tapping the spot on the screen. "You can see the slip starting to form as early as a year ago."
"Too small a change for the MX to key on," Ross muttered.
"I wasn't blaming the MX," Scharn said, leaning back in her chair. "And it brings up an interesting question. Is Tomo becoming mentally unbalanced, or is his genetic programming somehow unraveling and allowing his personality to drift more toward human norms?"
"How could it do that?" Halian asked. "A genetic effect like that should be permanent."
Scharn shrugged. "In theory, so should damage to a section of mature brain. But stroke and accident victims routinely regain lost functions as the neural pathways restructure themselves. Perhaps some combination of hormones and neurotransmitters is acting to counteract the genetic bias here."
Halian harrumphed. "I don't buy that. Anyway, I can't see that it makes any practical difference—"
"Of course it makes a difference," Scharn shot back. "In the first case he's ill and can probably be treated with some form of chemo-imbalance correction. In the second, though, what we actually have is a rapid version of personality evolution, which is not only normal but could be dangerous to suppress artificially."
"I believe," Ross interjected quietly, "that Mr. Halian was referring to Tomo's continuing presence aboard the Goldenrod."
It took a moment for Scharn to pick up exactly what he meant. "You mean leaning toward sociability will make him less able to stand solitude? Um... Maybe, maybe not. It depends partly on whether—"
She stopped as a double ping sounded from Halian's desk, followed by Iris's cool voice. "Mr. Halian, Goldenrod Mainter Tomo has left his quarters and entered the station: moving spinward on corridor D-9. Do you have instructions?"
Scharn felt her stomach tighten. It had been her suggestion, but she hadn't really expected Tomo to act on it. Halian and Ross looked even more stunned.
"Full sector/level monitor until further notice," Halian instructed the computer. "Is anyone else in that immediate area?"
"Negative," Iris reported. "D-8, D-9, and D-1 are clear."
"All right." Halian looked at Ross as if for advice, but didn't seem to get any. "All right, just monitor Tomo's movements and keep me informed. I'll be on mobile. Oh, and better lock down all computer outlets and elevators in his vicinity, just in case." He picked up a small rectangular clip-on from the side of the viewer screen and stood up, the others following suit. "Let's get after him."
"Can't you seal him into that corridor?" Scharn asked.
"I could," Halian told her. "But it occurs to me that letting him run into a few people might be the best way to convince him that he can't handle that kind of social interaction."
Scharn's first reaction was that he was making an exceptionally poor joke. A half second later she realized he was serious. "And what if it merely drives him over the edge permanently?" she asked coldly. "Or don't you care about that?"
"He won't hit any heavily populated areas for quite some time without the elevators," Halian assured her. "If meeting with us didn't do anything permanent to him, neither will any situation he's likely to run into up there. Besides—" He hesitated. "The fewer people who know about this, the better. For all concerned."
Especially for you, Scharn thought bitterly. "I'm going for the sedation kit I left in my quarters," she said. "Will one of you wait here for me?"
"We both will," Ross said before Halian could respond.
There was something in his voice that made Scharn look hard at his face. But whatever was wrong was too well hidden for a quick interpretation, and she didn't have time for anything else. "All right," she said. "I'll be right back."
—
Ross waited until the door had closed solidly behind the psychiatrist before turning to Halian. The director returned his gaze steadily; and after a moment Ross realized the other was going to make him raise the subject. He cleared his throat, glancing at the desk to make sure Iris's monitor was off. "You realize, of course," he told Halian, "that Tomo will pass through the thorascrine leak area on G-deck if he stays in 9-sector on his way down."
"That area's been adequately cleaned up," Halian returned evenly. "You certified that yourself."
"For us, yes. But Tomo's been in a medium-radiation environment most of his life. There've been reports that that can sensitize a man, make him much more susceptible to thorascrine poisoning." He paused, waiting for a reaction that didn't come. "But I see you already knew that, didn't you?"
"I may have heard of it somewhere. I don't remember."
"Sure." The sheer callousness of Halian's attitude was infuriating... and yet, even Ross could see the logic behind it. Legally, Tomo was less human than he was property, and Halian had both the right and responsibility of treating him as any other malfunctioning component. "Well," he said slowly, "I suppose it actually would make things a lot easier if Tomo got incapacitated somehow. The Goldenrod would leave on schedule without him and you wouldn't have to make a snap decision on his fitness for deep space. Scharn could take him dirtside and study him to her heart's content. The Goldenrod can manage with a miss
ing mainter, can't it?"
"It can theoretically fly with even three of the six missing." Halian seemed to be having trouble meeting Ross's eyes. "The question then is what would happen to Tomo. If we take him off the Goldenrod he'll probably never be placed on another ship, even if he can be cured or whatever. So Scharn studies him for maybe a year or two... and then what? Starship mainting is all he knows how to do, and given his personality there's really nothing else he can be retrained for."
Ross felt his mouth go dry. To remove Tomo from his ship—by whatever means—was one thing. But this— "What you're talking now is way beyond an incapacitating injury," he said softly. "You're talking deliberate murder."
"I'm not talking anything," Halian said, his face unreadable. "I'm simply... thinking how an accident at this point would... simplify things."
This isn't happening, Ross thought as a sense of unreality seemed to darken the air between him and Halian. Premeditated murder... or was it? How human was Tomo, anyway? Form, intelligence—neither one was exclusive human property anymore. Genetic structure? Tomo's was no more human than that of any other biological construct. Surely there were legal guidelines, but Ross had no idea what they were. He could still raise a fuss, of course, and he could sense that Halian would back down at sun-grazer speeds if he did so, whether the director was in the legal right or not. But would that really do Tomo any favors? Because Halian was right—Tomo really couldn't do anything else. Unless Scharn's bafflegab about some so-called personality evolution came true with a vengeance... but no, that theory was equal parts absurdity and wishful thinking. Which left Ross exactly where he'd started, at dead center.
In front of him, the statue that was Halian came to life, raising the clip-on he still held and flipping it on. "Iris?" Status report on Tomo."
"He's outside the D-13 stairway... He has now entered... moving downward."
"Damn," Halian muttered. "Well, at least that tells us something. If he can still charge on into the station after suffering through that interview with us, it means he's past simple curiosity. He's up to full-fledged obsession." He fastened the clip-on to his tunic collar, leaving it active. "Come on. We'll pick up Scharn on the way."
