To Touch the Stars (Founding of the Federation Book 2)

by Chris Hechtl

  “An honor, sir. I'm sorry we couldn't do more,” Kathy choked out.

  “We did our best. I hope that is how we will be remembered,” he said, turning to look at Andrea. “You all deserved better,” he murmured. He reached over and patted her hand. “She looks so peaceful like that,” he murmured. Slowly he reached for his mask. He took a deep breath then let it out. “Here goes,” he said quietly as he pulled the mask off and tossed it aside.

  Immediately the combination of low oxygen and the sophorant gas made him relax. His entire body slumped. He tried to breath shallow, to focus, but gave it up in a few seconds. His eyelids became incredibly heavy. It took a lot of force of will to keep them open, but eventually they too became too much of a burden to bear.

  Kathy gave Kaku and his pod a pat, stroking click's head gently, mourning their loss. She stood, then made her way to her cabin. She gave the Captain and XO a final nod in passing as she left them. Both were already asleep.

  She went and kissed her sleeping husband, then curled up beside him. Then she removed her emergency oxygen rebreather and tossed it across the room. Before the carbon dioxide and sleeping agent lulled her into unconsciousness and death her fingers curled with her husband's. Her anguished thoughts wandered about what could have been briefly before Morpheus took her for the final time.

  Chapter 23

  “Baboons?” Hannah asked as her boss came into the clinic. Aurelia stopped dead for a moment to stare at her.

  “Who told you?” she finally asked, pulling out her tablet case and setting it down on a counter.

  “I got a strange memo. Boss, what's going on?” Hannah asked, leaning against the counter top.

  “Well, it's a long story. But it involves Genetek, or Gentek, or whatever they will turn into next,” Aurelia said shaking her head.

  “Genetek?”

  “They started out under that name, then got caught and got their hands slapped. They changed the name to Gentek and were “reborn” in a “kinder, gentler more environmentally friendly” company,” Aurelia explained as she sipped her coffee.

  “You … I think I've heard of them,” Hannah murmured. Her eyes shifted about as she searched her memory. Finally she nodded. She remembered their recruiter at college; she'd passed them by since she'd had her heart set on Lagroose. They'd been involved in various genetic engineering projects, plus environmental clean ups. She remembered an article about how they'd created frankenfish to restock the depleted salmon and trout populations and how the fish had ravaged the food chain.

  “It's come as something of a shock to us to find out that other companies and even some government organizations have been experimenting with Neos for some time now,” Aurelia said. She took another sip of coffee. “A tech we picked up played whistle-blower. Gentek has been playing god,” Aurelia said as she scowled.

  “And we haven't been?”

  “Touché,” Aurelia murmured. “They went with other animals though. Baboons as you know, plus Selkie, lemurs, mice, birds, and others,” she said darkly.

  “Selkie …”

  “Hybrid human seal. We thought they were nano changed as they'd been billed initially to the media, but apparently that's not the case as we've been finding out.”

  “Um … still not following you,” Hannah said, now confused.

  “Don't you check the news?”

  Hannah blinked then spread her hands. “When I'm not here, I'm at your house babysitting, remember? Or trying to catch up on the latest procedures, or talking with Isley or Amelia. When do I have time to watch the news?” She demanded, wrinkling her nose. “I've watched so many kids shows I'm more up to date with them than my favorites. My recorder is probably full,” she complained.

  Aurelia chuckled. “Okay, check your implants or feed,” she said, indicating the tablet the woman had. “Later. For now, let me tell you a bit of history,” she said.

  Hannah crossed her arms and got comfortable. Aurelia rubbed the tip of her nose with her finger, gathering her thoughts. “Where to begin,” she murmured. “You know a lot already. But …” she shrugged.

  “Neo dogs you know about. They were our start, but Ursilla and the original team did side projects. They eventually gave most of them up, birds are just too alien and small for us to … uplift and trust,” she said. Hannah nodded. She knew about the neo dogs, wolves, bears, and some of the history the doc was talking about. Most of the side projects were only mentioned in the files without much detail. Ursilla had explored a lot of the known tool users to nail down intelligence.

  “Felines and wolves are independent of humans as are birds. You know about our feline, canine, and ursine divisions,” Aurelia said. “I know you keep tabs on them, and I noticed you've been recently checking on a few of the side species.” Hannah nodded.

  “Well, it turns out Gentek has been playing with other genomes but doing it from a commercial perspective. They were looking at how to exploit their products for material gain,” she said, making it sound dirty. “Don't get me started on what they were doing with Neofoxes,” she said with a shiver. “Or the animal human hybrids they were growing for sick sex fetish people,” Aurelia snarled, clenching her free hand.

  Hannah's eyes bugged out in surprise and shock. Aurelia nodded slowly, taking a sip of her coffee again to regain her composure.

  “We've had a … history. And since Wizard, well, the government has been supportive of our efforts and our need for secrecy,” Aurelia said. Hannah blinked. “Sorry, he's generation 0.4, or I should say was. He sacrificed himself to stop a homemade dirty nuclear bomb decades ago. Before my time as well,” she said. She looked away. “He was remarkable. Truly remarkable. I got to meet him a day or so before he went groundside, he had a … sense of duty I barely understood.” Hannah nodded.

  “Anyway, Gentek created a division called Project Chimera.” She made a face. “At least that's better than Moreau I suppose, but not much. The cyber Intel people were supposed to be looking for such things or traces of them. They goofed. From what Trevor told me, the idiot in charge of watching Gentek had been practically asleep at the switch for some time. He had been relying on word association and recognition bots that were so far out of date they were laughable.” She scowled blackly. “So, they went largely unchecked for this long.”

  “I'm guessing they were … nasty?”

  Aurelia nodded. “Some of the nastiest pieces of work imaginable really. We're still getting all the details. I do know they had replicated Ursilla's experiments on crows, parrots, and other animals. They had been exploring tool users to narrow down brain size for some reason. Their notes don't say why, though I understand the … curiosity of such a project.” She got a faraway thoughtful look before she shook it off and continued. “We've always assumed a correlation on brain size and intelligence. But over a century ago we found that some birds were also tool and variable manipulators that put such … um, smug thoughts on their sides,” she said. “Sorry, mixing metaphors,” she said.

  “Not a problem.”

  “We abandoned the projects when we realized they were giving us diminished returns. Even the monkey projects were abandoned.” Hannah briefly wondered what had happened to the animals involved. Hopefully they'd been put somewhere safe not just spaced. Then again, if they'd become smarter they could be a danger … she fought a shiver at the thought of a small highly intelligent animal loose inside a habitat.

  “Ursilla had redirected our efforts to mammals because of compatible mindsets and biology. There has been some concern about uplifting major predators, which was why we held off on the ursines for so long.”

  Hannah frowned thoughtfully. She knew they had recently stopped tinkering with the bears after a couple of “regrettable incidents.” She wasn't sure what had happened, but she knew it had involved a lot of injured people. It had also been classified however. That made Hannah wonder what her boss had meant.

  “Apparently the other companies and agencies had come to the same conclusions, most
ly on their own. And we found that once we announced our Neos they started a sort of catch up race, even going so far as to get samples of our Neos and then copying their gene sequences into their own projects,” Aurelia explained.

  “The genie is well and truly out of the bottle now,” Hannah murmured.

  Aurelia nodded grimly. “Exactly, though fortunately they don't have a lot of funding. Or unfortunately for some, since that meant that they'd cut corners and didn't care what damage they did in the process,” she said darkly. Hannah winced.

  “I heard something about anthro changes in college. I thought that was … odd,” Hannah said.

  Aurelia glanced at her then nodded. “It is. There is a … call it a subculture of people who go to the extreme of body modification. The latest … call it generation have tripped into nanite treatments to alter their bodies to new alien forms.” From Aurelia's expression Hannah judged the older woman had some reservations and a little atavistic revulsion over the idea. That was surprising given her history. “It's … well, it's a tangled mess. Let me start over here,” Aurelia said as she finished her coffee and then set the mug in the sink.

  Hannah knew her history but she listened to her boss's point of view since the older woman had lived it. Or at least the past couple of decades, she reminded herself. She'd inherited a lot of stuff from Ursilla Lagroose.

  Terrorist acts had been directed at cloning facilities groundside much like fertility and abortion clinics had over a century ago. Many had been thwarted, thought the authorities had been a bit lax about protection for some time. They'd stepped in only when some of the corporations had hired on mercs and built up their own police and security forces to protect their assets.

  The first transgenic organ harvesting and initial cloning projects had been done in pigs and small animals for decades, practically under the radar until genetic engineering had exploded and became mainstream. When Islamic extremists had judged it was unclean and against their religion, as did a few other orthodox religions, it had become an even greater target. PETA and others had protested such treatment of animals, and their own extremist wings had gotten into attacking and hampering labs. When some horror stories had hit the mainstream media, the public had turned on cloning.

  Cloning had moved on and upward from those dark times, at least with Lagroose and some of the other major companies. But the black market continued to persist in such practices … as well as even darker things like illicit organ harvesting of poor people. That had been going on for nearly two centuries but no one could put a stop to it. There were also persistent rumors of the cloning of humans for organ harvesting. Aurelia didn't like it, but she admitted to Hannah that it had happened in the dark past. She told her about how Ursilla Lagroose had cloned a human body minus the brain. “Everything was there except the most important part. Well, most of the important part, they'd grown the parts of the brain needed to keep it breathing, you know, the ANS, the autonomic nervous system. Hypthalamus, Pituitary gland to speed up growth, while most of the Medulla oblongata was kept for the ANS. Ursilla had pioneered the use of growth hormones to accelerate it to maturity to harvest.”

  “That's … wrong. On so many levels,” Hannah said with a convulsive shiver of revulsion.

  “They had to have the ANS. Otherwise they had to keep the body alive with a computer, and computers weren't perfect.”

  “It's still … ghoulish,” Hannah said.

  “It was a start. Back in the day, the really dark past they used to use stem cells harvested from fetuses. Aborted fetuses or even directly harvested from a woman's ovaries. That was viciously protested for decades until scientists found a way to turn skin cells into stem cells, then direct them into whatever cells they needed to grow.”

  “I know,” Hannah said, smiling slightly. “I remember my history class,” she said, tapping her forehead meaningfully.”

  “I forgot about your memory,” Aurelia replied with a snort. Hannah shrugged. “A blessing and a curse I suppose,” Aurelia said. Hannah nodded.

  “What bugs me is Gentek went low tech. We've gained access to their files, so we know they've been in the whole growing bodies’ thing. I guess to them it's the bottom line; it's cheaper to grow a body by letting it do it on its own. It still isn't right. Jack's going to have a field day picking them apart like a Thanksgiving turkey,” she growled, eyes flashing.

  “Good.”

  “You haven't see the company's cloning labs, but it's a lot like what we do here when we're testing out parts in Neo growth projects. Now we're better. What we do is humane,” Aurelia said, the picture of serenity. “We're still competing with prosthetics though,” she said making a face.

  “Kinder, gentler you mean,” Hannah said, now ready to get away from the gene engineering projects for good. She didn't want to burn a bridge with Aurelia, but she was definitely creeped out.

  “We don't do that anymore. We don't,” Aurelia insisted, reading the other woman like a book. “I can't say the same for the other companies though, and yes, getting labeled by guilt by association is a problem,” she said. She sighed. Hannah nodded as she bit her lower lip. “And yes, I know a few who have gone too far,” she said darkly.

  Aurelia told her about Genetek's selkie project. How the hybrid seal-humans had been created to help Pavilion, Cobra Industries, and other corporations with ocean and river projects. “I think they justified it to themselves since there was so much work to be done with the rising sea levels and everything going on,” Aurelia interjected. Hannah shrugged. She went on to explain how they had been exposed when a great white shark had attacked and killed a selkie on camera. Other selkies had arrived on scene to drive the sharks off and recover the body before it could be devoured. The entire event had been filmed by a whale watching group.

  Hannah nodded. She'd heard something about it on the news and in the community grapevine earlier that morning.

  “Well, what you don't know, what a lot of people didn't know was that the selkies were slaves,” Aurelia said, face cold. Hannah sucked in a breath. “They were sold and used as slaves which pissed us off. Our intel people confirmed they were also going to use the selkies as slave labor as helmsman on starships,” she said. She shook her head. “The neo verpines …” she shivered. She didn't go further, it was still too much of a nightmare. How could anyone raise a person to become a humanoid fur coat? More importantly, why would they do such a thing to a thinking person?

  Hannah scowled. “Now see, that's not right.”

  “Exactly. Yes we created the Neos. We've let the genie well and truly out of the bottle,” Aurelia said. “Though a few species I wouldn't mind putting back; they are people now. Jack is right. We have to treat them as such.”

  “But they work for Lagroose. They don't have a choice,” Hannah insisted, distress evident. “How are we any better than Gentek?”

  Aurelia sat back and looked at her apprentice thoughtfully. “I think you know. We do pay them. The species that have been acknowledged can go out and find jobs elsewhere. Some have. I know a couple of my favorite primate people have taken jobs with Mars University. Mars is okay with Neos.” She smiled slightly. “They've always been, well, strange. Open minded. Wild. There are some places on Earth that are the same way. Some con people have gone to extremes with body modification. We've been dealing with that for decades too.”

  “Con people?” Hannah asked, now confused.

  “Cons. Comic con, anime con, movie con, con is short for convention. You never went to one groundside?” Aurelia asked. Hannah shook her head. “It's a … well, costume ball. Or it started out that way. Actually, I think a century or so ago it started out as a place to sell stuff but got out of hand. I went to one, oh, ages and ages ago,” she smiled fondly as memories washed over her of her youth. “It was fun. But,” she said, voice turning dark. “Some people get carried away. They take it too extremes; as actors say, they get too into a character. Too far to get out of easily. For oh, the past twelve decades human
s have been modifying themselves. You knew about that, right?” Hannah nodded.

  “It's not just ears and such. I think you've seen tattoos, right?” Hannah nodded again. “Well, there is a subculture out there that are into extreme modifications. Play. Even some who want to become …” she wrinkled her nose. “Furry.”

  “Furry?”

  “Furry. Animals. Some of Ursilla's original backers were people with more money than sense. They got into the idea, not just the whole Disney cartoon idea of having talking animals, but also changing their shape to their favorite animal. We still have a few on the books.”

  “Oh. My … word,” Hannah said, thinking about what that would entail. Changing a human into an … animal? Surgery obviously, but … She shook her head. The mind boggled.

  Aurelia nodded. “We walk a fine line,” she said softly, studying Hannah. “Ethics, which is why we have an occasional ethical dilemma and a review by the board, the Neos, and finally Jack who pays for all of it.”

  “I see.”

  Aurelia smiled slightly. “And you don't want to judge because you aren't sure where that would lead. I understand that. But remember when I mentioned the selkies?” Hannah frowned and then nodded. “Well, once we knew for certain what was going on, Jack got involved. He and a few other investors started buying up Gentek's shares when the entire thing went public and their shares went south. He forced them to give up the selkies, baboons, and other Neos. We've got them now. Or will once they finish turning everything and everyone over to us. There has been a bit of foot dragging; we may end up taking on some of their scientists as well,” she said. “We're having trouble since the authorities are now involved as well. You know the laws regarding Neos on Earth,” she said, rolling her eyes. Hannah grimaced. That part she had heard about. “Well, we set a precedence by introducing the Neos groundside, Gentek is arguing it to cover their ass in court. They are getting the bejeesers sued out of them from every corner of the planet. Every civil rights organization …” she shook her head. Gentek was on the ropes and they knew it. The backers were desperate to save something of their company. It was already insolvent and headed to bankruptcy.