Daughter of Elysium

by Joan Slonczewski

  Another “social” lab meeting, marginally in accordance with the visitation rule. “Sure, I’ll come,” said Blackbear, anxious to get started on his project. “While you’re on, would you happen to know how one tells the house about children? It lets them get away with anything.”

  “Hm. An interesting problem.” Tulle returned the capuchin to her shoulder, where it stroked her blond hair. “You might try defining them as pets…” Seeing his look, she hurriedly added, “Never mind; the house must have a program for shonlings. I’ll look into it for you.”

  WHILE RAINCLOUD WENT OUT TO MAKE HER VISITS, Blackbear got the children dressed and out into the transit reticulum. “Doggie,” of course, had to come along, too; in fact, Sunflower insisted in riding on top of her. Once when the child slid off, the trainsweep let out a burst of squeaking which alerted Blackbear to turn and see. He regarded the machine with new interest. Perhaps after all this Doggie was not a bad addition to the family. He endured the furtive stares of passing Elysians, who of course would not speak to him, not knowing his mate. Only a trade servo approached him to inquire, was he a traveling sideshow, and would he perform at the next garden?

  When they arrived at the swallowtail garden, Blackbear left the children outside with Doggie, warning Hawktalon not to stray from the window where he could see. Entering the pavilion, he sat at one end of the moon-shaped table, between Onyx and Draeg.

  “The machine’s working,” crowed Onyx, cheerfully snapping her fingerwebs. Her grandmother had been a Sharer, the aquatic race of women with webbed hands and feet. “We can get right back inside the embryo and feel the blood pumping through its ventricle.”

  Blackbear blinked at this. “Feel the blood pumping?”

  “You fixed it,” Draeg told Onyx. “The Valans will buy you out from us one day, and we’ll be lost.”

  Pirin and Lorl sat across from each other, with Tulle at the opposite end of the mooncurve. The little black-hooded capuchin delicately explored the floor at her feet.

  “So Blackbear, which project do you think you’ll take?” Tulle asked. “You could look for mutations in untreated embryos that confer partial longevity; like Draeg’s heartless mutant, a fertile embryo whose heart and vascular system don’t age.”

  “But the rest of the body still does,” Draeg admitted. “You take one step at a time. It’s like redoing all the work of the Heliconian Doctors all over again.”

  “With modern technology,” Tulle pointed out. “The alternative is to start with a longevity-treated embryo and look for mutations that partially correct fertility.”

  Onyx said, “This mutant has multiple problems with fertility. The primordial germ cells mostly fail to migrate to the genital ridges. The few that make it degenerate during meiosis. The gonads develop, but no fertile eggs or sperm are ever made.”

  “Exactly,” said Tulle. “But you’ve found some extremely interesting egg mutants.”

  To make egg cells, the primordial germ cells have to undertake a tortuous journey within the embryo, migrating from the yolk sac, through the gut layers, into the germinal layers, to settle at last in the genital region. There, female germ cells develop into ovaries and undergo the first division of meiosis. Meiotic division halves the chromosome number, so that once the future egg and sperm unite, the offspring regains the double chromosome count, one copy of every chromosome from each parent.

  “I’ve found several mutations in the simulator that enable the germ cells to migrate properly,” Onyx told him. “The cells make normal pseudopods to help them creep through the gut to the genital region, where they actually start to form ovaries before disintegrating. I’m convinced that this one gene I’ve found will correct egg production.”

  “Which gene is that?”

  “It’s called Eyeless, because it was first identified in a mutant embryo which failed to develop eyes. My mutants, at a different part of the gene sequence, avoid that problem. But, like Draeg’s Heartless gene, Eyeless regulates other things too—including the migration of germ cells.”

  “I see,” said Blackbear. “Do your Eyeless mutations help male germ cells develop, too?” The early part of germ cell migration is identical between the sexes.

  “Unfortunately not, at least in the simulations I’ve checked so far,” Onyx said. “In a male Eyeless mutant, the germ cells end up at the pre-ovarian region, while infertile testicles develop separately. But we’re working on it.”

  Onyx went on to explain the molecular structure of the Eyeless gene and its protein product. Blackbear tried to follow as best he could, because the Eyeless gene looked like a good project for him. Then Tulle asked Pirin to report on his new simbrid clone, an embryo which made mutant proteins that improved longevity. Blackbear stole a look outside at the children. Sunflower was riding the trainsweep, while Hawktalon had taken out her rattleback stone and was spinning it upon the spotless surface of the street, watching it slow down until it “magically” reversed direction. Beyond them, in the street, the Elysians passed majestically to and fro, their colorful trains gliding behind them.

  As Pirin began to get into the details of his simbrid clone, Tulle stopped him a moment. “Questions, anyone?” She looked along the arc of the table, her gaze resting at last on Blackbear.

  Onyx whispered, “Go on, ask something. That’s how you learn.”

  Blackbear felt the blood pounding in his ears. He knew she was right, but he dreaded sounding ignorant. “I’m sure this is obvious, but—just what is a simbrid?” The literature he read had been frustratingly vague on the pedigree of this important embryo culture line.

  Pirin turned to him politely. “The simbrid, or simian hybrid clone, was derived from a blend of primate species. Its development closely resembles the human embryo, but we only maintain it in vitro. It’s a good model system to test predictions for human development.”

  “I see.”

  Draeg spoke up. “Tell him which primate species.”

  “Homo gorilla, Homo paniscus, and Homo sapiens.”

  Gorilla, chimpanzee, and human. Once considered distant cousins, the three apes now shared a common genus. “But—” Blackbear found his voice. “But that’s rather like the Urulite slaves, isn’t it?”

  Draeg grinned from ear to ear, but the Elysian students were shocked. “It is nothing of the sort,” Pirin coldly replied. “I told you, these embryos are terminated in vitro, generally before the fourth month. No civilized people would maintain such monstrosities to term.”

  “Of course not,” Tulle interposed. “But Blackbear’s comparison is reasonable, as you know.”

  Draeg nodded. “That hearing we held on the simbrid question was a bad scene. I thought those logens would eat us alive.”

  Onyx said, “It wasn’t all that bad. They let us go ahead with the simbrids, didn’t they? A good thing Alin helped us out.”

  “Pirin,” Tulle asked, “what would you suppose is the mechanism by which this protein affects longevity…”

  The discussion lost him again. Gorilla hybrid embryos in a test tube—he wondered what Raincloud would think of this. The thought made him sick, himself. But then, all medical research needed subjects; how else was it to be done?

  Suddenly Draeg’s mouth opened, and he nudged Blackbear to look out the window. Blackbear turned, half rising in his seat, thinking the children were in trouble. But the two of them were still playing in the street, taking turns riding the trainsweep.

  “There,” pointed Draeg. “The man in white.”

  A white train, about three meters in length, made its way slowly down the street toward Science Park. The man at its head wore a white talar without decoration, or none that could be discerned from this distance. The stark figure conversed with two younger Elysians at either side, about the age of Pirin or Lorl, who led shorter trains with typical butterfly trimming. The contrast was striking, especially to Blackbear, for whom white was the color of death, of stillborn babies and bleached bones and the frozen caps of the tallest Hills.<
br />
  Around the table, voices hushed. “It’s him,” Onyx whispered.

  “Who is he?” Blackbear asked.

  “Kal Anaeashon,” said Onyx. “He’s a logen. A rather dangerous one.”

  “The arrogant bastard,” said Draeg in L’liite. “What’s he doing here, around Science Park?”

  Curious, Blackbear looked out again upon the figure in deathly white. “Who are the younger ones with him?”

  “Students,” Onyx explained, “who may become logens some day. Both he and Alin studied with Verid, you know, centuries back.”

  “His students call him Killer,” said Draeg.

  “He teaches lies,” added Pirin. “Lies about The Web. And he has flouted our highest law.”

  Taken aback, Blackbear thought, Draeg and Pirin actually agreed about this. “Is he a criminal, then?” he asked, warily eyeing the stranger now.

  “Elysium has no crime,” Pirin assured him. “Only…moral iniquities.”

  Tulle did not notice, now deep in technical discussion with Lorl.

  “He took a servo for a ‘mate.’” Onyx giggled. “Kal’s first mate died young, in an accident out on the ocean, and he never quite got over it. So he took a servo as a ‘mate,’ to embarrass people who sent their mates to call on him—he’d send the servo in return! It was ever such a scandal,” she said, slipping her Valan beads between her fingerwebs.

  Draeg added, “He’s a damned hypnotist with words. If he told the Guard of Twelve to shut down the entire research establishment, they’d do it—and he just might, one day. Hey—he’s not stopping here?”

  Tulle looked up at last. Her mouth opened, as if she just remembered something. “We’ve run overtime, into my home visiting hour. I had an appointment just now, with that logen, remember?”

  Onyx gripped the table. “You’ve got an appointment? With Kal Anaeashon?”

  The eyes of Pirin and Lorl widened with consternation.

  “Well, I could hardly refuse, could I?”

  Completely baffled, Blackbear turned to Draeg. “What does he want with us? And how did he find us here?”

  “Everyone knows where everyone is—it’s all on the network. That’s why I live out on a raft, with the Sharers. Come see my place, will you?”

  “Thanks, Draeg. But now—”

  Tulle interrupted, “Remember, you all, this is just visiting.”

  “Drinks, metalman!” called Draeg loudly to the nearest servo. “Another round of drinks for a lively party. All we need is the Killer to see us at work instead of play.”

  Blackbear winced, thinking, the “network” would hear that, too. He would never get used to this place. His head felt dizzy, and he wished he had never left Bronze Sky.

  The man in white appeared, walking slowly toward their table. Kal Anaeashon was shorter than average, even for an Elysian, although the stark whiteness made him seem taller. His only adornment was a single dried leaf pinned at his shoulder, presumably in reference to the leaf-imitating anaean butterfly. His hair was gray, the first gray hair Blackbear had yet seen here, but his face was as youthful as that of any Elysian.

  As Tulle rose, Kal bowed very slightly. “Sorry to interrupt your pleasure.”

  Draeg said loudly, “It’s a great time we’re having. Won’t you have a drink?”

  “Hush,” whispered Onyx hoarsely. “That’s an insult; you’ve never even met his mate.”

  “His servo, you mean,” said Draeg.

  Tulle told the logen, “Please join us. We’re celebrating our latest progress on the simbrid clone.”

  “I won’t trouble you long.” Kal’s voice was low and deceptively reassuring. “You know what concerns me, Tulle.”

  “I’ve held any number of public hearings,” she said. “On the simbrids, the human trials, and so forth.”

  “Your hearings were excellent. No one doubts your command of medical research, nor your concern for individual life. But now your work threatens more. Your work has broader consequences which, so far, you refuse to address.”

  “Excuse me,” Tulle replied coldly.

  Kal stood, barely moving. The others were silent, and at nearby tables the butterfly-decorated customers turned their heads, hoping to overhear.

  “If ageless Elysians could bear their own children,” Kal spoke in the same quiet voice, “what would become of us as a people?”

  “Who can say?”

  “You have not addressed this issue in any hearing.”

  “Politics is not my concern. As Alin says, a logen can make politics out of anything.”

  “You are right,” said Kal. “But think again. It is said, ‘Compassion anywhere breeds caring everywhere.’”

  At this quote, probably from The Web, both Pirin and Lorl rose from their seats, their faces wooden. Without speaking, they left the table.

  Tulle replied, “The citizens select Guardians to decide such matters. The Guard of Twelve funds my entire project.”

  “Do all the Guard’s actions pass the test of wisdom?”

  Tulle shifted back a step. “I think we can save further talk for the logathlon. We wouldn’t want to waste our best lines, would we?”

  Kal bowed again. “As you wish. At the fourteenth hour, the first of the month?”

  “Yes. Yes, of course, Citizen.”

  The logen departed. Suddenly, everyone was talking at once. The capuchin nestled protectively in Tulle’s arms. Onyx was at her side, whispering soothingly.

  “I shouldn’t have said that,” Tulle muttered. “I can’t help it—I feel so strongly about this. But they can’t play politics with my work.”

  Tulle believed that the Heliconian Doctors had kept Elysians infertile on purpose, so that reproduction belonged to the state. But why?

  Draeg shook his head. “You wouldn’t believe how many hearings we’ve held, on one thing or another. Now they want to pin the death of civilization on us!”

  Blackbear asked, “What exactly is a logathlon?”

  “A logathlon is a kind of moral trial in public,” explained Onyx. “You saw one on the news, the other day. In the old days, any citizen could call one, but today you have to be a registered logen.”

  “It’s more like a duel,” said Draeg. “A duel of words.” He laughed and wrestled Blackbear’s arm. “Tulle may be in worse trouble than Raincloud, you know.”

  Chapter 7

  TULLE’S SOLUTION TO BLACKBEAR’S PROBLEM WITH THE house was to register their residence as a foreign shon. The house now recognized Hawktalon and Sunflower as shonlings, with limited rights of access to its services. This designation came at a price, however, including extra insurance fees and taxes.

  Hawktalon was furious. “I want my ice cream, and my volcanoes! What is there to do around here, anyhow? Where are all my friends to spar with? I’m going to stow away on a Fold ship and go home.”

  Raincloud eyed Blackbear doubtfully. “This is no place for a young goddess. We can do the schooling, and the exercises, but what then? No responsibilities. At home, she had the goats to milk every day.”

  “We’ll soon get back to my lab,” Blackbear assured her. “She’ll help me with my experiments.”

  “…the plague of flies has now spread throughout Papilion, though not yet to other cities,” came a news voice from the holostage. “They carry no disease, but they discourage the tourist trade. The flies’ origin remains a mystery, but authorities are inquiring at local Sharer rafts. And now, the scandal all Helicon’s talking about. One of our foremost logens was caught fighting in public…”

  Blackbear recalled Alin’s incident. “Scandal is nothing compared to what you’ll get from those Urulites.”

  Raincloud sighed, tired of hearing about it. “You tell Verid yourself when you visit her.”

  “I have to come up with an appropriate gift, first,” he reminded her, recalling the train and trainsweeps from Iras.

  “Yes—and I’ll need something for Tulle, too…” More expenses. The hour chimed from the holostage,
eighteen already.

  “I won’t eat dinner,” Hawktalon warned. “Not without my ice cream.”

  His watch was five minutes fast again—why? He must have missed something in the local time correction.

  “Dear,” said Raincloud, “we’d better review our finances, don’t you think? Even once our extra workday gets approved, we still won’t break even.”

  Blackbear agreed glumly. “It’s hard to see how any foreigner could, with all those extra utilities, and the taxes. At this rate, we’ll have to ask the clan for a loan.”

  Raincloud made a nasty face at that.

  “Well, what do you suggest? With the children, I’ve been asked more than once to perform in a circus.”

  Raincloud snapped her fingers. “There’s the trainsweep, remember. That quirk in her network, with unexpected properties, just might earn us something.”

  They took the trainsweep in, along with the children, of course. The servo firm, a branch of a Valan house of manufacture, was situated in a grand sweep of a building even more impressive than Science Park. The specialist turned out to be a tall Valan goddess with ropes of amethysts across her chest and a light pen behind her ear. “You can think of me as the servo-doctor,” she told them with a laugh, rubbing her hands. “Come along, dear, let’s hook you up to the scanner.”

  For some reason Doggie was reluctant to comply. She wiggled her front legs and her stalked visual sensors, then retreated to the opposite end of the room.

  “Fascinating,” muttered the specialist. “Learned aversive behavior…to retraining, perhaps?”

  “It’s all right,” Hawktalon told the trainsweep, caressing its nanoplastic carapace. One side had bright green marks where Sunflower had tried out his crayons. “We’re right here, me and Sunflower. We won’t let anyone hurt you.”

  “You won’t try to ‘retrain’ it?” Blackbear asked, anxious not to alter the children’s pet.

  “Of course not. Just take a look, that’s all.” The specialist hooked up some leads to the connector port at the rear of the trainsweep. Then Hawktalon led the little servo through her various tricks, including letting the girl on for a ride and emitting squeaks when she fell off.