“Yes, Ma’am. But Headquarters is completely blocked off. The mob won’t get anywhere near it.”
“What other types of riot control were you considering, Minister?”
“We were hoping that ...”
She didn’t hear the rest of the sentence. Below, on the boulevard, the women suddenly seemed to be moving en masse toward one point. Wicca couldn’t make out any reason for the sudden movement, and ordered the pilot to drop nearer. Her Aide lifted up a small holo-screen, with close-ups of the action beneath the shuttle, obviously a Hesperian network hand-held picture. And there he was on a perch at the side of the boulevard, that spindle-shanks, Gn’elphus, gesturing and inciting.
“Aide! That elderly and infirm-looking male appears to be in trouble. We suggest that he be rescued.”
“Ma’am?” The aide knew quite well who the Se’er’s leader was and what he was doing there: she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“You heard. You too, pilot!”
“We’ll have to get close,” the pilot said. “My net has a lead of only a dozen meters or so.”
“As close as you have to,” She agreed and strapped Herself down for the show.
The shuttle swooped low over the demonstrators’ heads, causing them to be distracted from the old Se’er. They looked up, pointed, attempted to see who was inside the official-looking shuttle. The pilot’s first pass failed to bring the shuttle close enough. They would have to try again. The pilot shouted as she spun the vehicle around the base of the Spoorenberg Tower and headed back, into the densest part of the crowd. Gn’elphus was just getting the mob’s attention again when the shuttle swooped and missed him again. This time the pilot had set her path for a sharp U-turn directly over the crowd and in front of the Se’er’s perch, so she was able to return quickly for another pass.
“Pilot!” Wicca shouted. “A bonus of a year’s pay if you get him!”
“Yes, Ma’am!” the pilot shouted back and swooped this time so low that the center of the mob seemed to fall back, almost to the conveyance itself, to avoid the shuttle. But the gambit worked. While the old Se’er was distractedly berating the mob, the pilot swung around sharply once more. This time she netted him.
Wicca Eighth whooped! The crowd below seemed startled, far too distracted to know what to do immediately. By the time they realized what had happened, Gn’elphus was netted, lifted off, and the shuttle was approaching the roof of MC Headquarters, where startled Security guards were able to remove the furious, entangled Se’er from the netting just as Minister Etalka came out to greet the Interstellar Metropolitan with a formal order of arrest. All done before the Matriarchal shuttle softly settled to the roof and Wicca Eighth stepped out, and allowed the clever and grateful pilot to kiss her hand.
She was in a splendid mood shortly thereafter when, comfortably seated and refreshed and – above all – private, She called up the full military and personal files on Commander Fiebra Orval and sifted through them, liking what She was discovering more and more.
After a while, She was satisfied, and comm.ed Commander Orval at Groombridge XXXIV, coding the holo to censor it to all but the two holosets, and to erase its reception record from both ends as soon as the transmission had ended.
“Ma’am?” Orval saluted and was put at her ease.
Orval was a recognizable type to Wicca: large-boned, no longer young, but still quite youthful looking, a bit more athletic than she needed to be in her position. Her background had been almost perfect, Wicca Eighth thought, for the job at hand. Fiebra Orval was the product of Matriarchal Center World breeding – born to a professional trine family on Lysistrata – and of pioneer world upbringing – a result of the accidental death of her prime and secunde parents and of her suddenly liberated and impoverished male parent’s move to the Sopa-Farms on Theta Ophiucus. As a neo., Orval had also labored on the mechanized drug farms and obviously had hated it: Orval had jumped at the first chance to get away via an MC Recruitment Team the Quinx had allowed on the planet. So Orval had ended up at Groombridge Military Academy. From there, Orval had moved solidly through the ranks toward higher military office with an unblemished military record, and a somewhat chaotic personal life. Only a month ago, she had ended a trine-marriage and had requested transfer from a cushy spot on Euterpe to return to the Academy. The fact that her one remaining parent had long vanished from her record, suggested to Wicca that he and Orval didn’t get along. Wicca hoped this meant that Commander Orval still harbored resentment against all things connected with the Sopa-Farms, including their owner and major beneficiary, the head of the Ophiucans, Mart Kell.
Wicca began the conversation with a question meant to feel out the soldier: “We understand, Orval, that you were found hormone-fit for the operation, yet not allowed to join it!”
“Correct, Ma’am,” she spoke with an Academy-clenched jaw. Not an iota of emotion or thought escaped.
Wicca tried again: “We understand, Orval, that many of Our best officers shared your fate?”
“Correct, Ma’am.” Again stoical.
“Would We be overestimating the case in saying that you and the others were disappointed?”
“We follow orders, Ma’am.”
“Yes, yes, We expect nothing less. We’re now speaking of more personal feelings,” Wicca said.
“Naturally, Ma’am, when one has been trained for and is experienced ...”
“Then you were disappointed? Don’t worry. This is a closed-circuit holo. No one besides Ourself will ever know.”
A blush spot high on Orval’s right cheek displayed her embarrassment and confusion.
Wicca went on, “If We may be equally candid, Orval, We are also disappointed that so many of our most-qualified officers are excluded from the operation. But, too often, these matters hinge on matters beyond even Our control.”
“Ma’am!” Orval was interested now: curious.
“Indeed, Orval. Even the Matriarch Herself cannot always have Her wishes fulfilled. Yet, Orval, this particular new wish of Ours is of the greatest ultimate importance to the Matriarchy. Ergo this comm. Ergo Our selection of yourself as the agent of fulfilling Our wish.”
Now Orval was very intrigued.
“Our wish is a simple one, Orval. We wish that the upcoming action be an operation in which several of the Academy’s fittest and most able officers reap glory for themselves, for Ourself, and for the Matriarchy. Despite the complications of politics.”
“Yes, Ma’am!” No hesitation now.
“We understand that many completely equipped Military Fasts belonging to Ourself are now berthed at the Academy. Our wish is that you, with Our knowledge and aid, build an outfit of four dozen or so of these Fasts. We will provide all the necessary clearances so that you may fuel and arm these Fasts. Under the guise of moving them to a safer spot, you will instead move them to a designated site within the Groombridge XXXIV solar system, and from there first engage – and destroy! – the enemy when it arrives!”
Orval’s eyes opened wide in surprise and pleasure.
“Do you think you could do that for Us, Orval?”
“I certainly do, Ma’am!”
“Do you think that you can locate, among those officers rejected, a staff qualified to achieve Our end?”
“I have no doubt, Ma’am!”
“They must be sworn to secrecy, Orval. No Ministry Official is to know anything about this. Their hands are tied by a policy which We are forced to agree to.”
“I understand completely, Ma’am.”
A few more details were required, and then the codes and clearances were given. Orval would be in comm. with the Matriarch via closed holo whenever she felt it necessary, although Wicca hoped it wouldn’t be too often.
As she made her concluding remarks, She watched the younger woman already silently thinking out how to implement the daring plan.
“We are depending upon your training, Orval, and upon your complete discretion!”
“Yo
u have both, Ma’am. And my gratitude.”
“Your mothers would have been very proud of you had they lived to see this, Orval,” Wicca Eighth ended.
It was precisely the right Hume touch. A tiny tear sprang to one of Commander Fiebra Orval’s eyes and Wicca knew for sure that she wouldn’t fail Her.
“I’ve completed those check-throughs you asked for, Rinne.”
Not Councilor Rinne, not Mer Rinne, Gemma noticed. Just Rinne. But then, what had she expected? This was Hesperia, with its tradition – real or not, justified or not – of democracy.
“I said ...”
“I heard you, Jenn-Five.”
“About that name,” the Cyber began in a slightly aggrieved voice.
“What about the name?” she asked.
“It’s not as though I don’t know its derivation. But I wonder if you wouldn’t mind calling me something a bit different.”
Rinne was perplexed, although amused. “Such as?”
“Well, my predecessor’s emotional-syntaptical gender-influenced circuits were female. Whereas mine are ...”
Rinne had noticed the difference in the voice, not to mention in the curtness, the lack of politesse, the general let’s-get-on-with-it-ness of the personality of this new Cyber: it thought of itself as a male.
“What name would you prefer?” Rinne asked.
“There was a Metro.-Terran name not dissimilar to Jenn. Gene. Short for Eugene.”
“All right, Gene-Five. You said you’ve completed your check-throughs on all the material. With what result?”
“To begin with, and not to cast any aspersions upon my predecessor, I believe I’ve found the molecular matchup you requested.”
As a test of this new Cyber’s speed and accuracy, Rinne had set it the task that had so taxed Jenn-Four: going through all of the possible Hume contacts that Ferrex Baldwin Sanqq’ had or might have had during the yearlong period Sidereal Time during which his son might have been conceived – a list of thousands. Jenn-Four had done it again and again, and never arrived at anything remotely close to a matchup that would have produced a genetic parent. So Rinne wasn’t only surprised; she was fearful that somehow or other this new Cyber was defective.
“Really!” she said. “Well, let’s see what you’ve come up with.”
“This Hume has a fifty-one point thirteen percent molecular matchup. And, in addition, this Hume was constantly in Sanqq”s presence during the period in question.”
The small holo-screen connected to the Cyber displayed a sudden montage of still photos and moving holos of the person Gene-Five had discovered to be a matchup to Ay’r Sanqq’. A thin sidebar provided a running series of chromosomal relationships.
“In fact, I’m astounded that my predecessor didn’t discover this before,” Gene-Five said.
Rinne gaped at the holo-screen, then checked through the relationship chats. No doubt about it, the match was far above the percentage required for parentage. Even so, it was perfectly absurd. Somewhere along the line, she must have given the new Cyber an inexact command or a poorly phrased one, and naturally it had gone off and made this ridiculous mistake. Even granting that, the connection was awfully strange. Before she explained the error to the Cyber, she wanted to see how and why it could possibly have come up with a molecular matchup.
“Gene-Five, do me a favor,” she said. “Get me a complete genealogy on this Hume. I’m especially interested in any connections to the Sanqq’ genealogical line. Go back as far as you can. If you need any further data on either of the two families –”
“Recall, Rinne, that I’m tapped into the City’s own records division. Working,” Gene-Five added, a tic of the Cyber that, while irritating, could be removed at the same time as whatever circuit that had made the error was corrected.
“I’ve taken the two lines back to Metro.-Terran year 700 A.D. and find no connection yet.”
“Really!” Now Rinne was even more surprised.
“In fact, it appears that the genetic racial lines of these two Humes are so completely different that I’d probably have to go back another hundred thousand years of Metro.-Terran history to find a link. Note that this Hume is what was once called Caucasian, with a Nordic background, possibly mixed in with some Urgo-Finnic characteristics. And while Sanqq”s original family background is also Caucasian, it is of the very early branching off known as Semitic, with possible Nilotic influence. The two types are so different as to have been considered different races throughout Metro.-Terran history.”
“If that is so, Gene-Five, then I’ve made some error in presenting the problem for your check-through. Repeat it to me.”
The Cyber repeated it: “Gene-Five, provide me with a complete genetic, chromosomal matchup between Ferrex Baldwin Sanqq’ and any other potential Hume parent which Sanqq’ may have come into even the briefest contact with in the Sidereal Time Year Frame 3710 to 3711 A.D.
She looked it over. It seemed right. Yes, that’s what she had told Gene-Five.
“It’s exactly the same problem as was posed to my predecessor,” Gene-Five said.
“Well, the error must have been in the imprecision of my wording then,” Rinne said. “Gratitude. Your check-through was successful. You may end the program.”
“Would you like any further information on this Hume?”
“No, I don’t think” – Rinne stopped – “You don’t seem to understand the problem, do you, Gene-Five?”
“I both understood the problem posed, Rinne, and found the solution. What I don’t understand is your reaction to my finding the solution.”
“Well, look at the holos!” she laughed.
“May I remind you that both of these Humes were known to be cohabiting both before and during the period in question,” Gene-Five said. “May I also remind you that they worked together for several decades in the area of mammalian biology, with especial attention to alternative reproductive strategies. May I also remind you that Sanqq’ was a known follower of one Lydia Relfi and that one of the tenets of Relfianism was complete reproductive freedom for all, regardless of –”
“I know what Relfianism stood for,” Rinne interrupted the Cyber.
She had asked Gene-Five to find a mother for Ay’r Sanqq’. Possibly because it was Hesperian-built and thus without the Matriarchal built-in prejudices that Jenn-Four possessed in her/its basic programming, her/its very circuitry, this Cyber had done exactly what Rinne had asked. And now, very properly, it was defending its action against her, Rinne’s, own prejudices. And doing a very good job at that.
“May I note,” Gene-Five went on, “that this Flume possesses a greater molecular matchup with Ay’r Sanqq’ than does his alleged father, Ferrex Baldwin Sanqq’, whose percentage is only forty-nine point eighty-seven percent.”
“You have just noted it,” Rinne said in a small voice, quite different in tone from what she’d been using with Gene-Five so far.
“Would you like to see moving holos of both this Hume and Ay’r Sanqq’ side by side?” Gene-Five asked. “I could select them as close as possible by age, situation, and any other analogies I can find for viewing comparison.”
Within a minute of seeing the two holos side by side, Rinne was even more baffled than before. Those odd little gestures of Ay’r’s that, instinctively, she knew she had seen before were present, clear to see now, in the holos of both Ay’r and the candidate whom Gene-Five had put forth. And no wonder they were familiar to Rinne. This Hume had been Sanqq”s assistant when Rinne was a student, visible to her every day Sol Rad. Even more striking, now that they were side by side, were certain unmistakable physical characteristics shared between the two that couldn’t be ignored.
“Where is this Hume now?” she asked.
“Vanished at the same time as Ferrex Sanqq’.”
“Gene-Five, keep all this material ready for immediate transfer.”
She sat alone and pondered a while, knowing she had to do something about this information, yet feeling uncert
ain about what to do. Her thoughts followed a more or less closed circuit, which always returned to the same point – the idea was ridiculous, absurd! At which she invariably would see in her mind’s eye North-Taylor Diad stepping into that T-pod about to ascend to the Fast that would whisk him half across the galaxy to an unknown destiny, and she would hear his final words to her, which weren’t about her, or him, or themselves in any way, but which pleaded, “Find a solution, Gemma!”
Here in Gene-Five’s circuitry and on its holo-screen, if anywhere, might be a solution to the survival of the species – of two species, if it worked for Delphinids, too. Yet it broke with everything she had learned and thought. And she knew that’s how others would see it too. Or would they? Only one way to find out.
She comm.ed Premier Llega Todd. And anxiously waited for the Quinx leader to appear on holo.
“Lady Todd, I’m sorry to bother you, but something has come up,” Rinne began, somewhat nervous and even embarrassed. “It’s a result of my working with this new Cyber, and it may be completely daft. I trust you’ll tell me so if you think it is, but ...”
Llega Todd listened and as she did, her personal Cyber received the information and checked it through. Halfway through Rinne’s presentation, Llega Todd told her assistant to refuse any other comm.s except from the Fleet, and when Rinne and Gene-Five were done, Llega Todd kept asking questions and demanding that her Cyber check everything, every detail. When it had, she sat there looking a bit stunned.
“If this is true, Rinne, it’s definitely ... some kind of solution.”
“But ... how would it be implemented? Think of the social ramifications – they’re staggering!” Rinne said.
“If it is a solution, and if, as all of us who are following the research on the microvirus have come to fear, it turns out to be the only solution ... then it will have to be implemented.”
Rinne was about to ask another question when Llega Todd said, “At any rate, all this is premature. I’ll pose the problem of how to achieve the needed social changes to Hesperia’s best think tanks as a theoretical one for the minute. They adore questions of this sort. Meanwhile, you must do something practical about it. You must find Ay’r Sanqq’. And his parents.”
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