Apex

by Robert Appleton

  “Doctor Cochran, this is Glyn Tynedale. Whatever you do, do not remove Ruben’s breather. Do you hear me? Why, because I’ve reason to believe he’ll be compromised without it. A sound medical reason? Of course I have. I’d rather tell you in person. Yes, it’s confidential, and I’m not alone. Okay, just so long as you don’t remove…You weren’t going to remove it? What do you mean? I’ve just been told you had to sedate him because there’s been a complication and he’s…Really? Yanking my chain, huh? I honestly don’t know, Doc. No, he’s not the sort who’s prone to practical jokes. Beats me. Yes, I’ll be right over. It’s not an emergency, but it is important. I trust I can rely on your discretion. Okay, see you shortly.”

  Vaughn was halfway to his ship and shrouded in fog by the time the COVEX man emerged, carrying an umbrella. Tynedale had misread the weather – the rain had passed – but his addled mind had to have intuited the figurative storm clouds on the horizon. For him. For Ruben. And maybe for a great many others.

  * * *

  “Joy didn’t use a dive flag?” Relaxing her oar-stroke in order to scan the lagoon bank, Jan shook her head. “You should always use a dive flag, whether inshore or offshore, any time you go down. I’ll have to remind her about that.”

  Kyra reached over the rowboat’s side, cupped a handful of the crystal clear water that reflected the sunset’s final dazzling glare. “Did you learn all this stuff before you came out here?” she asked. “Sailing, scuba diving, boat-building: you’re like the ultimate girl scout. Seriously, you should go on the lecture circuit – you’d make an absolute fortune inspiring would-be colonists.”

  “To answer your question, yes, I learned water sports and seamanship on Altimere. They were included in the AESOP training. A prospective ranger has to pass every course before she can even apply for a posting on the Hesp.”

  “And the boat-building?”

  “That was something I learned from another ranger about fifteen years ago.”

  “While Vaughn was…AWOL.”

  “Uh-huh. I took up all sorts of hobbies. We built this entire rowboat from wood we cut from the bole of just one sampora tree.”

  Kyra glanced across the forest that encircled the lagoon. “Not from around here, I’m guessing.”

  “From way, way south. Another continent. That was where he was stationed.”

  “What happened to him? This other guy?”

  “He served his four tours and then moved on – one of the proto-worlds, I think.”

  “That’s a planet with life that hasn’t evolved past the microbial stage, right?”

  “Correct.”

  Kyra clasped her hands together and shook an imaginary victorious martini over each shoulder. “Joy will make a scientist of me yet.” Her animated antics rocked the boat more than Stopper was happy with; the big Boxer sat up in the center, warily watching the unexpected roll, listening to the gentle creak of warping wood and the laps of water. Though he’d sailed with Jan hundreds of times, mostly during her tenure as captain and tour guide for the popular White Water cruise, he’d never acquired a liking for it. He loved to swim, but he didn’t trust boats. Something in their motion – the combination of pitching and rolling and whatever else the sea threw at them – struck him as unnatural. But even so, given the choice, he never let Jan go sailing without him; that would have been even more unnatural, to leave her to the perilous caprices of the sea.

  “Okay, here we go. The best part.” Jan rested her oars, with the prow facing a narrow channel that cut through the trees to the sea. The sun always dipped with shocking suddenness at the end of EQ3 (3rd Equatorial Daily Time Quadrant, the period of twin shadows, with Hesperidia’s glassy moon reflecting full sunlight during the day). It had frightened tourists in the past, how quickly day became night, but to Jan, and others, it had been one of the highlights of the White Water tour, throwing short-lived but miraculous colors across the water, colors that the human eye might otherwise never get to experience on such a grand scale. Even here, whether concentrated into the glassy channel, or stealing through the foliage and dispersing across the quiet ripples of the lagoon, it was an enchanting, otherworldly light. Experiencing its fade to black evinced strong emotions. Even now, it recalled Jan’s acute desolation after Vaughn’s mysterious disappearance. She hadn’t known what had happened to him. In her mind he’d simply vanished; he could just as easily have reappeared at any moment as he could have been gone forever, vaporized. As time had gone on, the sunsets had grown more and more bittersweet. They’d become her daily advents of hope – striking reminders of how much she believed he would find a way back to her, then the stark, chilling realization that he was still not there, and might never be again.

  Kyra, to her credit, did not provide a running commentary on the magic. Some people – the eggheads, the airheads, the pretentious poet types – couldn’t help ruining it with their cheesy profundities. But not Kyra. She might be a natural chatterbox, but she also knew when to shut up and enjoy the moment. Good for her, thought Jan.

  “You should know, Vaughn wouldn’t have brought just anyone here,” said Jan. “You’re the first witness he’s ever brought here. It tells me a lot about how much this means to him – having family he can protect.”

  “Yeah, that’s kind of ironic, huh.”

  “Don’t be glib. You’re not thirteen now. You’ve seen how the galaxy works. Don’t pretend your relatives got a raw deal. They crossed the line and they had to pay.”

  “Oh yeah?” Kyra’s face was shrouded in darkness, but her tone painted a searing picture. “What do you know about it?”

  “I know what it did to him, and to your mum. I’ve lost people close to me. And I know those wounds never heal.”

  “Don’t try to sell me his sob story! Puh-lease. I thought you had more class than that.”

  Jan resumed her measured strokes, stirring the moon-black surface. “You’ve never considered it?”

  “No.”

  “Then you’re not as perceptive as you appear to be.”

  “Glad to disappoint.”

  “And you’ll never understand him. Which is a shame, because he’s one of the rarest men you’ll ever meet. Even among lawmen, you won’t find another who feels injustice rub against the bone the way it does for Vaughn. He doesn’t always get it right, but he’ll put everything on the line to ensure justice prevails.”

  “I can’t wait to see his statue.”

  “And I can’t wait to see your other relatives’. The ones that bombed the Vike Academy, annihilated all those kids. Real role-models there. And what monument do you think they’ll build for you, the way you’re heading? A gallows maybe. Your mum had it rough, true enough, but you – you were given every opportunity and you fucked it up royally. So ask yourself how Vaughn ended up here, and how you ended up here, and take a long, hard look at the difference.”

  “Save the moralizing, Doc. I’ve just eaten.”

  “I’ve said my piece.”

  “And I’ve said mine already, to Vaughn. He knows where I stand. Me and you, we can be friends, right?”

  “If that’s what you want.”

  “I do,” said Kyra, petting Stopper. “I want to know all about what you do here. Seriously, I could write a book about you.”

  “I’ve had offers before.”

  “Never tempted?”

  Jan scoffed. “I’ll write my own memoirs, thank you very much…someday…when I can find the time.”

  “Ha! I love it. You’ve been here since before I was born and you haven’t found the time.”

  “I could be here for a thousand lifetimes and still not have the time to study this place properly.”

  “Then we should clone you.”

  “I’d only end up killing the other me. I’m not the easiest researcher to get along with, so I’ve been told.”

  “But the next Jan needs to be a GenMod,” said Kyra, ignoring her host’s reply as she spun out the silly hypothesis. “You know, so she can breathe n
atural Hesperidian air, like Stopper.”

  “Then I’d be obsolete. I’d be like…”

  After a few moments’ silence, Kyra asked, “You okay, Jan?” No response. “Jan? Hello? I didn’t mean we’re plotting to replace you or anything. You’re not going to dump my body over the side, are you?”

  “Quiet. I’m thinking.”

  The young woman whispered to Stopper, “Shh! She’s thinking.”

  Jan rowed back to shore without another word, tied the boat to its mooring cleat on the jetty, and headed back to the cabin. It was a clear, dazzling night sky; the frozen spray of stars twinkled as though the entire firmament had just been polished. On the walk back along the forest trail, the only thing Kyra could get out of her about the abrupt curtailment of their evening sail was “It’s just a theory. I don’t like speculating out loud.”

  But the more Jan turned it over in her mind, the less speculative it became. And she had a hunch Vaughn had left to pursue the same theory earlier. Staying radio silent when she was dying to share her thoughts with him would keep her up all night, she reckoned. But the pillow and the soothing rhythm of the ocean had other ideas. Moments after she closed her eyes, she was dreaming of being crowned undisputed queen of the kingdom of Jantopia.

  In contrast, her morning flight back to the reality of Miramar augured danger and uncertainty. Vaughn had already set his snare to catch the smugglers, and was confident that by the time the system’s local law enforcement arrived – he’d made the call for backup, and was awaiting their response – he’d have laid bare the Hesp side of the illegal operation, at least. He wouldn’t tell her anything more, not yet. There were still a few investigative loose ends he had to tie up. But he did confirm her theory from last night, and loved that they’d each come to that same conclusion independently of one another, mere hours apart.

  “Maybe we’re on the same wavelength after all,” he suggested, fully expecting a belittling retort, which Jan handily provided: “If that was meant for the bulkhead, it concurs.”

  But there were other signs, less explicit, that today was not going to align with the peaceful roll-out of last night’s dream. ‘Webbed Earls’ were packed into tighter herds than usual near their watering holes. Troyelix centambuli had joined them, mingling freely where in ordinary times they’d be in snide competition. Sangopteryx, carrion birds with a keen smell for extremis and death, capable, in large enough numbers, of taking on many of Hesperidia’s land predators for the right of first bite at stricken prey, were flying north. Then there was Vervidian eloisei, staying in the upper branches instead of socializing on the ground when the sun was out. Triaskilos darted into closed ranks at the approach of Vaughn’s ship, even though they’d long become accustomed to the harmless passing of flying craft. Hesperidia’s creatures were on edge, as though they sensed the advent of unsettling change.

  “As soon as the rock-hoppers arrive, I’ll come get you,” said Vaughn when they’d disembarked, referring to the local law enforcement backup. “In the meantime, have fun with Quatermain.”

  “Oh, very funny.”

  “He said he might have discovered something interesting.”

  “I’m counting on it. Vaughn?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Don’t underestimate these people. I don’t want you vanishing for another two decades.”

  He looked inside one of his sleeves, then the other. “No more rabbits. Got it.”

  “I’m serious,” she said. “You’re playing games, springing traps. Just watch your caboose is all I’m saying.”

  “I know. And I will. Trust me.”

  “Only with my life. It’s yours I’m worried about, Omicron.”

  He rolled his eyes, then shooed her off toward the research center. “Quatermain’s that way, now go on.”

  But she didn’t go straight to the lab. If he had to be in a kennel, Stopper was always happiest in his own pen attached to the cabin, which was spacious and light and full of his toys. He tried dragging her to the river for his morning swim-play on the way, but Jan’s mind was already delving into the mysteries of the hollow rock and the creature that had sprung from it. Stopper sat on his favorite blanket, gave her a glum look, and watched, disappointed, as she blew him a kiss before locking him in.

  Carlisle was chatting with his assignment partner, Megan Thiem, via vid-link when Jan breezed into the lab. He instantly ended the call, and couldn’t wait to power up the slide program he’d set to cycle under the electron microscope. He sat down and scrolled through the notes he’d made on his digipad, ready to narrate his findings. But he’d overlooked that there was only one stool. Jan couldn’t see another anywhere in the lab, so she hunched over the microscope, with her rucksack still on, and spied him askance, waiting to see if he realized.

  But he was too far inside his research. Jan chuckled silently to herself as she left to fetch a stool from the adjacent lab. It was the kind of thing she often overlooked when breaking new ground in her own studies. Carlisle facepalmed when he saw her carrying it in. “Sorry, Doctor Hopper. My manners have taken a walk, haven’t they. How are you?”

  “No complaints. Glad to be back in the lab actually – I’ve had a belly-full of field work for a while.”

  “I don’t blame you.”

  “And please, call me Jane.”

  “I’m David.”

  “Well, David, what have you got for me?”

  His flash of boyish enthusiasm as he rubbed his hands together revealed the true geek beneath the poacher-bashing bravado – the geek at the core of every scientist. His was instantly infectious to be around. “Slide one should put you in the mood,” he said, scrolling through his notes.

  Jan peered into the lens, had to adjust the focus a tad. “Amphibian cellular mitosis, late prometaphase if I’m not mistaken, but I’ve never seen this many stable viable chromatids entering metaphase in a single cell. This is…remarkable. Bi-orientation of the chromosomes, but multiplied many times. I didn’t even think this was possible. The kinetochores must have a unique property. It would help explain the rapid cell division and accelerated growth.”

  “You know more about Hesp amphibians than I do. Does anything about the cytoplasm strike you as odd? Try slide two.”

  “Let’s see. Telophase is complete, so we’re into cytokinesis, and the cytoplasm is dividing into – yeah, yeah – many, many daughter cells, but not identical. So this isn’t mitosis, meiosis or mimetic division. It’s some combination, or a new type of cell division. I’ve seen something similar in chiropotamus dux – a venomous river predator.”

  “And the cytoplasm itself – slide three – look at the nuclear signature in the spectrum I’ve highlighted. Some sort of regenerative absorption through the cytoplasm into the nucleus? That web-like structure, found in each—”

  “Each of the daughter cells, yes,” she said excitedly. “A way to prevent radioactive cellular decay? Or slow it, at least, by absorbing radiation from external sources.”

  “Interesting,” he said. “Now let’s move on to the geology. Slide four.”

  “Okay, you’ll have to talk me through this one, David. Rocks are not my specialty.”

  “This is from a chondrite meteorite we found to the south – it’s basically a conglomerate of silicate rocks fused together, originating from who-knows-where, but possibly local. It includes some of the oldest materials in this solar system. A fairly run-of-the-mill meteorite. Next up we have your meteorite – slide five.”

  “Looks similar,” observed Jan. “But it’s a lot different from the hollow rock the creature popped out of.”

  “Indeed. Slide six – that’s the split rock you found with the amniotic fluid inside.”

  “What is it?”

  “A high grade metamorphic rock, volcanic origin, has some of the components of gneiss: feldspar, quartz, mica. But there’s also evidence of another igneous rock we’ve found elsewhere on Hesperidia – borocavitz – that’s more porous. So while this new rock has been
penetrated by hot liquid at some stage of the rock cycle, forming its little hollows and cavities, it’s also incredibly durable. Injecting an egg via proboscis into one of these cavities, like you theorized, would be a smart move, provided you knew how to break the rock open afterwards. It would insulate well, and it would be tough for predators to get at.”

  Jan rested for a few moments, rubbed her eyes. “So the rock is definitely Hesperidian.”

  “Definitely formed here, yes. But the big question – and this is what kept me up late last night – is whether it came down—”

  “Came down as part of the meteorite,” she overlapped him. “So what’s your conclusion?”

  “That it probably did…but inside another fiercely heat-resistant rock. There are signs of fusing that suggest an intense volcanic history. My theory, and this is mostly speculative at this point, is that this metamorphic rock was exposed at the end of its geological cycle, perhaps near a dormant volcano somewhere cold. This creature, whatever it is, used that particular rock as an incubator, for the reasons we’ve suggested. It injected its amniotic fluid and egg into the hollow, sealed it by whatever means did the job, maybe as a means to store it cryogenically. But before it returned to induce the hatching, or whatever happened next, something catastrophic occurred. A supervolcanic eruption perhaps? An event powerful enough to hurl a huge chunk of rock from the surface into space. And there the embryo hibernated, cryogenically frozen, but protected from cellular decay by the peculiar radiation absorption properties in its cytoplasm. Or something else we haven’t found yet. The point is it can survive in extreme cold, in cryo state, perhaps indefinitely. Time passed. Who knows how long? Maybe thousands, tens of thousands of years. The rock it was fused to became a part of the asteroid belt. Until the other week, when a passing comet sent the rock shower hurling toward Hesperidia. An unlikely, even miraculous return home to a world on which its kind no longer exists. At least not that we know of. And there, back in its native Arctic climate, thawed by the superhot friction of re-entry, it hatches at last, to pick up the mantle of its extinct ancestors, as a true apex predator.” He took a deep breath, set his digipad on the table, and watched her reaction. “What do you think, Jane?”