The Prometheus Project

by Steve White

  "Now, perhaps, you understand my seeming calmness in the face of the question of survival after death. If our very universe is canceled out, then one must entertain the assumption that its God is canceled out as well."

  Khorat's voice had dropped to a whisper that the translator could barely pick up. Then he fell silent, and this time I felt no urge to break the silence. And, being the least religious person you'd ever hope to meet, I wondered why I had to contain a shudder.

  Chloe had more courage. "Khorat, what can be done?"

  "Oh, it is already being done. We foresaw this possibility. And, contrary to our usual practice, we kept the relevant data in duplicate. Indeed, our duplicate includes at least one crucial bit of knowledge that Novak does not possess."

  "What—?" I began.

  "No. There will be time for detailed explanations later. The point is, we can—and must—take action to prevent this. And I must ask for your help."

  "Our help?" Chloe, visibly annoyed with herself, brought her voice back down from the squeak to which it had risen, and spoke in her customary husky contralto. "I can't imagine what help we can be, Khorat. But assuming that there's any truth to what you've been saying, and you're trying to stop it from happening, then we have to help you. If there's anything useful we can do, we're under an ultimate moral imperative to do it."

  "Yeah," I chimed in. In fact, I was a good deal less wholehearted about this than Chloe seemed to be. But she had made an unconditional commitment, and there was no way I could hold back and continue to live with her—or inside the same skin with myself.

  Hey, I never claimed to be smart, did I?

  Chapter Fifteen

  Even now, I still sometimes find myself wondering how far and how deep the excavations under the Sanctuary went. God knows, Chloe and I never found out.

  The last cavern we got to see was on the day of our departure. It was a hangar, extending far into the depths of the mountain against whose base the Sanctuary nestled. It lacked the vertigo-inducing vastness of the one beneath Crater Korolev, for it wasn't intended to accommodate interstellar ships. Indeed, the biggest vessel it held was the one toward which Khorat conducted us.

  "An interplanetary shuttle only," the old Ekhemar explained, indicating the sleek, lifting body.

  "It looks pretty small, for your species," Chloe observed. In fact, it wasn't all that huge even on human standards.

  "True. But the journey will be too brief for the cramped quarters to grow unbearably tedious. And it has compensating virtues . . . most notably its capability to conceal itself from all forms of observation."

  "How do you manage to keep it secret from the imperial authorities?" I wondered. "I hope you're not going to try to tell us that they don't mind somebody other than themselves having that kind of capability."

  "Oh, they're well aware of it. Private ownership of space vessels is not illegal. And we have a perfectly legitimate use for it, as our organization has many members in the satellite system of the third planet. And normally we put it to just those legitimate uses. It is only in emergencies that we activate the . . . special features we have had installed."

  "And about which you somehow neglected to inform them?" Chloe inquired archly.

  "We prefer not to bother them with things they don't need to know," replied Khorat, unconsciously anticipating certain human political operatives of a few years later.

  We'd barely settled into the passenger cabin when the shuttle rose gently from the hangar floor on the wings of its impellers, and a great door slid open to reveal the desert and the canal that bisected it in the distance. As we swept through that portal and soared aloft, Khemava receded below us and soon became a globe, less blue and more buff than that of watery Earth. It was a spectacle Chloe and I had been denied on our heavily concealed arrival at Khemava. We saw it now by grace of the viewscreens with their outside pickup. Viewed directly through portholes, it would have been blurred and color-washed by the invisibility field.

  Time passed, and the planet shrank to the size of a soccer ball held at arm's length . . . then a tennis ball, then a ping-pong ball. I considered inquiring as to the exact purpose of the trip, but Khorat had grown uncharacteristically taciturn. So I contented myself with watching the receding planet in the view-aft.

  I was watching it when Khorat & Co. engaged another of the shuttle's "special features." With the kind of sickening suddenness I'd experienced on the occasion of my departure from the Solar system, Khemava shot away from us.

  I was still gawking when Chloe touched my arm and indicated the view-forward.

  A furnace-colored boulder was careening toward us.

  The shuttle's illicit field drive was not the sort that could attain the incredible multiples of the speed of light which brought other stars and even other spiral arms within fairly easy reach. One of those drives couldn't have been squeezed into a craft so small, and it would have been useless within a planetary system, where not even computerized controls could have prevented it from overshooting any possible target. No, this was an underpowered version, so wasteful and inefficient as to be justifiable only when one needed to cross interplanetary distances in a great hurry.

  Thus it was that we saw the titanic third planet of the Khemava system hurtling toward us at a rate that orthodox physics declared impossible, like a more-than-Jupiter-sized stone from a war god's sling.

  I think I may have cried out.

  Then the field was disengaged, and the planet came to an instantaneous halt in the view-forward. Well, not a complete halt, for it continued to swell as the impellers brought us into its orbit. It just seemed that way.

  I wiped my brow and stared at the slightly oblate globe. It was like Jupiter, only more so. Its surface—banded by the rapidity of its rotation and swirling with storms into which Earth could have been tossed, unnoticed—glowed in sullen shades of red rather than Jupiter's orange and yellow. And it had a ring. Not a spectacular array of them like Saturn, but something more conspicuous than the thin, narrow, ethereal kind that the space probes were due to reveal in a few years around Jupiter, Neptune and Uranus, composed of little more than ice particles.

  Several moons were visible. Off to the right, we could glimpse the bluish life-bearing one that I had been assuming was our destination. But it slid behind us as we proceeded on a hyperbolic course closer to the planet, approaching the ring, which soon lost the optical illusion of being a flat plane of dirty glass and resolved itself into a myriad of rocks, the rubble of a moon which had once spiraled too close to the monstrous planet that now filled most of the viewscreen

  "Uh, Khorat," said Chloe nervously, "doesn't a planet like this one—almost a 'failed star'—put out a lot of radiation?"

  "Oh, yes. We'd all be dying by now, were it not for the ship's force screen."

  "Khorat," I said firmly, not wishing to pursue this cheery topic, "I don't suppose you could tell us just exactly what all this is about?"

  "Everything will become clear in due course."

  There was nothing I could do in the face of Khorat's maddening serenity but compose myself and watch the show. In spite of myself, I couldn't help but get caught up in the unfolding spectacle as our ship nosed its way cautiously into the ring. It looked, I thought, like the science-fictional vision (quite false, Dr. Fehrenbach had assured us) of the Sun's asteroid belt, thickly strewn with rocks of all sizes. Our pilot, in the control room from which our passenger cabin was quite isolated, was proceeding slowly, fending off the orbiting chunks of rock with deflector shields, an application of the same technology that provided the deck beneath our feet with a steady one Khemava G of gravity.

  As I watched, the picture began to waver.

  "What—?" Chloe began. Then she gasped.

  For once, I caught on to something faster than she did. But I had an advantage, for years before I had gone through an invisibility field. So I wasn't as shocked as she when the picture in the view-forward restabilized . . . and was mostly filled with an inte
rstellar space vessel that hadn't been there before. The few stars we could see, and the limb of the giant planet off to the side, were blurry and colorless, for our craft's sensors were "seeing" them through the larger field that now enveloped us as well as the ship that was generating it.

  I studied that ship as we drew alongside her and a tubular passageway extruded itself from her side, seeking our air lock. Although she dwarfed our shuttle, she wasn't particularly large as interstellar ships went—especially ones designed to accommodate Ekhemasu. And she was undergoing some modifications; I could recognize the indicia here and there on the hull, and I spotted an Ekhemar doing an EVA. A centaur wearing a vac suit in free fall is something you don't see every day.

  Then there was a soft clank through our hull and a hissing noise as the access tube made contact and air pressures were equalized. Khorat led us through and into the big ship, where the work of renovation was more obvious in the bustling activity and clangorous noise.

  Chloe spoke up. "I didn't know the Medjavar owned interstellar spacecraft, Khorat."

  "Actually, this is our only one. Such vessels are very expensive. And private ownership of them is very closely regulated. So this one is . . . unregistered."

  "Illegal, you mean," I said flatly. "And I have a feeling that what whatever goodies you're adding to it are even more illegal."

  Khorat didn't pretend to be surprised that I'd noticed. "Arguably, they are not. After all, a government cannot outlaw something which—" He stopped himself abruptly.

  "You were saying, Khorat?" I prompted.

  "Ah, here is my colleague Nafayum!" said Khorat in the slightly too eager way of someone who is anxious to change the subject. He stepped forward and exchanged ritual greetings with a female Ekhemar who looked even older than he. She studied us as Khorat made introductions.

  "Ah, yes. Of course. The humans." The translator gave Nafayum the voice of an elderly woman. It also conveyed a tone I wasn't sure quite how to take, as it suggested curiosity tempered by distaste. I got the feeling Nafayum hadn't forgotten that the only other human of their acquaintance was the source of all their troubles. "At any rate, Khorat, all is in readiness for them."

  "Uh . . . all of what is in readiness for us?" My anxious question was lost in the hustle and bustle as Nafayum led us through the passageways to a compartment with a large, curving viewscreen—a sort of observation lounge which also served as a meeting room. We all reclined on cushions surrounding a circular, surprisingly low table.

  Khorat took charge at once. "As the two of you have surmised, this ship is reserved for special emergencies. Normally, when we of the Medjavar need to get about in interstellar space, we make arrangements through ordinary channels—"

  "Like when we met you on Antyova II," I cut in. I knew I was probably being rude—in fact, I probably would have been aware of it even without the glare from Chloe I could glimpse out of the corner of my eye—but I was growing impatient with all this. "Let me guess: in the present situation, you can't take the time to bamboozle the imperial bureaucracy into transporting you wherever it is you want to go. Which, I somehow suspect, is Earth."

  Khorat exchanged a brief eye contact with Nafayum before speaking in his trademark unruffled way. "Yes. Our thinking is as follows. Novak and her confederates have almost certainly returned to Earth and are in the process of preparing to equip a spacecraft with temporal displacement capability. This will no doubt take time, which provides us with our window of opportunity. We must proceed to the Solar system without delay."

  "And do what, once we get there?" inquired Chloe. "Bring the matter to the attention of Novak's superiors in the Project?"

  All four of Khorat's reclining legs jerked simultaneously. I suspected it was the equivalent of a human staggering backwards and clutching his chest above the heart. "By no means! Have I not explained that humans cannot, under any circumstances, be allowed to learn that time travel is possible? This applies to your Prometheus Project just as strongly as to the larger society of your planet."

  "Well, then?" I queried. "You must have something in mind. Otherwise, we may as well stay here and devote ourselves to serious drinking until our universe goes poof."

  "We do indeed have a plan, for which we are fortunate to have your cooperation. Our intention is to depart at once, so as to arrive in your native system in time to infiltrate the two of you into Novak's organization, for the purpose of sabotaging her attempt from within."

  Sheer absurdity can prevent a statement from registering on the mind, at least at first. So a moment passed before I began to wonder what had gone haywire, the translator software or Khorat.

  Chloe, as usual, recovered first. "Khorat, I must remind you that Novak knows both of us."

  "We are aware of that. But you are the only human operatives available to us. That is why Nafayum is here." Khorat hesitated until the pause grew awkward. "Are you familiar with the concept of genetic nanoviruses?"

  Chloe and I exchanged a glance. We were, in fact familiar with it, which was why our earpieces used the term. Earth in general was still years away from being able to grasp it. Not until the 1970s would the discovery of restriction enzymes open the door to recombinant DNA. And even that was only the first step on the road to tailored genetic viruses, injected into the body and able to resequence DNA and stimulate cell growth in new directions.

  "Yes," said Chloe. "The Project knows of them. We also know they have to be custom-tailored for a particular species. The Project lacks the requisite knowledge to do so for humans. And, of course, no one else has had any reason to."

  "We have," said Khorat with uncharacteristic succinctness. Before either of us could manage a response, he pressed on. "As soon as we became aware that humans were involved in this affair, we commenced the needful work, against some such contingency as this one."

  "But . . . how?" Chloe sounded bewildered.

  "We were able to obtain the necessary data on your species through our Tonkuztra contacts. And the technique is a well-established one." Khorat looked uncomfortable. "Our organization has always been, at best, highly ambivalent about this type of biological manipulation. Its benefits—the 'editing out' of genetic defects—are undeniable. But we have made it our business to restrict its use to those benign uses, subverting all investigation of dangerous applications by subtly deflecting them into dead ends. At the same time, as I explained to you before, we preserved the knowledge ourselves even as we suppressed it. Nafayum is our leading expert in the field."

  Nafayum spoke up, and the translator conveyed the patronizing enthusiasm of the fanatical specialist. "Given your culture's unfamiliarity with this form of genetic engineering, I should perhaps explain that the changes it makes are quite undetectable, for they are determined by your genetic code—your rewritten genetic code. For the same reason, they are permanent, unless you should at later time have them reversed by the same technique. Thus, for example, if we change your hair color, the hair will continue to grow in the new color. Likewise—"

  "Yes, we understand," Chloe cut in testily . . . though just barely accurately, in my case. "But what you don't seem to understand is that Novak knows us very well. You could give me flaming red hair and she'd still recognize me."

  "We have taken that into account," said Khorat, with a smugness which didn't last, for his tone grew troubled. "Earlier, I spoke of dangerous ramifications of this technique, the knowledge of which the we Medjavar have preserved while suppressing them. Let me be more specific. An extremely advanced, sophisticated form of nanovirus can actively alter and rearrange existing cells, and induce new ones to grow, so as to produce gross changes in the subject's anatomy—not merely modifications of body chemistry, or cosmetic alterations of such things as coloring. Taken to extremes, an organism can actually be metamorphosed into a member of a different species. The potential for abuse is so obvious that the Medjavar's task has been relatively easy, for on this point galactic society agrees with us, and bans all uses of the technique ex
cept officially sanctioned, rigorously controlled ones. Its enormous expense simplifies the problem of enforcement. Misuse of it is encountered only among the most decadent Delkasu circles, producing grotesque sexual playthings and exotic servants for the superrich."

  I tried to imagine the possibilities. OutrŽ genetic tampering hadn't yet become a staple of science fiction in those days. But I recalled a line from the classic film Bride of Frankenstein: "Gods and monsters . . ."

  Nafayum took up the thread. "The technique has limits, of course. For example, total body mass cannot be increased significantly. I could not, for example, transform you into an Ekhemar—"

  "Aw, phooey!" I deadpanned.

  "—however great an improvement it would represent," Nafayum finished without a break, confirming my opinion that the Ekhemasu sense of humor was either nonexistent or very, very dry. "I could—given a great deal of preparatory work—turn you into a Delkar, with a residue of excess cells left over in a rather unappetizing form."

  "Uh, that's okay," I said hastily. "Don't put yourself out on my account."

  "What I am prepared to do now, however, is modify your bone structure so as to alter your facial features and, within limits, your body size and build. I can guarantee that your own parents would not recognize you."