The Prometheus Project

by Steve White

  Chloe looked from one Ekhemar to the other and back. "So you're asking us to submit to this . . . treatment?" Her voice held the same reservations I was feeling at the thought of letting aliens futz with my genetic code.

  "We should perhaps explain," said Khorat, evidently taking our assent for granted, "that there are certain complications."

  "Surprise, surprise," I muttered.

  "First of all, after the single injection that is required, it takes time for the biological nanomachines to replicate and perform their tasks. Even for the more elementary forms of genetic surgery, this takes a period of days. For the type of metamorphosis we are contemplating, which places a great strain on the subject's metabolism, it takes still longer, and requires rest under medical supervision—in this case, that of Nafayum, who is not accompanying us to Earth. So we would have to remain here beyond the 'window of opportunity' of which I spoke."

  "Well, then, if the whole thing is impractical, why are we even discussing it?" I was starting to get annoyed.

  "It is possible, with great difficulty, to produce a fast-acting version of the nanovirus, which reduces the time required by a factor of at least twenty. Nafayum has done so. We have, as you can see, spared no expense."

  "And what's the catch?" Chloe asked point-blank.

  "Yeah," I chimed in. "Didn't you say something about a 'great strain on the metabolism'?"

  Khorat's self-satisfaction began to show a certain strain itself. "Well, you must remember that the cells are having to keep the body alive at the same time they are doing the work of the metamorphosis. This is why rest and close observation are required. And . . . I believe I forgot to mention that there are certain side effects, including cramps, fatigue, ravenous hunger, chills, sweats and fever, culminating in a comatose state which is accompanied by unpleasant secretions from the various bodily orifices."

  "Yes, you did forget to mention that," said Chloe pointedly. I contented myself with an eloquent glare.

  "When the process is accelerated, these phenomena are unavoidably intensified," Khorat continued. "However, the chances of survival are, we believe, within acceptable parameters."

  "Survival?" and "Acceptable parameters?" Chloe and I echoed respectively.

  "Well, it is possible for such an accelerated process to run out of control, so to speak. Various possibilities then arise. The overworked cells may overheat, so that the subject is, in effect, cooked from the inside. A more serious problem is the randomization of the nanomachines' directing of cell growth, to produce effects analogous to cancer but affecting all cells in the—"

  "All right! That's it!" I surged to my feet. "You want to kill us, Khorat? Fine. Shove us out the airlock without vac suits. But when we volunteered to help you, we were not volunteering to become seething, shapeless blobs of cancer cells! You can take your 'acceptable parameters' and—"

  "Fortunately, there is a way around these problems," Khorat said hastily.

  "We're listening," said Chloe, before I could erupt.

  Nafayum took over. "The difficulties Khorat has described can be avoided if we place you into biological stasis, with full life support including intravenous nourishment. Under these conditions, you are being kept alive externally and your own body cells, under the 'supervision' of the nanomachines, can do their work of transformation without endangering your lives."

  "Hmm . . ." I thought about it. "Suspended animation, in other words? So we'd be unconscious and totally helpless."

  "And totally at your mercy for the entire procedure," Chloe added. Looking back, I can see how one might argue that we had been at their mercy ever since coming to Khemava. But damn it, there's a difference!

  Nafayum leaned forward, visibly perplexed. "But have I not explained—?"

  Khorat motioned her to silence. "It is your option of course," he said suavely. "Ethics forbids us to compel you." Then, as an afterthought: "A pity, though, that our secondary preparations must go to waste."

  I held out a couple of seconds before the primate curiosity on which Khorat was counting triumphed. "Uh . . . 'secondary preparations'?"

  "Yes. You see, since we were planning a moderately radical metamorphosis, we naturally looked into certain relatively trivial modifications that could be made in the course of the procedure."

  "Such as?" queried Chloe, also hooked.

  "Oh, this and that. Things that almost all galactic cultures use as a matter of course—things not even the Medjavar find objectionable. For example, permanently correcting any genetic defects. And . . . oh, yes, life span extension. What were you telling me you thought you could achieve, Nafayum?"

  "Starting at their age? Oh, probably a total life expectancy of about a hundred and thirty of their years, plus or minus five. Of course, you know how these things work. They would start exhibiting their species' superficial indica of aging at only about twenty years later than normal. But they would retain full physical and mental vigor well past the century mark. Still, as you say, it's their option." Nafayum was a bit too casual. She really wasn't as good at this as Khorat. But by that point, she didn't need to be.

  Chloe wasn't very good at it either. "Khorat . . . you did say you could reverse the changes in our appearance later if we don't like them, didn't you?"

  I'm sure I don't need to recount the rest of the conversation.

  * * *

  The things they put us into had obviously been custom-built for humans. They resembled high-tech coffins—a resemblance I didn't permit myself to dwell on.

  They were set up in the interstellar ship's sick bay, which could just barely hold them and their accessory equipment. We got into them under Nafayum's fussy supervision, on opposite sides of a curtain the Ekhemasu had rigged up lest they violate any human nudity taboos. After we were settled in, the curtain was removed and each of us was fitted with various IV ports and other kinds of connections, for we would in effect be cyborgs for the duration.

  Chloe raised herself up and spoke to Nafayum. "Are you going to make us unconscious before you close the lids of these things?"

  "Why, yes. That is part of the standard procedure.

  "Good," said Chloe, and our eyes met. She, clearly, had been thinking the same thing I had about coffins. For a long moment we looked at each other, each memorizing the other's face. Then we settled back down.

  An IV tube was inserted in one of the ports. I heard a humming, chugging sound. . . .

  I blinked a few times. Then I noticed that the overhead I was staring at wasn't the overhead of the sickbay. Then I noticed I was lying in a bed, in a small, featureless cabin. Then I noticed Khorat.

  "There is no sensation of the passage of time," he explained.

  I tried to speak, but my mouth was very dry. I swallowed and tried again. "You mean—?"

  "The procedure was a success. Nafayum has already departed for Khemava with her equipment. We will soon be getting under way for Earth."

  I started to sit up, but I was very stiff. I raised my right arm, so that it came into my field of vision.

  It wasn't my right arm. The wrist was longer, the hand narrower, the hairs darker, the skin tone sallower.

  Khorat read my expression correctly. Without being asked, he handed me a mirror. I stared into it for a long time.

  I had wondered if Nafayum was going to make me Black or Asian or something. She hadn't, but the face in the mirror didn't seem to fit any familiar ethnic category. I'd always been a square-faced, blunt-nosed type. Nafayum and her swarms of microscopic little helpers had made my cheekbones grow higher, while narrowing and lengthening the jaw, and producing a snoot Caesar wouldn't have been ashamed of. To my relief, she'd left my hair as thick as ever, but instead of being wavy and medium brown it was now straight and brown-black. My complexion was likewise darker, and my hazel eyes had turned deep brown. A dark stubble shadowed my lower face; evidently I'd been out of stasis long enough for my beard to resume growing, in its new color.

  "Your fingerprints, retinal pattern and
blood type are also changed," Khorat informed me. "Nafayum was quite proud of her work."

  I managed to sit up and swing my legs over the side of the bed. Very carefully, I stood up. There seemed something very slightly wrong with the angle at which I was seeing Khorat. I later learned that Nafayum, by some overall skeletal lengthening and narrowing, had added a little over an inch to my height, making me almost six feet three.

  I stood up, and almost fell back onto the bed as a dizzy spell took me. I felt stiff and awkward as hell, but as soon as my head stopped spinning I found I could walk.

  "Chloe . . . ?" I queried. My voice sounded a little odd to me: not quite as deep, and with a slight nasal quality.

  "The metamorphosis was likewise a success in her case, and she is also awake. Would you like to see her?"

  "Very much." Cautiously, I stepped through the hatch into the passageway. The next hatch down opened just as I was turning toward it. A figure emerged.

  What's another woman doing here? I thought stupidly, before realization hit.

  Chloe's hair had been lightened to a tawny blond. The vivid blue eyes that were probably her most distinctive feature were now a less memorable gray-green, and they flanked a snub nose. Her cheekbones, in contrast to mine, had been lowered to make her face oval rather than heart-shaped. Her overall bodily type, like mine, seemed to have been very slightly lengthened and narrowed. (Could this have reflected an esthetic bias of the low-gravity-dwelling Ekhemasu, who probably saw all humans as disproportionately stocky?)

  Then she walked toward me and smiled . . . and I wondered if maybe Nafayum was kidding herself about our parents not recognizing us. The Chloe I knew was still in there—the Chloe that had been moving and gesturing and smiling in certain ways for a lifetime. But then, I knew this was Chloe, so I knew what to look for. Someone who didn't—Renata Novak, say—would never dream it was she.

  I wondered if some such ghost of me still lived inside the character I'd seen in the mirror. I hoped so.

  "Bob!" she greeted, "You look . . ." As she spoke, and looked up into my face, her smile faded into a frown of puzzlement. Then her mouth fell open in a gasp, her eyes widened, and the perplexity in her face changed to something indistinguishable from horror.

  "Hey, Chloe, I know I need a shave, but . . . Chloe? Chloe?"

  In fiction, women are always fainting. I'd never found that particularly believable, never having seen one actually do it. So I was unprepared when Chloe's legs collapsed under her. I managed to catch her before she hit the deck.

  "Khorat!" I yelled as I picked her up and carried her into her cabin. I'd barely laid her on the bed when Khorat arrived with an Ekhemasu who I assumed was a medic. The latter proceeded to gingerly examine a member of an unfamiliar species.

  * * *

  "It is unfortunate that Nafayum is no longer available for consultation," Khorat remarked as we sat in his tiny—on Ekhemasu standards—office. "But given the unaccustomed strains and stimuli to which her body has been subjected, some chemical imbalances are hardly surprising."

  "Yeah, that's probably it," I said, taking a fortifying swallow of the sort-of-gin. "I was feeling pretty woozy myself." But neither that line of reasoning nor the booze could make me forget the stricken look I'd seen on Chloe's new face.

  The hatch beeped for admission, and the obviously relieved medic entered. "She is conscious," he reported, "and apparently suffering from no ill effects. I have told her to rest for a time."

  "Thanks, Doc. Can I see her?" I glanced sideways at Khorat. "Alone?"

  "Yes, although she should not be fatigued."

  I hastened to the sick bay, where human-sized bedding had been improvised. Chloe was lying on her back with her eyes closed, but she didn't look asleep. Instead, she looking like she was thinking with a veritable fury of concentration.

  "Hi," I said tentatively. "How are you feeling?"

  Chloe's eyes snapped open, and for an instant the stunned look reappeared. But only for an instant, for she clamped a neutral expression down like a steel shutter.

  "Oh, hi, Bob," she said in a voice as controlled as her features. "I'm fine, just tired."

  I took Chloe's hands. To my relief, she didn't jerk them away. "Chloe, please tell me what's the matter."

  She took a deep breath, and a smile trembled to life on lips that weren't quite as full as they had been. "Nothing's wrong, Bob. Nothing. I'm just not feeling myself yet, and it was disorienting, and . . . Bob, could you let me rest for a while?"

  "Oh sure. Sure. Best thing for you." I hastened to leave her alone.

  A few hours later, she emerged from the sick bay, to all appearances calm and cheerful. And so she remained for the next couple of Earth days, as the Ekhemasu completed their preparations for departure.

  But it wasn't the same. From time to time, I caught her staring at me in a way she never had before. I told myself she was just intrigued by my new face. But I knew there was more to it than that, although I couldn't imagine what. And despite the bewildered hurt I felt, I didn't dare force the issue by demanding answers.

  There was only one thing of which I was reasonably certain: behind her consciously maintained barrier of superficial normalcy, she was still thinking very, very hard.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The dry-planet-dwelling Ekhemasu had no nautical tradition of giving ships names. Not being a swabby, I was untroubled by any superstitions about bad luck arising from the lack.

  A fat lot I knew.

  At any rate, our unnamed ship naturally followed the day/night cycle of Khemava. So once again Chloe and I had to establish our own schedule, which had nothing to do with that of our hosts. At least we could set the lights in our cabins so as to simulate the twenty-four-hour period for which we had evolved. This was easier on our metabolisms, but didn't always facilitate interaction with Khorat.

  For example, we woke up one morning (as defined by us) to discover that we had slept through the ship's departure from the Khemava system.

  "We saw no point in awakening you," Khorat explained when we sought him out in the observation lounge. The semicircular screen was set for view-aft, and the stars were streaming past us and receding at the impossible rate we remembered from our voyage to Antyova. For all the rock-steady artificial gravity, I had to fight a momentary impulse to grab on to something.

  "But why the rush?" Chloe asked. "I didn't think we were scheduled for departure for another twenty-four hours at least. What happened?"

  Khorat turned to face us, and his aspect quieted us. He seemed shaken to the core. "Circumstances have altered. A ship arrived at Khemava bearing new information from our Tonkuztra sources in the Osak gevroth, who in turn had obtained it through their infiltration of their Tosava rivals." The old Ekhemar trailed to a halt, and I realized it wasn't just a pause for dramatic effect. He was, quite simply preoccupied . . . and, I began to suspect, even more shaken than I'd thought.

  "And . . . ?" I prompted.

  Khorat pulled himself together. "It seems we badly underestimated Novak and her confederates. We thought they would still be in the organizational stage. In fact, their time ship is approaching readiness, sooner than we ever dreamed possible. They must have begun preparing the ship itself, in all respects other than the actual time-displacement apparatus, in anticipation of success in obtaining that apparatus. It is the kind of total commitment possible only to the true fanatic."

  "So," I demanded, "where does this leave us?"

  "Our strategy of infiltration, using the two of you, is almost certainly no longer viable. Novak must already have her personnel in place. So, however much it runs counter to our natural instincts, we will probably have to resort to brute force methods and disable Novak's ship before it commences its temporal displacement."

  Chloe's newly gray-green eyes were round. "Are you saying that this ship is armed?" I didn't feel as shocked as she sounded—blame it on my background—but even I could guess at the magnitude of the illegality involved.

&n
bsp; "Not heavily armed," Khorat said hastily. "That would be quite impossible for a ship this size. The weapons of space warfare are, of necessity, massive—or so I'm told. It isn't exactly my subject."

  "Yeah," I nodded. The Project had learned something about the way war was waged among the stars. "That's why capital ships are generally designed as close as they can get to the fifty-thousand-ton upper limit imposed by the interstellar drive. Laser weapons, no matter how advanced, can't get away from one hard fact: all other things being equal, the greater the diameter of the focusing optics, the greater the effective range. And as for missiles, field drives—even ones designed to burn themselves out in a single suicide run—can be miniaturized by only so much. So missiles that can catch faster-than-light ships have to be big, which means a ship has to be damned big to carry a useful number of them."

  "You put me to shame with your knowledge of these matters," said Khorat graciously. "You will understand, then, why we were only able to equip this ship with a single small laser weapon—not intended for an antishipping role at all, but rather for short-range defense. Nevertheless, within its limited range it should be capable of inflicting disabling damage on a space vessel."

  "Unless that vessel blows us into dust bunnies first," I commented gloomily.

  "Remember, Novak will not have a purpose-built warship either. In fact, our assessment is that it won't be armed at all. Why should it be? Its destination is a time and place where no other space vehicles exist. Ship-to-ship weapons would have no targets!"

  I considered this. It seemed to hold up . . . except for one little problem Khorat had overlooked. The peewee laser cannon the Medjavar had welded onto their ship would be manned—well, you know what I mean—by beings evolution had neglected to equip with a killer instinct. That hadn't occurred to Khorat for the simple reason that he himself was one of those beings.

  "So, Khorat," asked Chloe, "if the original plan—the one involving us—has gone by the boards, then what are we doing here?"

  "Complete with our new bodies," I added.