Alpha Centauri: The Return (T-Space Alpha Centauri Book 3)

by Alastair Mayer

  “That’s a good question. Since it is an international crew, the Union de Terre could put some pressure on them. I don’t think it would work just coming from us.”

  “Can we work that angle?”

  “I’ll whisper in some ears, but don’t get your hopes up. China hasn’t even announced they have a warp drive yet. They like playing things close to the vest. As Sun Tzu said, ‘All warfare is based on deception.’”

  “Warfare? Did I miss something while I was away?”

  “No, not really. But ‘If you want peace, prepare for war.’”

  “Sun Tzu again?”

  “No, that’s Roman. ‘Si vis pacem, para bellum.’ Vegetius, although he probably was just writing down common wisdom.”

  “Ah,” Drake said, and paused a moment before adding, “I wonder what they found. And I wonder what their plans for quarantine are.”

  “They do have a base on the Moon, we found it once we started looking more closely. I don’t know if it’s a quarantine facility though.”

  “Perhaps we should see if we can have our UN—excuse me, UdT—ambassador raise some quarantine concerns. Maybe we can propose it as a general resolution without specifying the Chinese. ‘Any returning interstellar mission’, ‘danger to humanity’, that sort of thing.”

  “Of course. And I’m sure the diplomats will work the back-channels to build up member nation support before it goes to the floor.” Keating grinned and shook his head. “Don’t teach your grandfather to suck eggs, and all that, sir. We’ve been doing this sort of thing forever.”

  “I should have known. Can I get the science team on it too, sir? Some of them may have colleagues on the Chinese side they can find things out from. In any case, they’ll be glad to know the Xīng Huā wasn’t destroyed.”

  The major paused, then nodded. “You can tell them, but also remind them to be quiet about it. It’s not exactly secret, but it would be better to wait until the Chinese announce it.”

  “Certainly.” Drake thought for a moment. “I don’t suppose we have any idea who’s on the crew of that expedition?”

  “Nothing certain that I’ve heard. There are some likely candidates who haven’t been seen in a few months, and if they sent the Xīng Huā crew out again, that would have eliminated the chance of them being spotted here and having the beans spilled.”

  “What if they discovered another terraformed planet?”

  “That would certainly suggest that your Terraformers were busy little beavers, and I’d wonder how many more terraformed planets are out there. Perhaps we should go and find out.”

  “And who or what else might be out there too. Well, idle speculation for now, until they cough up some details.”

  “Indeed.”

  “All right. Thank you, Keating. That was worth interrupting dinner for.”

  The major grinned. “Happy to oblige.”

  Chapter 18: Ryden gets an assignment

  Skrellan Pharmaceutical Labs, Earth

  “The squidberry extract turns out not to have antibiotic properties after all,” said Dr. Dennis Lodgson, head of research at Skrellan.

  Victoria Holmes, Lodgson’s boss and Vice President of Research for Skrellan, took the news in stride. “Oh, that’s disappointing.” The extract had inhibited the growth of several different bacterial cultures, and yet it bore no chemicals similar to penicillin or any other antibiotic with which they were familiar. Despite that, it also appeared to inhibit some disease-causing amoeba species and even certain cancer tissue cultures. “What is the issue, then? Too toxic?” That was a common problem with potential antibiotics—they also killed healthy mammalian cells.

  Lodgson grinned. “No indeed. I won’t go into all the details, not least because we don’t fully understand them yet, but it appears to have mTOR inhibitory effects similar to those of rapamycin, as well as telomerase effects. One component–the extract has several interesting biochemicals, not least the neurochemicals which may attract the tree-squids, although the berries themselves are also high in sugars and proteins—but one component may also have DNA-repair enhancing properties like some of our better anti-radiation drugs.”

  Holmes took a moment to digest all this. Lodgson was brilliant but he liked to hear himself talk. However, he got results often enough that she put up with him. It sounded like the berries were a veritable pharmacopeia of useful drugs, if they could be separated out and proven, or modified, to have minimal harmful side effects. “Okay, so we have a potential new antirad drug. That’s useful and valuable. Telomerase has something to do with cell aging, correct? Wouldn’t that increase the risk of cancer? And what’s mTOR inhibition? Rapamycin is an immunosuppressant, isn’t it?”

  “That’s its primary use, yes. Some analogs are also cancer inhibitors through various pharmacokinetic pathways, and a component of typical anti-radiation drugs. But decreased TOR activity has also been found to increase longevity in a number of species. We now think the colony-inhibition we saw in preliminary screening was because the species were just reproducing much slower than normal, they were growing more slowly but living correspondingly longer. In short, it seems to be an anti-aging drug. We’re tentatively calling it cephalomycin.”

  “The marketers will want a catchier name than that. It sounds like some kind of antibiotic.”

  “Yes, the ‘mycin’ suffix is commonly used for fungi-derived drugs. In this case, we think the cephalomycin comes from a yeast that grows on the surface of squidberries. ‘Cephalo’ from cephalopod, of course.”

  Then the other thing Lodgson had said sank in. “Wait, did you say ‘anti-aging drug’?” The implications were huge. There were some anti-aging drugs and regimens already, human lifespans were steadily being pushed back as cures and treatments for diseases were found, but there was still the inevitable wearing out of organs and tissues. Skin aged and wrinkled, bones weakened, joints became less supple. New drugs and treatments were always being sought, and could carry a high profit margin.

  “I did. We ran a few mouse trials.” He held up a hand to forestall her objections. It was way too early in the normal course of drug evaluations to go to that level. “Nothing formal, just a handful, nothing we would write up and without proper controls, but we were curious.”

  “And?”

  “Many life-prolongation techniques to date, like caloric restriction and so on, typically delay the onset of adulthood and once that happens, aging proceeds more or less normally. Some drugs also extend adulthood but tend to have more side effects.”

  “But the mice? With that kind of buildup, I’m assuming there’s a ‘but’?” Prying information out of Lodgson was a learned skill. Holmes had learned it.

  “Indeed. Even administered from birth, it appears to have minimal effect on development or onset of adolescence or adulthood. And then things slow down. We haven’t had enough time to track the mice to old age, and we’ve been reluctant to sacrifice any yet–we only have a handful–to do detailed internal examination. Nor have we done anything in the way of calibrated tests like mazes and so on to see if it has affected their mental facilities, although they all seem alert enough.”

  “Slow down how? Do they become lethargic, or just what?” she asked.

  “Oh no, no.” Lodgson grinned. Holmes thought he had a very unnerving grin. She leaned back in her chair. “They are just as active as ever, perhaps even more so. The rate of decline with age slows down. To put it in human terms, imagine if how you felt and looked in your twenties lasted until you were in your fifties.”

  “Seriously?” She leaned forwards, elbows on her desk. “This can do that?”

  “I have no idea, we don’t know if this will extrapolate from mice to men. Or it may be that aging suddenly accelerates so you’d go from twenties to eighties in a decade. Probably not, but at this point we don’t know.”

  H
olmes’ mind reeled. She could only begin to imagine the long-term consequences if this turned out to be viable. Collectively, people spent tens of billions of dollars a year on looking and feeling younger. If a drug could do that, if their drug could do that, it would both change society and put them on top of it. Of course, she knew that the odds were that it wouldn’t be that good. It would turn out to have bad side effects, or be only marginally more effective than other treatments, or something. But it was worth pursuing. As were the anti-radiation properties of the other squidberry components.

  “What will it take to find out what you don’t know?” she asked.

  “We’ll need more squidberry extract. We’re trying to grow the surface yeast on its own, but so far with no luck. It probably requires some nutrient from the berries themselves. And the other interesting biochemicals are in the berry juice.

  “We’ll need that in addition to what we’d normally need for a full-scale work up,” he continued. “More lab space, experimental animals, the usual. Supercomputer time for the analysis and synthesis groups. They’ll probably need the extract too. Maybe we can synthesize it. Although finding Earthly precursor chemicals might be a challenge.”

  “We won’t know until it’s analyzed,” Holmes said. “Okay, put a proposal together. Classify all the research on this, Company Top Secret. We’ll leak a cover story that we’re looking at the anti-radiation properties. Two other companies have squidberry samples and they’ll probably find that anyway, so perhaps they’ll follow that red herring.”

  Lodgson nodded, and grinned again. She wished he wouldn’t do that. “Got it,” he said. “I’ll get started on that immediately.”

  “Good. Oh, was there anything else exciting to report?”

  “A few other interesting biochemicals, but nothing of that magnitude.”

  “Fair enough. Have someone prepare a report on them for me by the end of the week. We want to have a few other irons in the fire just in case this doesn’t pan out.”

  Lodgson seemed amused at the mixed metaphors, but if so, he kept it to himself. “Will do.”

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Lunar Quarantine Laboratory

  Sid Ryden locked away the biological samples he’d been working with and went back to his modest quarters before dinner. He was bored. See the Moon, they’d said. Work with exotic alien organisms from another star, they’d said. It’ll be the adventure of a lifetime, they’d said.

  So far, the whole extent of the Moon that he had seen was on the brief walk from the lander to the quarantine facility, and the occasional view through the thick shielded windows of the observation deck. The novelty of low gravity and the limited view had worn off quickly.

  The ‘exotic alien organisms from another star’ had turned out to be little different from what he’d worked with on Earth. He’d seen fancier stuff from deep ocean specimens or remote rain forest samples.

  He consoled himself with the knowledge that in addition to his regular paycheck, there would be a nice under-the-table bonus from Skrellan Pharmaceuticals waiting for him when he returned to Earth. All he had to do was give them the inside scoop on anything interesting that turned up, and there hadn’t been much of that.

  He flipped on his commsole. With the three-second signal round trip, he couldn’t even participate in his favorite online games. There was nobody on the Moon that gave him much of a challenge, and the light-lag to Earth made playing with his usual online crowd impossible. He checked his incoming messages.

  There was one from his “Uncle George”. Naturally, like all the rest of his mail, it was encrypted. In fact, neither of his parents had a brother named George. This was from Skrellan Pharmaceuticals. He downloaded it to his omni for decryption, not trusting the gear supplied by the base. He opened the message and read it.

  They want me to do what? He read it again. “Procure sample of squidberry surface yeast. Live. Delivery instructions to follow.”

  That broke all kinds of quarantine regulations. Nothing live was supposed to go back to Earth for months yet, if ever. Well, not of alien origin anyway. The crew would be rotated back once they’d been cleared. Ryden thought about it. Obtaining the sample wouldn’t be that difficult. There were the usual isolation barriers in place as in any quarantine facility, but the restrictions had been downgraded weeks ago. It was no longer like working in a bio-warfare facility. Or at least, what he assumed a bio-warfare facility would be like, having never actually worked in one himself.

  The squidberries were a bit like grapes, they had a thin yeast film on them that grew on the sugars. Idly Ryden wondered what squidberry wine would be like, not that they had enough berries to try that any time soon, and nor would he want to be the guinea pig who tried it first. Maybe try it on an Earth octopus? He chuckled to himself at the mental image of a drunk octopus. How would you tell?

  But violating the quarantine by shipping a live sample back to Earth? He’d heard too many horror stories of the destruction wreaked by Earth species introduced to ecosystems that they hadn’t evolved alongside of, stories that were reinforced from time to time by mandatory “review sessions” at the lab. On the other hand, they hadn’t been able to get that particular yeast to grow on any of the Earth plants—or animals for that matter—that they tested everything on. The selection covered most of the economically critical plant species—food crops, textiles, chemical feed-stocks, lumber—critical to human life and civilization. The yeast didn’t even grow on grapes. For that matter, it didn’t even seem to grow on any Alpha Centauri plant specimens except the squidberries. It would be safe.

  Besides, Skrellan Pharmaceuticals weren’t going to be releasing it, not if they’d found some potential commercial product they could isolate from it. Since the message had promised a bonus, he saw no particular reason to refuse. At least, not yet. They hadn’t specified how he would deliver it. That would have to be nearly fool-proof, that was where he’d most likely be caught. He’d worry about that later. The immediate step would be to secure a sample. It could wait until tomorrow. It was time for dinner.

  Chapter 19: Lab Work

  Lunar Quarantine microbiology lab, two days later

  “Ryden, what are these dishes here?” Darwin checked the numbers on his pad. “Lot 237-A. I don’t recall that particular experiment.”

  “Uhh...” he was in for it now. That was his batch of plates to grow samples of the squidberry surface fungus. What they were would be obvious to anyone who investigated closely, and if he didn’t have a good explanation for them, the whys would be investigated too. “We’ve been evaluating properties of the samples as they came back, right? In some cases, we’ve got parasitic or symbiotic organisms that we haven’t separated out. I thought I’d try doing that.”

  “This is just a preliminary screening lab. We wouldn’t want to deprive some Ph.D. student of thesis material. What exactly were you looking at?”

  “Hah, no. Nothing that advanced. And we’re not ready to send live samples back to Earth yet.”

  “True. So, what is 237-A?”

  “Well, I got the idea from squidberries.” Any good story starts with an element of truth. “They reminded me a bit of grapes, and I remembered that grapes grow a kind of surface yeast on them.”

  “Must.”

  “Must what?”

  “No, the grape yeast. It’s called must,” said Darwin.

  “I thought it was called bloom?” Was he being tested?

  Darwin paused for a moment. “Actually, I think you’re right. Bloom. Or blush. Blush rhymes with must. Must is the mashed grapes. My bad, I’m no wine expert.” He shook his head. “I must need to get more sleep. But you were saying, about the yeast?”

  “Oh, yes. So anyway, I thought I’d try growing it separately from the berries. Also, I’d check to see what other specimens might have something similar growing on them.
Your team brought back quite a collection of berries and root nodules and whatnot.”

  “Interesting. What’s your methodology?”

  “Pretty simple. Create basic growth media infused with a sterilized puree from the berry or whatever of interest, then inoculate the plates by gently rubbing the surface of a berry on the plate. Any yeast cells would hopefully then grow as an isolated colony on the plate. I have about a half-dozen different samples, Lots 237-A through F.” Ryden had indeed done just that. Besides making a good cover for preparing a squidberry-yeast sample for Skrellan Pharmaceuticals, the experiment was useful and interesting in its own right. He just hadn’t formally submitted the proposal, though, in case it got turned down or assigned to another researcher.

  “Sounds reasonable. So why didn’t you submit a proposal, and why aren’t your research notes in the central database?”

  “Uh, I wanted to do a couple of simple trial runs before writing it up, and then it kind of slipped my mind. I have notes on my personal pad, I was going to write them up and add them to the database in a couple of days when the incubation was complete and I’d had a chance to look at the samples.” Actually, he had hoped he could just erase the whole data trail when he was done and disposed of the remaining Petri dishes. That wouldn’t happen now.

  “Okay. We’ve all been there and done that,” Darwin said, “but it’s important to keep the records up to date. That’s especially true with these samples. Sure, it all looks Earth-based, but if there are some alien surprises in there we may need every byte of data we can get to figure it out. What if you suddenly keeled over with a mysterious fungus infection?”

  “I don’t think—”

  “No, of course that’s not likely. But we need to be aware of the worst-case scenario so that it doesn’t happen.”

  “Uh, you’re right, Doctor Darwin. Of course. I won’t let that happen again. And I’ll get my data uploaded.”