27 Short Stories

by Orson Scott Card

  Actually, I didn't believe that at the level of technology our ancestors had reached in 1992 they could build a machine that would keep running until 2810. Somebody had to be alive down there-- or else they'd gotten smart. Again, the surface of old Terra didn't give many signs that anybody had gotten smart.

  So somebody was alive down there. And that was exactly what we had been sent to find out.

  They complained when I ordered monkeysuits.

  "That's old Mother Earth down there!" Harold argued. For a halibut with an ike of 150 he sure could act like a baiano sometimes.

  "Show me the cities," I answered. "Show me the millions of people running around taking the sun in their rawhide summer outfits."

  "And there may be germs," Amauri added, in his snottiest voice, and immediately I had another argument going between two men brown enough to know better.

  "We will follow," I said in my nasty captain's voice, "standard planetary procedure, whether it's Mother Earth or mother--"

  And at that moment the monotonous homing signal changed.

  "Please respond, please identify, please respond, or we'll blast your asses out of the sky."

  We responded. And soon afterward found ourselves in monkeysuits wandering around in thick pea soup up to our navels (if we could have located our navels without a map, surrounded as they were with lifesaving devices) waiting for somebody to open a door. A door opened and we picked ourselves up off a very hard floor. Some of the pea soup had fallen down the hatch with us. A gas came into the sterile chamber where we waited, and pretty soon the pea soup settled down and turned into mud.

  "Mariajoseijesus!" Amauri muttered. "Aquela merda vivia!"

  "English," I muttered into the monkey mouth, "and clean up your language."

  "That crap was alive," Amauri said, rephrasing and cleaning up his language.

  "And now it isn't, but we are." It was hard to be patient.

  For all we knew, what passed for humanity here liked eating spacemen. Or sacrificing them to some local deity. We passed a nervous four hours in that cubicle. And I had already laid about five hopeless escape plans when a door opened, and a person appeared.

  He was dressed in a white farmersuit, or at least close to it. He was very short, but smiled pleasantly and beckoned. Proof positive. Living human beings. Mission successful. Now we know there was no cause for rejoicing, but at that moment we rejoiced. Backslapping, embracing our little host (afraid of crushing him for a moment), and then into the labyrinth of U.S. MB Warfare Post 004.

  They were all very small-- not more than 140 centimeters tall-- and the first thought that struck me was how much humanity had grown since then. The stars must agree with us, I thought.

  Till quiet, methodical Vladimir, looking as always, white as a ghost, pointedly turned a doorknob and touched a lightswitch (it actually was mechanical). They were both above eye level for our little friends. So it wasn't us colonists who had grown-- it was our cousins from old Gaea who had shrunk.

  We tried to catch them up on history, but all they cared about was their own politics. "Are you American?" they kept asking.

  "I'm from Pennsylvania," I said, "but these humble-butts are from N.ncamais.

  They didn't understand.

  "N.ncamais. It means 'never again.' In lingua deporto."

  Again puzzled. But they asked another question.

  "Where did your colony come from?" One-track minds. "Pennsylvania was settled by Americans from Hawaii. We lay no bets as to why they named the damned planet Pennsylvania--"

  One of the little people piped up, "That's obvious. Cradle of liberty. And them?"

  "From Brazil," I said.

  They conferred quietly on that one, and then apparently decided that while Brazilian ancestry wasn't a capital offense, it didn't exactly confer human status. From then on, they made no attempt to talk to my crew, just watched them carefully, and talked to me.

  Me they loved.

  "God bless America," they said.

  I felt agreeable. "God bless America," I answered.

  Then, again in unison, they made an obscene suggestion as to what I should do with the Russians. I glanced at my compatriots and fellow travelers and shrugged. I repeated the little folks' wish for the Russian's sexual bliss.

  Fact time. I won't bore by repeating all the clever questioning and probing that elicited the following information. Partly because it didn't take any questioning. They seemed to have been rehearsing for years what they would say to any visitors from outer space, particularly the descendants of the long-lost colonists. It went this way:

  Germ warfare had began in earnest about three years after we left. Three very cleverly designed cancer viruses had been loosed on the world, apparently by no one at all, since both the Russians and the Americans denied it and the Chinese were all dead. That was when the scientists knuckled down and set to work.

  Recombinant DNA had been a rough enough science when my ancestors took off for the stars-- and we hadn't developed it much since then. When you're developing raw planets you have better things to do with your time. But under the pressure of warfare, the science of do-it-yourself genetics had a field day on planet Earth.

  "We are constantly developing new strains of viruses and bacteria," they said. "And constantly we are bombarded by the Russians' latest weapons." They were hard-pressed. There weren't many of them in that particular MB Warfare Post, and the enemy's assaults were clever. And finally the picture became clear. To all of us at once. It was Harold who said, "Fossa-me, m.e! You mean for eight hundred years you bunnies've been down here?"

  They didn't answer until I asked the question-- more politely, too, since I had noticed a certain set to those inscrutable jaws when Harold called them bunnies. Well, they were bunnies, white as white could be, but it was tasteless for Harold to call them that, particularly in front of Vladimir, who had more than a slight tendency toward white skin himself.

  "Have you Americans been trapped down here ever since the war began?" I asked, trying to put awe into my voice, and succeeding. Horror isn't that far removed from awe, anyway.

  They beamed with what I took for pride. And I was beginning to be able to interpret some of their facial expressions. As long as I had good words for America, I was all right.

  "Yes, Captain Kane Kanea, we and our ancestors have been here from the beginning."

  "Doesn't it get a little cramped?"

  "Not for American soldiers, Captain. For the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness we would sacrifice anything. " I didn't ask how much liberty and happiness-pursuing were possible in a hole in the rock. Our hero went on: "We fight on that millions may live, free, able to breathe the clean air of America unoppressed by the lashes of Communism."

  And then they broke into a few choice hymns about purple mountains and yellow waves with a rousing chorus of God blessing America. It all ended with a mighty shout: "Better dead than red." When it was over we asked them if we could sleep, since according to our ship's time it was well past bedding-down hour.

  They put us in a rather small room with three cots in it that were far too short for us. Didn't matter. We couldn't possibly be comfortable in our monkeysuits anyway.

  Harold wanted to talk in lingua deporto as soon as we were alone, but I managed to convince him without even using my monkeysuit's discipliner button that we didn't want them to think we were trying to keep any secrets. We all took it for granted that they were monitoring us.

  And so our conversation was the sort of conversation that one doesn't mind having overheard by a bunch of crazy patriots. Amauri: "I am amazed at their great love for America, persisting so many centuries." Translation: "What the hell got these guys so nuts about something as dead as the ancient U.S. empire?"

  Me: "Perhaps it is due to such unwavering loyalty to the flag, God, country, and liberty" (I admit I was laying it on thick, but better to be safe, etc.) "that they have been able to survive so long." Translation: "Maybe being crazy fanatics
is all that's kept them alive in this hole."

  Harold: "I wonder how long we can stay in this bastion of democracy before we must reluctantly go back to our colony of the glorious American dream." Translation: "What are the odds they don't let us go? After all, they're so loony they might think we're spies or something."

  Vladimir: "I only hope we can learn from them. Their science is infinitely beyond anything we have hitherto developed with our poor resources." Translation: "We're not going anywhere until I have a chance to do my job and check out the local flora and fauna. Eight hundred years of recombining DNA has got to have something we can take back home to N.ncamais."

  And so the conversation went until we were sick of the flowers and perfume that kept dropping out of our mouths. Then we went to sleep.

  The next day was guided tour day, Russian attack day, and damn near goodbye to the crew of the good ship Pollywog.

  The guided tour kept us up hill and down dale for most of the morning. Vladimir was running the tricking computer from his monkeysuit. Mine was too busy analyzing the implications of all their comments while Amauri was absorbing the science and Harold was trying to figure out how to pick his nose with mittens on. Harold was along for the ride-- a weapons expert, just in case. Thank God.

  We began to be able to tell one little person from another. George Washington Steiner was our usual guide. The big boss, who had talked to us through most of the history lesson the day before, was Andrew Jackson Wallichinsky. And the guy who led the singing was Richard Nixon Dixon. The computer told us those were names of beloved American presidents, with surnames added.

  And my monkeysuit's analysis also told us that the music leader was the real big boss, while Andy Jack Wallichinsky was merely the director of scientific research. Seems that the politicians ran the brains, instead of vice versa.

  Our guide, G.W. Steiner, was very proud of his assignment. He showed us everything. I mean, even with the monkeysuit keeping three-fourths of the gravity away from me, my feet were sore by lunchtime (a quick sip of recycled xixi and coc.). And it was impressive. Again, I give it unto you in abbreviated form:

  Even though the installation was technically airtight, in fact the enemy viruses and bacteria could get in quite readily. It seems that early in the twenty-first century the Russians had stopped making any kind of radio broadcasts. (I know, that sounds like a non sequitur. Patience, patience.) At first the Americans in 004 had thought they had won. And then, suddenly, a new onslaught of another disease. At this time the 004 researchers had never been personally hit by any diseases-- the airtight system was working fine. But their commander at that time, Rodney Fletcher, had been very suspicious.

  "He thought it was a commie trick," said George Washington Steiner. I began to see the roots of superpatriotism in 004's history.

  So Rodney Fletcher set the scientists to working on strengthening the base personnel's antibody system. They plugged away at it for two weeks and came up with three new strains of bacteria that selectively devoured practically anything that wasn't supposed to be in the human body, just in time, too, because then that new disease hit. It wasn't stopped by the airtight system, because instead of being a virus, it was just two little amino acids and a molecule of lactose, put together just so. It fit right through the filters. It sailed right through the antibiotics. It entered right into the lungs of every man, woman, and child in

  004. And if Rodney Fletcher hadn't been a paranoid, they all would have died. As it was, only about half lived. Those two amino acids and the lactose molecule had the ability to fit right into that spot on a human DNA and then make the DNA replicate that way. Just one little change-- and pretty soon nerves just stopped working.

  Those two amino acids and the lactose molecule system worked just well enough to slow down the disease's progress until a plug could be found that fit even better into that spot on the DNA, keeping the Russians' little devices out. (Can they be called viruses? Can they be called alive? I'll leave it to the godcallers and the philosophers to decide that.)

  Trouble was, the plugs also caused all the soldiers' babies to grow up to be very short with a propensity for having their teeth fall out and their eyes go blind at the age of thirty. G.W. Steiner was very proud of the fact that they had managed to correct for the eyes after four generations. He smiled and for the first time we really noticed that his teeth weren't like ours.

  "We make them out of certain bacteria that gets very hard when a particular virus is exposed to it. My own great-great-grandmother invented it," Steiner said. "We're always coming up with new and useful tools." I asked to see how they did this trick, which brings us full circle to what we saw on the guided tour that day. We saw the laboratories where eleven researchers were playing clever little games with DNA. I didn't understand any of it, but my monkeysuit assured me that the computer was getting it all.

  We also saw the weapons delivery system. It was very clever. It consisted of setting a culture dish full of a particular nasty weapon in a little box, closing the door to the box, and then pressing a button that opened another door to the box that led outside.

  "We let the wind take it from there," said Steiner. "We figure it takes about a year for a new weapon to reach Russia. But by then it's grown to a point that it's irresistible."

  I asked him what the bacteria lived on. He laughed. "Anything," he said. It turns out that their basic breeding stock is a bacterium that can photosynthesize and dissolve any form of iron, both at the same time. "Whatever else we change about a particular weapon, we don't change that," Steiner said. "Our weapons can travel anywhere without hosts. Quarantines don't do any good."

  Harold had an idea. I was proud of him. "If these little germs can dissolve steel, George, why the heU aren't they in here dissolving this whole installation? "

  Steiner looked like he had just been hoping we'd ask that question.

  "When we developed our basic breeder stock, we also developed a mold that inhibits the bacteria from reproducing and eating. The mold only grows on metal and the spores die if they're away from both mold and metal for more than one- seventy-seventh of a second. That means that the mold grows all the way around this installation-- and nowhere else. My fourteenth great-uncle William Westmoreland Hannamaker developed the mold."

  "Why," I asked, "do you keep mentioning your blood relationship to these inventors? Surely after eight hundred years here everybody's related?"

  I thought I was asking a simple question. But G.W. Steiner looked at me coldly and turned away, leading us to the next room.

  We found bacteria that processed other bacteria that processed still other bacteria that turned human excrement into very tasty, nutritious food. We took their word for the tasty. I know, we were still eating recycled us through the tubes in our suit. But at least we knew where ours had been.

  They had bacteria that without benefit of sunlight processed carbon dioxide and water back into oxygen and starch. So much for photosynthesis. And we got a list of what shelf after shelf of weapons could do to an unprepared human body. If somebody ever broke all those jars on N.ncamais or Pennsylvania or Kiev, everybody would simply disappear, completely devoured and incorporated into the life-systems of bacteria and viruses and trained amino- acid sets.

  No sooner did I think of that, than I said it. Only I didn't get any farther than the word Kiev.

  "Kiev? One of the colonies is named Kiev?"

  I shrugged. "There are only three planets colonized. Kiev, Pennsylvania, and N.ncamais."

  "Russian ancestry?"

  Oops, I thought. Oops is an all-purpose word standing for every bit of profanity, blasphemy, and pornographic and scatological exculpation I could think of.

  The guided tour ended right then.

  Back in our bedroom, we became aware that we had somehow dissolved our hospitality. After a while, Harold realized that it was my fault.

  "Captain, by damn, if you hadn't told them about Kiev we wouldn't be locked in here like this."

&n
bsp; I agreed, hoping to pacify him, but he didn't calm down until I used the discipliner button in my monkeysuit.

  Then we consulted the computers.

  Mine reported that in all we had been told, two areas had been completely left out: While it was obvious that in the past the little people had done extensive work on human DNA, there had been no hint of any work going on in that field today. And though we had been told of all kinds of weapons that had been flung among the Russians on the other side of the world, there had been no hint of any kind of limited effect antipersonnel weapon here.

  "Oh," Harold said. "There's nothing to stop us from walking out of here anytime we can knock the door down. And I can knock the door down anytime I want to," he said, playing with the buttons on his monkeysuit. I urged him to wait until all the reports were done. Amauri informed us that he had gleaned enough information from their talk and his monkeyeyes that we could go home with the entire science of DNA recombination hidden away in our computer.

  And then Vladimir's suit played out a holomap of Post 004.

  The bright green, infinitesimally thin lines marked walls, doors, passages. We immediately recognized the corridors we had walked in throughout the morning, located the laboratories, found where we were imprisoned. And then we noticed a rather larger area in the middle of the holomap that seemed empty.

  "Did you see a room like that? " I asked. The others shook their heads. Vladimir asked the holomap if we had been in it. The suit answered in its whispery monkeyvoice: "No. I have only delineated the unpenetrated perimeter and noted apertures that perhaps give entry."

  "So they didn't let us in there, " Harold said. "I knew the bastards were hiding something."

  "And let's make a guess," I said. "That room either has something to do with antipersonnel weapons, or it has something to do with human DNA research."

  We sat and pondered the revelations we had just had, and realized they didn't add up to much. Finally Vladimir spoke up. Trust a half-bunny to come up with the idea where three browns couldn't. just goes to show you that a racial theory is a bunch of waggywoggle.