Shivering World

by Kathy Tyers

  “So do I.” Graysha watched a young man push some kind of mowing contraption out onto a lawn. “Do you think I should go speak with Coordinator MaiJidda? I want to clear myself.”

  After scrunching her pursed lips toward one cheek, Crystal nodded. “I guess you’d better. Just be ready for an inquisition.”

  Ari MaiJidda had already tried twice to silence her, if her own suspicions were correct. This time, Graysha guessed MaiJidda meant to have her sent away regardless of guilt or innocence.

  Maybe Ari had done it, in order to frame Graysha. That thought gave her a shiver.

  She crossed her arms for warmth. No one would force her to leave this planet without a fight. Goddard was starting to feel like home. Its concerns were her own. If necessary, she’d go all the way to the top—and she didn’t mean Melantha Lee. She would speak with Chairman DalLierx and make her own accusations against Vice-­Chair MaiJidda.

  On second thought—she stood up, feeling slightly silly—she couldn’t see herself doing that. She needed to smooth things over, not ruffle them worse than ever. “Thank you, Crystal,” she said as she held out her hand. “See you again?”

  “Hope so. I’ll miss you at D-­group.” Crys touched Graysha’s fingertips before hurrying off.

  Graysha turned toward the Gaea wing. Emmer probably wanted company, or at least body warmth. As Graysha picked her up off the pillow and settled her onto her shoulder, the gribien’s little clicks made Graysha feel appreciated. She found a table alone in the cafeteria, where she could slip Emmer nibbles and think uninterrupted.

  Torn between her suspicions of Varberg and MaiJidda, and angry at the notion of being suspected of a horrible crime, by the time she left the cafeteria she had warm shoulders but a cold, knotted stomach. She probably wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near Chairman DalLierx, and she didn’t feel like going to Ari MaiJidda, and she wanted even less to spend the evening in her room trying to correlate obscure research abstracts. Nor did Jirina’s company, or Paul’s, appeal to her. She wouldn’t sleep that night unless she exhausted herself.

  She took Emmer back to the apartment and then jogged down to the quiet lab. Maybe she could catch up on some of the productive time she’d missed over the last few days.

  Once there, she found reasons to be glad she’d come in. Three test plates in the wincubator showed strong delayed growth, but the rounded lumps that were bacterial colonies hadn’t run together. She could do a fast count that would be impossible later. Setting the first plate on a grid, she started at bottom left and set the digital counter to Auto.

  That gave her more time to think than she really wanted.

  They suspect me, specifically.

  Well, of course they did. She was Novia Brady-­Phillips’s daughter. They probably suspected she’d been trained in all kinds of nasty skills. They probably thought she was heartlessly devoted to her mother’s institution. They had no idea how many times—and how deeply—she’d been hurt by her mother, her mother’s church, and the all-­powerful EB.

  She stared at the readout until it settled at a count of eighty-­eight colonies, then recorded the data on her pocket memo. She ought to concentrate. She carried the memo into her office, touched it to the computer,and let it transfer, then keyed up another research abstract to read.

  ―――

  Groggy from a lack of sleep and still on edge, she arrived at work the next morning. Libby waited beside the sink, wearing a somber expression.

  “Looks like you want to talk,” Graysha said.

  Libby nodded.

  Sighing, Graysha opened her office door, “Come in. What is it?”

  “I’m . . .” Libby looked everywhere but into Graysha’s eyes. From her brief work with Novia, Graysha recognized that as a bad sign. “I think I should resign my position.”

  “Why?” Graysha asked bluntly, wanting to hear the accusation—if it was coming—in Libby’s words.

  “Vice-­Chair MaiJidda called it a ‘conflict of interest.’ I’m cooperating with the investigation.”

  Graysha sank into her chair. “Of course, Libby. That’s fine,” she said, determined to conduct herself in a way that might win individual Lwuites’ acceptance, even if their power structure rejected her. “Tell the whole truth. When the smoke clears, I suspect there’ll still be a position here for you.”

  The girl’s smile, a hasty pulling back of cheek muscles, looked neither real nor grateful. “Thank you,” she said before she hurried out.

  Tipping her head back, Graysha stared up at the ceiling. Last night, she had guessed at the colonists’ suspicions: She might be an EB nettech. Not investigators but, more accurately, the henchmen who helped investigators, nettechs were sometimes sent to deal with troublemaking lab children and other offenders. Really, that suspicion was based only on guilt by association with Novia, but on Goddard, if they really had reason to worry, associative guilt might convince them to incriminate her.

  A message light blinked on the monitor. Checking for a sender’s initials, Graysha found a set she didn’t recognize: DED. That felt ominous. Bracing herself, she touched a key.

  +Graysha. Assume you’ve seen the weathersat report. What do we do now? Is it the CFCs? RSVP, Duncan.+

  Duncan EnDidier—Crystal’s husband was DalLierx’s brother-­in-­law. Wondering what had come down yesterday, she touched three more keys and brought up meteorological data.

  A daily high/low graph, superimposed over previous G-­years’ data, shocked her. The silhouettes paralleled each other, but they were almost three degrees apart. Not even Melantha Lee could scoff at this kind of temperature drop. According to a data string at the bottom of the display, the graphs were posted several hours ago.

  Dr. Lee must know about it. New meteorological research must finally be under way, unless . . . unless Gaea Terraforming Consortium truly had a hidden agenda.

  It would be easy to find out. Graysha opened a general floor connection to the meteorology department and scanned proceedings for the previous shift.

  The report had come in yesterday midafternoon. After that, routine cloud studies resumed.

  Appalled, Graysha yanked the cloth-­elastic tie from her hair and shook her head. She looked up Duncan EnDidier on the net and tried his access code, but he didn’t answer her call.

  Maybe she should try to access the weathersat downlink. Uncertain how to proceed once she reached the main screen, she acted first on Duncan’s suggestion, searching for current sampling and recent-­past data on chlorofluorocarbons.

  CFC concentration in the upper atmosphere, she found, had dropped 20 percent over the past G-­year. The numbers were so low that they staggered her.

  Her concrete work desk sat under two tiers of metal shelves. She blew at the lower one, raising a dust cloud. Melantha Lee unquestionably knew about this. And she was doing nothing? Either she was shielding someone or she was guilty herself.

  Maybe Lee was responsible for the weird net virus.

  Not only that, but since the Meteorology Department hadn’t reacted to this new data, she had to assume that floor had knuckled down under “local Consortium policy” just like Microbiology. At this moment, the entire colonial populace could be hostage to scientific foul play at the Gaea station.

  Graysha clenched her fists on the countertop. Was there a link between this and the attempt on Lindon DalLierx’s life? Graysha was shocked to be considering a new suspect, someone who ranked even higher than Will Varberg.

  If Melantha Lee was guilty of criminal actions, to whom could Graysha report her?

  Just then, Trev slouched in. Graysha checked her clock. He was right on time, bandaged more thoroughly than she thought necessary.

  “Morning, Teach,” he said in a jovial voice. “Like my new face mask? Which part of the planet shall we fertilize today?”

  It felt good to see a friendly face—most of it, anyway. “You look charming,” Graysha said. “Elegant. And this morning, we will analyze enzyme activities.”

 
; Trev groaned theatrically, laying the back of one hand against his forehead. “And I thought ground school was a pain. This is dirt school.”

  ―――

  Lindon wished his HMF room had another chair, because sitting on the edge of his bed with Ari MaiJidda in the room made him profoundly uncomfortable. Her browncloth suit, set off with a deep green scarf, brought out a red-­brown flush in her cheeks. Everything, including Ari MaiJidda, looked brighter and more alive since he’d flirted with death.

  “Nettech,” Ari proclaimed. “She has to be. If so, she’s found something, and she’s figured out we’re stopping her offworld transmissions. Unable to get data off Goddard until the next supply ship comes, she’s falling back on emergency orders. Key people will begin to die mysteriously. Before long, Lwuite longevity will become irrelevant. Unless, of course, we stop her.”

  “If that were the case, you’re right. You would be in danger, too.” Olfactory murder? It was a bizarre notion, but he had to consider it. Scarring of his nasal passages had almost wiped out his senses of taste and smell. Dr. GurEshel’s prognosis was for permanent damage.

  Depressed, he pulled his browncloth robe more snugly over his hospital pajamas. Though blood weary, he was glad to sit upright. He’d looked in a mirror this morning. Other than purple half circles under his eyes, his color was coming back. “I can only believe parts of that scenario, though,” he added. “It’s impossible she could have found anything the rest of them haven’t.”

  “Not if she’s trained in investigation. Look at her behaviors, Lindon. She joined D-­group. She eats at the co-­op for no apparent reason.” Ari leaned forward. “She’s watching us. You can bet your life. Actually, you are already betting all our lives.”

  He couldn’t do that. “You’ve questioned her?”

  Ari draped one arm over the back of her chair. “Not yet, but we spoke with Liberty JenChee.”

  “The lab assistant? What does she say?”

  “In her account of Brady-­Phillips’s activities, there are gaps that would be entirely adequate for the purpose of sneaking off to prepare cultures. There have been several evenings when she came back to the Gaea station and worked alone. Growing—”Ari raised her pocket memo—“growing staphylococcus 6-­ICZ, maybe.”

  Lindon hated to accuse anyone of murder. “I’ve had no contact with her since her second day at Axis, except on the D-­group firing line.”

  Ari looked side to side, glancing at the wall monitor, the window, and the door before looking at Lindon again. “Her hobby is perfuming,” Ari said. “She probably sent you something using her kit. Or accessed your apartment while you were out with Bee and Sarai. Think. Think hard.” She pushed up out of the room’s only chair, and Lindon tugged his robe closer again. “Let me know if you remember anything,” Ari ordered. “Odd odors, especially. Meanwhile, I’ll question her.”

  Ari wouldn’t do that kindly. She saved my sister’s life, Ari. He almost said it, then decided against mentioning Crys’s intimations. “Wait on that for the time being. We need her in the Gaea building. At least she’s willing to work with us on the weather problem, and yesterday’s data looks worse than ever.”

  She rested both hands on the back of her chair. “This may come down to priorities, Lindon. Or that could be part of her masquerade. What will it be? Do you think Gaea can kill us with the weather before Graysha or Novia Brady-­Phillips wipes us out via something else?”

  Lindon inhaled the oddly odorless air. Was Ari paranoid or had the universe truly turned against them?

  Ari, at least, was doing something about it. “How goes the D-­group?”

  Ari lifted her chin. “It’s looking more important than ever, isn’t it?”

  “It could be.”

  She shrugged and raised an eyebrow. “Oddly, we’ve had more homozygs join than heteros.”

  For an instant, he glimpsed the Ari he’d known nine terrannums ago: eager, curious, secretly playful. “Explanation?”

  She walked toward the door as she said, “Either we’re all still more aggressive than Henri Lwu intended—and if that’s the case, we can close down half the Port Arbor Clinic—or else now that we have something to lose, we’re even more determined to defend it.”

  So Ari, too, realized that the callosal treatments were worth less here than elsewhere. He started to slip off the bed’s edge, but she stopped him with a pointing gesture. “Stay there. Get your rest. I can let myself out.”

  He nodded. Just sitting up straight reminded him how weak he was.

  “Are you sure you want to wait,” she asked, “and question her later?”

  . . . Thereby endangering Ari, the next logical victim? Regardless of who’d tried to kill him—probably someone who lived at Axis Plantation, who might simply wait for another chance—the colony’s fate rested on whether Commissioner Novia Brady-­Phillips controlled her daughter. Novia could strike long before weather effects went out of control. Climatic disasters took months to develop. Novia could descend upon them in mere weeks.

  An odd memory popped into his mind: Palila Lwu, revered by the colonists, had died suspiciously. Investigation suggested she was poisoned by a contaminated glass shard in her own lab. The Lwuites suspected a nettech assassination, but they had been powerless to demand justice.

  “All right,” he said reluctantly. “The First Circle can meet here, this afternoon.”

  “Good. I’ll be ready with questions.”

  Exposed

  Lindon nodded to Ari MaiJidda as she glided into the HMF lounge a few hours later. She took a chair between Taidje FreeLand and Kenn VandenNeill, who greeted him with a whispered, “Praise God, Lindon.” All four members of the local committee’s First Circle constituted an emergency quorum.

  After letting him dress, Dr. GurEshel had draped a heavy halfer-­wool robe over Lindon’s shoulders. He shrugged it off and sat back against it. Over the last few days, he’d decided the physician used a perennially irritated attitude to keep patients in line. Sitting beside Ari, she firmed up her frown.

  “I’m not going to stand on procedure,” Lindon said. He touched one armrest of the HMF’s motor chair. “Here’s my proposal. Vice-­Chair MaiJidda has raised the suspicion that Dr. Brady-­Phillips may be working on the Eugenics Board’s behalf. We have all worried this might be possible—”

  “Ever since she arrived.” Kenn VandenNeill rested his square chin on one hand.

  “Yes,” Lindon answered, and this was one of those times when he wished he were not chairman. “I believe that learning whether she actually reports to her mother is so vital that we have to risk questioning her.”

  Kenn nodded. White-­haired Taidje FreeLand folded his hands on his knees. Ari just kept watching him.

  “The HMF,” he continued, “still has one dose of gamma-­vertol. By USSC law, Dr. Brady-­Phillips will have to consent to its use. Otherwise, any testimony we obtained would be illegal.”

  “If we had her word illegally,” FreeLand said, “it might not stand up in court, but how important is that? We have to know the truth.”

  Kenn crossed his legs, nodding. “Yes. Illegal is one thing. Unethical is another. This is necessary. We’re following the spirit of the law.”

  The law’s spirit protected the weak. Who, this time, was the weaker party? Graysha . . . or the Lwuite population? “Do you all feel we should use it,” he asked, “if we can find her and bring her here, whether or not she consents?”

  “I do,” Ari said instantly. “Too much is at stake.”

  Kenn nodded again. Taidje FreeLand frowned, drew a deep breath, and then nodded, too.

  “Taidje,” Lindon said softly, “would you go get her?” FreeLand would approach her respectfully. There was no need to let Ari confront her before it was strictly necessary. He didn’t honestly believe the woman had tried to kill him. She deserved a chance to prove her innocence.

  To his surprise, Dr. GurEshel spoke up. “I’ll go,” she offered. “You people write up the questio
ns you’ll need. I’ll call her in under the pretense of checking her tissue oxygen.”

  “Perfect,” Ari said, crossing her arms.

  “No.” Lindon drew up straighter. “Tell her the truth.”

  “I’ll use my own judgment.” Dr. GurEshel made fists and strode out.

  “Wait—”

  Kenn raised a hand, cutting off Lindon’s protest. “Dr. GurEshel is exactly the person we need. She really can check the woman’s blood oxygen if you don’t like bringing her in under a deception. But we need that information, Lindon.”

  Plainly, he was outvoted—and if she was a ruthless nettech, her seeming innocence would be one of her deadliest tools. “Very well.”

  Kenn pulled a memo out of his shirt pocket. “Let’s have that list ready when she returns.”

  ―――

  Graysha forced down a bowl of halfer noodle soup. Knowing she was suspected of murder—and worse—strangled her appetite. Really, she almost wished the colonists would hurry up and take the next logical step in investigating her.

  Disappointed to make it through lunch uninterrupted, she plodded back to work. Trev still hadn’t returned from his own lunch break. She pulled up a file on soil-­layering, including the organisms needed to break down organic materials at various depths, and split her screen to display Gaea’s bacterial inventory.

  Someone knocked firmly on the hall door.

  “Come,” she called, squaring her shoulders. She might have known. Getting interested in something else was the surest way to nudge events.

  Her door swung open, and she recognized the pigtailed physician. “Dr. GurEshel,” Graysha said, trying to sound warm and friendly. “What can I do for you?”

  “Would you come with me to the HMF?” GurEshel rested one hand on the doorframe. “We really ought to have gotten a baseline tissue-­oxygen reading for your medical records. You’re feeling well today, aren’t you?”

  “Pretty much.” If you don’t count a bad case of nerves while waiting for you people to make your move, while trying to look as innocent as I really am! Graysha saved the split-­screen document for further reading. She’d better not think much beyond the questioning she was about to get. The Lwuites weren’t evil. They would give her a chance to clear herself . . . so long as they didn’t leave her alone with Ari MaiJidda.