by Kathy Tyers
She snatched up a handful of sour candies from the bowl on her desk and patted her pocket to make sure the glucodermic was there. Then, hanging her lab coat on the door, she followed the doctor.
―――
Lindon watched Graysha walk into the HMF lounge, hands hanging stiffly at her side. Her footfalls clicked on the hard, plain floor, and her silver-blue eyes looked dark and determined. Once she saw them waiting for her, she turned reproachfully to Dr. GurEshel. “I did wonder if you truly wanted a baseline reading, right after a meal.”
He liked her straightforward admission, which didn’t seem like something a nettech would say. He motioned for her to sit on a chair they’d pulled into the circle beside Ari. “Dr. Brady-Phillips, this is an emergency session of the Colonial Affairs Committee’s First Circle. Certain charges have been leveled against you in secret, and this group has decided you should be given the opportunity to clear yourself from suspicion.”
“I agree,” she said quietly. “Next time, call me in honestly. I’ll come.”
“Certainly,” Lindon said. She was right. They owed her that dignity.
Ari glanced up but kept her head down as she spoke, as if studying her pocket memo. “First,” she said, “a few questions we’re asking a number of people. I’d like a detailed account of your activities during the three circadays previous to the day Chairman DalLierx was taken ill.”
“I’ll try,” she answered. As she listed the trips and activities she could remember, his discomfort came back. Long gaps did exist during each day, when no witness would be able to confirm her whereabouts. KennVandenNeill checked his memo and showed it to Ari, who nodded and asked, “Are you familiar with genegineered staphylococcus strain 6-ICZ?”
“No.” Graysha’s forehead wrinkled. “I could look it up on my computer if you need information.”
He’d suggested they skip that question. Even if she were guilty, she would not admit familiarity with the bacterium. He stroked his chin.
One corner of Ari’s mouth twitched. “Your file lists your hobby as perfuming. What does that involve? Obviously, we’re not asking everyone that one.”
“You’re investigating people’s hobbies?” Graysha threaded her fingers together, then clenched the doubled fist between her knees. Again, he observed she looked much too nervous to be a professional detective. Again, he reminded himself that could be part of her role-playing.
At least he wouldn’t have to decide alone whether she was guilty.
“Little details,” Ari answered, “sometimes prove fruitful in any investigation.”
“Well . . . yes.” Graysha smoothed her browncloth pants. “I have an ester kit, and I mix fragrances.”
“For personal consumption, or do you supply others?”
“I’ve put gifts together, but not here.”
“Would you be willing to surrender that kit to the HMF for scrutiny?”
Graysha’s eyes widened. In that instant, he guessed, she realized how he’d been attacked—if she wasn’t guilty. She shot him a pained glance, then said softly, “Of course. Send someone to my apartment with me if you want to make sure I don’t take anything out of it.”
Ari’s mouth twitched again. “I think not. Your turn, Chairman.”
A distracting tic started at his right eye. “You have the legal right to decline to proceed any further, Dr. Brady-Phillips. We propose to administer gamma-vertol, a substance used in law-enforcement questioning, and ask you a list of questions. Coordinator MaiJidda, show them to her.”
Graysha accepted Ari’s pocket memo and started to read. Her right hand closed around her left thumb, and she rubbed the thumbnail. “If you’d like, I’ll answer twice. Once now, once with the gamma-vertol. You won’t like all my answers, but I . . .” Trailing off, she exhaled. “All right. First, I came here on my own behalf, no one else’s.”
He nodded. She would have denied EB involvement in any case.
She pulled off her browncloth overshirt. Beneath it, she wore a sleeveless black blouse that fit her body snugly. “Go ahead,” she said to the physician. Graysha raised Ari’s pocket memo to read off the next question.
Lindon leaned forward.
“I came to Goddard of my own volition,” she said. “I came to accept a field researcher’s position. Originally, I anticipated taking a teaching position at Halley Habitat.
“I last spoke with my mother approximately three months ago. She said nothing at that time about Goddard, the Lwuite group, or anything else connected with—” her voice caught as Dr. GurEshel injected the drug—“with my present assignment. But I do have general instructions to report to her any time I see anything of reasonably suspicious nature.”
A chill tickled his shoulders.
“I have, in the past, accepted Eugenics Board money for reports of this type.”
Kenn VandenNeill squirmed.
“Hold on,” she said firmly, “I’m not done. I have no intention of reporting to Commissioner Brady-Phillips, regardless of our personal relationship, because I came to Goddard for my own reasons. And, finally, I did not try to kill Chairman DalLierx.”
She handed Ari’s pocket memo to Kenn, looking as steady as anyone could under this inquisition. Kenn took the memo and turned to Lindon, raising an eyebrow. Lindon frowned. Graysha was right—he did not like all her answers.
Dr. GurEshel motioned Ari off her chair and sat down on it. “About one minute more,” she said. Grasping Graysha’s left forearm, she touched the green tissue-oxygen implant. “It does appear that your condition has stabilized.”
“I feel fine,” Graysha said softly.
After a few more seconds, Dr. GurEshel asked, “Have you had any symptoms since we released you?”
Graysha shot Ari a dark look, then said, “Nothing serious. Pale fingertips, occasional cold spells. I think that’s . . . that’s normal. Yes, nothing serious. Attacks of Flaherty’s syndrome come on gradually, over a period of weeks. Generally precipitated by lack of exercise, fasting, or low gravity. But at the D-group firing range, there was an accident I’m not sure was—”
“That’s enough, Dr. Brady-Phillips,” Ari interrupted.
Remembering Crys’s accusations, Lindon tried to relax against the chair.
GurEshel nodded across at him. “Go ahead, Chairman.”
Kenn passed back the pocket memo. Lindon cleared his throat and repeated the first question. “Did you come to Goddard of your own volition, Graysha, or were you assigned here by a party other than Gaea Consortium?”
Her answers, though rambling, matched the ones she’d given earlier, until he came to the final questions.
“Report to my moth-her,” she repeated. Her eyes gleamed unnaturally. “Report to my mother. Yes, of course. Listen, all of you. My mother already killed me. She wrote me off before I was even born. How hard could it have been for a woman in her posi-shion to find someone willing to tweak the chromosomes of a diagnosed genefective fetus? It wasn’t too late. But it is now. When I came here, I didn’t know what I’d find. I’d heard the rumors at Einstein—come on, you’ve all heard them—about how Henri Lwu figured out how to repair genefects. I didn’t know what I’d find . . . but I hoped . . . I hoped. I didn’t expect good people. And now you hate me. Can’t you imagine it? My own chromosomes are . . . they’re killing me.” Her voice sank to a whisper. “Can’t you guess what that feels like? I want a child, someday.” Her eyes softened and her voice began to croon. “A baby of my own, a normal baby. Not a defective mutant, not one that carries one single defective gene. I am through with Novia. Through. No child of mine will—”
“Stop,” Lindon said, relieved and alarmed at once. “Graysha, stop.”
She halted in midsentence, looking stricken, then bent over and softly, achingly, started to weep.
“Dr. Brady-Phillips,” Ari said in a passionless voice.
Graysha raised her head, wiping her eyes with both hands.
“Answer one more que
stion, if you would. Did you learn anything at D-group that you would consider reporting to your . . . to Novia?”
Graysha glared at Ari. “So you have guns. So use them if the EB comes for you. But if it comes, it won’t be because of me.”
“I have another question,” Lindon interjected, hoping to defuse the hostility rising between the two women. “Does your mother know, or do you think she might guess from past experience, that you wish to have your genes repaired? Is there a chance,” he pressed, “that she could have sent you here without your knowledge of her plans?”
“No. No, Chairman, that is . . . I . . .” Graysha stared over his shoulder, slack-jawed, eyes wide. “I haven’t the faintest idea,” she said at last.
He slumped slightly. He had no doubt that was an honest answer, but it shook him to the core. Kenn and Taidje exchanged worried looks.
“Administer the antidote, Dr. GurEshel,” Ari said.
“Wait.” Lindon roused himself from his thoughts, but already it was too late. GurEshel moved away from Graysha’s chair.
They’d left off a question.
He spoke quickly, knowing the antidote didn’t take effect instantly. “Dr. Brady-Phillips, why did you try to kill me?”
She met his stare with a pleading expression. “I didn’t. Absolutely not.”
“Relax, Dr. Brady-Phillips,” said Ari. “Try to relax now. Thank you for cooperating.”
A minute later, Graysha sat with her head drooped, blinking and glancing side to side, obviously mortified by some of the things she’d said.
“We will adjourn.” Lindon pressed his hands together. “There will be nothing said outside these doors about our discussion. Not yet.”
Kenn stood and left, walking with a sway, as if his legs hurt. Taidje and Ari followed him, talking softly.
Graysha sat tight-lipped, as did Yael GurEshel beside her.
“Doctor,” Lindon said, “I want to talk with Dr. Brady-Phillips.”
“Not alone.” GurEshel leaned as far from Graysha as she could sit on that chair.
This protectiveness was not necessary. “Use the observation window. Privacy, please.”
“Chairman—”
He lowered his chin and spoke her name firmly. “Dr. GurEshel. Please.”
The physician slammed the massive metal door as she left.
―――
Graysha watched the committee members go. The giddy half drunkenness was passing, but she was acutely aware of Lindon DalLierx’s presence. He—the entire Lwuite colony—now knew exactly what a risk she was to their secrets.
She’d cleared herself, all right, but at what cost to her pride?
Unless . . . She stared up at the wall again, seeing her mother’s smirk in midair. Was it possible Novia did somehow send her here?
It was possible. She knew that now. It was barely, grimly possible.
And her own hopeful suspicions were all but confirmed. Either the Lwuites were illicit gene fixers or they did something else just as illegal. Otherwise, they never would have risked questioning her in this way. Medico-religious, were they? I’ll bet, she reflected, thinking about all the data she hadn’t been able to access—data lock-coded behind the Religious Liberties Act. More than likely, the entire “religion” was a sham.
Weary of Novia’s preaching, she wouldn’t mind that at all. She’d had enough of religion to last her whole life.
Lindon leaned on one armrest. His face looked thinner, his cheekbones more prominent than before. “I apologize for invading your privacy, Dr. Brady-Phillips. The Eugenics Board’s reputation is not sterling, either. I am pleased to know you are not employed there.”
She crossed her arms in front of her, still slightly dizzy, guessing that now, if ever, Chairman DalLierx would believe her claims of concern. It was time to speak up. “I’ve come across something you ought to know,” she said stiffly, “about Goddard’s cooling. It’s chlorofluorocarbon depletion. I got that directly off the weathersat this morning. I want to help your people if I can. But if I do, will you do what you can about healing my problem?”
“We can’t,” he said, frowning. “Those rumors are false. Isn’t CFC depletion a matter for your supervisors?”
“Not if they’re involved in it.”
He sat silently. A clock on the wall hummed. He stroked his chin, then said, “You’ll have to explain. Carefully, please. My head’s still a little muddled.”
She didn’t want to sympathize with him at the moment, but she did. “How are you feeling?”
He rocked one hand. “It would have been an easy way to go home. One moment, I was lying down. The next thing I remember is waking up here.”
He did look tired, sitting with his shoulders hunched forward. “I spoke with Crystal last night,” she said. “I didn’t know she was your sister. I like her. We got to be friends at D-group.”
His mouth crinkled, and one slanted eyebrow rose. “I rather like her myself.”
“You’re lucky to have that kind of sister,” she said, stabbed by jealousy. “Crystal’s got a suspect, if you want to know. I have another.”
“Oh?” He leaned several degrees toward her.
Graysha gave the depolarized observation window a sidelong glance, then faced away from it, not knowing whether Dr. GurEshel could read lips. “Crystal suspects Coordinator MaiJidda,” she whispered, “and—”
“No,” he interrupted. “I’ve never known Ari to run from a fair fight.”
“Oh? Then why wasn’t she going to let me clear myself of the murder accusation?”
His eyes narrowed slightly. “Anyone could make a mistake, and I think she did. I believe you were asked in time, and I accept your answer.” He hesitated, then said, “I’m sorry. You were going to tell me something else.”
Another point scored, she guessed. She dropped her attack rather than lose this bit of momentum toward getting him to accept her. “It’s only a suspicion, Chairman DalLierx, but—”
“Please, Lindon is fine.”
The man had nearly died. Maybe he tolerated her now because of that experience. “I’ve been thinking,” she said slowly. “For terrannums, Gaea Consortium has offered a major reward to anyone who could develop some means of breaking down atmospheric CFCs. Those molecules linger far longer than they’re needed, and they prevent the development of a UV-protective ozone layer on a terraformed planet. Any organism they developed here—a bacterium that could break down CFC—could be used back on Earth by Terra Two.”
He sat up stiffly, arching his back as if stretching it. “Go on.”
“I once had a prof who claimed that for every substrate, there was—or could be, genetically made—a microorganism that would break it down. I wonder if someone in the Gaea building has been going for that reward.”
Lindon crossed his legs, pulling farther away from her. “Creating bacteria that would . . . eat our greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere . . . deliberately?”
She nodded.
The dark eyebrows lowered. “As an experiment? Whatever happened to professional ethics?”
“It’s only a guess, but I can think of ways to check it out.”
He struck the arm of his chair. “This is exactly the kind of development we’ve been looking for.” His voice dropped lower. “Who else have you told?”
Graysha shook her head. “Only you. It isn’t safe to tell anyone in the Gaea lab,” she added flatly. “Here’s something else. I tried to research the cooling, but my research files keep getting gibberished. I can’t help wondering whether Jon Mahera was curious about the same thing. And that trail doubles back toward Dr. Varberg and Melantha Lee.”
He shut his eyes and groaned softly, then looked around at Dr. GurEshel, who stood staring down through the observation window. “That would explain why my going to Supervisor Lee accomplished nothing.”
“I tried that, too.”
He fingered his upper lip. “This is not a pretty problem.”
Now, w
hile she had his sympathy, she had to press the other issue. “Neither is the fact that I took Eugenics Board money in the past.”
His head pulled back slightly, but he didn’t respond. Evidently the man feared Novia Brady-Phillips like the wrath of God she thought she was.
It was clear that somewhere on this world, there were secrets that must be kept from the EB.
She was glad to know it.
“I’ll work on the CFCs,” she declared. “If our culprit is a microbe, it can be destroyed. They all have weaknesses.”
His black eyes glistened. “You’ll need help. Alert us through Liberty JenChee when you do. I’ll ask her to cooperate with you. Tell her you’ve been cleared of the murder suspicion.”
Graysha spread her hands. “Libby quit.”
“I’ll send her back. As I said, you’ve been cleared.”
Something else was tickling the back of her mind, though, something far more vital than Libby JenChee. A materializing idea hovered barely out of reach. “Here’s a thought. I can . . . theorize a spontaneous mutation, something that simply happened up there in the ultraviolet. Yes, and if I say the bugs appear to result from normal pre-ozone UV, I don’t see how Dr. Lee could think I suspect her. She couldn’t stop my investigating, really. I’m supposed to be working in Soils, not Airborne, but they don’t have an airborne specialist. And that,” she added, feeling distinctly triumphant, “in itself is suspicious, isn’t it?”
He shrugged.
“I think it is. Listen, if someone is going for Gaea’s reward for developing a CFC breakdown organism, he—or she—could still collect it, because they could be first to come forward with a supposedly natural organism they ‘isolated’ out of the atmosphere.” Already, she was wondering who really did it. Varberg, Paul, Melantha Lee?
And what about Ari MaiJidda? Who tried to murder this man?
Lindon pursed his lips, looking dubious. “Is that the way things normally work in a scientific laboratory?”
