"Well, you did it and you know. But one thing first. Are you sure those transmissions came from her? Were there other cars that came through between the times you placed the receivers and retrieved them?"
"Don't try to give me false hope. Of course there were a few other cars. Two or three, anyway. I picked time slots as close to hers as I could get, but some closer ones were already taken. But look at the time the burst was recorded. It matches the time slot when she went through, not when someone else went through."
"Very well, we'll look into it. If she's done this several times, we'll check on each time. Also, we'll have to rule out the possibility the burst came from off the bridge, not from any car.
"She may not be the only one doing it, too. She may have fellow conspirators. What's more, now that you've showed us a new way for someone to commit time crime, we need to look for other conspiracies as well."
He held up the receivers. “You built these yourself? They look professionally done."
There was a sharp edge in Carson's reply. “I am a professional."
"Yes, of course. Now, are you planning to go to work today?"
"No. I wouldn't trust myself to do the job right. I'm going to call in sick. It won't be a lie, either."
"You do that. But one bit of advice. Don't try to drown the pain in booze. That only puts off the pain and makes it worse when it finally comes."
"Are you speaking from experience?"
"I ask the questions, Mr. Carson. But take my word for it. Trying to drown your sorrows in booze drowns you, not the sorrows."
Two days later the headlines read:
CONSOLIDATED INSURANCE EXECUTIVES ARRESTED FOR TIME CRIME
They sure moved fast, Carson thought. Wonder if they got a confession out of somebody. And what about Jenny? Was she one of those arrested? I could call her, but I really don't want to find out.
* * * *
A week later Carson got a call from Hamilton.
"Come down to the Federal Building. Meet me at the Grand Jury room on the fifth floor."
He found a parking place near the Federal Building.
Public servants have tax-paid parking spaces, he groused, but we taxpayers have to pay for our own, even when we're dealing with our rulers.
Hamilton was waiting for him outside the Grand Jury room.
"The jury returned indictments on about half of Consolidated's executives,” he said. “The conspiracy was pretty big. Most of them are going away for a long time."
"What about Jenny?"
"She's a cooperating witness."
"Yeah, I know what that means. You threaten to throw the book at them, so they plead guilty, whether they are or not, and they agree to testify against the others, whether they really know anything or not."
"She was guilty and you know it. However, she was only one of the small fry. In return for her testimony against the big fish, the prosecutor has agreed that he'll ask the judge to sentence her to only a year. The people on top will get twenty-five."
"Okay, why'd you call me here?"
"Miss Campbell wanted to see you."
Hamilton opened the jury room door. Jennifer stepped out. At the first sight of her, Carson's heart kicked him in the ribs. He gasped for breath.
Even that baggy orange jump suit can't completely hide her figure, he thought. But they've hacked off her hair. Now it just frames her face. It'd look good if it'd been done by a good hairdresser instead of a prison barber.
A bitter smile crossed his face as he recalled his fantasy of spreading Jennifer's long blond hair on a black satin pillow. That'll never happen now.
She stopped about six feet in front of him.
"Tom, I'm sorry. I was assigned to cultivate you and pick your brains about the security measures at the bridge. At the time, it didn't seem like a big deal. What I didn't expect...” she paused, took a deep breath, and blurted out, “What I didn't expect was that I'd fall in love with you."
She took another breath.
"I've hurt you, and I've hurt me, and I've messed up something that could have been good. I hope you can forgive me."
Without waiting for an answer, she turned and walked toward the waiting guard.
"Does she know,” Carson asked, “that I'm the one who intercepted her transmissions?"
"No, we kept you out of it. Once we knew what to do, it took us only a day to get an iron-clad case against her."
"Don't you tell her. I figure she has a right to hear it from me."
Hamilton gave Carson a long, piercing look. “Are you sure you can trust a woman who'd betray you the way she did?"
Carson sighed, then said, “I guess I've got a year to find out, don't I?"
Copyright (c) 2007 Joseph P. Martino
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BIOLOG: EKATERINA SEDIA by RICHARD A. LOVETT
* * * *
* * * *
Ekaterina Sedia likes lichens. “They're like little trees,” she says. That's because she's a biologist who did her Ph.D. studying them in New Jersey's Pine Barrens.
To date, however, there haven't been any lichens in her Analog stories. Instead, they've been about genetic engineering, including the popular “Alphabet Angels,” which (coauthored with David Bartell) not only won an AnLab Award, but was her first-ever fiction sale.
That story appeared in 2005. Since then, she's only appeared a handful of times in these pages, but she's published two novels and racked up nearly two dozen short story sales to other publications.
And she's not even doing this in her native language. Sedia was born in Russia and didn't move to the U.S. until 1991. Nor did she grow up reading science fiction. She began with literary mainstream, then shifted when she got older, “because there's just so much realism you can take."
She found that science fiction and fantasy are still basically about the human condition. “But you can put those humans into more interesting situations."
One advantage of coming to the field late was that she'd developed a literary taste that she could import into her fiction. “Words matter,” she says. “Style isn't something separate from a story."
As a biologist, she's struck by the paucity of stories featuring good, plausible biology. “Genetic engineering is generally used like magic,” she says. “It's the same with nanotechnology. Most people don't see the limitations."
She also likes history. An upcoming novel, The Secret History of Moscow, (due in November) deals with the things every culture sweeps under the carpet. “Basically, it's history written by the losers,” she says.
As a Russian, she's sometimes drawn to darker-than-average stories. “It's a stereotype,” she says, “but accurate.” Nor is she a fan of technological fixes. Many problems, she believes, are unintended consequences of prior technologies.
She avoids the pretense of thinking she writes only to entertain. Entertainment is important to her, but it can't be the only thing. “I recently saw magazine guidelines that said, ‘No agenda stories,'” she says. “All stories are agenda stories. You might not necessarily notice the agenda, but it's there. Either it's maintaining the status quo, or challenging it, or approving it, or ignoring it. For me, it's about acknowledging and questioning the status quo."
Copyright (c) 2007 Richard A. Lovett
[Back to Table of Contents]
VIRUS CHANGES SKIN by EKATERINA SEDIA
The question “Who's in charge here?” may apply on very large scales....
Willow Robertson smoothed the skirt over her thighs and perched on the examination table. Her hands gripped the edge, and she spent some time studying them—pale, with the slightest yellow tinge. Like nicotine. Jaundice. Old T-shirt.
She chased the thought away and instead rehearsed her words for Dr. Margulis. She arranged them carefully in her mind, fearful that the moment she started talking they would scatter like pearls, the string of resolve that tied them together broken.
She looked out of the window at what used to be tundra just
a few decades back and now became the pale scrub of pines and oaks. The sun beat down on the tarmac roads and the haggard town of hastily erected houses, shops, hangars, but people stayed indoors. Not safe. Even the farmers had to work in full protective gear.
Dr. Margulis entered the examination room, and as she walked she flipped through Willow's chart, skimming every childhood hurt (appendectomy at six, a leg broken on the monkey bars at ten), every adolescent embarrassment (laser removal of acne scars at fifteen, corrective eye surgery at seventeen), and every adult self-denial (tubal ligation at twenty-four, breast reduction at twenty-eight).
"What can I do for you?” Dr. Margulis said.
Willow gripped the edge of the table harder, watching the half moons on her nails pale into white. “My mother died last week."
"I am sorry to hear that.” Dr. Margulis's face folded along the well-worn lines into a habitual grimace of sympathy. Every doctor Willow had ever seen had that prefab expression, and these days their faces assumed it almost automatically. Too much cancer. Too much sun.
"It's all right,” Willow said. “I mean, she was in her eighties.” And answered the unspoken question, “I was a late child. Anyway, since my parents are gone now, I would like my alterations reversed."
"Your skin?” The doctor did not hide her surprise.
"Yes. And hair. I understand why my parents did it to me, they wanted me to have a better shot at getting ahead, but now I can do what I want. Right?"
"Of course. It's just ... what are your coworkers going to say?"
Willow shrugged. She did not have an answer to that. People's opinions mattered less to her with each passing year.
"Don't you like being the way you are?"
"I don't hate it,” Willow said. “But my parents did not ask me about it. They just had it done. And when I was little, I could not understand why I was a different color than they, and why they wouldn't come to my school plays. And I was angry that they didn't ask me. And they said that they didn't want me to change color when I was grown up—people would wonder, they said. You'd never pass then; someone will always remember that you used to be black."
Dr. Margulis raised her eyebrows and gave a sigh of resignation. I'm not going to argue with that, her demeanor said, I have better things to worry about. “Fine. The receptionist will schedule you for some time next week. I'll prepare your inoculation."
"Oral?"
The doctor nodded. “A very simple one. A single gene that will release the suppressors on your melanin genes."
"And hair,” Willow reminded softly.
"And hair. You'll have to shave your head, of course, and your new hair will grow with your original keratin structure. Anything else?"
"How long will it take?"
"For hair, a few weeks. For skin—it will be gradual. As your old cells slough off, the new ones will have a heavy pigmentation. The virus will target the skin cells only.” The doctor spoke with obvious pride in her ability to communicate complex information in simple terms.
"Thanks,” Willow said. As she was leaving the examination room, she heard Dr. Margulis say, “What are you trying to achieve?"
"I don't know,” Willow said and closed the door behind her.
It was true, she didn't. Color did not equal culture, and that was one thing that she had lost and could never reclaim. She still would be a white person, even if her skin turned the deepest shade of sienna. But she owed it to her mother to at least look like her.
* * * *
Willow was growing impatient—two weeks after she took the viral pill, her skin tone deepened only a little. Still, people noticed. She saw heads turn as she walked from her apartment complex—a new ugly building made even uglier by the massive solar panels on the roof—to work.
"You really shouldn't be out in the sun,” Andre, her coworker at the Corn Institute, said. “Skin cancer is no joke."
Willow rolled her eyes. “If you're done stating the obvious, do you mind looking over these data with me?” She spread the sequencer printout on the lab bench and rifled through the reference library of plant genomes. “Does this look right to you?"
Andre tugged on his upper lip. “Nope,” he said. “Which strain is it from?"
"IC5. The dwarf."
Andre's face lit up. “I love that strain. They're so cute."
Willow smiled too. Everyone at the Institute anthropomorphized corn; Willow used to find it ridiculous when she first started here, but now it seemed natural. And this corn was cute—tiny plants, no taller than wheat, with a spray of succulent leaves and thick robust stems, burdened by ears bigger than the rest of the plant.
"Anyway,” Andre continued. “They're not stable yet, so shit like this is to be expected. Did you find this mutation in the library?"
"Uh huh, only it's not from corn. It's a cauliflower gene."
"You're shitting me."
"See for yourself.” Willow moved the sheaf of papers toward Andre. “See? This is all corn, but this little bugger is cauliflower. Except for this G and that A."
Andre nodded. “Don't tell me. We used the cauliflower mosaic virus as a vector for this one."
Willow did not comment on stating the obvious. Instead, she thought of the viruses—always multiplying, always mutating—especially in Alaska, so close to the polar ozone hole. The rest of the country was even worse off, with its scorched land and tepid oceans, with its heat and dust storms, but here ... Willow shook her head. Not even glass and cement of the Institute could keep them contained.
"What?” Andre said.
"Do you ever think that viruses made us bring them here?"
He stared at her, unsure whether she was joking. “Made us bring them here how?"
"By making us smart. Too smart for our own good, so we messed up everything, and the viruses are our only hope, and we put them into every living thing, we give them new genes to carry around from organism to organism, we make UV radiation so high that they mutate like there's no tomorrow.” She bit her tongue.
"Viruses made us smart?"
"Why not? We use them to make things better, to shuffle genes about. They could've done it on their own. The unseen force of evolution."
He sat down, rubbing the bridge of his nose with two fingers. “It's possible, I guess. But what do we do with the dwarf?"
"Start over."
Andre made a face. “You sure we can't fix this one?"
Fix virus with virus, Willow thought. And why wouldn't they? She was doing the same thing—she introduced a virus into her body to counteract the effects of the one her parents put in her. She imagined that virus when she was a kid. In her mind, she pictured it taking her melanin genes and twisting them into little black coils, tight like braids of her old neighborhood friends, so they would lie dormant and not betray her blackness to the world. Now, quite grown up, she imagined the virus untwisting them, she imagined the pigment seeping through her cells, reaching the surface of her skin, coloring her—like a letter written in milk, she was just waiting for the right stimulus to reveal her hidden meaning. She was white paper, and the black viral letters would soon become bright enough to read.
"Willow?"
"I suppose,” she said. “Maybe. ‘Fire with fire’ is our motto, right?"
Andre looked puzzled. “I don't think you're having a good day."
"I'm having a great day,” Willow said, and stood. “I'm going to the greenhouse."
"Grab me a tray of EB-A seedlings, will you?” It was Andre's pet strain; he called the seedlings ‘babies.'
"Sure thing. How're your babies doing, by the way?"
Andre sighed. “Tumorously. If that's a word."
"It should be."
In the greenhouse Willow walked along the aluminum benches with rows of trays housing green sprouts. Each tray bore a label indicating its strain and growing conditions—with traditional agricultural soils gone to dust or underwater, everyone at the institute worked hard to create corn that would grow in the peat and s
and of Alaska.
Willow sighed as she ran her fingers along the tender stems. Poor plants, she thought, they don't know what they are and don't remember what they're supposed to be. The only choice they have is to grow blindly in every direction, whipped by viruses that changed them with their alien will. Tumorously.
* * * *
Willow caressed the fabric of the caftan, gingerly tracing the pattern of blue and orange stripes. It seemed too loud, too boisterous. Expensive, too, ever since all cotton had to be imported from Canada. Nonetheless, she put it on.
"It looks good,” said the store clerk the moment Willow stepped from behind the curtain of the dressing room.
The woman in the mirror seemed as foreign as the caftan that slithered along her body, shifting and shimmering with every breath. The woman with dark glossy skin. Willow did not belong inside either of them; she could not take off her skin, and so it was the dress that had to go.
"Didn't like it?” said the store clerk when Willow, back in her white blouse and blue slacks, handed her the caftan. “Too bad; it looked really good on you.” She smiled wistfully, a pale freckled girl. “I wish I could pull off wearing something like that.” She clamped her hand over the startled ‘o’ of her mouth. “I didn't mean it in a bad way."
"I know,” Willow said, smoothing her short hair. “Don't apologize. And it's a nice dress, but I couldn't wear it for work. And I don't go anywhere else."
The store clerk nodded. “I understand. And I'm sorry."
Willow bought a white blouse and a pair of long, jangly earrings to combat her guilt. She felt fake, undeserving.
She walked home. In these high latitudes, darkness all but disappeared in the summer. Nine P.M., and the sun still shone through the thick haze surrounding it. Even at night there was no respite from the radiation.
Willow hated to imagine what happened to the rest of the country. With Florida submerged and Pennsylvania a thirsty, cracked desert, with dustbowls and tornadoes, they were lucky to have a place to go. After Alaska, there would be nothing left. They had to make do.
Analog SFF, October 2007 Page 11
