The Heart of the Comet

by David Brin

  He had smiled and stroked her glossy bangs. “Sure. They’ve reinstated my membership, too. But naming a chemical after me…”

  “You don’t want them to?” she had asked.

  “Hell, no!” He’d laughed. “Think of poor Thomas Fruck, with his name tied forever to fructose!”

  She was too logy and languid from their lovemaking to do more than reach if back and pinch him for the affront of a joke.

  SERIOUSLY, I SHOULD SUGGEST A NAME, he subvocalised. By now JonVon knew their surface networks well enough to deliver clear words most of the time. Saul felt her understanding echo back, amplified, the way her sexual fury and climax had confirmed themselves in his own mind a while ago, like explosions trying to lift the surface of his skull.

  “Hnmimm,” she mumbled. He could sense her drifting off into slumber.

  …COMET-OSE… came her suggestion.

  He had been so offended by the horrible pun that it didn’t even occur to him until later that she must have already been asleep when he heard it.

  Whatever its name, the sugar compound was the key… the sweetness he had used to forge a gingerbread cannon.

  The missing madman, Ingersoll—by now a legend of the lower caverns—had given him the idea. Not long after he had glimpsed the man grazing on Halley lifeforms in the outer hallways, he had done something admittedly foolish; he had tasted some of the wall growth himself.

  The stuff had been sweet, tangy, like lemon drops.

  Saul played a hunch. Began some experiments. And here they were, the new cyanutes. They were still good at their old jobs, but now they were also voracious for anything with the special sugar complex… for any invader wearing clothes saying “Halley.”

  On the screen the tiny creatures clustered where cometary-viroid-coat factors flowed from the tip of a needle. Instruments showed them gobbling contentedly and multiplying with abandon.

  We were due for some good news.

  Oh, the Halleyforms would adapt, evolve. This was not the end by a long shot. But it was starting to look as if the acute panic period might be over at last.

  What have I missed? Saul wondered anxiously, perplexed. How was it possible to do it at all?

  A chime sounded. Everything checked out. Saul pulled out the tube of fully tested cyanutes. From his lab it was a short glide to sick bay, where two lines of people waited along opposite walls to be served by the two med-techs on duty.

  One of the queues was shorter than the other, but Saul did not see any Orthos moving over to stand in the Percell line. Ould-Harrad should never have let this system of segregation develop.

  People did not stand any closer together than they had to. No one was sure how the cometary diseases were transmitted. Fights had broken out over a cough…or over one man using another’s space helmet without permission.

  And every sick call turned up several who were faking symptoms, trying to escape the backbreaking work and drop-dead sicknesses by fleeing into the slots.

  Well, at least the lines are shorter than they were a few months back. First, anger over the mutiny took their minds off things for a while. And Carl Osborn’s heroics had suppressed the Ortho-Percell squabbling. The “norms” all knew they owed their lives to a Percell.

  Now, if only these new cyanutes work as well as the first tests indicate…

  A booth at the back of sick bay opened, and out stepped a woman who smiled and waved at Saul. Marguerite von Zoon looked almost like a different person. Gone were the ravages that were tearing her skin apart two months ago. She had resumed her medical duties, releasing Saul for research.

  Saul’s smile dropped when he saw Marguerite’s patient—a younger woman in a gray ship’s suit—who edged past the Walloon physician and hurried away toward the exit holding a cloth to one side of her face. Even turning her head away, she could not completely hide a shimmering, pink rash.

  “Lani!” Saul whispered in dismay.

  He had hoped that Marguerite’s diagnosis might turn out to be wrong, but there was no mistaking the symptoms of Zipper Pox.

  “Lani?” he said, but she hurried by without looking up. These in both lines edged away as she passed.

  Oh, Lani.

  It was one of those diseases that seemed impervious, so far, to any of the tricks to come out of the lab. Even with his recent string of incredible luck.

  It was ironic. While others were fighting to get back into the slots, Lani had begged to stay awake. But the decision was made. Her cooling had already been scheduled for day after tomorrow.

  Carl has been a real rat to her, Saul thought. If he isn’t there for Lani’s slotting, I’m going to punch him in the nose.

  “Dr. Lintz!”

  Keoki Anuenue, the med-tech handling the shorter Percell line, stood up as Saul crossed the waiting room. The Hawaiian momentarily left the side of a dull-eyed man whose ears were packed with cotton, who slapped the side of his head every few minutes as in vain effort to stop the sound of bells.

  Anuenue was exceptional even for a Hawaiian—one of the rare Orthos who seemed completely oblivious to both sickness and despair. He seemed never to sleep. Whenever Saul came in, Keoki was already on duty.

  He grinned broadly, gesturing down at the vial in Saul’s hand, anticipation in his voice as he asked, “Is that the latest cyanute varietal, Dr. Lintz?”

  He thinks I can do anything. So does Virginia. Saul shrugged. And after the luck I’ve been having, who am I to disagree? It was a sardonic thought. He knew something mysterious was going on, and it had little to do with skill.

  He held out the vial.

  “Here you are, Keoki. Find volunteers the usual way. Only desperate cases, at first. These ought to be useful against the Node Lodes, as well as Sinus Whinus and the Red Clap.”

  Anuenue eagerly took the flask. He started to speak, then somebody in the line along the left wall cut loose in a loud, sudden sneeze.

  All around the room, people looked up accusingly. It wasn’t me, this time, Saul felt like disclaiming.

  As if it were a trigger, more sneezes erupted from the Ortho side of the chamber. The line lengthened as people put more room between themselves and the miscreants.

  Saul glanced at the genetically enhanced group. Percells hardly ever sneezed.

  They caught the same diseases as everyone else. Saul had tried to explain this over and over to resentful Orthos. If a viroid or other comet microbe was going to kill outfight, it didn’t matter much which group you belonged to.

  But Percells’ bodies did not overreact. Their lymph nodes and membranes might swell while the body’s immune system waged war on invaders, but the process was self-limiting. They didn’t balloon up and die of their own overeager defenses.

  Simon, he thought. This was the gift of which you were proudest, even though it mystified you, too… that every child you worked on somehow benefited from the same augmentation, whatever genetic disease you had started out working on.

  It had surprised everyone, back in Berkeley. They had used DNA strip-readers and molecular surgery to edit harmful genes from sperm and ova of couples desperate to have children. But few had expected the babies who came forth out of those microrepaired cells to emerge so enhanced.

  It’s a gift we gave them. A gift with the terrible price of making them different.

  “Saul!”

  A voice from across sick bay—he looked up and saw Akio Matsudo waving at him from his office door.

  Saul glanced at Keoki Anuenue, who grinned. “Go on, Doctor. I’ll find those volunteers, and I’ll let you know before the tests begin.”

  Saul nodded, concealing deep within the dread of what he knew had to come, sooner or later. Eventually, his bizarre string of luck would run out. One of his tailor-made symbionts would kill, rather than save its host. And then, no matter how much good he had done before, they would turn on him. All of them.

  As they had turned on Simon Percell.

  As the mob had burned a university on a mountaintop, so lon
g ago and so very far away.

  “Mai kii aku i kauka hupo,” he told Keoki.

  Don’t get an ignorant doctor.

  The big Hawaiian blinked in surprise, then rocked back laughing. The sound was so rich, so infectious, that several of those standing in line smiled without quite knowing why.

  “Coming, ’Kio,” he called to Matsudo. “I’ll be right there.”

  The snow-covered slopes of Mount Asahi were as symmetrical as the green pines blanketing its lower flanks. Clouds, like rice-paper boats, floated past on an invisible layer of either air or magic, setting forth toward a setting sun and a dark blue western sea.

  Saul was content to watch Akio Matsudo’s weather wall, perhaps the finest in all the colony. Indeed. until Virginia came off shift in two hours, this was just about the best thing he could think of to do with his time.

  It beats working, he thought tiredly. For once his mind was not awhirl with ideas, the next experiment to try, the next clue to trace. He sat, zazen fashion, thinking as little as possible.

  Something we Westerners have learned from the East… that beauty can be found in the smallest things.

  The earthy brown clay tea set had been brought all the way from the shores of the Inland Sea. Its rough surfaces reflected the mute colors of the late afternoon light in a way that could not be described, only admired. The shaping marks on the cup in front of Saul seemed to have been formed on the same wheel as that which turned Creation. It was contemporary with the planets, with the sun.

  Entranced, Saul glanced up when Akio Matsudo spoke.

  “The wait will be worth it, Saul. Be patient.”

  Waiting? Saul thought. Was that what I was doing?

  Highlights in the Japanese physician’s glossy black hair shone like Mount Asahi’s glaciers as he fussed over the tea, commenting on the difficulty of boiling water properly in low gravity, what with weakened convection and all. To Saul, the man’s voice was one with the rustling pines.

  “I will now pour,” Akio intoned, and lifted the cups delicately.

  Saul was not in a hurry to get to business. When the ceremony was finished, and the tea poured, they gossiped over inconsequential matters—the latest fashion in mathematical philosophy on Earth, and the strange propositions being put forward by the Marxist theologians of Kiev. The journals had been full of it, and they both wondered aloud what Nicholas Malenkov would have made of it all.

  Akio seemed in much better health now. He had been one of Saul’s first volunteers to take an early version of the retailored cyanutes. It was that or lose him permanently to the infection tearing away at his liver. Now the sickly yellow pallor was gone. He had regained weight. Soon he would even quit using the mechanical endocrine rebalancer that had been keeping him alive.

  Saul was very pleased to see his friend healthy and spry again.

  I was able to help Virginia, and Marguerite, and Akio. Maybe, later, we can do something for Lani and Betty Oakes, and so many others.

  Memory of Miguel Cruz was still a sharp pain. More than anyone else, their commander was needed. But there were limits to what Saul ever expected to be able to do, no matter how lucky he was.

  Akio Matsudo put down his cup and carefully removed his glasses to polish them. “Saul, my friend, forgive my bluntness. But I think that perhaps I should explain why I asked you here today. I believe that now it is time for you to go into the slots.”

  Saul put down his cup. Akio raised his hands.

  “Before you protest, please allow me to explain. There are many, many reasons.”

  He raised one finger. “First Watch was supposed to last only a little over a year. The colony’s anniversary is this month. And you were one of the few civilians awake for the entire trip out, on the Edmund. You are losing lifespan. It is unfair to you, who have less of it to spare than the youngsters outside.”

  Saul snorted. “What is this, Akio? We may have passed through the worst part, but the staffing nightmare isn’t over yet. With all the people we’ve had to pull, term slot, and even vac-store out on the surface, it’s clear the shifts will have to be longer than planned. You know that argument’s a load of crap.”

  Matsudo winced at Saul’s bluntness.

  “Yesss.” His agreement sounded more like a suppressed hiss of disapproval. “Perhaps. But I must tell you that Bethany Oakes made me promise, before she herself was slotted, that you would be put away if your symptoms grew worse.”

  “They aren’t any worse,” Saul grumbled. “It’s just another bad cold. I think it’s still a leftover from one of your damn challenge viruses. I can tell by the way it tickles before I sneeze.”

  He knew better, of course. There was comet stuff inside him, from viroids to latent bacteroids. Some of the variants did not use the Halley sugar complex, and so were doubtless invulnerable to his new silver bullets.

  And I’m older than mast. Could be that makes me more vulnerable.

  For a moment the contemplative daze threatened to return. The conversation had reminded him of a weird sensation he had had, a few days ago, on examining a sample of his own blood… a feeling that something…

  He shook his head. No. This is… He searched for a Yiddish expression and failed. Bullshit. Good old Anglo-Saxon bullshit. That’s the only word for it.

  “There is a second major reason.” Matsudo squeezed and covered another cup of sharp, yellow-brown tea for each of them. “Because of the mutiny, this year’s desperate effort will be to build greenhouses on the surface, and farms down in chamber Tau. The hydroponics pod from the Edmundmust be kept alive until new food-production facilities are set up. That is why Evans is being thawed now—he is the best of all the expedition ecologists, and Svatuto is coming out of the slots as his backup.”

  Saul noted Matsudo’s pained expression flickering when he had to mention the Edmund. Even more to be avoided was any mention of the Newburn. In all the time since the mutineers had departed, not once had Saul heard anybody utter the name of the lost slot tug, now apparently completely out of reach and growing more distant with every passing day. It was an utterly taboo subject.

  “Yes? So it’ll be good to consult with Evans. There are some matters concerning the origin of Halley lifeforms that an ecologist can help with. I’m not certain I can accept the old explanation any longer.”

  Akio looked out over the scene of sunset on the Western Sea. The clouds had turned orange and black, breathlessly beautiful.

  “You misunderstand me, Saul. This means we will have more medical people awake than is proper in the long run, over forty shifts. Svatuto is a better clinician than you are, anyway. You know that, Saul.”

  Saul shrugged. “That’s why I went into research,” he said, reaching for his handkerchief. “Can’t… can’t stand sick people.” The room wavered. Saul shook his head vigorously. Then he turned aside and sneezed.

  Matsudo jumped slightly, and finally smiled. “Nobody does that so dramatically. It is that Semitic profundity of a nose, I suppose. Seriously, Saul, that is another reason. Forgive me, but you disrupt everything. People fear your noisy, drippy symptoms, even as they respect your genius. Lieutenant Colonel Ould-Harrad and others think that it would be best for everybody if you should rest for a while.”

  Saul shook his head. “I just now realized, you’re actually serious about this, Akio. Right when my work is…” He stopped, unable to find words for how well things were going in the lab.

  Then there was also Virginia. Her love is the best thing that’s happened to me in ten years.

  The tentative, simulated telempathy they shared through her daring, unconventional biocybernetics was as exciting in its own fashion as his work in bioengineering. They were both accomplishing things that would shake up half-a-dozen disciplines! Why, over, just the last week he had received messages from crusty old Wallin, at Oxford, and even aloof, above-it-all Tang in Peking …

  “This is in no way to detract from your accomplishments,” Matsudo said quickly, trying to soothe Sa
id. “You have, in fact, achieved wonders, wonders! I find your methods unnerving, as well you know, but I cannot argue with success. If any of us survive, it will be in no small measure thanks to you.”

  Saul shook his head. “There’s more to be done! We have to see if the procedures.”

  “And I insist that you underrate your success!” the tall Japanese hissed.

  Akio must have been severely agitated. This was the first time in Saul’s experience that he had ever interrupted anybody. The man looked quickly aside. “Excuse me, please. But I have done simulations, and Earth Control concurs. The larger Halleyform organisms—the purples especially—can be kept in check using ultraviolet and your new microwave beamers. The fungoids are now under control using more precise versions of both techniques.”

  “And the diseases?”

  “The diseases fall off dramatically in nearly everyone who has received your new cyanutes. Tests show there are few actual cures, but the advantage has been given back to the human body’s immune system.”

  “So.”

  “So your techniques will hold the line! People will fall ill, true. Some will even die—but at a far, far slower rate.”

  Then Akio did something quite rare. He looked Saul directly in the eyes.

  “I am in awe of your power, Saul Lintz,” he confessed softly. “Another reason you must be slotted is that we simply cannot afford to lose you. There are three decades ahead until the hard work of aphelion. A greater period afterwards. There will be more crises. New, adapted bacteroids and viroids. Please think of yourself as our secret weapon, our reserve against all contingencies.”

  His eyes were pleading, asking Saul to accept, and not to inflict any more of his Occidental directness against something that was already decided.

  He’s holding something back, Saul realized. Politics? Orders from Earth?

  Virginia had spliced press clips for him, over the two months since the mutiny. He had been too busy to more than glance at the news blurbs, but apparently some elements in the media were making celebrities of two particular members of the Halley Expedition.