Mutationem

by Phoenix Jericho

  Leea lowered herself completely down, reached for the black bottle of wine, and poured it over her naked body. She was soon engulfed in a mass of licking tongues and writhing bodies.

  Afterwards, with slow, deliberate motions, Leea removed herself from the sleeping mass of women. Standing up, she looked over each naked body, then turned and dove into the pond. Her naked body broke the surface and disappeared without even a ripple. Due to the gel’s thick consistency, it remained in the pond and didn’t float around in space.

  The moon pond was shaped like a crescent. It was filled with an oxygenated substance called breathing gel. The gel was translucent like water but had a yellow tinge. This cast an eerie shadow the length of the pond reflected by the light at the bottom of the pool.

  Leea was lying on her side with the crescent light under her. Its yellow glow outlined her body like a highlighter. Her chest wasn’t moving, and her breasts remained still; in fact, she appeared dead. But she wasn’t. Her lungs were full of the breathing gel.

  Closing her eyes, Leea drifted off to sleep. Maybe this trip isn’t going to be so bad after all.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The bone saw’s high-pitched whine could be heard throughout Science Bay. Connie had a pig fetus from the freezer tacked to a med board. By tacking it to the board, Connie didn’t need any assistants to aid her. She preferred to be isolated when she worked. She had already cut a six-inch incision from the hip to the knee, exposing the pig’s femur with a scalpel. The bone saw made a sickening noise as it cut through the femur at the hip. She then made another cut above the knee and turned off the saw.

  Pushing up the splash visor, she picked up the scalpel and cut all the muscle attachments and fascia, freeing the bony segment from the tissue. The bone was milky white with a bit of blood where the tendons had been attached. The pig fetus had been preserved with a radioactive isotope that slowed the process of decaying significantly compared to the old embalming technique used on Earth. Space travel could take a hundred years or more, so the preserving process was critical. The problem with using the radioactive isotope was that it actually broke down and damaged the DNA. These specimens were never intended for cloning.

  The stress of the situation wasn’t evident on Connie’s face. Examining the bone at one cut end, she stuck a long, thin needle into it. Satisfied that she had extracted enough of the rich bone marrow tissue, she pulled the needle out, placed the bone onto the polished chrome med table, and walked over to the gene sequencer. The gene sequencer was a large white machine the size of a refrigerator. It ran twenty-four hours a day, crunching the DNA sequence of whatever was loaded into it.

  Connie placed the syringe tip into the port on the sequencer and turned the knurled knob counterclockwise, emptying the syringe’s contents. Pulling the needle out, she programmed the screen. Her viewer in her right artificial eye was synced to the machine so she could watch the program run its cycle. Pressing a Science Bay com, she requested a crew woman to come place the fetus back in the freezer and sterilize the lab. Knowing the cloning process was long and tedious, she relaxed and floated out the stainless steel doors. With her mind now shifted into neutral, she headed to the garden.

  Chapter Thirty

  Sophi’s crying was soft, unnoticed by her crew. She was feeling enormous guilt. On the outside, Sophi appeared to be a simple and innocent person; her crew adored her. But on the inside, she was a tightly wound and complicated person, a chameleon hiding in her crew’s midst. She had been trained by the KGB and planted as a mole aboard the ship.

  Who would have thought a glorified cleaning lady who had risen through the ranks would be a highly trained spy? She had scored just high enough on her written and physical tests to be noticed. Outwardly, she appeared to be a normal immigrant to the United States and was in the hardworking middle class. Her background check was typical: she came from Puerto Rico, was divorced with three children, and had a large mortgage on her two-bedroom condo.

  But that was all a lie. Well, almost all of it was a lie—she was from Puerto Rico. But the rest was a fabrication of her KGB handlers. Her mother was Puerto Rican and her father was a mix of Russian and Chinese. Physically she looked like her mother, which gave her the good cover. It was her father who had been a KGB operative in China. When China and Russia had merged their two economies to become the world’s largest superpower in 2097, they were unstoppable. This made them the largest combined landmass country, the largest reserve of Earth’s natural resources, and the largest army the world had ever seen. The United States had survived solely by combining itself with Canada and South America, and by staying ahead of the rest of the world with its military technology. If not for that, it would have folded years ago to the Russian-Chinese Alliance.

  Despite this alliance, Russia still spied on China. This is where Sophi’s father fit in, and when Sophi was born, she fit into the political puzzle as well. The Russians wanted moles planted who would report America’s advancements in military and space technologies. When they had learned about the futuristic ship being designed and built to go to A-64, they activated Sophi. She was a perfect fit, highly trained in intelligence gathering, espionage, counterespionage, and explosives. She understood all of the fundamentals of the ship better than anyone else. She spoke eight languages and was trained in Russian combat sambo and Brazilian jiujitsu martial arts. But her Spanish accent, curvy body, and job placement as the crew quarters section commander camouflaged her true identity.

  Wiping the tears from her eyes, she continued to check the crew quarters. It was a large section with enough space to house all four hundred crew and their gear. Every day she toured the whole section to make sure that her staff was doing their job and that the crew was doing their part with their personal belongings. A messy ship was unacceptable.

  Sophi followed all of the captain’s orders to a T. Because of this, she had a lot of time to think. Ever since launch, she had been plagued with guilt: the guilt of knowing she was somebody else, and the guilt of knowing she had come on board to betray everyone. Her orders were clear: report everything vital to KGB headquarters and, if required, sacrifice herself and destroy the ship.

  Ever since launch, she had been attempting contact with her superiors in Moscow. The sophisticated device to do this had been smuggled on board piece by piece and secretly hidden behind a panel in a storage closet. She had gone in there each day since launch and used it. It was a telecom helmet that you pulled over your head. It completely blocked any voice spoken by the user or receiver, and cleverly used the ship’s hull as an antenna.

  At first, Sophi had thought the captain had cleverly developed the ruse that Earth was gone to smoke out a mole like her. But each attempt with her telecom helmet failed. In her heart she knew it was true: they were alone. With this burden in her heart, she headed to Kriss’s quarters.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Dozer’s tail was moving back and forth in short strokes, and he was making loud chirping noises like a baby cheetah. Libby had taken off her learning visor and had put it on him. He was intently watching the inside of the visor, and every now and then he would swat at the air.

  “What are you letting Dozer watch?” asked Susanna.

  “He is watching a migration of blackbirds in the Deep South,” said Libby.

  Susanna was no longer amazed at her daughter’s vocabulary. Libby was advancing rapidly; Susanna hoped it would be a long time before Libby discovered boys in her visor.

  “Momma, can I take my kitty to the kitchen to see Spuds? I know he is hungry,” said Libby.

  “Okay, baby, but only there, then right back. Understood?”

  “Yes, Mother,” said Libby with a giggle. Taking the visor off Dozer, Libby pulled him toward the stainless steel doors of the crew quarters. Libby and Susanna had been moved there after launch, and of course Dozer came as well.

  It didn’t take much enc
ouragement to get the cat to go; he was already towing Libby down the hall. Soon they were at the kitchen’s entrance. As Libby touched the door with her hand, the door opened. Captain Kriss had given Libby full access to the ship.

  Dozer jumped up on the counter and pulled Libby up as well. There they watched Spuds mixing flour into bread.

  “What are you doing with those seeds?” asked Libby.

  “They aren’t called seeds, dear. They are called grain,” said Spuds. “We got these seeds, or grain, from the wheat we harvested in the garden today. Now I am going to put them into this mill to make flour.”

  “I love flowers,” said Libby.

  “No, honey, these aren’t flowers. This milling machine grinds the seeds down until they are a soft powder that we call flour.”

  “What do we use flour for?” asked Libby.

  “I’ll show you,” said Spuds. Going over to a large oven, she pulled a metal sheet out with just-cooked buns. “See this? This is bread,” said Spuds.

  “I love bread,” said Libby. “Especially with peanut butter and jelly. Spuds, will you feed Dozer? I know he is hungry.”

  Soon both the cat and baby girl were full of food. Reaching her hands into the cat’s fur, Libby whispered into his ear, “Let’s go have a nap.”

  Dozer got up and began towing Libby down the hall. With his sleeping cargo in tow, Dozer decided not to return to crew quarters, as Susanna had instructed, but instead chose to go exploring. Soon they were at the navigation and command section.

  Dozer walked up to the door and touched it with his nose. Nothing happened. He tried again, but the cold doors remained closed. Undaunted, he turned his body so that Libby’s foot could touch the door. Instantly, the doors opened. Stepping in, he pulled the still sleeping baby behind him.

  This section of the ship was dimly lit, and it took several minutes for one’s eyes to adjust. Dozer could see in the dark, so it was actually quite pleasant for him. He preferred the dark; it reminded him of hunting at night on Earth. Most of the ship was brightly lit, and now, discovering the darkness of navigation and command, Dozer had found his favorite place.

  This section of the ship was the control center and brains. Every system on board was monitored and wired to Command, from the nuclear reactor to the ovens in the kitchen. There was a mass of gauges, LED lights, buttons, and levers. The entire section was dimly lit for the crew to better see all the instrumentation. Crew women were seated across the room, checking and crosschecking everything.

  Seated in the middle, on an elevated platform, was the captain. This was where Kriss practically lived; from this location she could see the entire bridge. The crew affectionately called her spot “The Roost.”

  Captain Kriss was seated in a high-backed chair, leaned back in a supine position that made her appear to be asleep. A computer was projecting a hologram image up in the air of the ship’s trajectory, the surrounding stars and planets, and their destination, A-64. It was suspended in the center of the dark room like some magician’s levitation trick. The ship was silver, its trajectory and intended flight path red, the planets shades of green and yellow, and A-64 bright gold with its two circling suns in purple. Where Earth had once been was a flickering blue globe with all seven continents outlined in black. The image appeared and disappeared like an electric light threatening to go out during a power failure. It was as if the ship’s computer knew Earth was no more. The suspended hologram rotated slowly so every viewer would get a complete visualization of the map.

  Dozer looked up in amazement. To him the hologram looked like a bunch of Christmas ornaments hanging by strings from a revolving tree. Libby was still fast asleep, her little pink hands clamped onto Dozer’s body.

  The cat walked around the room, keeping to the shadows below eye level. Deciding he wanted to be at the highest spot in the room, Dozer jumped up to the Roost. He landed at the end of Kriss’s padded command chair. Gently pulling himself and Libby up like a rock climber reaching over the edge of the summit, Dozer stared intently at Kriss’s face. Kriss was, in fact, asleep.

  With Libby trailing behind him, the cat curled up between the commander’s legs. With the combined heavy breathing of Libby and the ship’s commander, Dozer’s eyes got heavy. But he fought it as long as he could because the Christmas tree overhead was so beautiful.

  Forty-five minutes later, Kriss had a muscle spasm from a dream and awoke. Looking down, she said, “I’ll be damned.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Looking around the garden, Connie made sure that she was alone as she squeezed through the rows of corn. “Oh my, what a big beautiful boy you are,” she beamed. “Too bad Momma has to cut you down.”

  Taking out a pair of long-handled pruning shears, she cut the pot plant off even with the soil matrix. It made a metal-on-metal guillotine-like noise. A similar noise would normally cause a shiver to go down your spine. But not for Connie; to her, it sounded like the sharpening of a chainsaw prior to a Douglas fir being felled. It meant you were about to harvest something with great reward.

  With a crash, the giant plant hit the bulkhead and twisted off at the stump where the shears hadn’t completely cut through the stalk. This was blind luck on Connie’s part. The twisting action allowed the bushy plant to avoid getting hung up in the mature corn. If it had, she would have had to have harvested some of the corn as well. That would have been a dead giveaway.

  With glistening sweat on her face, she began the task of cutting each branch off with microtipped scissors. She did this in a very loving and tender way. Now was not the time to be rough. Rough handling of the plant would cause the trichomes to break off. Connie wanted to preserve them because of the euphoric properties they contained. By looking under a jeweler’s magnifying loupe, Connie had chosen the fourth and most desirable stage of the trichomes to harvest her plant. In this fourth stage, the trichomes were half amber and half cloudy in color, indicating that the trichomes would yield the best blend of pot, giving both a body and head high.

  Unrolling a laundry bag she had smuggled out of her crew quarters, she carefully placed all the branches inside. She then used the pruning shears to cut the stalk up into twelve-inch lengths. She took these eight pieces and pushed them into the soil matrix in between several rows of corn. If anyone noticed during the harvest, it would just look like a cut of cornstalk buried in the matrix.

  Satisfied that she had done a good job, she threw the laundry bag over her shoulder and headed to Science Bay. No one stopped to question her. Everyone on board was busy like a colony of ants. And one big ant going the wrong way with a big green leaf seemed okay.

  With a loud huff, Connie put the bag down. Looking around to make sure the coast was clear, she placed her fingers in a particular pressure pattern on the wall by a fume hood. Her fingertips and thumb pushed together, forming a metacarpal ring that acted like her own human key, releasing a hidden latch that allowed the side of the fume hood to open. Stepping inside, she closed the hidden door behind her.

  When the door closed, a bright strip of LED lights came on overhead. Against one wall was a metal boxlike device that had a digital display on the front with a keypad. Opening it up, Connie carefully stuffed all the pot plant branches into it. None of the branches touched each other; they were spaced equal distances apart. Closing the device, she programmed the digital display. There was no noise, just a few alternating flashing lights.

  Connie had designed and built this device on her own. She had been a little misleading to Merc, telling her the requested parts were for other things in Science Bay. Connie had quite ingeniously made a machine that completely dried the branches, then removed all the leaves and buds, grinding them up into a smokable tobacco-like powder. The machine basically took all the tedious manual labor and month-long drying time out of the equation. She called her invention “The Haze Maker.” It only took two hours to process a plant from start to finish
.

  Affectionately, Connie rubbed the Haze Maker. Just then, her right-eye viewfinder popped up, and the words “DNA incomplete” flashed.

  “Fuck me.” Hurriedly, Connie opened the secret door and headed to the gene sequencer in the next room.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Sophi passed a crew woman whose insignia on her right arm indicated she was a higher-ranking officer.

  “Excuse me, but did you just come from Command?” asked Sophi.

  “Yes, I did, sir,” said the girl.

  “Is Captain Kriss on the Roost?” asked Sophi.

  “No, sir, I think she is exercising in the gym.”

  Creasing her lips with determination, Sophi headed to the gym.

  Kriss was walking around the gym’s track. Sweat was running freely in serpentine streams down her face, dripping onto her breasts, then merging into a major tributary that pooled in her belly button. Once the belly button filled up, sweat would break over the rim and release in a miniature wave towards her crotch.

  Kriss was small, but she pumped her arms as fast as her legs moved. Due to her short strides, she followed behind Smitty, and with time, was lapped by the much taller woman.

  Smitty’s physique was much different than the captain’s. She weighed 220 pounds, was almost six feet tall, and looked like a professional bodybuilder. Her full name was Rosemary Smith, which had been shortened to Smitty by the captain. She had a square, angular jaw, short, blond, spiky hair, large blue eyes that could turn instantly to blue steel, small ears, and a perfect nose. She had a muscular, rippled back, narrow waist, large quads and hamstrings, and a perfect set of calves to match. She was a perfectly balanced woman; no muscle group was lacking.