A Gift From Earth

by Larry Niven

  "Consider war as a tool of diplomacy." Millard Parlette stopped to gasp for breath. After a moment he went on.

  "It was, you know. Then came poison gas, and fission bombs, and fission-fusion bombs, and a possible fissionfusion-radiocobalt bomb. Each invention made war less and less useful for imposing one's will, more and more randomly destructive, until nationalism itself became too dangerous to be tolerated, and the United Nations on Earth became more powerful than any possible minority alliance of nations.

  "Consider the settling of the Belt. A solely technological development, yet it created the wealthiest population in the system in a region which absolutely required new ethics, where stupidity automatically carries its own death penalty."

  The old man stopped again, exhausted.

  "I'm no historian," said Harry. "But morals are morals. What's unethical here and now is unethical anywhere, anytime."

  "Kane, you're wrong. It is ethical to execute a man for theft?"

  "Of course."

  "Did you know that there was once a vastly detailed science of rehabilitation for criminals? It was a branch of psychology, naturally, but it was by far the largest such branch. By the middle of century twenty-one, nearly two-thirds of all criminals could eventually be released as cured."

  "That's silly. Why go to all that trouble when the organ banks must have been crying for — Oh. I see. No organ banks."

  The old man was finally smiling, showing perfect new white teeth. Sparkling teeth and keen gray eyes: The real Millard Parlette showed behind the cracked, wrinkled, loose rubber mask of his face.

  Except that the teeth couldn't be his, thought Harry. Nuts to that. "Go on." he said.

  "One day a long time ago I realized that the ethical situation on Mount Lookitthat was fragile. It was bound to change someday, and suddenly, what with Earth constantly bombarding us with new discoveries. I decided to be ready."

  There were footsteps on the stairs, running. Lydia and Hood burst in.

  Harry Kane introduced Hood to Millard Parlette as if they were already allies. Hood took his cue and shook hands formally, wincing inside himself because Parlette's hand still felt like something dead.

  "Keep that hand," said Millard Parlette. "Examine it."

  "We already did."

  "Your conclusions?"

  "Ask you about it."

  "Apparently Earth is using biological engineering for medical purposes. There were four gifts in the ramrobot package, along with complete instructions for their care and use. One was a kind of fungus-virus symbiot. I dipped my little finger in it. Now the muck is replacing my skin."

  "Replacing — ? Sorry," said Hood. It was difficult not to interrupt Parlette, his speech was so irritatingly slow.

  "That's right. First it dissolves the epidermis, leaving. only the living cells beneath. Then it somehow stimulates the DNA memory in the derma. Probably the virus component does that. You may know that a virus does not reproduce; it compels its host to produce more virus, by inserting its own reproductive chains into the host cells."

  "You may have a permanent guest," said Hood.

  "No. The virus dies after a short time. Any virus does that. Then the fungus starves."

  "Wonderful! The muck moves in a ring, leaving new skin behind!" Hood considered. "Earth really came through this time. But what happens when it reaches your eyes?"

  "I don't know. But there were no special instructions. I offered myself as a test subject because I could use a new pelt. It's even supposed to get rid of scar tissue. It does."

  "That's quite an advance," said Harry.

  "But you don't see why it's important. Kane, I showed you this first because I happened to bring it along. The others will jolt you." Parlette let his head-droop to relieve the strain on his neck. "I don't know what animal gave birth to the second gift, but it now resembles a human liver. In the proper environment it will behave like a human liver."

  Harry's eyes went wide and blank. Lydia made a startled hissing sound. And Millard Parlette added, "The proper environment is, of course, the environment of a human liver. They have not been tested because they are not fully grown. We can expect disadvantages due to the lack of nervous connections — "

  "Keller told the truth. Little hearts and livers!" Harry exclaimed. "Parlette, was the third gift an animal to replace the human heart?"

  "Yes. Nearly all muscle. It reacts to Adrenalin by speeding up, but once again the lack of nervous — "

  "Yee HAH!" Harry Kane began to dance. He grabbed Lydia Hancock, spun her around and around. Hood watched, grinning foolishly. Kane abruptly released her and dropped to his knees in front of Parlette. "What's the fourth?"

  "A rotifer."

  "A ... rotifer?"

  "It lives as a symbiot in the human bloodstream. It does things the human body will not do for itself. Kane, it has often struck me that evolution as a process leaves something to be desired. Evolution is finished with a man once he is too old to reproduce. Thus there is no genetic program to keep him alive longer than that. Only inertia. It takes enormous medical knowledge to compen — "

  "What does it do, this rotifer?"

  "It fights disease. It cleans fatty deposits from the veins and arteries. It dissolves blood clots. It is too big to move into the small capillaries, and it dies on contact with air. Thus it will not impede necessary clotting. It secretes a kind of gum to patch weak points in the walls of the arteries and larger capillaries, which is reassuring to a man of my age,

  "But it does more than that. It acts as a kind of catch-all gland, a supplementary pituitary. It tends to maintain the same glandular balance a man is supposed to have at around age thirty. It will not produce male and female hormones, and it takes its own good time disposing of excess adrenaline, but otherwise it maintains the balance. Or so say the instructions."

  Harry Kane sank back on his heels. "Then the organ banks are done. Obsolete. No wonder you tried to keep it secretes

  "Don't be silly."

  "What?" Parlette opened his mouth, but Harry rode him down. "I tell you the organ banks are done for! Listen, Parlette. The skin mold replaces skin grafting, and does it better. The heart animal and the liver animal replace heart and liver transplants. And the rotifer keeps everything else from getting sick in the first place! What more do you want?"

  "Several things. A kidney beast, for example. Or — "

  "Quibbling.

  "How would you replace a lung? A lung destroyed by nicotine addiction?"

  Hood said, "He's right. Those four ramrobot gifts are nothing but a signpost. How do you repair a smashed foot, a bad eye, a baseball finger?" He was pacing now, in short jerky steps.

  "You'd need several hundred different artifacts of genetic engineering to make the organ banks really obsolete. All the same — "

  "All right, cut," said Harry Kane, and Hood was silent. "Parlette, I jumped the gun. You're right. But I'll give you something to think about. Suppose every colonist on Mount Lookitthat knew only the facts about the ramrobot package. Not Hood's analysis, and not yours — just the truth. What then?"

  Parlette was smiling. He shouldn't have been, but his white teeth gleamed evenly in the light, and the smile was not forced. "They would assume the organ banks were obsolete. They would confidently expect Implementation to disband."

  "And when Implementation showed no sign of disbanding, they'd revolt! Every colonist on Mount Lookitthat! Could the Hospital stand against that?"

  "You see the point, Kane. I am inclined to think the Hospital could stand against any such attack, though I would not like to gamble on it. But I am sure we could lose half the population of this planet in the bloodbath, win or lose."

  "Then — you've already thought of this."

  Parlette's face twisted. His hands fluttered aimlessly and his feet jumped against the floor as the effects of the sonic gave up their hold on him. "Do you think me a fool, Harry Kane? I never made that mistake about you. I first heard of the ramrobot package six months ag
o, when the ramrobot sent out its maser message. I knew immediately that the present crew rule over the Plateau was doomed."

  Laney had vanished around to the left, around the great gentle curve of the Planck, while Matt stood gaping. He started after her, then checked himself. She must know of another entrance; he'd never catch her before she reached it. And if he followed her through, he'd be lost in the maze of the Hospital.

  But he had to find her. She'd kept him in the dark as much as she could. Probably because she expected Castro to get him, and didn't want him to spill anything important. She hadn't mentioned the bomb until the fuse was in her hand, nor the detailed plans for invading the Hospital until she was already following them.

  Eventually she'd have told him how to find Polly. Now he'd lost both.

  Or ... ?

  He ran toward the main entrance, dodging police who tried to run through his solid bulk. He would meet Laney at the vivarium — if she got there. But he knew only one route to reach it.

  The great bronze doors swung open as he approached. Matt hesitated at the bottom of the wide stairs. Electric eyes? Then three uniformed men trotted through the entrance and down, and Matt trotted up between them. If there were electric eyes here, and men watching them, they could never keep track of the last minute's traffic.

  The doors swung shut as he went through. They almost caught him between them. He cursed in a whisper and stepped aside for a running policeman with a whistle in his mouth. Like the ultrasonic whistle the gateman had used to get in last night. He'd need one to get out. But later. He needn't think about leaving yet.

  His legs ached savagely. He slowed to a brisk walk and tried not to pant.

  Right, up a flight, take a right, then a left...

  VIVARIUM.

  He saw the door down the corridor, and he stopped where he was and sagged gratefully against a wall. He'd beaten her here. And he was horribly tired. His legs were numb, there was a singing in his head, he wanted to do nothing but breathe. A taste in his mouth and throat reminded him of the hot metal taste of the void mist when he'd bored for the bottom less than thirty-six plateau hours ago. It seemed he'd been running forever, terrified forever. His blood had carried adrenaline for too long. The wall felt soft against his back.

  It was good to rest. It was good to breathe. It was good to be warm, and the Hospital walls were warm, almost too warm for a cold-weather crewish overjacket. He'd ditch it when it got too hot. Probing idly in his pockets, he found a double handful of unshelled roasted peanuts.

  Corporal Halley Fox rounded the corner and stopped. He saw a crew resting against a wall, wearing his over-jacket indoors. There was a ragged tear in the crew's ear and a pool of blood below it, soaked into the neck of his overjacket. He was cracking and eating peanuts, dropping the shells on the floor.

  It was strange, but not strange enough.

  Halley Fox was in the third generation of a family which traditionally produced Implementation police. Naturally he had joined Implementation. His reflexes were not quick enough to make him a raider, and he made a better follower than a leader. For eight years now he had been a competent man in a good position that did not require much responsibility.

  Then ... last night he'd caught a colonist invading the Hospital.

  This morning there'd been a break from the vivarium, the first since the vivarium was built. Corporal Fox had seen blood for the first time. Man's blood, not drained into an organ-bank tank but spilled recklessly along a hallway in conscious murderous violence.

  This evening the Head had warned of an impending attack on the Hospital. He'd practically warned Corporal Fox to shoot his own fellow guards! And everyone was taking him seriously!

  Minutes ago there'd been a hell of a big blast outside the windows ... and half the guards had deserted their posts to see what had happened.

  Corporal Fox was slightly punch-drunk.

  He had not deserted his post. Things were confused enough. He stuck to his training as something he knew to be solid. And when he saw a crew resting against a wall eating peanuts, he saluted and said, "Sir."

  Matt looked up to see a police officer standing stiff as a board, holding the short barrel of a mercy-bullet pistol slantwise across his forehead.

  Effectively he disappeared.

  Corporal Fox continued down the hall, stepping wide around the vivarium door. At the end of the corridor he stopped, half turned, and fell.

  Matt got unsteadily to his feet. The sight of the guard had damn near stopped his heart.

  Laney came around fast. She saw Matt, dodged back, poked the gun around —

  "Stop! It's me!"

  "Oh, Matt. I thought I'd lost you."

  He moved toward her. "I saw someone come after you. Did you get him?"

  "Yah." She looked down at Corporal Fox. "They're badly trained. That’s something."

  "Where'd you learn to shoot like that?"

  "Never you mind. Come on." She moved back toward the vivarium.

  "Hold it. Where do I find Polly?"

  "I really don't know. We've never known where they administer the coffin cure." She reached for the door handle. Matt caught her wrist. "Come now, Matt," she said. "You had fair warning."

  "The door's booby-trapped."

  "Oh?"

  "I saw the way that guy walked around it."

  She frowned at the handle. Then, with effort, she tore a strip from the bottom of Matt's jacket. She tied it to the handle, moved back as far as it would reach.

  Matt backed away. He said, "Before you do something irrevocable, won't you please tell me where to find Polly?"

  "Honestly, Matt, I don't know." She wasn't trying to hide the fact that he was an unneeded distraction.

  "Okay, where's Castro's office?"

  "You're out of your mind."

  "I'm a fanatic. Like you."

  That got a grin. "You're crazy, but okay. You go back the way I came, turn the only way you can, and go up another flight. Follow the hall until you see signs. The signs will take you the rest of the way. The office is up against the hull of the Planck. But if you stick with me, we may find an easier way."

  "Pull then."

  Laney pulled.

  The handle came down and clicked. Immediately something fired from the ceiling: a conical burst of mercy-bullets spattering the area where anyone would have stood to pull the handle. And a siren blared in the corridor, loud and raucous and familiar.

  Laney jumped straight back in surprise, fetched up against the wall. The door swung open a couple of inches. "In," she cried, and dove through, followed by Matt.

  The puffs of mercy-bullets were lost in the sound of the siren. But Matt saw four men in the room, crouched in target-shooting position in a line opposite the door. They were still firing as Laney fell.

  "Doomed? Really?" Even to himself Harry sounded inane. But he'd expected no such easy capitulation.

  "How many Sons of Earth are there?"

  "I can't tell you that."

  "I can tell you," said Millard Parlette. "Less than four hundred. On all of Mount Lookitthat there are less than seven hundred active rebels. For three hundred years you and your kind have been trying to build a rebellion. You've made no progress at all."

  "Precious little."

  "You enlist your rebels from the colonists, naturally. Your trouble is that most colonists don't really want the crew to lose control of the Plateau. They're happy the way they are. Yours is an unpopular cause. I tried to explain why before; let me try again." With obvious effort he moved his arms enough to fold his hands in his lap. Random muscles in his shoulders twitched from time to time.

  "It's not that they don't think they could do better than the crew if it came to the point. Everybody always thinks that. They're afraid of Implementation, yes, and they won't risk their good blood and bone to make the change, not when Implementation has all the weapons on the Plateau and controls all the electrical power too.

  "But that isn't the point. The point is that t
hey don't really think that the crew rule is wrong."

  "It all depends on the organ banks. On the one hand, the organ banks are a terrible threat, not only a death penalty, but an ignominious way to die. On the other hand, the banks are a promise. A man who deserves it and can pay for it, even a colonist, can get medical treatment at the Hospital. But without the organ banks there'd be no treatment. He'd die.

  "Do you know what your rebels would do if they could beat the crew to their knees? Some would insist that the organ banks be abolished. They'd be killed or ostracized by their own members. The majority would keep the banks just as they are, but use the crew to feed them!"

  His neck was stronger now, and he looked up to see patient stares. A good audience. And he had them hooked, finally.

  "Up to now," he went on, "you couldn't start a rebellion because you couldn't convince enough fighting men that your cause was just. Now you can. Now you can convince the colonists of Mount Lookitthat that the organ banks are and should be obsolete. Then wait a little. When Implementation doesn't disband, you move."

  Harry Kane said, "That's exactly what I was thinking, only you seem to be way ahead of me. Why did you call me silly?"

  "You made a silly assumption. You thought I was trying to keep the ramrobot package a secret. Quite the contrary. Just this afternoon I — "

  "I've finally got it," said Hood. "You've decided to join the winning side, have you Parlette?"

  "You fool. You bad-mouthed colonist fool."

  Jay Hood flushed. He stood perfectly straight with his arms at his sides and his fists clenched. He was no angrier than Parlette. The old man was trying to shift his weight, and every muscle in his body was jumping as a result. He said, "Do you think so little of me, to think I'd follow such motives?"

  "Relax, Jay. Parlette, if you have something to say, say it. If we jump to the wrong conclusions, please assume that you're expressing yourself badly, and don't try to shift the blame."

  "Why don't you all count to infinity?" Lydia Hancock suggested.

  Parlette spoke slowly and evenly. "I am trying to prevent a bloodbath. Is that clear enough for you? I'm trying to prevent a civil war that could kill half the people in this world."