Terraform (an Ell Donsaii story #15)

by Laurence Dahners

  Carley wondered whether she should tell him about his β-Klotho anomaly. No, it’ll just give him an excuse for his drinking, she thought. Then, But it is an excuse for his drinking. Deciding she’d rather he didn’t know, she said, “That’s good. I hope you can stick to it this time.”

  “I will,” he said emphatically, getting up. He glanced away, then back, “I don’t suppose you could spare a few bucks for dinner?”

  Though it tore at her heart, Carley shook her head. “I’m afraid you’d spend it on booze.”

  “You’re right, it won’t do me any harm to go hungry for a bit. Maybe when I’ve been sober for a while you’ll come to trust me again.”

  Carley nodded, “I’d like to help you out if you can stay on the wagon. Where’re you staying?”

  “At the homeless shelter.”

  “I thought they wouldn’t let you stay there if you’d been drinking.”

  “They won’t. If they even think I’ve been drinking, I have to sleep on the street.” He gave her a wry grin, “I’ve got my own little culvert. But, it’ll be good to get straight. I don’t want to have to sleep in that damned hole this winter. Hell, even now I can’t stay in a culvert when it rains.” He gave her an emphatic little nod, “So, I’m getting my shit together. No more drinking.”

  “I’m glad,” Carley said. But after Eli’s oft-repeated Jekyll or Hyde changes, she didn’t actually have much hope.

  ***

  Ell walked into a conference room at D5R. Roger, Emma, Rob Braun, Ben Stavos, and Mark Amundsen were already there. AJ stood up by a big screen, looking nervous. She glanced at the screen and saw two grey colored rings, each looking like they had a black band around their inner circumference. They were clamped to a wall that’d been marked in one-foot increments. The smaller ring was about 6 ½ feet tall. So, that has to be a two-meter ring, Ell thought. The big one reached above the sixteen-foot mark, so it had to be a five-meter ring.

  Ell grinned at AJ, “So, we’re going to see if these actually work?”

  AJ nodded, glancing back over his shoulder at the screen. “I didn’t think we should watch the test in person because we’re going to be running ten-million watts through the little one, then 62-million watts through the big one.”

  Ell snorted, “Sounds a lot more impressive than ten-megawatts and sixty-two-megawatts, doesn’t it?”

  AJ shrugged, “I think we should use the most impressive sounding numbers that’re accurate. We need to remind ourselves that we’re running a dangerous amount of power.”

  “Granted.” She lifted an eyebrow, “But I’m looking forward to hearing how you’re going to describe the 680 to 812-megawatts it’s going to take to open a ten-meter port all the way to Mars.”

  This broke a little laugh out of AJ, but then he firmed his expression, “Are you ready to see whether these things work?”

  Everyone nodded.

  Evidently, audio was being imported from the site also—because a basso profundo note signaled the power coming on. The sound rapidly rose to become inaudible. Smoke, which seemed less than in their previous test with the one-meter port, started pouring from one side of the two-meter ring.

  AJ pointed up to the numbers in the upper right corner of the screen, “This’s the temperature in the tube. My calculations said we needed a tube with this diameter to be able to run enough cold nitrogen through it to keep it from overheating. It looks like the temperature’s doing fine, so maybe we could’ve used a smaller tube.” He looked over at the rest of them, “On the other hand, I’d rather have a tube that’s too big and stays too cool then make the tolerances tight.”

  Ell glanced at the others. They all looked entranced.

  AJ ran the port through its paces, making it hemispherical, then bi-hemispherical and waiting till the numbers stabilized. Once the port seemed to be running in a stable fashion, he turned to the others and said, “I think that’s enough of a test at this level. The next step on my plan’s to run enough power through it to open a port all the way to Mars, even though the two ends of the port aren’t separated by that much distance. This’s just to see if the system, as built, will handle the power. Any objections?”

  When no one objected, AJ gave some commands to his AI. Nothing seemed to happen to the sphere that was pouring out smoke on the screen, but Ell saw the numbers in the upper right-hand corner spinning up. AJ pointed out the increasing numbers to everyone in case they’d missed it. They all watched for a couple of minutes until the numbers stabilized. AJ said, “It looks like we’re within tolerances. In fact, we’re surprisingly close to what my calculations predicted.” He turned and gave them a sheepish grin, “Whenever that happens, I worry somebody fudged the numbers.”

  Rob Braun laughed, “Me too.”

  AJ asked, “Anyone want to try something else? Or should we move on to the five-meter ring?”

  No one had any suggestions, so AJ mumbled to his AI. Ell saw the numbers in the upper right-hand corner of the screen start spinning downward. “Um,” she said, puzzled, “you’re dialing it down rather than just turning it off?”

  “Uh-huh,” AJ said, “I just thought we should see what the power level is when the port fails to maintain its connection. You know, check empirically to be sure that the power it takes to maintain the port agrees with our calculated needs.”

  “Sure,” Ell said, thinking, That’s a waste of time. The calculated power’s always been correct in the past.”

  With a loud buzzing snap and a bright flash like an arc going out, the smoking two-meter sphere disappeared.

  Ell’s eyes turned to the five-meter ring, but then went back to AJ when he said, “Huh?”

  He was staring at the numbers in the upper right corner of the screen, so Ell’s eyes went there, but she wasn’t sure which of the many numbers in the corner he was looking at.

  AJ turned slowly to look at Ell. “The port didn’t fail until the power got down below seven-megawatts,” he said, sounding pleasantly surprised.

  Ell felt a tingle in her scalp, Could it be my calculations show how much power it takes to establish the port, but that the power required to maintain the opening is less, especially as ports get bigger? After all, little ports didn’t require much power, so decreased demand would hardly be noticed. They hadn’t really done any testing of maintenance power requirements as ports got bigger. If the effect didn’t become substantial until ports got big they might not’ve noticed.

  Excitedly, Ell said, “If that’s correct and holds up with even bigger ports, it’s a really important finding AJ! You need to go back and see whether that one-meter port runs on less power than it takes to open it too. In fact, we need the Portal Tech people to test ongoing demand in half-meter and quarter-meter ports too.” Her eyes went to the five-meter ring, “For now, fire that big boy up and let’s see what its ongoing power requirement is.”

  Roger turned excitedly to her, “If power requirements keep going down as size goes up, we may want to use twenty-meter ports for terraforming. Or even bigger!”

  “Yeah,” Ell said dubiously, “if we can make them work at those sizes. I’m worried about whether we can get them to work at five-meters or ten-meters.”

  “Oh, pooh,” Roger said with a dismissive wave. “You’re such a pessimist!”

  Ell grinned and turned back to AJ, “You ready to fire up the five-meter?”

  AJ nodded and spoke to his AI. A moment later the port opened with a bass note they could feel. The note started to rise. Ell glanced around, surprised that the little conference room was fitted with woofers capable of reproducing such a low note with that much power. She missed seeing the five-meter hoop start emitting smoke, then disappear in an arcing flash. She looked at AJ, “Why’d you shut it off?”

  “I didn’t,” he said, looking chagrined. He pointed at the screen where the smoke was clearing to reveal the remnants of the graphene ring hanging in tatters. Ell saw him mumble to his AI and a moment later a graph popped up on the big screen. It show
ed a line that geometrically increased. The Y-axis was labeled “Temperature.” AJ said, “Your crap engineer must’ve made a mistake in his calculations for keeping the ring cool. Even graphene can’t stand up to that kind of heat.”

  Ell felt nonplussed for a moment, then laughed. “I suppose you’re referring to that dumb-ass AJ Richards guy?”

  AJ nodded, looking embarrassed.

  Ell got up and strode around the table to give him a hug. Pushing him back to arm’s length, she said, “You should’ve been with us when we tried to get ports to work in the first place. Back then, ‘failure’ was our middle name.”

  AJ produced a shy grin, “Glad to help you reminisce…”

  “Reload, AJ,” she said. “The fact that you thought to test the assumption that maintenance power remained the same in these big ports is worth a lot more than one blown out five-meter ring.”

  He snorted, “The people who made these things over at Allosci and Portal Tech might not feel the same way.”

  Ell laughed, “If they give you too much grief, let me know. I can give you ammunition for your argument by telling you some stories about some of their colossal screw-ups.”

  ***

  Jillian was awake in the middle of the night again. Dammit! she thought. She considered turning over one more time. Instead, she sat up and stuffed a couple of pillows behind her back. Speaking to her AI, she said, “Play back the interview with Donsaii.”

  Jillian watched it through. Then again. After the third time through, she took out a pillow and sagged back to stare at the ceiling. Donsaii never denied having a kid! She just replied to my questions with questions of her own!

  An hour later, Jillian finally dozed off, still wondering how she could parlay Donsaii’s lack of a denial into a story.

  In the morning she woke, thinking, You can’t.

  ***

  Lifting her fork to her mouth, Ell paused looking at her son, “What’s new with you?”

  Zage said, “A German company’s buying the rights to the weight loss peptide. They’re going to pay to patent it so the University doesn’t have to.”

  Shan looked curious, “What company?”

  Zage shrugged, “It’s called Bayer. Have you heard of it?”

  Shan snorted, “Oh yeah, Bayer’s a huge pharmaceutical company. I think it got its start making aspirin way back in the 1800s.” He gave Zage an appraising look, “I guess at least someone thinks your peptide’s going to be important.”

  Zage looked at his mother, “They’d like the University to do some large animal testing, probably in pigs. Do you think we could get some of those injection ports from Quantum Biotech? It’d really simplify the testing because we wouldn’t have to be injecting the animals all the time.”

  Ell studied him for a moment, then slowly said, “Sure. But Bayer’s a big company. I’d imagine they could afford to buy some ports.”

  Zage looked blandly back at his mother, “But what if they decide to save some money by having us do the injections?”

  “Then, you charge them dearly for the man-hours required to do the injections.”

  He looked unhappy, “I’d really like to do it with ports. I don’t want the animals having to get injected all the time when we could be doing it with ports. It’d seem kind of mean.”

  Ell leaned forward to place her elbow on the table and rest her chin in her hand. Intently focused on her son, she said, “I’m pretty sure that if their alternative is to pay for man-hours to do the injections, they’ll be happy to buy some injection ports. In fact, I’ll bet if you just put injection ports in your protocol, they’ll pay for them without asking any questions.”

  “Okay,” Zage said, brightening, “could you help me get some samples and pricing so that I can put them in the protocol?”

  “Samples, huh?”

  “Um, yeah. So we’ll know what we’re dealing with.”

  Ell just sat studying her son. After a minute, Shan asked, “Is there a problem with that?”

  “Maybe,” Ell said slowly. She turned and looked questioningly at Shan, “Have you seen your son without his shirt on recently?”

  Shan turned a curious gaze on Zage. After a moment, he said, “I guess not. Is something wrong?”

  Ell turned back to her son. “Maybe,” she said slowly. “Zage, can you take off your shirt for your dad?”

  Zage gave an odd little wince, but stood and slowly pulled off his shirt. Oddly, before he pulled off the shirt, he first tugged up the waistband of his pants

  Shan stared. He’d known Zage wasn’t as chubby as he’d been in the past. But the boy he was looking at now wasn’t fat at all. He didn’t look underfed or scrawny, but he had very little extra padding. “Wow kid, your diet’s really been working!”

  Ell said, “Can you pull down your waistband a little bit?”

  Looking unhappy, Zage did so—fractionally.

  Ell sighed, “A little farther please.”

  Shan gave Ell a questioning look but then turned back to look at his son. There was a faint blue mark on his lower abdomen. Feeling alarmed, Shan said, “Is that an old bruise?”

  Zage looked unhappy but didn’t say anything.

  More upset, Shan said, “Did somebody hurt you?!”

  A pinched look on his face, Zage still didn’t answer. Quietly, Ell said, “It’s an injection bruise, right?” She sounded disappointed.

  Zage gave a tiny nod.

  A light went on for Shan, “You’ve been injecting yourself with your weight-loss peptide?”

  Zage nodded again. He put on a fake smile, “It’s been working great.”

  Gravely, Ell said, “You promised me you wouldn’t experiment on yourself with that stuff!”

  Drawing his head back and giving her an indignant look, Zage said, “I did not! You didn’t even ask me to promise. You said, I should test it in tissue culture and in rats first. I did both. The peptide worked great without any problems.”

  Closing her eyes and sadly shaking her head, Ell said, “We’ve got ourselves a barracks lawyer.”

  “Really mom!” Zage said exasperatedly, “There’s nothing to worry about. I’ve been on the peptide for over six months and I feel fine.”

  Ell sighed, “There could still be something wrong. Toxicity that’s just not severe enough for you to feel it yet. But, still, a problem that, with enough time will make you sick, perhaps irreversibly. We need to take you in and get you tested.”

  “Tested for what? We don’t even know what we’d be looking for. The peptide doesn’t do anything except prevent down-regulation of Trim28. Essentially, it makes me more normal, not less.”

  “It isn’t supposed to do anything except prevent down-regulation of Trim28. What we’re worried about’s some kind of unanticipated side effect. Maybe, though unintended, it accidentally happens to bind some other receptor. Before Bayer tries your peptide in people they’re going to want to consider possible side effects. If you’re going to do further research with them, you should start figuring out what kind of side-effects they normally look for in these kinds of studies and which problems might be specific to your particular peptide. Since it needs to be done anyway, why don’t you research it? Then we’ll get you tested for whatever you come up with.”

  Zage rolled his eyes, “Okay,” he said, an unhappy look on his face.

  “And I want you to stop those injections.”

  Crossing his arms and looking obstinate, Zage said, “I read that when the first port-enabled space-plane went up to the ISS, you were in it. Against the advice of the astronauts who were flying it. In fact, a lot of people thought it was too dangerous and that you shouldn’t be doing it.”

  Ell’s eyes widened momentarily, then she grinned, “So you think that, because I did some dangerous things when I was young, that justifies you doing the same?”

  With a nod, Zage said, “That was definitely unsafe. A lot of people thought so. This peptide’s been thoroughly evaluated in tissue culture and in an animal study.
It’s not nearly as risky.”

  “We’d flown the spaceplane up to LEO several times under remote control. We also knew it was going to work safely.”

  Zage shrugged, “So, then you admit it’s the same thing essentially.”

  Ell laughed, “Okay, let’s compromise. You can keep taking it for one month. Meanwhile, you carefully and thoroughly research what kind of side effects or toxicity such a peptide might have. Cross-binding and whatever else you can think of.” She gave him a wink, “Get that Gordito site to tell you whether your peptide has a similar morphology to any other bioactive peptides. Review the literature on the toxicity of other peptide pharmaceuticals. You give me an honest appraisal and we’ll get you thoroughly tested. If you haven’t gotten it done in a month, or you find any indication it might be toxic, you stop taking it. Okay?”

  Zage nodded, “Okay.” He shrugged, “You’re right, we really ought to do all that stuff anyway.”

  Ell snorted, “Well, I guess we almost see eye to eye.”

  ***

  As Carley walked into her apartment complex she heard the faint sound of a shoe lifting. Something other people would’ve heard, but she recognized as the sound a soft rubber sneaker made after it’d been standing in one place. Standing long enough that it pulled free with a slight ripping noise when it came up.

  The sound came from up ahead, just around the corner of the building. A corner she walked by every day on her way home.

  She knew it was Eli. She’d heard that little ripping sound from his shoes before. If he was hiding around the corner she walked by every day, rather than standing or sitting by her apartment like he usually did…

  That probably wasn’t good.

  Carley turned and walked slowly back away from the corner. Though, to her, the sounds of her footsteps were plainly evident, she felt fairly sure people without her oddly acute sense of hearing wouldn’t hear them. Hopefully, that included her brother.

  She exited her apartment complex through the gate she usually entered and walked around to the other side, coming in through a gate much closer to her own apartment. From this gate, as soon as she arrived in the common area around the pool, she could see Eli leaning against the corner of the building.