Great North Road

by Peter F. Hamilton

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Ah. You see, the sequences you were given can be added correctly and without any developmental problems to your DNA during germline modification. However, despite their viability, your additional sequences are extraordinarily complex. They don’t get passed on intact, like the gene for red hair or height or bone density, all the components that decide what makes up a person. The artificial one-in-ten sequences, especially pioneering ones like yours, can be subject to replication instability during a natural ova fertilization process. I take it Rebka was conceived naturally, and didn’t receive germline correction?’

  ‘She was natural,’ Angela whispered.

  ‘And therein lies the real problem. I’m surprised your original genetics consultant didn’t warn you about this.’

  ‘You mean Rebka is contaminated with screwed-up DNA?’ Angela said.

  ‘That’s a very harsh interpretation. Certainly a lot of her current complaints can be traced to unusual DNA components. If you’d had her assayed just after conception, then some genetic treatment could have corrected the problem by rebuilding the sequences. It’s expensive, obviously, but you know that. And that initial treatment would have provided an opportunity to equip her with more modern sequences, less prone to . . . mistakes.’

  ‘My genes are the problem?’ Angela asked.

  ‘In this case, I’m afraid so. Yes.’

  ‘Okay,’ Saul said in a shaky voice. ‘What do we do? How do we treat this? How do we cure the damaged genes?’

  ‘Mr Howard,’ Doctor Elyard said. His posture was all sympathy, ready to explain the really bad news, the news parents were always in denial about. ‘You have excellent insurance. That means we can make Rebka very comfortable here at Dan Marino. Some of the systems provided by Palmville that help sustain her are somewhat crude; there’s nothing wrong with them obviously, but we can replace them with less obtrusive versions. Really, it will make her time a lot easier, a less stressful experience for both yourselves and her.’

  ‘Palliative care?’ Angela barked. ‘That’s what you’re offering us? Fucking palliative?’

  Elyard spread his hands wide, offering complete understanding. ‘I do know how difficult this is to accept—’

  ‘No. I get that you see this every day. But this is my daughter. I’m not accepting palliative anything. I want to know what can be done to cure her.’

  ‘Mrs Howard . . . I’m sorry, we simply don’t have that ability.’

  ‘Fine. Who does?’

  ‘You must understand, what you’re asking for is extremely rare, and actually prohibited in most states, including Florida. It is also extremely expensive; your insurance will certainly not be able to begin covering it.’

  ‘So there is a treatment? What is it?’

  ‘Effectively, to correct so much genetic distortion you would be looking at a variant of the so-called rejuvenation process. From what little I know it’s still at the experimental stage. People who have allegedly undergone it are reluctant to have the process publicly verified; financial necessity means they’re all billionaires.’

  ‘But it can be done?’ Saul asked.

  ‘We’re talking about resequencing the DNA of every cell in her body. It would take years and the cost is astronomical, even for someone so small.’

  ‘Fine,’ Angela said. ‘I need a list of places that can perform the treatment.’

  ‘Mrs Howard, I suspect you would know that better than I. Even introducing your sequences to a zygote would not be permissible under current Florida law. You really ought to consult the team that . . . created you.’ He smiled blankly.

  ‘If I go to them, how much is it going to cost?’

  ‘I really don’t know. It’s not my field.’

  ‘Bullshit. It’s exactly your field. Take a wild guess. After all, I’m hardly going to sue if you’re wrong, now am I?’

  ‘I really cannot recommend this course.’

  ‘Disapproval noted. How much?’

  ‘Apparently, for a full-grown adult, the cost of complete cellular resequencing is just short of a billion dollars. So for someone Rebka’s size, I would estimate – and this is only a very rough approximation – that you’d be looking at a figure in excess of seventy million dollars.’

  ‘Shit,’ Angela grunted. She’d been praying for two million, which she could just about manage if she liquidated everything in her portfolios. But she’d been bracing herself for five or seven, in which case she’d go pleading and begging to Housden; Shasta too, if she had to, dignity was the least of her worries. But seventy plus? There was no way she could get that much together, not in a few months.

  ‘I’d like to talk to my husband, please,’ she said.

  Dr Elyard seemed quite relieved to let them have his office in peace. Saul stared at his wife for a long time before saying: ‘You’re a one-in-ten?’

  ‘Yes, Saul,’ she said. ‘I’m a one-in-ten.’ The worst thing was she knew he’d have to drag out this whole conversation, demand to hear her confirm each fact. He couldn’t just put it together in his head and accept it like a grown-up.

  ‘So . . . how old are you?’

  ‘Well not twenty-one, that’s for sure. More like your age. Don’t worry, I’m not that much older than you.’

  ‘Then your mother never did own Massachusetts Agrimech? It was always you, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Oh for— Saul, focus! I’m not the issue here. Rebka is. Our daughter is very ill. Concentrate on that.’

  ‘I can’t,’ Saul said miserably. Tears were starting to fill his eyes. ‘It’s over.’

  ‘You heard the doctor,’ Angela said harshly. ‘She can be cured.’

  ‘Seventy million?’ he laughed bitterly. ‘Even if Mom and Dad sold everything they had, they couldn’t raise more than ten. I know, I used to be part of the firm.’

  ‘We have to get it ourselves,’ she said. Already she was thinking how to grab that kind of money, and who from. There were all types of financial scams she was familiar with from her time helping her father. Now she had a specific purpose, it was like a whole part of her mind had suddenly switched back on again. The sharp, calculating part belonging to Angela DeVoyal, the New Monaco princess who’d been missing for eight years. Missing, right up to the moment when the highway patrol officer asked if that was her name. Angela DeVoyal was smart and dangerously ruthless, and would set about obtaining what she wanted without a moment’s hesitation.

  Oh, how I’ve missed being me. How stupid I’ve been wallowing in misery and self-pity when what I should have been doing was taking charge and finding solutions.

  ‘How?’ Saul asked.

  Angela despised the cloying desperation in his voice. ‘Now listen to me. It is our daughter who needs this. And you need to know there is nothing I will not do to get her that money. Nothing. All I need to know now is if you’re going to help me, because I can do this by myself if I have to, but it will be easier with your help.’

  ‘I . . . of course I’ll help.’

  ‘Good. I’m telling you here and now that you’re not going to like what’s got to be done. If you don’t want anything to do with me after this, then that’s fine, because she’ll be getting treatment by then and nothing else will matter.’

  ‘I said I’d help. Of course I will. She’s my daughter, too.’

  ‘Yeah. Right.’ But already she could see the shock and uncertainty in his eyes as he started to worry what she was talking about.

  ‘How did you get that kind of genetic treatment originally?’ he asked. ‘I thought it was half transnet conspiracy theory.’

  ‘My father was very rich. I’m not. Not any more.’ She smiled without any trace of humour. ‘And the people who are responsible for that, responsible for me not having treatment for Rebka’s zygote, they’re the sons of a ball-less bastard who are going to be paying to make this right.’

  *

  And so they had. The money from Abellia’s Civic Administration account had transferred success
fully to GiulioTrans-stellar. From there it wound its convoluted way to an anonymous account safe on True Jerusalem, where Saul’s orthodox sister had taken Rebka, and where nobody but the most devout Jews were permitted. It was there she’d been scheduled to undergo the gene therapy that would repair her screwed-up DNA and turn her into a normal girl who would have a life to enjoy.

  Angela had seen that transfer happen with her own eyes, had risked her life, had spent twenty years in jail so the scam would never be uncovered. So when she saw that young version of herself dishing out meals in the mess tent at Abellia Airport she’d been hit by a shock so profound it actually sent her into fugue. There could be no mistake, her own features were all there, mixed in with Saul’s kind eyes and darker hair. Her daughter.

  Alive. Healthy. Happy. And on St-fucking-Libra in the expedition as a waitress.

  Such a thing was not a coincidence. Oh no.

  Angela looked at that lovely face, still framed by the scarf as the snow fell around them. ‘How?’ she pleaded. ‘How can you be here?’

  Rebka gave her an impish smile. ‘Somebody had to keep an eye on you, Mother. Constantine thought I was the best one to do it.’

  ‘Constantine? Constantine North!’

  ‘Yeah. Now don’t get mad. He knows everything. He knows you and Dad pulled a scam in Abellia.’

  ‘How?’ she said faintly.

  ‘Because he realized something was seriously wrong about the official version of the massacre. He had to know what really happened to his brother that night, and to do that he had to find out about you. His people did a proper harvest, not the stupid bodge job the police did when you were arrested. He knows you didn’t kill anyone that night.’

  ‘He knew I’m innocent? A North knew that?’

  ‘Mother, you stole a hundred and eight million Eurofrancs from them.’

  ‘For you! To make you better. So you could have a life.’

  Rebka’s eyes started to water. ‘I know. There is no way you’ll ever understand how much that meant to me when they told me. Hearing you existed was incredible, but then learning what you’d done, the sacrifice . . .’

  ‘Please,’ Angela said. ‘Can I hug you? I haven’t hugged you for twenty-one years. Letting go was so hard.’

  Rebka opened her arms wide, and Angela almost fell into the embrace.

  ‘I never knew,’ Angela said. ‘I never knew if the treatment worked. Never knew if you were alive. Nothing. I just hoped, that’s all. Hoped for twenty years. You were my daughter, if anyone was strong enough to survive it would be you.’

  ‘I love you, Mother.’

  Angela put the girl at arm’s length again, not letting go of her shoulders as she studied that hauntingly familiar face. ‘Look at you now. So pretty.’

  ‘Yeah? Well, I had a good role model.’

  ‘The treatment worked? You’re okay now? Your father thought you’d died. I knew he was wrong.’

  ‘Yes, Mother, the treatment worked. The geneticists at Jupiter did a good job. And I’ll be able to have children without complications.’

  ‘Wait! What? Jupiter?’

  ‘Yes. As soon as he found out about me, Constantine had me brought to the habitat.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He wanted to be sure my treatment was a success, and Jupiter has the best technology anywhere. One of Constantine’s projects is examining how our brains can be enlarged and enhanced. He’s hoping it’ll give us the smarts to defeat the Zanth. That’s why their genetics division is up there along with the physics department.’

  Angela gave a brief snort of contempt. ‘Whatever. You’re alive and you’re here with me. I’m sure the rest of it is going to piss me off no end when I get the details, but, this, this moment was worth everything.’

  Rebka produced a mirror grin. ‘You mind telling me why you’re out here?’

  ‘Oh shit.’ Angela turned to look along the frozen river. The falling snow was still too thick to see more than a few metres. ‘Ravi’s alive.’

  ‘What? Where?’

  ‘The waterfall. Come on.’

  They set off, still holding hands. ‘How did you know I was out here?’ Angela asked.

  ‘I’ve got a smartmolecule tracer on you.’

  ‘I should have guessed. And I suppose that thing you’re wearing is from Jupiter as well?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s a metamolecule cloak, it can modify its appearance and function. You saw the armour variant. I wasn’t sure if the monster was still creeping round out here.’

  ‘Does it keep you warm?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘Lucky you. So what do you need it for? I’ve been trying to figure out why you were here since I saw you.’

  ‘You really knew? As soon as you saw me?’

  ‘Of course I knew. You’re my daughter. You’ve got some of Saul in you, too. Thank God. That’s what made it so easy to recognize you back at Abellia. That was a hell of a shock you gave me, let me say.’

  ‘Saul. My dad, Saul?’

  ‘Yes. He’s not a . . . Well, let’s just say he’s a bit softer than me. You’ll like him; he’s quite a charmer. I suppose Constantine found out he’s still on St Libra?’

  ‘Yes. I want to meet him.’

  ‘You will. I already have. It . . . didn’t go as well as I’d hoped. He’s paid the same time price as me, possibly even worse. Whatever Constantine did to snatch you off True Jerusalem he covered by faking your death. But there’s nothing would make Saul happier than to see you. I know that much.’

  ‘Twenty years, Mother. I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘It was worth it.’

  ‘After I found out, I kept asking Constantine to break you out of Holloway. He said no, it would draw too much attention.’

  ‘Fucking Norths.’

  ‘They’re not so bad. Not the ones I know.’

  ‘Yeah? What else does he expect you to do on the expedition?’

  ‘Capture the monster.’

  ‘You are not to go anywhere near that son of a bitch. You have no idea how bad it is.’

  ‘I have a very good idea. And I’ll be safe, you saw the armour. I’ve got some weapons with me as well.’

  ‘Really? I hope they pack enough firepower to wipe out every tree on the planet.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Ravi told me the trees hit him, the bullwhips. That thing controls them somehow.

  ‘I will be crapped on from heaven.’

  ‘Yeah. So don’t go getting all youthfully overconfident on me. We’re a long way from safe.’

  Angela’s inertial guidance module warned her they were closing on the waterfall. Confirming the proximity of the canyon, the snow was churning as the updraughts flowed over the edge. She told her e-i to ping Ravi again. He hadn’t responded to her last few attempts to contact him.

  ‘If you’ve got any Jupiter sensor technology, now would be the time to use it,’ Angela said. ‘We’re kind of vulnerable on the lip like this.’

  ‘Yeah, Mother, got that.’

  Angela admired the tone – it was pitch perfect her own. They edged forward carefully until they found the top of the waterfall, where the ice curved down sharply and the wind began its mournful whistling. She got down on all fours and peered over, trying to keep the feeling of vertigo supressed, and not really succeeding. All she could see was the frozen water dropping away and the snowflakes fluttering away to a roseate infinity.

  Her e-i told her Ravi was answering her call. ‘Why do you keep dropping out?’ she asked.

  ‘Bit difficult staying awake. Sorry.’

  ‘Okay, switch on your bodymesh. I need to get a fix on you.’

  Her e-i reported a full lock. He was about forty metres away.

  Angela and Rebka shuffled along the rumpled ice until they were directly above him. His bodymesh emission was coming from seven and a half metres directly down the ice face. Angela lay flat on the ice and stared over the edge. The massive frozen watercourse plunge
d away below her. It wasn’t smooth like the river which fed it, there were folds and snarls in the ice, like a churning white-water rapid captured in mid-flow. Straining against the pink gloom and skipping snow Angela could make out a silvery blob on one of the flatter seracs. It was a miracle he hadn’t slipped off.

  ‘Gotcha,’ she said. ‘Is that a thermal bag?’

  ‘Yes,’ Ravi said. ‘Only reason I’m still alive.’

  ‘Okay. I’ve got a mini-winch with me. You’ll have to clip it on to your belt. Can you do that?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll try. Thank you, Angela.’

  She used the self-anchoring pitons to secure the little spool on the rock-hard ice. The tape unwound, and Angela guided it down. Watching the clip twirl around, swaying about in the wind, was like a bizarre version of fishing. Every time she moved her arm, trying to put the clip near Ravi, it would bob away. And Ravi didn’t seem to be able to move his arm much. She had the alarming thought that she’d have to climb down and help him.

  ‘Got it,’ Ravi said.

  The mini-winch whirred smoothly, pulling Ravi up the undulating wall of sharp snags. He hit a few of the prominences as he came, making Angela wince. Then he was level with the top, and she and Rebka grabbed hold, pulling him onto the river.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Ravi!’ Angela exclaimed. The thin silvery survival bag was down round his waist so he could fix the tape to his belt. In the pink Sirius light his parka was almost black it was soaked with so much blood. The sleeves were torn, showing blue skinseal foam that had been sprayed on wounds. He was shaking badly, though she suspected it wasn’t entirely from the cold. Bruised eyes flickered open, and he gave Angela a gracious grin. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Get him back into the bag,’ Rebka said. ‘We’ll have to drag him back to the doc.’

  ‘Angela?’ Ravi asked weakly. ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘It’s all right, it’s only me,’ Angela said. She hurriedly pulled the bag back up to Ravi’s collar, and tugged his parka hood into place. ‘You need to vanish before we reach the convoy,’ she said softly to Rebka. ‘I don’t want us to have to explain why you’re out here.’

  ‘Okay.’