by Nancy Kress
Michaelson said, “Sir, I was on duty at Lab Dome vehicle bay airlock. Ms. Rhinehart and Dr. Glamever didn’t leave that way.”
Major Duncan said, “Sergeant Hillson led the hunting party, sir. He says that tracks indicate Rhinehart and Glamet^vor¡ left through the Enclave Dome southwest airlock.”
Out of sight of the main route between the domes and the Settler gardens. Jason said, “Who was patrolling the Enclave southwest airlock?”
A soldier spoke. “I was, sir.”
Private Perry. He’d screwed up before. Jason said, “Do the other three of you have any information to add about this?”
A chorus of “No, sirs.”
“Dismissed.”
They left. Jason said to Perry, “Well?”
“I’m sorry, sir, I don’t know how it happened but it won’t—”
“You don’t know how it happened? Where were you that you didn’t see them leave?”
“I … I did see them leave, sir. They said they were going to help the Settlers digging the vegetable garden around the other side of the dome and—”
“The vegetable garden? Was the prisoner-at-large there, as well?” Jason, who’d had to do something with the captured New America kid, Tommy Mills, had finally decided to label him a prisoner-at-large and set him to work with shovel and hoe under the watchful eyes of the perimeter patrol. But if Mills had somehow escaped and waited in ambush in the woods …
Perry said, “Yeah, Mills was there. Anyways, when those two said they were exiting the dome to go help dig some damn garden, I believed them. I mean, they believe in all that stuff, right? The Reddie’s a fucking Worlder!”
Jason stared at Perry, whose brief puff of self-justifying and racist bombast dissipated like dandelion fluff in a gale. Jason said, “Private, you are confined to quarters until further notice. Dismissed.”
“Yes, sir.” Perry slunk out.
Duncan said, “Sir, if you’ll permit me, they were only able to exit the airlock because Dr. Glamet^vor¡ was digitally and retinally approved for the bird lab, which shares the same security program. I have said before that we need tighter security.”
“Security is arranged to keep the enemy out, not our scientists in.” And doing anything else would be incredibly cumbersome. Some scientists and soldiers went between the domes half a dozen times each day. Half of Monterey Base’s inhabitants weren’t military, and that was before counting Colin’s Settlers. In such close quarters, it was impossible to physically separate facilities for Army and civilians, as would have been done on a pre-Collapse post, and how much martial law would the civilians tolerate before they rebelled? Especially since the arrival of Settlers who recognized no military necessities?
Jason hadn’t even been able to convince his own wife of military necessities.
He said to Duncan, “I’ll take it under advisement.”
“Yes, sir.”
Hillson’s voice sounded in his earplant. “Sir, permission to come up. I talked to more of the hunting party, and I think there’s something else you should hear.”
“Proceed to command post, Sergeant.”
Now what?
* * *
The lab tech had done a good job of staining the brain-tissue slides. The microglials were tiny round purple-and-pink balls packed between neurons. Astrocytes shaped like stars, oligodendrocytes with their spidery, irregular tendrils. All were glia cells, which played important roles in brain development, functioning, and recovery from injury.
There were too many of them. Way, way too many.
Toni said, “No signs of previous injury to either of their brains, before the bear.”
Brain injury caused a proliferation of some glials, which then carted away dead or injured neurons. Other types of glials released chemicals that “pruned” excess synapses to create more efficient communication among neurons. That happened primarily during embryonic development and again during adolescence, when the frontal cortex was rewiring itself for adult functioning. Too much pruning of synapses could lead to such brain diseases as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
But neither Glamet^vor¡ nor Kayla Rhinehart were embryos, adolescents, or victims of neurological disorders. Although—
Toni said, “Kayla’s bipolar disorder may have been worsened by whatever is going on with all these glials, but Marianne said she was probably bipolar all along, even before the spore cloud hit World. And nobody ever said there was any anomaly in Glamet^vor¡’s thinking.”
“But we’ve had R. sporii here for over thirty years and nobody ever reported anything like this!”
“No. But World wasn’t exposed to only R. sporii.”
Then Zack saw it.
The virophage. Everyone on World had been exposed to the virophage, which killed R. sporii. But what else did it do in the bodies of its new hosts? Microbes that modified brain structure and functioning filled a long list: rabies, tertiary syphilis, toxoplasmosis, even Lyme disease. R. sporii itself had modified fetuses to produce enhanced auditory abilities in infants like Colin Jenner. But no one had ever seen a microbe that caused such unrestrained multiplication of glial cells, which could be as destructive to brain tissue as it could be useful.
He said, “Has anyone detected C1q or C4 or—”
“That’s the next step,” Marianne said. Her face looked gray. The lab techs stood awkwardly by their benches, listening but not saying anything.
Glial cells released complex cascades of a variety of proteins. Some signaled synapse pruning to begin; other molecules caused synapses to form. Zack wanted to know—and it seemed to him that he’d never wanted to know anything more in his life—what this promiscuous proliferation of glials was doing to brain neurons. Kayla and Glamet^vor¡ could not tell him. He would have to depend on the presence, absence, and amounts of the molecules that glials produced.
Then, all at once, he wanted to know something else even more.
“Marianne—was the virophage on World transmitted only by breathing it in? Is person-to-person transmission possible?” Are we all going to get it?
Marianne said, “I don’t know. We left World soon after the virophage was released. And for all these weeks, I didn’t know we … but everyone from the ship has been having headaches. I still do, but much fainter than before.”
“Any other symptoms?” Zack could barely get the words out.
“Well, I seem to sleep longer.”
Headaches.
Sleep.
The plasticity of developing brains, due in part to the presence of glial-produced molecules almost never found in healthy adult brains. But not just in fetuses, either.
Zack said slowly, “I think person-to-person transmission of the virophage may be possible. We need … we need to check out all the children in both domes. Ask their parents about headaches and oversleeping and any changes in behavior.
“Now. Right away. Now.”
Hoofbeats drummed across his brain. Zebra.
* * *
Hillson appeared in the command post with Private William Landry. A troublemaker, Landry was one of those who’d never gotten over the loss of what he referred to as “the real army,” in which he’d been a lifer. In his forties, he’d seen action in Brazil; he acquitted himself well in ground war but chafed under the off-again, on-again, mostly remote war with New America. Jason had inherited him along with the base, and neither liked nor trusted him. But Landry was the best shot on base and always included in the hunting parties.
Hillson said, “Sir, Private Landry was the first one to spot the bodies of Kayla Rhinehart and the Worlder scientist. He reports something strange.”
“I shot the bear,” Landry said. Pause. “Sir.”
Hillson said, in the tone that had wrangled out-of-line soldiers into line for thirty years, “Report, Private.”
“I seen the bear charge and a second later I seen her cubs. She barreled on over to them two aliens and laid into ’em. But they didn’t fight or nothing. In fact, they didn’t even react. I cou
ldn’t see real clear, but it looked like they was both asleep. Maybe they was.
“But the funny thing was, I don’t think they woke up when the bear started clawing away. Neither of ’em woke up. They just lied there. I fired, but the bear’d already slashed open the woman’s throat. Bear turned to me and I fired again, and still the alien didn’t move. That bear was hit, all right, but she was tough and mad. She bellowed and made one last slash at the Reddie before she come for me and I dropped her with a hit to the head.”
Reddie. The same word Perry had used. What other slurs did his men call Worlders? Jason said, “So the victims didn’t react to the bear because they were already dead?”
“Didn’t look dead to me. Corpses got a whole different look to ’em.”
“Perhaps they were freshly dead?”
“From what?” Landry said contemptuously. Hillson said sharply, “Private,” and Landry added, “Sir.”
“Dismissed,” Jason said, and Landry sauntered out. But his question had been a good one. Jason said to Hillson, “Drugs?”
“Could be. Or could be Landry’s lying. Although I don’t see any reason why he would.”
“Nobody else saw the bear mauling?”
“No, sir. Landry was point. Also, sir, outside patrol received a message from the signal station, a general bulletin to all bases. Colonel Hahn has died and General Strople is now commander in chief.”
“Okay.” Jason paused a moment. He hadn’t known Colleen Hahn well, but he’d respected her. An able soldier and fair officer. Jason still wondered how she could have contracted RSA, but it was not his place to question that. He said, “Tell Dr. Holbrook I want an autopsy on the two bear victims.”
“I think that one is already in progress, sir.”
“Oh?” Holbrook had the authority to make that decision. Although … did World culture permit autopsies? The Return was a Worlder ship and, technically, Ka^graa led a diplomatic mission, even though there had been very little diplomacy going on so far.
“Hillson, have Jane sent to me.”
“Yes, sir. Is she in Lab Dome?”
“Probably. Send her here.”
Despite everything, his heart lifted at the thought of seeing Jane again.
* * *
Jane had spent another hour with Colin in the infirmary. She wanted to know about life in the Settlement, but he was curious about World. Jane insisted, and he had become both enthusiastic and theoretical, while she concentrated to keep up with his English.
He said, “Before the Collapse, in developed countries the total energy to produce food was more than the caloric value of the food produced, if you count in all the energy used in everything from tractors to fertilizer to plants. Agriculture was the most energy-intensive segment of the economy. But in preindustrial societies, energy produced as food was typically ten times larger than the input in terms of the labor of people and animals. It was a much better relationship with nature.”
This wasn’t what Jane wanted to know. “But how did you live, each day, to produce the food?”
He told her. As he spoke, she could feel the air between them shifting, tightening, becoming something more than air. When he said, “Now you tell me about World,” she struggled to explain her former life to him; so much that seemed obvious to her, beyond needing explanation, was strange to a Terran. Finally, she said, “I don’t know how to say … what simply … simply is…”
“Like a fish not noticing water,” Colin said, and grinned, and just like that she tumbled all the way into love with him. And even that—“falling in love”—was a Terran expression that had taken her a while to fit to feelings and actions that certainly existed on both planets, but not in exactly the same way. At home, mating choice was a complex alloy of individual preference, the needs of the lahk, and bu^ka^tel. But simple desire, and the copulation it often led to, was a personal and unquestioned right.
Jane desired Colin Jenner.
She blurted out, “Who is Mary?”
“Mary who?”
“When you became injured, you asked if Mary was all right.”
He smiled. “Did you think it was a woman?”
“Is it not a female name?”
“Yes. Mary is a beautiful and very bright child I have been teaching to raise kelp.”
“Okay.” She felt herself blush, and blushed more when he laughed at her, his eyes warm.
When Colin tired, she left his room and went to La^vor’s. Had Jane been neglecting her friend? Yes, she had, but her translation duties kept her so occupied. And Glamet^vor¡’s tiny cubicle was jammed next to La^vor’s. Since his tirade against Terrans, Jane had felt even more uncomfortable around him. How strange it was that two people should have such different reactions to Earth!
“I greet you, La^vor. I greet you, Belok^.”
La^vor broke into a huge smile. “I greet you, Jeng.… Jane! Belok^?”
“I … greet you,” Belok^ said.
He squatted beside his sister, twelve small circles of karthwood stained in various colors on the floor in front of him. Standard toys on World and nearly indestructible, they served babies to chew, toddlers to pile and knock down, older children to be taught their first math. Every small Worlder had a set. Virtually indestructible, kiki were often passed down through generations of a lahk. Belok^ looked huge beside the blocks intended for little children.
La^vor said, “We work on totals and reductions. See, Belok^, here are two kiki and there is one kiki. How many kiki have we here?”
“I tired,” Belok^ said.
“You just woke!”
“I tired.” He stretched out on the floor, jostling La^vor, and closed his eyes.
“Wake up, Belok^!”
He started to snore.
“I do not know what to do with him. He sleeps too much. But Claire-mak says he is not ill.”
“Let him sleep,” Jane said. “I want to talk to you.”
La^vor smiled. “You glow, Jane. Has something good happened?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know.”
“Tell me! Come, sit on the bed!”
The two women stepped carefully over Belok^ and climbed onto La^vor’s narrow bed, each sitting cross-legged with her back against the wall. The Army blanket, an unattractive bilious color, scratched rough against Jane’s legs, bare in her brief wrap. La^vor wriggled to get comfortable. She was unusually short for a Worlder, her body stocky, her skin too pale and eyes too small to be pretty. She was the kindest person Jane knew, with the gift of being happy whatever her circumstances.
Too bad her older brother was not more like her.
“I think,” Jane said, turning to look at her friend and choosing her words carefully, “that I would like to copulate with someone, and maybe even sign a mating contract, if he is willing.”
La^vor smiled. “With Glamet^vor¡?”
“No. I told you that is finished.”
“With who?”
“With Colin Jenner.”
La^vor’s lips parted in surprise—and then the top lip lifted more. “With a Terran?”
A small shock ran through Jane. So it was not only Terrans who could be disgusted with humans who were different. Her face must have shown … something, because La^vor said, “I regret that unkindness. Please forgive me.”
Formal words. La^vor meant them … and yet she was being formal, and her gaze didn’t meet Jane’s. Jane took her hand. “Please, La^vor … this is my choice. You are my friend.”
“Yes, until the end of time. If he is your choice, then I am … I am hopeful that the Mother approves. Jane, you must give to me some time to fit myself to something so unseen!”
“Of course. We are friends until the end of time. I don’t even know if Colin will wish this.”
“He is gravely injured?”
“He will recover. And he was not injured in his mating parts,” Jane said, poking her friend. She suddenly felt full of lightness, mischievous as a child.
La^vor laughed. “You a
lready know this?”
“No!”
“But you want to discover it?”
“Yes!”
“Will his lahk mother consent? Marianne-mak?”
“Terra does not … yes, I hope Marianne will consent.” Jane had learned long ago that although La^vor’s heart was loyal and generous, her mind was not elastic.
“When will you ask Colin-mak?”
“I don’t know.”
“How often do you think he will visit you?”
La^vor assumed that matings here would be like matings on World: each partner would stay with his or her lahk, and the children would be raised by the mother’s lahk. Jane had observed that it was different on Terra. Zack and Susan lived together; Toni and her wife lived together; the parents of the six children in Enclave Dome all seemed to be caring together for their offspring. Jane had doubts about how well that could work—coming from different lahks, wouldn’t the parents sometimes have different ideas about their children, with no lahk privileged over the other to make decisions? Marriage rooted only on the partners, not in their society—how could that endure? No plant, even the most brief-lived, could flower without roots.
But La^vor was right, too. Jane could not go with Colin to a new Settlement; she was not immune to RSA. She doubted that Colin would stay longer at the base than he had to. If they moved beyond just copulating and signed a contract for two years, it would be more like a World mating than a Terran marriage.
“I hope he would choose to visit often. But, beloved heart, he has not yet even agreed to simple copulation!”
“He will. Men always love you!” La^vor said, without the least tinge of jealousy.
Jane hugged her. “But if the—” Someone knocked hard on the door.
La^vor said, “Enter, please!” And then, “I greet you, Ka^graa.”
Jane, quicker, said, “What is it, Father? What has happened?”
Ka^graa, his face creased with grief, said, “I greet you, La^vor. Come from the room, Jeg^faan.”
Jane scrambled off the bed. Her heart thudded against her chest. In the corridor, Ka^graa gently closed the door behind them, took his daughter’s hand, and led her to her own cubicle.
Inside, he said, “Glamet^vor¡ is dead. Also Kayla Rhinehart. They left the dome and were killed by a wild animal.”