by Nancy Kress
Tissue samples had been sequenced to provide full genomes for Belok^, Jane, Caitlin, Devon, Marianne, Branch, Farouk, and the soldiers in v-comas. The matching program was comparing their genomes with control samples, cycling through all fifteen million possible genetic variations in each genome, looking for sequences that they all shared.
Zack said, “We’ll find the allele that triggers the comas.”
“You don’t even know for motherfucking sure that it is an allele!”
Zack didn’t answer. He turned away before he said something too sharp.
Toni put a hand on his arm. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m just—”
“I know. We all are. But go sleep, Toni. And shower.”
A tech rushed into the room. “Zack! The matching program finished!”
The matching program was printing its results—damn the shortage of paper and ink. Zack seized the densely covered sheets as they came from the printer. Toni studied the display screen with three lab techs crowded behind her.
The six v-coma genomes shared thirty-two alleles not found in the control samples, most in junk DNA. Six of those were insertions, genes incorporated into the genomes somewhere in, probably, the distant past. One of the six might have been activated by the virophage to set in motion the cascade of proteins and chemicals now rewiring brains. Or might not have been. Only 4 percent of polymorphism affected gene expression. That was the figure decided on just before the Collapse, when most basic science pretty much stopped.
Toni said, “The v-comas might be multifactorial inheritance disorders, rather than monogenic.” She said it reluctantly; she wanted there to be a single-gene explanation as much as Zack did. The chances were better for coming up with some sort of gene therapy.
Although in no case were the chances high.
The lab tech said, “If it’s a single variant, we can at least predict who else might fall into a coma. If you don’t have any of those six alleles…”
If I don’t have them, was what the tech really meant. This research was intensely personal. Zack said, “I have a sample to sequence next.”
“Yours?”
“No.” It was Susan’s. If he lost her as well as Caitlin, he lost everything.
Toni said, “We have a lot of samples to sequence and match. Let’s get started. Zack, the new v-comas from today have to be first, as confirmation—you know that. Anyway, it might help further narrow down the allele. If there is an allele.”
Her skepticism was the correct attitude. Zack knew that. He went to find the tissue samples from the v-coma soldiers. Before he had even prepared the samples for the sequencer, someone came into the lab. Zack didn’t turn; Toni talked to whoever it was. After the visitor left, Toni touched Zack’s shoulder. Her eyes looked almost as big as a Worlder’s, and compassion moved in their depths.
“Zack—there’s one more. Susan.”
* * *
Bright morning light assaulted the top of Enclave Dome, throwing everything in the command post into harsh relief. Jason could have closed the tentlike curtains installed on rods overhead, but he didn’t. He needed the glare, he needed coffee, he needed everything he could get to combat the sleeplessness of a bad night. A nightmare reliving the Collapse, another filled with sweating anxiety, a wet dream about Jane.
He cradled the coffee mug in cold hands. After ten years, the base was officially out of coffee, but a small amount had been hoarded for both the signal station and the CO. Jason refused to feel guilty about this. Hillson, his pipeline to the barracks through careful cultivation of selected recruits, had told him that the troops drank some sort of tea steeped from a plant gathered by hunting parties. The United States Army was reverting to Paleolithic hunter-gatherers.
Well, no, it wasn’t quite that bad. But the hunting parties were more frequent now, and vegetables and dried seaweed concoctions from Colin’s settlement would have to be stretched farther than before, to feed more people than before. The base cooks were endlessly inventive, but it was still going to be a problem. One of so many.
The first thing for today was to issue an OPORD to—
“Sir,” Hillson said in his earplant, “coming up.”
It was the first time that the master sergeant had announced entry instead of asking permission. Jason braced himself.
Hillson’s face had the rigid, impassive expression that meant he was furious. “Sir, we’ve had an incident. A hunting unit left at dawn, ten troops led by Lieutenant Sullivan. They just returned. Two of them are dead.”
“New America?”
“No. They were shot by Private Kandiss.”
Jason blinked. Mason Kandiss, the soldier off the Return that Jason had assigned to J Squad, had performed so well that Jason had had the luxury of forgetting about him. “Tell me as much as you know, and how you know it.”
“Kandiss told me himself. I have him in custody in the stockade. I also talked to the seven other members of the hunting unit and to the prisoner-at-large.”
Tommy Mills, of New America? What the fuck did he have to do with this? Jason waited. Hillson would produce the story in his own way, each word weighed and measured before being released.
“The hunting unit divided into two squads. They preserved, as far as I can tell, proper communication and support distance. Kandiss was assigned to lead one squad; Sullivan had the other. When the two had reached maximum permitted distance apart and were out of line of sight, the four other members of Kandiss’s squad turned their weapons on him. They told him he was a traitor, bringing the virophage to the base, part of a conspiracy to kill everyone. They—”
“Was this ‘conspiracy’ supposed to be created by World or by New America?”
“They didn’t say. Sir—you knew that in some quarters there’s a lot of anger and fear about the aliens, and about the v-comas, and about bringing the Settlers here, and about … everything.”
Of course Jason knew. Anger and fear were to be expected after ten years of claustrophobia, of boredom broken by rare bouts of combat, of crowding now made worse by the Settlers, of a war that seemed to go nowhere. There had been incidents before, but no one had died. He said, “Go on.”
“Kandiss told me that the four others said he deserved to die, along with all traitors, and they were going to take him out. They didn’t. He killed two of them. A third is in the OR now with a knife wound in the belly. The fourth threw down his weapon and raised his hands. The other squad heard the commotion and came running. Kandiss surrendered.”
“He took down three of his attackers? Who were the four?” Not J Squad, surely.
“Privates Landry, Guerra, and Madden. Landry and Madden are dead. Madden was a new recruit who grew up on base. Landry was always a troublemaker and Guerra a broke dick, always whining. Private Drucker surrendered. Lieutenant Sullivan shouldn’t have put them together in a squad.”
“But they were all armed and in full gear—how did Kandiss take them down?”
“Sir, you may have forgotten—Corporal Kandiss was an Army Ranger. The only one we have.”
Jason heard the respect in Hillson’s voice. He said, “Is Kandiss injured?”
“Minor bruises.”
“How extensive are these sort of conspiracy theories?”
“As far as I can tell, not very. But there is resentment about the aliens and the v-comas. Some about the Settlers, too, although as long as we have enough food, that seems pretty low level. Especially since some of the Settler women don’t believe in monogamy and they’ve made it their business to try to convert soldiers to their Mother Nature ideas, which they’re doing in a sort of free cathouse combined with ideological lectures.”
Jason tried to picture this enterprise, and failed. “Why did you talk to the prisoner-at-large, Tommy Mills?”
“He’s been assaulted a couple of times—war enemy and all that. Mills says that Kandiss started to protect him. Which made Kandiss even more suspect to a lot of our people with bad attitudes about the aliens.”
&nb
sp; It was the third time he’d used the word. Jason said, “Hillson, they aren’t ‘alien.’ The aliens are the ones who took them from Earth a hundred and forty thousand years ago, the same ones who left them the spaceships and domes. Worlders are as human as you and me.”
“If you say so, sir. I’m just saying that a lot of soldiers don’t see it that way. We could have more assaults.”
Jason tried to think. He needed more sleep. Hadn’t he learned once that Rangers were trained to function on a few hours of sleep for a week or more? Probably Jason, who had been competent but not outstanding at physical training during basic, could not have qualified for Ranger School.
“Kandiss is housed with J Squad? Any trouble there?”
“No, sir, never in J Squad.”
Good—Jason needed to trust his elite unit. “Quarter the prisoner-at-large with J Squad. Put Drucker—and Guerra, too, as soon as Major Holbrook gives permission—in the stockade to await court-martial. Keep me informed of any further conspiracy theories or other problems you hear of.” Hillson must have a hell of an informant system, and Jason was grateful for it.
“I may not hear of anything in time to stop it.”
“I know. Pick men you trust for twenty-four-hour guards on Dr. Ka^graa and the other three Worlders, including the two in v-comas. Don’t use anyone from J Squad—I’m going to need them.”
“Yes, sir.” Hillson didn’t ask what Jason planned for J Squad.
“And send Kandiss to me.”
“Yes, sir.”
Colin’s words ran through his mind: You think violence is an instrument you can control. You can’t.
Colin had no idea how much more violent things were going to get. But then, before Jason could put his plans in motion, New America attacked.
CHAPTER 15
Blatt … blatt … blatt blatt blatt.… Sirens in both domes sounded an attack. Zack hardly noticed. Deep in lab work, protected by the invulnerable domes, he didn’t need to react. Alerted by the signal station, the patrols would get everyone inside in time. A few more missiles would shatter themselves against one or both domes. If the signal station was hit, Jenner would erect a new one, as he had before. And nothing mattered as much as this lab work.
Susan had fallen into a v-coma as she sat by Caitlin’s bedside. Four more people had also gone down. Then had come a caesura, in which everybody had hoped the virophage had run its course, having infected everyone susceptible. All eighteen victims shared only one unique allele. Uninfected people had been tested, including the other four children who had played with Caitlin and Devon, as well as the research scientists. Zack did not possess the mutation, which by now they referred to simply as “the allele.”
Neither did Colonel Jenner.
“I think the epidemic is over,” a lab tech had said.
“Shut the fuck up,” Toni had snapped. “It’s not over until we bring them out of v-comas.”
To what? Zack wondered. But he only glared at Toni, before taking precious time away from work to pacify the lab tech. Still, Toni was right, even though having no further victims was a blessing.
Then there were more victims.
In the three weeks since Susan had fallen into a coma, so had three of the Settlers. They had arrived last at the base, which meant that they’d been easily infected, without long exposure. The evidence was at least predictive: If you had “the allele,” you fell into a coma. If you didn’t have it, you were infected with the virophage—probably they all were, by now—but you didn’t get your brain rewired by a microbe from antiquity.
All research on the vaccine, immune boosters, and gene drive had ceased. Zack hadn’t visited the bird lab in three weeks; all his time was spent in Lab Dome’s main facilities, researching the virophage. Presumably lab techs were still caring for the sparrows in the underground annex, but he no longer cared. All that mattered was finding a way to help Susan and Caity.
More and more of Lab Dome had become a hospital. Lieutenant Amy Parker, head nurse, had recruited Settlers to carry out the basic care of those in a coma, so that she and the trained nurses could keep the IVs delivering nutrients, monitor the v-comas, and nurse those still recovering from the destruction of the Settlement. All facilities and resources were strained almost as far as they could go. Meals had become mostly soup, and soup had become mostly fresh meat, dried vegetables, and seaweed. Last night Zack had dreamed of fresh raspberries with crème fraîche.
Blatt … blatt … blatt blatt blatt …
The experiments he was running told him nothing. For one thing, analyses of consecutive spinal taps from the same patient kept turning up new proteins. Zack could discover what the proteins were made of, he could discover how they reacted in solution with other substances, but he didn’t know what they were doing in a human brain. He didn’t know what inactive genes were being prompted to become active, other than the allele that had begun the metabolic cascades. He didn’t know how to wake up the v-coma victims, or what would happen when he did. He didn’t know anything.
“Dr. McKay,” a lab tech said.
He didn’t even look up to see which lab tech it was. “Ignore the sirens. The missiles can’t affect the domes.”
“It’s different this time.”
Then Zack did look up. “Who are you?”
“Ben Corrigan. Dr. Steffens assigned me to you. I’ve been assisting you for two days now.”
The man was clearly a Settler, sunburned and muscled and dressed in homespun. Yet he had prepared slides deftly and … yes, the notes on Zack’s tablet were clear and complete.
Corrigan said, “I was a high-school biology teacher. Before the Collapse.”
“And you joined Colin Jenner’s Settlement?”
“Yes.” Corrigan’s expression said he didn’t want to talk about it.
Blatt … blatt … blatt blatt blatt …
Corrigan winced. Zack said, “You’re a superhearer.” Victim of a different microbe, R. sporii. Corrigan’s brain had been rewired in the womb. Virus and virophage, enemies, had coevolved to make use of different parts of the same organ in their hosts, presumably in competition but with different effects.
“Yes, I’m a superhearer,” Corrigan said. “And whatever is going on out there, this attack is different.”
“Different how? What do you hear?”
“Ground and air—you know that already. There are large disturbances out there, and more coming.”
“The domes are impregnable to anything short of nuclear energy.”
Corrigan said nothing.
* * *
He had waited too long to act.
Jason watched helplessly from the command post as New America assaulted the base with weapons that he had not known still existed. The three F-35s emerged from the clouds and swept low overhead, dropping bombs. These exploded spectacularly against the dome’s energy shield, producing noise and fury but so far no damage except to the already charred forest beyond the perimeter. Although—what would happen if one of the jets flew a kamikaze mission directly into a dome? As far as Jason knew, that had never been tried.
The F-35s flew off, but they were not the main offensive.
Eight Strykers lumbered over the horizon, armored moving buildings. Each could hold eleven soldiers. The Strykers’ slat armor could withstand RPGs, and their ordnance, including the biggest guns ever fitted to this type of vehicle, could take out anything from a soft target to concrete bunkers. Jason had not known so many Strykers were left; there had been none at Sierra Depot. These had come overland from somewhere distant, plowing slowly through saplings and over rubble, skirting the ruins of cities. Where had the fuel come from? And did HQ know?
Jason couldn’t contact HQ, or anything else. The Strykers took positions facing all six airlocks and began firing. Any soldier who stepped outside to communicate with the signal station would be instantly reduced to a bloody pulp. After they had done trying out the Strykers’ ineffectual 105mms, the Strykers would simply wait in po
sition, with New America’s troops bivouacking behind. Eventually Monterey Base, already low on food, would either starve or surrender. It was a siege, as if this were the thirteenth century and Monterey Base some medieval castle. But unlike thirteenth-century fortifications, the base had neither arrow slits and parapets from which to fire, nor rats to eat when the siege got too bad.
So it all came down to the tunnels from the annexes. New America would know the tunnels existed; all domes had one underground or underwater airlock. It was built into the incomprehensible alien design. But did they know where the base’s tunnels terminated? If so, a force would be waiting there. If not, they would have troops and snipers covering as much of the surrounding area as possible, waiting for someone to do what Jason had waited too long to do: get a message to the signal station to deploy the Return.
Assuming the signal station had not already been taken out.
Then, an added insult, a Bradley lumbered from the woods. A Monterey Base Bradley, the one that Jason and J Squad had abandoned to board the Return for the trip to Fort Hood.
Hillson came up behind him. “Sir.”
Jason didn’t answer. If he had carried out his plan before now, this might not have happened. If he hadn’t waited to attack Sierra Depot because he didn’t want to reveal to HQ that the Return was capable of more than he’d told Strople … if he hadn’t waited to see how many of his troops would be stricken with v-coma … if he hadn’t waited for definite orders …
“Sir…”
Jason turned from the ineffectual bombarding of his alien castle. “Do we have any intel about the signal station?”
“No, sir.”
“About the tunnels?”
“Captain Goldman listened at the exit. He didn’t hear anything, but that doesn’t mean squat. They’d wait quietly.”
“Send one of the superhearers with Goldman.”