by Nancy Kress
Later on, she would wear Vicki’s personal shield, and let herself be wrapped in a clear protective energy field that would keep her from being scratched by brambles, stung by insects, frightened of every noise in the brush. But not now. Not until she was farther away from camp. Personal shields set up a detectable field.
Sanctuary couldn’t monitor the entire state, could they?
By morning she’d reached the place where the creek joined the river. She was exhausted. She crawled under a windfall of brush that shielded her from sight from above but still let the bright morning sun slant in. Taking off her clothes, Lizzie fed. Then she gratefully turned on the personal shield and slept all day.
When she awoke toward dusk, she wasn’t alone. It was summer; tribes of Livers that had spent the winter in the warm south were now roaming back. This tribe sounded small and familial: Lizzie heard several babies crying. Changed or unChanged? She didn’t emerge from her hiding place to look. Her biggest danger was not starvation, nor sickness, nor accident. It was others of her own kind. Not all tribes were small, or familial.
At night she started off again. It was much easier wearing the personal shield. Billy had taught her a lot about hiding in the woods—or out of them—and that would help, too.
She’d worry about Manhattan East when she got there.
I N T E R L U D E
TRANSMISSION DATE: April 20, 2121
TO: Selene Base, Moon
VIA: Mall Enclave Ground Station, GEO Satellite C-1494 (U.S.)
MESSAGE TYPE: Encrypted
MESSAGE CLASS: Class A, Federal Transmission
ORIGINATING GROUP: Internal Revenue Service
MESSAGE:
Dear Ms. Sharifi:
The Internal Revenue Service is in receipt of your personal federal tax return for 2020, which was filed electronically from Selene Base, Moon. However, the return is unsigned. For electronic returns, a manual signature rendered by digital pen or equivalent technology is required by federal law. Therefore, I am attaching electronic Form 1987A for your signature.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Madeleine E. Miller
Madeleine Elizabeth Miller
District Commissioner, Internal Revenue Service
ACKNOWLEDGMENT: None received
Seventeen
Jennifer Sharifi followed Chad Manning into the conference room of Sharifi Labs on Sanctuary. A large U-shaped table arched around three walls, backed by eighteen chairs. In the center of the U, a clear plastic panel, unshatterable by anything short of nuclear detonation, was set into the orbital floor. As Sanctuary orbited, the view beneath the floor changed from black space brilliant with stars to the huge blue-and-white eyeball of the Earth. The panel opaqued automatically whenever the sun flashed into too bright view. Around the edges of the panel curled a decorative border of Arabic design, intricate interlocking geometrics copied from ancient weavings at Kasmir. The border was programmed to change colors to complement the view. It turned the solar system into a rug under Sanctuary’s feet.
“Door close,” Dr. Manning said. In the large empty room his voice echoed faintly. “Sit down, Jennifer.”
“I’d rather stand, thank you. What is it you wish to show me?”
Chad pulled a sheaf of papers from his pocket. That alone was significant: his information, whatever it was, wasn’t on-line, not even in the heavily shielded programs of the neuropharm project. And yet Chad Manning was not, as Jennifer well knew, a particularly suspicious person. She knew everything there was to know about Dr. Chad Parker Manning.
Chief scientist for Sharifi Labs, he was the only one of the project team who had not been sent to prison at the same time as Jennifer, for the original attempt to make Sanctuary safe. The inclusion of one outsider on the team had been inevitable. The geneticists imprisoned for treason had lost too much time incarcerated, in a field that still changed rapidly every few years. And the project had to be run from Sharifi Labs: the labs had the equipment for checking Strukov’s claims, for detailed analyses of Strukov’s results before Jennifer committed the next huge section of her fortune to the Sleeper renegade. There was no way the secret team could not include Sharifi Labs’ chief scientist.
Robert Day, Sanctuary’s business manager and another imprisoned hero of the original attempt to free Sanctuary, had chosen Manning from among the Sleepless scientists. Robert had been released from prison ten years before Jennifer. He’d had time to investigate thoroughly, recruit slowly, be completely sure. Dr. Chad Manning was not the scientific genius that Serge Strukov was. A generation produced only one such genius. But as a scientist, Chad was solid, methodical, completely capable of dogging Strukov’s scientific footsteps—even if Chad could never have ventured along those same paths first. Just as important, he was completely committed to safeguarding Sanctuary by whatever means became necessary. Jennifer trusted him.
“I’ve been playing with Strukov’s virus,” Chad said. “In simulation, of course. And I found something.”
“Yes? What sort of something? And is there a reason we’re not looking at your simulations?”
“I destroyed them. These are the printouts. Although of course I can re-create the sims if you want to check them.”
He unfolded the sheaf of papers. Chad Manning’s parents had made him genemod handsome on a fairly uncommon template: sensitive and delicate. He had a thin face, high sharp cheekbones, pale skin, and the long flexible fingers of a violinist. The fingers trembled as he handed the papers to Jennifer.
“The first pages are biochemical equations, models…I can go through each of them for you if you like, afterward. Look now at the last page.”
Jennifer did. Two identical computer-sketched drawings of protein folds. Below them, a probability equation. The variables were written out by hand.
“The difference is very subtle,” Chad said, and she heard the strain in his voice. “See, there—on the farthest left segment. The chromosomal difference is only a few amino acids.”
Now Jennifer saw the two drawings weren’t identical after all. One small area of one protein fold differed from the other.
“What’s most important is that to discover this, you have to be really following an unlikely simulated trail,” Chad said. His agitation was growing. “I just sort of stumbled over it. It’s not a common mutation, and it’s on one of Strukov’s proteins that you wouldn’t expect to do this…but, Jennifer, look at the equations.”
The protein folds conveyed little to Jennifer—she was not a microbiologist. But the math was a standard probability equation. The probability of the protein-fold mutation occurring spontaneously within a year’s time, given Chad’s variables for replication and infection rates, was 38.72 percent.
She said composedly, “What effect would this protein fold have on the virus?”
“It will make it viable outside the human body. And thus transmissible.”
“In other words, instead of having to breathe in the virus, which is then destroyed by the Cell Cleaner but not before it sets off the cascade reaction of natural amines—”
“Instead of having to breathe it in, the virus would become transmissible from person to person. It could survive on skin, clothing, hair, in body folds—”
“For how long?” Jennifer asked.
“Unknown. But certainly a few days. And in this form it can enter the body through skin punctures or orifices…an infected person can infect others. For at least a few days. That couldn’t happen with the previous foldings. Every virus not breathed in from the first strike died a few minutes later. Or, if it was breathed in, it was destroyed anyway by the Cell Cleaner.”
Jennifer didn’t allow her puzzlement to show on her face. “But, Chad—that’s what we’ve intended all along, isn’t it? The second mode of delivery that Strukov is supposed to give us is just that: transmissible by human contact. Why do you consider this a problem?”
“Because if the virus mutates na
turally, before Strukov is ready to release his transmissible form, he can’t control it.”
Jennifer waited. She still didn’t fully understand Chad’s agitation, but she didn’t say so. Never reveal how much you don’t understand, not even to allies. She waited.
Chad said, “There are two problems. No, three. If the virus mutates before we’re ready, we’ll no longer control its spread. The drone delivery schedule—as you know!—was carefully drawn up to avoid attracting scientific or military attention as long as possible. That will no longer be in our control.”
“It already isn’t,” Jennifer said. “Kelvin-Castner Pharmaceuticals happened to stumble across a Liver test site. You know that.”
“True. But they aren’t bringing in the CDC or Brookhaven. At least, not yet. Second, as soon as a virus becomes viable outside the body, it means places like Kelvin-Castner can study the original proteins, not just the secondary effects on the brain. That will give them a big jump forward on finding a vaccine. Or even a reverser.”
“But you said finding those would be very difficult, even after the virus is directly transmissible—”
“Oh, it will,” Chad said. “It will. But we don’t want to give the Sleepers any edge at all. Third, if the virus can mutate this way, with a 38.72 percent probability, and I only found it by accident…what else might it do? And does Strukov know?”
“Don’t tell him,” Jennifer said swiftly. “And don’t ask him. There’s no way to tell if his answer was the truth.”
Chad nodded. Jennifer, pondering, studied the clear panel beneath her feet. Stars, cold and remote and sharp…but up close, she reminded herself, they were very messy aggregations of violent collisions.
“I want the rest of the team to know about this, Chad. Although you did right to show it to me first, and to destroy the simulations.” Sanctuary had its own teenage datadippers. Ordinarily, Jennifer was pleased by that. They were the next generation of systems scientists, and the more ingenious their technique, the better. But not this time. “We have to design a new delivery schedule. A much more rapid one.”
“Will the Peruvians be able to accelerate the hardware manufacture?”
“I don’t know. That’s the real difficulty.” Strukov, Jennifer was sure, could handle any shift in plans on his end. “I’ll get Robert and Khalid on it.”
“All right,” Chad said. Jennifer could see that he had calmed down. Her calm had infected him. As it was supposed to.
He held the door of the conference room for her, but Jennifer shook her head. “I will stay here awhile.”
Chad nodded and closed the door.
Jennifer gazed at the bordered floor panel. Earth was sliding into view. Clouds over the Pacific Ocean. So beautiful. So treacherous, so morally diseased. But so beautiful.
A sudden desire came over her to once again see Tony Indivino’s grave, in the Allegheny Mountains of New York. Tony Indivino, whom she had loved when she was young, as she’d never loved since. Tony, killed by the Sleepers, but not before he’d conceived of Sanctuary, the safe haven for them all…
Jennifer destroyed the thought. Tony was dead. What was dead no longer existed. What no longer existed must not be allowed to control the living, even momentarily. To allow that was to risk maudlin and ineffective sentimentality.
Tony was dead. No one who was dead mattered to Jennifer any longer.
No one.
“I think you should read the reports,” Will said. “At least once.”
“No,” Jennifer said. She moved slightly farther away from his body in their bed. “And I asked you not to bring up the subject again.”
“I know what you asked,” Will said evenly.
“Then please respect my request.”
Will raised himself on one elbow and looked at her. “You run the neuropharm project, Jennifer. That means you should be aware of every factor. The aftermath of La Solana is a factor. The FBI-CIA team has determined that the bomb came in on a trajectory from the Rocky Mountain site, as we expected. They’re analyzing every molecule of matter up there. You should at least monitor the reports we’ve dipped to—”
Jennifer got out of bed. In one fluid motion she put on a pale austere robe. She left the bedroom.
“Jennifer!” Will called after her, and now she heard his anger, that regrettable anger that weakened Will so much as a project member, as an ally. As a man. “Jennifer—you can’t go on pretending La Solana wasn’t real! It happened!”
Yes, it happened, Jennifer thought, closing the bedroom door on Will’s voice. Past tense. It was over. There was no reason to think about it anymore. What was over was no more real now than what had never existed. There was no difference.
Their small sitting room—all personal dwellings on Sanctuary were small—was dark. “Lights on,” Jennifer said. Lately, she didn’t care for the dark. Sometimes she thought she glimpsed a figure at the edges of dark rooms, a short thick body with masses of unruly dark hair held by a red ribbon. The figure wasn’t real, of course. It didn’t exist.
Therefore, it never had.
Eighteen
Theresa was very sick. But if she had been Changed, she would have been ever sicker. Jackson found he couldn’t appreciate the irony.
Theresa had been exposed to 240 rads. As soon as Jackson raced back from Kelvin-Castner to their apartment, he scrubbed as much of it as possible out of her system. He didn’t send her to a hospital; the enclaves no longer had hospitals worthy of the name. Not necessary.
Jackson ordered the equipment he needed by emergency comlink; it reached his apartment at the same time he did. Theresa was hysterical.
“Sssshhhh, Tessie, it’s going to be all right. Hang on, sweetheart, it’s okay, just help us as much as you can.”
“Dead!” Theresa cried, over and over. “Dead…dead…dead…”
“No, you’re not going to die. Sssshhhh, Tessie, hush…” But he couldn’t calm her.
“Sedate her,” Vicki said, struggling to hold Theresa’s flailing arms. “Jackson…it’s kinder.”
He did. Then he and Vicki worked on Theresa’s limp body. He pumped out the contents of her stomach and sent specialized robotic scouring tubes down her esophagus and bronchial tree, up her rectum, into her nose and ears and vagina and across her retinas. He and Vicki scrubbed every inch of Theresa’s skin with a chemical compound. Vicki cut Theresa’s long fair hair and shaved off the stubble. For that, Jackson left the room. He stood in the hallway and pounded his fists on the wall.
When he returned, Vicki was kind enough not to look directly at his face.
He inserted an endotracheal tube; the lining of her airway was going to slough and swell, and she would need mechanical help in breathing. Next came an injection to make her sweat as much as possible. An IV laced with nutrients and electrolytes. When he and Vicki were done, they stood over Theresa’s form lying on her bed, covered with a cotton sheet. Invasive monitors fed to a central terminal, supplemented by green, texture monitor patches dotting her skin. She looked. Jackson thought despairingly, like a skinny plucked moldy sparrow.
Vicki said, “I’ll stay, Jackson. You can’t nurse your sister through this alone.”
“I ordered a nursing ’bot, with radiation-sickness software. It’ll be here soon. It had to be shipped from Atlanta.”
“No substitute for people.”
“Do you know anything about radiation sickness?” he said, more harshly than he intended.
“You’ll teach me.”
“But Lizzie and Dirk—”
“—don’t need me,” she finished. “Lizzie can manage fine. And at least nothing novel and innovative is going to happen at the camp.”
Jackson didn’t smile. He barely heard her. “If Theresa were Changed—”
“I guessed that she wasn’t,” Vicki said. “But why not?”
He ignored the question. “If she were Changed, this would actually be worse. When Miranda Sharifi designed the Cell Cleaner, she didn’t take into account
radiation sickness. Well, she couldn’t cover everything. The Cell Cleaner roots out aberrant DNA. That’s how come it catches tumors so early. But Theresa…” He couldn’t finish.
Vicki did it for him. “Is going to be a mass of mutated aberrant DNA. Jackson, I’m so sorry. Where’s the tech pilot?”
“Went home herself, I guess.”
“Then let’s hope she’s related to a doctor, too.”
He looked at Vicki angrily. “I’m not a roving humanitarian, damn it! The pilot isn’t my patient.”
Vicki didn’t answer. But she touched his shoulder briefly before saying, “I’m going to get some sleep. You watch her now and I’ll relieve you in a few hours.”
“Ask the house system to wake you up. Its name is Jones, and the guest-program entry word is ‘Michelangelo.’”
“I know,” Vicki said, and Jackson didn’t think to ask her how she knew.
After an hour, he called the Manhattan East Airfield and sent a message to the tech pilot who had flown Theresa Aranow. He appended a file on treating radiation sickness.
Then he pulled a chair close to his sister’s bed and watched her sleeping face while it was still whole.
Vicki crept into the room in the middle of the night and said gently, “Let me sit with her.”
Jackson had been half dozing. He had dreamed fitfully. Huge blobs attacked him, trying to engulf his head…he realized they had been Theresa’s T-cells, being mobilized to fight her own body. He sat up in his chair and said groggily, “No…I’ll stay here.”