Limit of Vision

by Linda Nagata

  Nguyen considered this, while his gaze roved the screen of his farsights. “Can’t the LOVs themselves be infected with the bacterium?” he asked. “As … what is the word? … symbionts, that manufacture no-oct within the LOVs’ shell?”

  Virgil felt his awareness stumble. He grasped at the idea, recoiling from it at the same time. Under his breath he said, “Ky, that’s a dangerous question.”

  Ky stiffened, his easy confidence suddenly gone. “We should take some time to discuss the distribution of food,” he said in a voice that was a little too loud.

  Virgil nodded, and the subject of no-oct was allowed to die, at least for that morning. The problem though, remained. By the next day, Virgil was convinced the only plausible solution was to culture crown gall tissue. “But I’ll need a lab to do it.”

  Ky had set up a small camp beneath the banyan tree where they had met the day before. A tarpaulin sheltered a hammock and a tiny campstove borrowed from one of the soldiers. Ky sat beside the stove, on a worn wooden chair that had probably been purchased from one of the farmers. He sipped at freshly brewed tea, while gazing at Virgil with a bemused expression. “Did I imagine our conversation yesterday? Virgil, there is no lab.”

  “But we could improvise,” Virgil insisted. “Maybe the army could help? You could convince them, Ky. If they brought in a trailer, air-conditioned, that would do it. It would need to be air-conditioned… . But we could keep our equipment simple, a stove, trays, glass covers? Most of what we need could be bought from the farming families. Or scrounged from the medical tent …”

  “Perhaps you could lay claim to an area within the medical tent?” Ky asked.

  “No. It’s not air-conditioned, and the cultures will spoil in the heat.”

  “Is there no chance it would work?”

  Virgil thought about it. “There’s a chance, I guess. But success isn’t likely.”

  Ky nodded. “The army will certainly refuse to provide you an air-conditioned trailer.”

  “You think so?”

  “I’m sure of it. Such a gift would only bring further sanctions on this country.”

  Virgil wrestled with his disappointment.

  “There may be an alternative,” Ky said. “Another UN scientist has arrived just this morning. I believe he is someone you know, a Dr. Nash Chou?”

  “Nash is here?” Virgil felt a rush of joy. Nash Chou! It was as if a small window had opened onto his former life, a life that he had thought all gone.

  “Your former coworker at EquaSys, correct?” Ky asked.

  Virgil nodded. “My boss.”

  “He has come to study the LOVs. Perhaps you could visit him, and see what assistance he is willing to offer.”

  But Virgil’s joy faded as he remembered the last time he’d seen Nash—that night in Honolulu when he had tried to remove the LOVs from Gabrielle’s body, and his whole world had come crashing down. “We didn’t part on the best of terms. I … I don’t know if he’ll talk to me.”

  “Try,” Ky said. “Our alternatives are very few.”

  VIRGIL didn’t dare to visit the UN compound himself. Though they might wear no uniform, he was sure there would be soldiers there who were not part of the Vietnamese army. So Oanh went instead. She wore a wide, conical hat to hide her LOVs, and displayed a charm that would have surprised Ela as she invited Nash Chou to tour the reservation. Nash was delighted to accept. He waved off the offer of an escort from UN security, and set off with Oanh, like a Boy Scout on an adventure, happy to leave the safety of the compound behind.

  Virgil waited for him among a grove of mango trees, standing silently among the mottled shadows while mosquitoes buzzed near his ears. At first Nash did not seem to know him. He glanced at him and looked away, but then he looked again, a puzzled expression on his round face. “Virgil? It is you.”

  “Hi, Nash.”

  Nash shook his head. Unspoken emotions glistened in his eyes. “You heard that Panwar … ?”

  “I know.”

  Nash drew a deep breath. Perspiration glistened on his flushed cheeks, and he seemed to be happy and sad at once. “I shouldn’t say this … but it’s good to see you. I hoped I’d see you.”

  “I heard the IBC gave you a bad time.”

  Nash shrugged. “I was your supervisor. They said I should have known, and they were right.”

  Virgil shook his head. “There was no way you could have known.”

  The color deepened in Nash’s cheeks. His voice grew stern. “Because you were too clever for me?”

  “No. Because you were too honest even to imagine what we were doing.”

  “Ah, yes. So you could safely display the LOVs before my very eyes, knowing I would never guess. You must have thought me a fool.”

  “That’s not how we saw it.”

  This drew a bitter chuckle. “I told the IBC I was your supervisor in name only. A brief investigation convinced them it was true. The LOV project was yours, Virgil. Your responsibility. All of this”—he gestured at the surrounding land—“you let this happen. Did you ever once stop to think it could go this wrong?”

  Virgil groped for words to counter Nash’s anger. “The LOVs have a crazy momentum all their own. I’m learning that.”

  “But you regret it?” Nash pressed.

  Virgil wasn’t sure what he was getting at. “You mean the LOVs?”

  “Of course I mean the LOVs! You smuggled them. That’s how this started. You do regret it?”

  Virgil didn’t know how to answer.

  “Damn it, Virgil! Are you so far gone? Panwar and Gabrielle—”

  “I know what happened to them! Nash, I’m not crazy. I know what’s happened to the people here, but what do you want me to do? I can’t wind time back!”

  “You could have the decency to show remorse!”

  “I never wanted it to work out this way, all right?”

  “But it has.”

  Virgil nodded, amazed still at the LOVs’ survival.

  “You’ll never make it right,” Nash said, “no matter what you do. But you have an obligation to at least begin to make amends.”

  Virgil drew back, suddenly wary. “What do you mean?”

  “Turn yourself in.”

  “Nash—”

  “Don’t wait to be arrested!”

  Virgil turned away, shaking his head. He had told Ky this conversation would do no good … and still he had to try. “Nash, the LOVs—”

  Nash waved a dismissive hand. “They’re doomed. You know it. I know it. When the no-oct is gone, they’ll die.”

  Virgil felt sure he was doing more harm than good—but hadn’t he promised to try? “That’s why you have to help us, Nash.”

  Nash looked puzzled. “Help you?”

  Virgil gave a tentative nod. “We need no-oct.”

  “And you want me to get it for you?”

  “No. I’m not asking that. But if you were to help us get just a few pieces of equipment—”

  “No,” Nash said firmly. “Not one thing.” He turned away. Oanh had withdrawn to the edge of the grove. He saw her and set off as if to join her, but after a few steps he turned back. He was standing in deeper shadow now, and it was hard to see his expression. “Virgil. I meant what I said, about being glad to see you. But I am not on your side. I don’t know how you engineered this sanctuary. That was a political miracle, but it won’t last. It’ll end the day the no-oct runs out—and I won’t help you put off that time by even a minute.”

  chapter

  22

  CROWN GALL HAD not been common in the region; a few days after the LOVs’ release it could not be found at all as the Roi Nuoc scoured old fields and the weeds around them, harvesting every infected stem. There was competition among them to collect the galls, and it was not always friendly. The Roi Nuoc knew all about Epsilon-3. They saw the LOVs as seeds of similar organic computers, unprecedented thinking machines, and if they didn’t know what use those machines might serve, they were all sure a use wou
ld be found. New globes hardly had a chance to grow before they were broken up again and scattered into even more waterways. Small partnerships formed among the Roi Nuoc, and each new site was jealously guarded.

  That was trouble for Ela. Since the first day, she had made it her task to record LOV development in fifty or so ponds and waterways that she could tour in a daily circuit. Virgil had promised to go with her, but he seldom did. All his time was spent in the makeshift lab he had put together in a corner of the medical tent, where he was struggling to culture crown gall tissue despite the terrible heat and humidity, the unsanitary conditions, and the open threats from the IBC. Success didn’t seem likely, but even if he did coax his tissue cultures to grow, it was easy to see that his tiny operation would never produce enough tissue to support all the colonies that had been started within the boundaries of the reservation. There would be trouble when the no-oct tablets he had brought with him were finally gone. Most of the scattered colonies would die.

  The Roi Nuoc cadres knew this, and it made them even more protective. At first they resented Ela trespassing in “their” waters, inspecting “their” LOVs. Her presence was tolerated only because Mother Tiger insisted, but as the days passed their trust began to grow. In time she came to be seen as an impartial arbiter in their disputes, a sheriff who could mediate their differences.

  So it did not surprise her when, on the tenth day of the reservation, Oanh whispered into her dream, “Ela. An unmarked colony has been found close beside the border. Now there is argument over who should have it. Will you come?”

  Ela opened her eyes to the green glow of her tent’s nylon roof as it caught and augmented the faint dawnlight. She stretched in her blanket, lifting her head to see Oanh crouched just beyond the mesh door, silhouetted against a gray, cloud-draped sky. Misty rain softened the outlines of distant trees and the hard bar of the horizon. “An unmarked colony?” Ela muttered, wondering how a globe could have escaped attention for so long.

  “Everyone is surprised. But it is very close to the border. Not many go there. Not even the government scientists.”

  Ela pushed her blanket aside. She slipped on her farsights and then her sandals. She brushed her hair. Then she grabbed a can of sweet coffee, one of a six-pack a soldier had given her, and followed Oanh out into the drizzle.

  The new colony was in a narrow irrigation ditch lined with rotting brown grass. Ninh stood guard there, facing off two other Roi Nuoc known as Phan and Hoa, both of them familiar to Ela from her daily rounds. Like most of the Roi Nuoc on the reservation, they had adopted their own scattering of symbiotic LOVs across their foreheads. Ela felt their suspicion whisper through her every time her LOVs faced theirs.

  Now though, she ignored the challenge in their stares as she crouched beside the ditch to peer into the murky water. To her surprise, she discovered there were two globes, both the delicate size of tangerines. They grew side by side, caught in the branches of a drowned shrub

  Ela had already watched hundreds of globes grow from marble-sized masses to Ping-Pong balls to oranges in less than a week. So judging by their size, she estimated these twin colonies to be at least five days old.

  Who had been here five days ago to seed them?

  She asked Ninh. He only shrugged.

  Ela trailed her fingers in the silky current. Then she stood, following the ditch for several hundred feet until she could see ahead to where it joined a larger canal just outside the reservation. There were no other LOV colonies in the little waterway. So where had this wild pair come from? Her thoughts returned to that frantic first night. Someone might have splashed across the canal and unknowingly washed a LOV or two into the water. It was possible.

  She squinted against gray veils of softly falling rain, thinking about Mother Tiger’s map of the LOV colonies. None had been recorded upstream of this site … so there should not be any no-oct in the water. But how could the twin colonies have survived without a supply of no-oct?

  Her heart answered, thumping, thumping, as she circled round the question. Maybe the twin colonies didn’t need no-oct … or maybe their LOVs had learned to manufacture it on their own. Either way, the result was the same: These LOVs were self-sufficient.

  She turned, intending to start back. But she was stopped cold by the sight of a peeper ball floating less than an arm’s length away. Her breath caught. She watched, beguiled, as droplets of rainwater slid frictionless from its silver surface. Oanh and Ninh, Phan and Hoa, were distant shadows, barely visible in the rain.

  Across the irrigation ditch something rustled in the brush. Ela’s heart crawled up her throat. This place was very close to the border. How close?

  “Leave,” Mother Tiger whispered.

  Yes.

  She turned. Across the ditch, brush crackled and popped. Three huge figures in fatigues loomed in the gray light, expanding horribly in size as they hurtled across the water. Ela took off, a frightened mouse sprinting back toward Ninh and Oanh. “I-B-C!” she screamed, her voice high, and frantic. “Run! Run!”

  They did not. They charged toward her instead.

  Ela felt something strike her shoulder. She lost her balance, spinning half-around as she slid in the mud and just like that her arms were pinned behind her. She felt the heat, the mass, the breath of an IBC cop as he crushed her wrists in a stunning grip. “Don’t fight,” he growled in her ear. “It will only hurt more.”

  “You can’t be here!” she squeaked. “You’re forbidden to be here.”

  “Let’s go.”

  “No.”

  He lifted her half off her feet. The pain in her arms was excruciating.

  “Stop it!” Oanh screamed. “Let her go!” Ela watched her dancing like a frantic child, back and forth along an invisible line, not daring to approach any closer though the desire shimmered in her dark eyes. “You must let her go! This is trespass.” Ninh stood a step behind her, uncertainty shadowing his smooth face.

  The IBC cop ignored them both. He wrested Ela around, shoving her past his two partners, faceless behind silvered farsights as they sighted down their rifles at Oanh and Ninh while Ela was forced back along the irrigation ditch, back toward the canal. A few steps more and she would be outside the protection of the reservation. She would be in IBC jurisdiction and they would be free to arrest her. She tried to dig her heels into the grass, but her captor only tightened his grip until her arms felt as if they were being wrenched from their sockets. She screamed faintly. Her knees gave way. The sudden shift in her weight unbalanced him and they went down together in the wet grass.

  He swore a brutal oath.

  “Stay down,” Mother Tiger whispered, but Ela was not given a choice. Without shifting his grip, the IBC cop hauled her back to her feet. She gasped: a shard of sound that cut her lungs.

  Then a woman spoke from somewhere just ahead, her cultured voice low and angry. Mother Tiger translated from Vietnamese: “Release her. Now. You are in violation of international treaty. This action has been recorded and a complaint has been filed with the UN mediator. Release her! Or face immediate arrest yourself.”

  Ela turned her head, searching for the source of the voice.

  Three government soldiers stood several meters away, their rifles poised at their shoulders as they glared down the sights at the IBC cops. “Let her go,” the officer repeated.

  To Ela’s dismay, the cop’s grip tightened. “This reservation exists to protect LOVs, not criminals!” he shouted. “This woman is a known fugitive.”

  The young officer was not swayed. “You have no jurisdiction here. Let her go.”

  Ela could feel the determination in his grip. He would not give in. She knew it. Then faintly, another voice spoke, a tiny voice leaking from his farsights. Orders? The cop swore—and released her.

  Ela collapsed, falling forward into the trampled grass. She watched his boots pass, and then his partners’. Oanh was with her after that, rubbing her arms, helping her to sit up, while the shadowy figures of the IBC cops d
isappeared back across the canal.

  The young Vietnamese officer approached. “You should not come so close to the border, Ms. Suvanatat,” she advised. “You will only tempt them.”

  “I won’t do it again,” Ela whispered. Then she turned to Oanh. In a voice barely audible she said, “The two LOV colonies. They have survived without no-oct.”

  Oanh’s eyes widened.

  “Divide them,” Ela said. “Spread them to all the ponds.”

  “Is that wise?”

  Ela hesitated. Without the restraint of no-oct, what would limit the growth of the LOVs? “I don’t know. But the crown galls are gone, the supplements are gone, and Virgil’s tissue cultures won’t ever be enough. Will we let the colonies die?”

  Oanh stared into the sluggish water of the canal. Seeing what? Possibilities, perhaps. Or perils. Then she turned to look down the irrigation ditch, where Phan and Hoa were disappearing into the rain. “Those greedy criminals,” Oanh whispered. “It is done.”

  THE two stolen globes were torn to bits and scattered throughout the reservation. Phan collected food as payment for the new LOVs, and too many possessions to carry. Virgil had been working in the medical tent, unaware of the incident until it was over, but when Ela told him what had happened, he was furious. “Ky!” he hissed.

  A link opened. Ky looked at him, a finger pressed against his lips. “Look up,” he said.

  Virgil did. Peeper balls hovered within the tent, spying on his activities and listening to his conversations past the soft susurration of the rain. So Virgil grabbed a poncho purchased from one of the soldiers and he went outside.

  The patter of dripping water was everywhere. “Ky,” he said, mouthing the words, knowing Mother Tiger would enhance them. “You can’t allow this. If the LOV colonies learn to synthesize no-oct, the whole situation will change.”

  “How can I stop it?” Ky whispered. “You want to believe I command the Roi Nuoc, but it isn’t so.”

  “But Mother Tiger—”

  “The Rosa serves the Roi Nuoc, not me.”

  “Ky, you don’t understand. With no nutritional trump card to stop them, the LOVs will be infinitely more dangerous.”