Star Vigilante (Vigilante Series)

by T. Jackson King

  In seconds they were surrounded by Earth-stock ferns, roses, creeping vines, oleander bushes, pomegranate trees, and hundreds of flowers. In the atrium’s center, a blue pond flashed to the rainbow colors of carp. The carp were mainly orange and yellow-scaled, of great age, and their perfect form showed an award-winning lineage. Perhaps direct from the temple gardens of Kyoto? A master gardener had been at work here. Human or Derindl? Or maybe a crossbreed? Behind them, bare feet scraped to a stop under the column-lined portico. A woman gasped, then peered at them.

  “Eliana?”

  “Larissa!” Eliana squealed, running up to the newcomer. The two women fell into each other’s arms.

  In Suit, Matt watched the reunion. Larissa was a white-haired, very old woman dressed simply in an old style Greek peplos robe, topped by a himation mantle pinned at each shoulder. Her white hair was carefully braided and piled atop her head. Long fingers and sun-darkened brown skin told him she was Pure Breed human rather than a crossbreed. He blinked, ordering Suit to Tactical Standby, with Defense algorithms on auto. He still had a job to do. On his faceplate, scrolling icons confirmed Larissa had but one heart and no bioupgrades. No mech weapons. No sign of hidden bioweapons. And unlike many humans, she did not show fear of Suit. Instead, the old woman looked him over, her gaze thoughtful and measuring. “But who is this?”

  Eliana glanced back at Matt. “Larissa. I’ve come . . . best to start at the beginning. This is the Vigilante Matthew Dragoneaux. He’s agreed to help us get rid of the Stripper.”

  Old Larissa nodded firmly. “Good. This idiocy of Nikolaos will ruin us yet if a solution isn’t found. And soon. But why are you two here, rather than south continent?”

  “Oh, lots of reasons!” Eliana chattered like a magpie, telling Larissa about their trip out from Hagonar Station, the attacks, the meeting with Ioannis, the encounter with Dreedle—she would have mouthed off about Spyridon if Matt hadn’t raised a hand at that part of the history. Eliana finished up lamely, looking from him back to the surrounding school buildings. “So I came to see Calyce. Is she here?”

  Larissa smiled. “She is. Are you planning to see Nikolaos?”

  Matt broke in—security came first and Eliana needed to stop blathering. “We hope to, Mistress Larissa. Exactly when is uncertain.” Eliana raised an eyebrow. “I thought it would be useful to visit Olympus, see your people, and learn a little about your way of life. That coincided nicely with Eliana’s wish to visit her niece.”

  Larissa raised her eyebrows. “That sounds logical.” The woman’s matter-of-fact manner made him warm to her. “Matthew, uh Vigilante, what do I call you?”

  He bowed in Suit, its flexarmor creaking. “Matthew is too formal. Matt is fine.”

  “Too formal?” Grey eyes twinkled. “Well, it’s not every day you find a walking battle-tank in your garden. Come along, you two. Calyce is in the Sixth Level Discussion class. I was just heading there to lead the Integration discussion on molecular biology and genetics. You’re welcome to listen in.”

  “Thank you,” Eliana said, beating Matt to the words, her eyes bright and mischievous as she walked beside him. What was she up to? And why did he enjoy competing with her to please old Larissa?

  They followed the woman out of the atrium. Matt bent in Suit to avoid knocking down the stone lintel marking the transition from garden to portico hallway. Otherwise, he’d have brought down the entire building. A building that, on closer inspection, replicated the classical Greek gymnasia schools of the agora. Turning right, they walked down a colonnaded hallway, with ashlar-block walls on the left, grooved Doric columns on the right, and his boots striking echoes from the wide flagstones. Ahead walked Larissa and Eliana, arm-in-arm.

  Matt followed, wondering at the quietness, the peacefulness, and the serenity of the school. On Thuringia, he’d never attended a real school—just worked with a teaching machine and received lessons from the Port over the vidnet. Until the raid. After that, it had been catch-as-catch-can, learning the hard knock lessons of life. Science and machinery had always interested him, but the leisure of unthreatened study and education was a byproduct of stable human colonies, not something you got bouncing around alien-infested space. Watching confident, relaxed Eliana as she walked up front, Matt wondered what she would think if she knew he envied her those childhood experiences too many take for granted.

  They entered a classroom filled with crossbreed albino boys and girls aged ten to twelve. The boys were dressed in plain white chiton tunics, while the girls all wore brown peplos robes like Larissa’s. The children were seated in a half-circle of computer chairs that faced a low platform, their small Derindl tails poking out from their simple clothing. They looked up as Larissa and Eliana entered. His entrance after them drew gasps of surprise and some looks of fright. But one black-haired young girl—about ten years old—ignored him, shrieked her delight, and ran to Eliana.

  “Aunt Eliana! Where have you been? The genoi said—”

  “Threat! Threat! Threat!”

  Suit’s proximity alarm shrilled loud enough to deafen everyone. Matt slapped his chest, resetting the Defense Zone to one meter, and felt embarrassed. Everyone was looking at him now—Old Larissa, the young girl who hugged Eliana tightly, and the entire class of twenty kids. Some days it doesn’t pay to . . . .

  “Matt,” said Larissa encouragingly. “Will you say hello to my class?”

  “Yes, Mistress.” Matt repeated his ID, trade and task for the class, and explained briefly about combat suits. “Please don’t mind Suit’s proximity alarm—it’s set to protect me. It interpreted this girl’s running—”

  “Calyce,” Larissa interrupted with a wry grin.

  “Calyce’s running toward me as a possible Threat. But don’t worry—I’ve instructed Suit to accept you all as friends while I am among you.”

  Most of the students relaxed, except for the younger ones who seemed totally entranced by something so different from their biology-based Tree culture. He ignored their shy looks, ignored faceplate’s flashing images, ignored the security feeds from Perimeter Remotes that Suit had seeded on their flight down, and watched instead his Patron. Eliana finished hugging and kissing Calyce, then looked to patient Larissa.

  “Teacher, please continue with your Integration class. I’ll sit on the floor beside Calyce, and Matt doesn’t get tired standing in Suit.” Eliana turned to Matt. “Uh, Matthew, these children are very, very smart. It’s the result of their crossbreed heritage, and the need to . . . learn genetics and ecobiology at a young age. So they will be welcome when they live at the Mother Trees.”

  Larissa looked aside at him, considered Suit, then turned back to Eliana. “Thank you, young one. Anyway, your visit offers an opportunity to educate our children about the machine-based culture of the Anarchate.” Larissa’s hawk eyes peered at Eliana. “And have you ever considered that he might be curious about us and the Trees?”

  Eliana looked startled. “Why, I assumed his ship would—”

  “Assumed?” Larissa interrupted, moving to take her lecture post on the Integration platform. Standing calmly, the old woman clasped hands over her waist and swept her gaze around the classroom. “Children, what are the dangers of assumptions?”

  A young boy of about ten looked up from his datapad and worktable computer screen, his expression serious. “Teacher Larissa, assumptions lead to error. Error leads to mistaken action. Mistaken action can lead to ecosystem imbalance, trade imbalance or the loss of useful allies.” He looked at Suit. “This man is different, but he may not be that much different from us as a person.”

  The boy’s insight surprised Matt. “A good point,” he responded. “In fact, my ship’s Library holds much data on Halcyon and the Derindl. But it knows little about your lives and what it is like living in a biology-based society. What is it like?”

  Larissa smiled at him, then scanned the room. “Who can tell Mr. Dragoneaux what it’s like living on Halcyon?”

  Several children loo
ked blank. The possibility of living otherwise was not something they’d thought much about. And the possibility of a life not dependent upon the food products, antigens and mutagens made possible by an ancient society well-versed in biotechnology must seem very strange to them.

  Larissa prodded them. “Miltiades—assume Mr. Dragoneaux knows nothing of the human genome, the Derindl genome and molecular biology. Where would you start?”

  Miltiades was a boy no older than ten who looked startled at being singled out. He gulped, then leaned forward in his chair. “Teacher, I would start with what we humans are—in organic and genetic terms.” At Larissa’s encouraging nod, he continued, looking at Suit. “Mr. Dragoneaux, humans are biologically defined by our genome. The genome is made up of twenty-three chromosomes, which in turn are composed of DNA and RNA-containing genes, which themselves contain double helix strands of nucleotides.”

  “And?” Larissa prompted as Eliana looked on proudly from the side of the room.

  The boy smiled shyly. “And the nucleotides are made up of chemical bases, phosphoric acid groups and sugars.”

  “Miltiades,” Eliana said, “what are the four chemicals making up a nucleotide base?”

  “Adenine, thymine, guanine and cytosine,” Miltiades said promptly.

  “Good,” Larissa said, her gaze leaving Miltiades . . . to his obvious relief. “Children, how do these four chemicals combine to spell the genetic code that says human?”

  “That was too easy!” complained a girl of about twelve who sat next to Miltiades. The boy looked irritated at the return of class attention. Larissa looked patient.

  “Miltiades?”

  “They combine only in pairs of adenine-thymine and guanine-cytosine. AT and GC, Teacher. They were originally called Watson-Crick base pairs. They spell out the alphabet of the human genome, although epigenetics determines which gene is active and which is inactive, and which genes express proteins.”

  “Correct.” Larissa turned to the twelve year-old girl, her thin face set firmly in concentration. “Polyxena, how many genes are there in the human genome?”

  “Thirty-two thousand, one hundred and forty-two,” she said hurriedly, “although the Derindl genome has ten thousand more.”

  “Let us leave Derindl genetics aside for the moment,” Larissa said, smiling encouragement to Polyxena. “How many nucleotide base pairs make up these human genes, and the genome?”

  “One billion, one hundred forty-seven thousand, nine hundred and twelve,” chirped Polyxena. Matt smiled. The girl’s bright personality and eagerness to please reminded him of his youngest sister Elaine when she would . . . . His stomach twisted at the memory pain. Hurriedly he shut it away, hoping he controlled his eyes. The faceplate was still transparent.

  Eliana looked over at Larissa, raised her hand, caught the woman’s nod, and stood up. She pointed at a boy who seemed about eleven going on the seriousness of forty. “Young man, in my field of genetic analysis we use transfer RNA to read the messenger RNA inside a cell, then we use it to transfer the ‘read’ genetic message to another cell or plasmid. In what mode does tRNA ‘read’?”

  “My name is Demetrios,” the boy said formally. “The mode of reading by tRNA is in groups of three bases, which we call codons. Each codon corresponds to one of the twenty amino acids in a cell.”

  Eliana nodded approvingly. “Good, Demetrios. What is a termination codon?”

  Demetrios sat up, looking very self-important. “A termination codon is a three-base group that stops protein assembly in the cellular ribosome because it lacks tRNA. “

  His Patron wasn’t going to let the boy’s formality get in the way of her objective. “Demetrios, what are polymerases and how do they help in genetic expression?”

  “They are enzymes that sequentially link adjacent nucleotides, helping the tRNA make DNA copies. Madam.”

  Eliana looked nonplussed. Larissa clapped her hands approvingly. “That is a good start for our guest . . . from our younger students. Now, let us assume Mr. Dragoneaux is more interested in gene copying, gene transplants and transgenic biochemistry.” Larissa pointed to an older brown-haired girl who seemed about twelve years old, sat stiffly in her chair, and had been watching his education in molecular genetics with a self-satisfied smile. “Andromeda! Before we began using automated DNA sequencing systems based on laser fluorescing and tracking of marker genes, what did our ancestors back on Earth use to ‘map’ human genes—before the human genome was finally mapped in the early twenty-first century?”

  Andromeda looked surprised, as if she expected her teacher to ask her a modern day, cutting science question about how to combine the human and Derindl genomes, instead of one about ancient history. She swallowed nervously. “Teacher, I think they used pulsed field gel electrophoresis to map DNA fragments.”

  Larissa nodded approvingly. “Good, Andromeda. But that technique was used to read fragments measuring several thousand to several million base pairs in length. What did they use to visualize shorter ones . . . of a few base-pairs up to a few thousand?”

  The older girl looked stumped. At the side of the classroom, Eliana looked down to Calyce. “Niece?”

  Calyce spoke, her voice bright and confident. “Aunt Eliana, they used submarine electrophoresis in conjunction with Southern blot hybridization. They used uncloned genomic DNA or fragments that had been cloned into lambda, plasmid or cosmid vectors. The Human Genome Mapping project of old Earth made great strides with the use of the Hood laser sequencer, which generated the vast number of electrophoretic gene templates that allowed us to see gene structure. To double-check, they used twofold oversequencing to unambiguously determine the sequence of each nucleotide strand and of each chromosome so that—”

  “Enough!” Larissa called out, hands held up in surrender; she then looked at Suit. Grey eyes dived through his faceplate. “Perhaps Mr. Dragoneaux has questions he would like to ask?”

  Matt disliked being on the spot, let alone surrounded by so many super-smart children. But he saw no harm in cooperating with this teacher’s lesson of the day. He focused on overconfident Andromeda.

  “Andromeda, in recombinant DNA genetic engineering, such as that used in improving some agricultural crops, what are the two vectors of preference for transplanting genes?”

  The girl sat back in her chair, looking relaxed and confident. “Bacterial plasmids of two gene size or larger, and retroviruses.”

  “Correct.” Matt refused to give up. “Uh, how was the blood disease sickle-cell anemia first cured through gene transplants?”

  Andromeda scowled, thinking hard; off to the side, both Eliana and Larissa seemed pleased with his question. The girl looked up. “That would be the pioneering work of Dr. Richard Mulligan, the first person to make retroviruses serve as ‘trucks’ to transport healthy genes into sick cells. In cooperation with Richard Mann and David Baltimore, he set out to do the first genetic engineering. Dr. Mulligan knew that sickle-cell anemia is caused by a mutant gene that makes the beta-globin protein in hemoglobin take a sickle-like shape, causing a loss of oxygen flow to internal organs.”

  The girl paused, caught her breath, and eyed him challengingly. “To reprogram the hemoglobin cells to produce more beta-globin—and not too much alpha-globin—Dr. Mulligan used cutter enzymes to isolate an unmutated beta-globin gene. After splicing the gene into a harmless retrovirus, he spliced the virus ‘carrier’ into a bacterial plasmid ring able to infiltrate mouse cells.” She paused, looking to Larissa; the teacher nodded for her to continue. “The mouse cells became biogenetic factories that produced copies of the implanted beta-globin gene surrounded by ‘acceptable’ retroviral shells. The gene-carrying retroviruses left the mouse factory cell, entered a mouse stem cell, and inserted the beta-globin gene among the stem cell’s genes. Then the genetically altered stem cell began producing both red and white blood cells, both carrying the beta-globin gene. In humans, this lab protocol was used to implant genetically altered human hemoglobin cells
into fibroblasts that were injected into the bone marrow of persons with sickle-cell anemia. Normal hemoglobin was produced and maintained. The person was cured. Permanently.”

  Eliana winked at Matt, then returned to Andromeda. “Good so far as it goes, Andromeda. But what made Mulligan’s retroviral gene transplant work properly?”

  Andromeda’s face showed strain. “I believe it was his discovery of DNA control sequences that we call promoters?”

  “Only partly right,” Eliana said, her face alight with enthusiasm as she turned to the full class and explained her field. “Mulligan lacked knowledge of the control sequences that tell genes to turn on and off—to express properly. The work of Frank Grosveld in England was the first to document ‘enhancers’, which make sure the gene makes the right amount of protein. As Teacher Larissa taught me long ago, the ‘enhancers’ make sure the transplanted beta-globin gene activates only in red blood cells and in the proper amounts. Used together, the promoter, the enhancer and the copied beta-globin gene allowed early genetic disease researchers to cure sickle-cell anemia. And later, scores of other genetic diseases like ADA deficiency were also cured by gene transplants.”

  Enough ancient history. Matt wanted his question answered. He pointed at young Miltiades. “Miltiades, what is it like to live among the Derindl, to live in symbiosis with the Mother Trees?”

  Miltiades shrugged, his puzzlement plain. “Mr. Dragoneaux, I’ve never lived any other way. What’s it like to . . . wake up in the morning, get your breakfast from a Tree pod, have your blood searched for parasites and diseases, get a sap injection and then go out and play on the Trunks?” He smiled lopsidedly. “It’s how I live every day. Is it very different for you?”

  Matt liked that answer. “Yes, it’s quite different for me. What you have with the Trees, I have with my AI computer aboard my starship. I am never alone, just as you always have the company of the Trees.”

  Miltiades nodded happily. Eliana looked sharply at Matt, as if she had just figured out something. Old Larissa watched them both, but regret filled her elderly face. “Mr. Dragoneaux, Eliana, it’s time for our music study, in a different part of the school. Calyce has her studies there, too. Thank you for coming and visiting with us.”