Alien Backlash

by Maxine Millar

  Kasjeindid shuddered. It would have to stop thinking or it would go nuts!

  It explained all this, in a very expensive ultra-fast communication, to its boss back at the factory: “We are clearly compromised and we have a duty of care. My suggestion is some modules to double the present system until it can be replaced with a better one. Preferably empty the warehouses and make up a new system in order to be a good employer and keep your employees alive! As soon as possible.” (Translation: Move it! I want to stay alive!)

  Back in the control room with the Controller. Kasjeindid recounted the conversation with management. “Due to this little problem, we have now been automatically committed by our contract to stay on Torroxell until the problem is solved,” it said sarcastically.

  “Well, we knew that!”

  It ignored the interruption. “Instead of the three months on Torroxell the original contract called for. And that possibility was written into the contract precisely to cater for little glitches like this one. That means all of us have to stay.”

  “It could be worse.”

  “How?”

  “At least you didn’t have to justify your shopping list. Even an idiot in the management team can see how compromised we are here. Better still, we all have those very large temporary life-insurance policies built into our contracts to ensure the management will be more than a little inconvenienced by our death or disappearance. Management does need these little incentives to keep their priorities focused. Workers are not disposable.”

  Kasjeindid wondered if its friend related everything to money and reminded it, “Life insurance policies have a little inherent problem — we don’t get to spend the payout!” It thought aloud, “We could add on another power plant, replace the control room and double the weapons. That will help. But I won’t feel safe until the whole system has been replaced with a better and uncompromised model. One that won’t refuse to work properly and won’t stop before it should.”

  As it trundled off muttering, the Controller looked on in amusement. It could not understand why Kasjeindid worried so much. If they lived, they got a huge bonus. If they died, it wouldn’t matter. What was the problem?

  Kasjeindid calculated how fast another power plant and more weapons would take to arrive and sent through a fast order to that effect. It came back into the control room and said, “I want a full systems check. I want full scanner mode. Stuff the power drain! Where’s that Ridianit that came with us? Find him and order him to check the planet’s records for anything that could be added to the system that could help. There are sure to be more Defense Systems on this planet. Finding some secret ones would help. Those with unacknowledged incomes tended to have the best ones. One earns so much more when one doesn’t have to pay taxes. Clandestine systems wouldn’t be in Torroxell’s records but they would be in our factory records. Remember that hilarious meeting with the Defense Force who were trying to find a legal way to obtain those records? Talk about cheating. Where is the honour in simply getting the names and addresses of all the local top criminals? I had no intention of helping with that quest. We make more income from the immoral than the moral. And from the formerly immoral who are trying to fool everyone that they are really moral but have generally made some immoral friends that wanted to immorally remove some of the immorally gotten gains from the so-called moral. Because they knew what the so called moral had. Small problem. Most immoral have immoral friends, acquaintances, customers, partners, employees and hangers-on and, worse, exes of all the above. Who tend to have immoral thoughts. Acquisitive ones. It is an occupational hazard. As is the retirement plan if one gets caught. I often wonder why they take the risk. Living a moral life makes so much more sense. No constant looking over behind oneself. No checking to see if the cops are following. No threat of the prison planets, those hellholes with short life expectancies.” Kasjeindid trundled off again to do some more thinking and planning and worrying, especially the latter.

  The Controller was highly entertained. It was used to these tirades when Kasjeindid was stressed. It was one of the few that knew that Kasjeindid had a hidden problem, one that was proving difficult to deal with: anxiety. When one worried when one had not much really to worry about, one’s system must get a little overloaded when one really had a problem. Like now. Interesting that Kasjeindid still managed to function, and function efficiently. The Controller briefly wondered how it was managing to function at all. But it knew why Kasjeindid could never be dishonest. Simple — its nerves wouldn’t stand it!

  Chapter Three

  Cukudeopul looked up as Kumenoprix was shown in and bowed to him. “It is time, Commander. It can wait no longer without significant risk.” Kumenoprix had a very determined look on his face. Cukudeopul could see he would not leave without an argument. He wryly decided he lacked the energy and the breath for a verbal battle, but the politics of this was something his little Okme doctor failed to appreciate. His enemies were informed, he was sure, exactly when and for how long he required the Healing Machine. Worse, while in it, he was cut off from everything. Anything could happen while his second-in-command, Kodlijicid, was in charge. His enemies saw every visit to the Machine as a sign of weakness, old age, vulnerability, opportunity; maybe it could wait a little longer? There was so much happening at the moment! He looked at Kumenoprix, calculating. Kumenoprix glared back and took a deep breath.

  Cukudeopul flinched and gestured for the chair. He knew. He had cut it very fine this time. He watched as the chair was placed beside him. It was nearly ten minutes before he felt he would be able to get the energy and the breath to move despite the anti-gravity belt now taking ninety percent of his weight. The belt did nothing for his lungs which now had almost no reserve capacity. He laboriously stood up, assisted by his servants. They helped him into the chair which rose and followed as directed by Kumenoprix.

  As Cukudeopul was helped to undress and enter the Healing Machine, Kumenoprix stood nearby. It was all prepared. There were only two People this Machine healed, the Keulfyd and, in secret, the Okme. Cukudeopul was well aware of this. Since it was to his advantage, nothing was said. The Machine had been set to Keulfyd, male.

  Cukudeopul was the Supreme Commander of the Keulfyd Race. He lived in a city which covered a small island called Deketiff (the city and island having the same name) on Iseawakyl, the capital planet of the Keulfyd. A capital planet was generally called the Prime planet making Iseawakyl’s full name Iseawakyl Prime. The island city of Deketiff was an administrative capital, governing not just the planet but the entire system of twenty-five planets. Cukudeopul was responsible for his whole Race. But he was very old and by now critically ill. He resembled a large walrus, minus the tusks and whiskers, plus two ears, four stumpy strong legs and two arms with six digits on each hand. He was beige, but Keulfyd came in many other colors.

  Kumenoprix was an Okme. They came only in grey. He looked like a skinny, very tall man, with no visible ears and six fingers on a very human-looking hand at the end of a long arm.

  Both were extremely stubborn and determined, which had had made for some fiery dialogues between them, with Kumenoprix daring a lot more than Cukudeopul’s other doctors. This morning Cukudeopul had seen the look on Kumenoprix’s face and realized it was get in or endure one colossal diatribe. He lacked the energy and breath for such an argument. Besides, he knew Kumenoprix was right. It was time.

  As the Healing Machine closed, the hook-up started inside. Tubes, needles, sensors and monitors positioned themselves. The Healing Machine was now a sealed unit, running on its own internal power. While in this unconscious state, patients were vulnerable. The Okme had, centuries earlier, found sometimes that power had been turned off, unhelpful substances had been added to intravenous lines, or foreign bodies, toxins and all sorts of unbeneficial assistance had been rendered. Now the Healing Machines and patients were off-limits. Visitors were forbidden. It was not possible to see the patient anyway: the Okme had redesigned the Healing Machine to be a sealed
unit: the patient not visible so visitors were not logical, sabotage was made difficult and, hopefully, impossible. Outsiders were not even allowed into the room where all the Machines were under guard.

  First, a fine anaesthetic gas knocked Cukudeopul out. Then probes slipped into some places, needles into others, blood was drawn, the analyzer hummed into life, and the analysis began. A line of small buttons lit up. They varied in color from red to orange to green. Most were red and orange. Only one was green. Only one. And it had been less than eight months since his last treatment.

  Cukudeopul was closely guarded for the time he was in the machine. Each time it took longer to achieve less. This time he would be in for fifty-six hours, which was the longest Kumenoprix had ever heard of. Gone were the days when Cukudeopul came out and slowly improved, re-reaching his prime. The Healing Machines could not prolong life indefinitely, and no one knew why. Theoretically, it was possible to live forever but in practice it wasn’t for varying reasons. In Keulfyd the brain started to deteriorate eventually but with Cukudeopul other systems were failing first. He had wanted to live another two or three hundred years but eighty-five years ago it had become obvious that he would not be able to.

  As the Machine opened, Cukudeopul was helped out and through the Cleaner. He was helped to dress then he and Kumenoprix stared at the lights. Five were orange; all of the rest but one were green. The remaining one was red. They looked at each other. Both knew what that meant: both their lives were now in peril, because when the Commander died the Okme must die for failing in his task. Red,the color of fire, the color of warning, the color of death for both of them.

  The Okme was not surprised. He had been anticipating this for the last few treatments. Each time the treatment took longer, the effect was less and the interval until the next treatment was necessary lessened. Last time there had been two orange; the time before, one. Now there were five and his skill as a physician would be taxed to its limit. The problems were cascading. The end was not far off.

  Kumenoprix gave an almost Human sigh, a characteristic both Races shared. “I will do my best. I will report when I have analyzed the results and determined what I can do. I will tell your doctors to carry on with the digestive and immune system treatments as written, halve all the others in the meantime, and I will calculate the necessary adjustments.”

  “Thank you, my old friend. I know your best is very good.”

  Kumenoprix watched as Cukudeopul was assisted to leave the room. A few of his servants glared at Kumenoprix as they helped him out but the Okme ignored them. If they hurt him, their lives would be forfeit. He knew it and they knew it.

  He set up his criteria and pressed the print light. He sat down and contemplated the results. The six failing systems were the immune system which was red, the air exchanger, the circulatory system, the circulation pump, the excretory system, and the heat-exhaust system. No real surprises, except that the digestive system had somehow improved. That had been an orange light last time. That told him his medication treatment had helped but the main factor was that nasty word so hated by the Keulfyd: diet.

  He recalled the day many years ago when the light for the digestive system stayed orange. Kumenoprix had had what some might call a quiet talk with Cukudeopul; except there had been nothing quiet about it. Cukudeopul had been furious to be told to reduce both the range and quantity of his food. Various organs were failing and the main solution was to reduce their workload by reducing the amount of body mass. Not a popular solution for Keulfyd: reduced weight was a sign of poverty or poor health. Politically and socially indigestible. But after the initial yelling match, Cukudeopul had been surprisingly co-operative. Maybe because now the effort of eating taxed his energy and caused breathlessness? Kumenoprix wryly thought he often didn’t eat because he forgot to. Food was often a nuisance, eaten to keep him working. The two Races were so different. One ate to live; one lived to eat.

  Kumenoprix studied the results. For the immune system there was nothing else he could do except continue the current medication and the Checker use. The main problem was that his patient had had so many transfusions, transplants and artificial bits added that he often joked he wasn’t all there. Too true. This was before he became the Supreme Commander with access to a Healing Machine and the bottomless pocket to pay for a full-time Okme doctor. The foreign parts set up a rejection reaction in Keulfyd as in many other Races, and the anti-rejection medication had compromised and slowly damaged his immune system. Kumenoprix would consult with some of his colleagues, but he doubted they would come up with anything new. Yet somehow he must keep Cukudeopul alive.

  He and Cukudeopul had grown to a state of almost friendship, yet the old Keulfyd still did not know what Kumenoprix knew and why he fought so hard to keep Cukudeopul alive. Kumenoprix had to ensure he would never know. He had made the decision to be his doctor centuries ago when the first suspicions were voiced as a menacing possibility. The reason was his other profession: he was a spy. In that role, he had confirmed those initial suspicions, although still without proof, a mere twenty or so years ago. He was then justified in all he had done. Cukudeopul was the best of the appalling. The Keulfyd were indeed set on being the only survivors in the known galaxy. How it had been possible for them was one of those very unfortunate coincidences.

  Kumenoprix well remembered hearing the extraordinary story. An Okme, name long forgotten, had been a genius but emotionally unstable and totally amoral. He had also had mind-blowingly poor judgment, poor predictive reasoning and consequently a rather shortened lifespan. The category “too stupid to live” could be applied, thought Kumenoprix. This idiotic genius had gone to the Keulfyd to sell them a process that could slowly wipe out any Race they chose, using the Cleaners and causing genetic damage. He had been the first victim of this knowledge. Regrettably for him, that meant they also hadn’t paid him. So the Keulfyd not only got their master plan, they got it for nothing.

  It was already known that in overuse the Cleaners hastened the normal process of cell degradation via replication errors. It was sometimes called replicative fading. This was what it looked like under the microscope: fading out. While the Healing Machines reversed these errors, where they could, they could do this only if they had a sharp copy. But knowing what the faded bits should have looked like only helped to diagnose problems. What was crucial was what the genes did: their function. That was the crux of the problem. They could see what was missing but sometimes they didn’t know what was inside the missing bits. So they couldn’t recreate the genes unless they had an actual, real, gene and were able to study its function. The best way to do that was to get a real, healthy, functioning gene and insert it into the appropriate chromosome of a person who didn’t have that gene and then study what difference it made.

  What this unknown Okme had discovered, accidentally, increased these replication errors and also made the damage able to be selective, within limits. So individual genes could be targeted to fade at an accelerated rate. And since the delivery system of this method of biological warfare was the Cleaners everyone had in their homes, the whole population got their daily dose.

  Kumenoprix clearly remembered learning in fascination that when cells divide, they don’t always do it exactly. Sometimes little pieces are discarded. Other bits are not replicated correctly, like a photocopier making copies of copies of copies. Errors sneak in. Some don’t matter, some get fixed in the next generation of reproduction through recombination (corrected by another person’s DNA), most the body can correct, replace, or do without, as any successful organism is built with a huge amount of back-up systems. But there is, eventually, a finite limit. It is a natural consequence of the form of reproduction called sexual reproduction where variety and diversity is enhanced. It allows for quicker evolution and response to change. But there is a cost. And all organic life has a limit. Cukudeopul was now close to his limit. The end could be hours, months, or years, but not decades. The clock was ticking. The ticking was getting loud
er.

  Centuries ago, Kumenoprix had become Cukudeopul’s chief physician in what was supposed to be a temporary contract, and had found out too much for his own good. Too much for his moral code to ignore. Too much to hand the problem to another when he knew he could do so much. Kumenoprix was not arrogant but he knew he was a genius, and he had made his life a mission. At an enormous cost, because anything else would be suspicious, he become Cukudeopul’s private physician. Cukudeopul thought it was because he was paying him a huge amount of money and Kumenoprix was living a life of luxury. But Cukudeopul was wrong.

  For Kumenoprix this was about three things: guilt by association, time, and strategy. Guilt that an Okme had given the Keulfyd the tool; time in which to discover what the tool was and how to counter it; and the strategy to use the excuse of keeping Cukudeopul alive in order to increase the time available and get access to the place where the deed was being done. Kumenoprix frequently wondered what the unknown Okme had discovered. He would have examined the other side of the coin as all Okme researchers were supposed to — not how to speed up fading but how to slow it down or stop it. How to stop problems caused by a natural cellular division process which discarded bits. Somehow, the Keulfyd were suspected of scheming to destroy other Races. Committing genocide. Kumenoprix was tasked to find out if this was true and, if so, how it was being done and to what Races this warfare was being applied.

  It was only by pure chance that the Okme Race had even suspected what had been discovered when the unknown Okme did not return to his hotel. The annoyed hotelier had called the local Healing Center thinking that they should take responsibility for the bill. After all, they were the same Race. The puzzled Okme promptly asked for someone to find out what was going on and a medical researcher volunteered to go. The Okme could not have sent anyone better able to evaluate the significance of the sparse evidence left behind: a rough copy of part of the information sent to the Keulfyd. No details, but enough technical information to ring bells for the researcher who understood what she was reading. Plus one missing Okme which told volumes about the magnitude of this discovery from the viewpoint of the Keulfyd. The Keulfyd cleaning squad tasked with finding and removing any evidence had acted too slowly and the hotelier had acted much faster than anticipated because the missing Okme had already been behind on his bill and extravagant on his expenses. Probably in hopeful anticipation.