Out of the Cocoon

by William Leisner

  “All right,” he said, standing up from his side of the desk. “Good work, Doctor.” Maybe once they wrapped things up here, he would “suggest” they resume their informal weekly counseling sessions. He could only pray she didn’t push herself past the breaking point before then.

  Wilson Granger stood in the middle of the small one-room structure that had, long ago, been the first shelter built on Mariposa. His hands were solemnly folded in front of him as he read the names etched on the two hundred and eighty-nine individual gold-plate plaques bolted to the four walls, honoring the men and women who had not survived the landing of the S.S. Mariposa. He’d visited this memorial many times before, but his eyes had always just skimmed over the names. The reality of such a mass tragedy had been inconceivable to him. Until now.

  What kind of hell must Walter Granger have gone through, he wondered. On what should have been the triumphant end of a months-long journey, he was faced with the task of burying all but four of his ship’s complement, including his own wife and their son. Wilson Granger felt a twinge, the genetic memory, perhaps, of his Progenitor’s anguish. He wondered if the courage Walter had found in the face of tragedy had also been carried down in his genes.

  “Mr. Prime Minister?”

  Granger turned toward the man standing in the entryway that connected the memorial to the rest of the Capital Complex. “Captain Gold, I presume,” he said, extending his hand.

  Gold took it with a firm, dry grasp. “Thank you for agreeing to talk with me.”

  “Not at all,” said Granger. “I’m glad for the opportunity to discuss matters in a more…tranquil setting.”

  “Meaning, without your Bringloidi counterpart.”

  Granger smiled in appreciation of the Starfleet captain’s directness. “Brenna is…well, she’s a force of nature. Sometimes, everything and everyone around her just ends up getting swept up and away.”

  Gold nodded in understanding. “Well, given the nature of your situation, we absolutely want to make sure all voices are clearly heard and considered.”

  “I’m glad to hear you say that, Captain,” said Granger. “Because I want you to hear me say this, without any other voices coloring your understanding: as Mariposan Prime Minister, and on behalf of the Mariposan citizens of the United Ficus Colony, I request that the Federation help eliminate all advanced technologies from this world.”

  Gold tried to hold his expression, and failed. “I have to say, I’m more than a little surprised to hear you say that.”

  “I don’t doubt it. Honestly, it surprises me as well.” Granger started to pace slowly around the perimeter of the small memorial. “When our scientists discovered our DNA had degraded to the point where our future was threatened, we became obsessed with the need to preserve our society. We were willing to forget everything, even our most basic sense of morality, in order to survive.”

  “You wouldn’t be the first people to do so,” said Gold, not without some sympathy. “The survival instinct is a powerful—”

  “That’s not my point, Captain,” said Granger, shaking his head. “My point is, before the Bringloidi came, we never paused to consider what, exactly, we were trying to preserve. When I was confronted a decade ago with the idea of taking a wife…several wives…and of having conjugal relations with them, my first reaction was not a positive one. Nor, for that matter, were my second or third reactions.

  “However, I had to adapt to our new reality, for my own self and as an example to the rest. So, like some medieval warlord forging a political alliance, I agreed to be married to the Bringloidi leader’s daughter. In the years since we’ve been together, however, sharing our lives, working in tandem toward our common goals, I’ve come to discover something.”

  A tiny grin cracked Gold’s lips. “That you loved her.”

  Granger shook his head slightly, even as he smiled back. “That I am even capable of love. That I can hold another person in that kind of regard. That had been leached out of us, along with our individuality, and our need to live life rather than just propagate it.” Granger swept his arm in a circle around him, indicating the names on the walls. “These people left Earth centuries ago because they wanted to better humanity. But with all their genetic expertise, they forgot the part of being human that isn’t in our DNA.”

  Granger sighed, and turned to look Gold in the eye again. “Cloning saved Mariposa two hundred and fifty years ago, but it became a crutch. When Captain Picard forced us to put an end to it, we were saved again. All we’re asking you now is to continue what Captain Picard began.”

  Gold’s expression was unreadable. “This decision, for you, isn’t about the attacks then, is it?”

  “No,” said Granger, “I’ve given this considerable thought for several years now.”

  “And it took these hostilities for the Bringloidi prime minister to come around to this way of thinking.”

  Granger smiled. “Ironic, isn’t it?”

  Before Gold could agree, he was interrupted by a chiming sound, and then a woman’s voice. “Lense to Gold.”

  He tapped the badge on his chest and replied, “Gold here.”

  “Are you still with Prime Minister Granger?”

  “Yes, he’s right here.”

  “Good. I need to speak with him, and Ms. Odell, too.”

  “What is it?” Gold asked. “You’ve discovered something about this bioweapon?” Gold frowned when his question was answered with silence. “Lense?”

  “Yes and no,” the woman responded.

  Gold exchanged a confused look with Granger. “What does that mean?”

  “Yes, I’ve discovered something about the virus,” Lense’s voice answered. “And no, it’s not a weapon.”

  Chapter

  9

  “Viruses are, by their nature, highly lethal agents, and have been used militarily for centuries.” Lense sat on one long side of the observation lounge table, with Captain Gold at his spot at the head, and the two prime ministers, along with their health minister, sitting opposite her. Lense made eye contact with each of them as she spoke, except Odell. “Genetic engineering can make viruses that propagate faster, that spread more easily or are more resistant to treatment…. but the reason there are biological weapons in the first place is because these start out as dangerous biological organisms.”

  “Except this Klingon bug, you said, would only cause a slight fever,” said Gold. “That’s why all the gen-engineering you saw, no?”

  “That was what I assumed. The thing is, someone with a mind to do so would only need to splice one short gene sequence from, say, a common rhinovirus into the rop’ngor genome to translate its effects from Klingons to humans. The virus that was loosed in the Life Science Center has over three hundred such splices, and still counting.”

  That seemed to surprise the Mariposans, but they were content to listen and allow Gold to continue asking the questions. “Would that be so it only affected Mariposans, and left Bringloidi immune?”

  Lense shook her head. “Even though the alterations are designed to target and mutate specific DNA patterns, it still would be a case of overthinking the issue. The Mariposans and Bringloidi lived in two completely different ecosystems for close to three hundred years. There are physiological differences between the two—trace elements in the blood, mineral buildups and deficiencies—relatively minor distinctions, but pronounced enough on a physiochemical level that, again, a fraction of the gen-engineering done here would have sufficed. No, the person who reprogrammed this bug had a purpose other than killing this certain group of people.”

  “Begging your pardon, Doctor, but it does kill!” Odell said, her eyes flashing with exasperation. “By the hundreds, it kills! How do any of these discoveries say that it wasn’t a weapon?”

  It took some effort for Lense to meet Brenna Odell’s eyes. “I haven’t yet catalogued all the recombinant sequences in the virus, let alone figured out why those specific alterations were made. But they were less directed
at who the virus can infect than how it affects them.” Lense took a deep breath before continuing. “While rop’ngor, in its natural state, spreads itself indiscriminately throughout the host’s endocrine system, this altered virus appears designed to target its mutagenic effects on the hosts’ reproductive glands and organs.”

  Wilson Granger’s entire face seemed to fall in slow motion. “Oh my God…” he whispered, as Odell’s hand went to her mouth and her eyes went wide, and Victor Granger frowned with great consternation.

  Gold displayed a different kind of shock. “Their reproductive systems? So someone wanted to cause fertility problems in the Mariposans?”

  “No, Captain,” Granger said quietly. “They wanted to solve those problems.”

  A long uncomfortable silence settled over the room. Both Wilson Granger and Brenna Odell made pointed efforts not to look at each other.

  “It was Corsi who discovered the discrepancies in the colony records. Deaths had been covered up, all Mariposan women, all pregnant at the time of death.”

  “It was during the first years after reunion,” Wilson Granger said, not defensively, but simply matter-of-fact. “It was already a challenge to convince my people to perform the procreative act. We tried to contain those stories that would have discouraged them.” Odell said nothing, her eyes downcast, trying to hide the pain in them.

  “Based on Corsi’s tip, I did my own investigating,” Lense continued, now directing her report to Gold. “The record of miscarriages, stillbirths, and other genetic birth defects…” Lense trailed off, fighting with all her willpower from betraying the fears and emotions that had been pressing on her chest in recent days.

  “But, there are children all over the place down there,” Gold said, his tone one of disbelief.

  Victor Granger stepped in when Lense couldn’t bring herself to answer immediately. “All products of Bringloidi-Bringloidi pairing. Mariposan-Bringloidi couples…” he said, giving a brief sideways glance to his duplicate and his partner. “Well. It seems that, where cloning technology was able to compensate for some degree of genetic degradation, the natural procreation process is infinitely more particular about how much damage it will tolerate.”

  “Can’t have kids.” Mara glared at her, pitiless eyes set in a grotesquely deformed face. “Kornaks, us. Oh, we get a couple. But usually something’s wrong with them. Most of them die.”

  Lense clenched her jaw and willed the memory of the Jabari woman’s words back down. She had to stay in the here and now, concentrate on the many instead of the one.

  “However,” the shift in Victor Granger’s tone helped to pull Lense back, “nobody in my hospital was working on any such research, not that I know of. And, regardless of whatever discoveries Dr. Lense has come up with, the fact remains that it was released in an explosion in the middle of the Life Sciences Center, and that it killed two hundred people.”

  Lense bit back her annoyance at Dr. Granger’s arrogance, and as calmly as she could, told him, “Commander Corsi learned that Dr. Sandra Vallis, one of the experts she identified as capable of designing and engineering this mutagen, was also in the former cloning labs at the time of the initial explosion. I think it’s reasonable to believe she was using those facilities to carry out this research surreptitiously.”

  “And why would she do that behind my back?” Granger demanded.

  “To avoid raising hopes prematurely,” the other Granger answered, “among other reasons. From the first, Sandra was one of the strongest supporters for a united colony and a united people.” He gave the health minister a pointed look, and got a scowl back in return. “How tragic that her work would’ve ended this way.”

  “So then…this whole horrible business came of some…accident?” Brenna Odell looked at the others around the table for someone to dispute that conclusion. She closed her eyes briefly, and muttered something incomprehensible just under her breath. Opening her eyes again, she then turned to Gold with an accusatory glare. “Now? Now do you understand why we need to be rid of these blasted machines?”

  The captain gaped back at her, stunned. “Minister Odell, your argument before was that your technology was being misused for destructive means. Now that we’ve learned that there was no intention of doing harm…”

  “There’s an old, old saying about good intentions, Captain. Over two hundred people were killed. How am I supposed to feel better about that, knowing those deaths were accidental?”

  “Madam Prime Minister,” Lense interrupted. “Before you make this decision, you should know that Dr. Vallis, I believe, was getting close to a working treatment.”

  That stopped her short. “Say that again?”

  Actually, Lense reflected, I shouldn’t have said it the once. The most she could honestly say for Sandra Vallis’s mutagen, based on the limited amount of time she’d spent studying the altered virus—most of that trying to determine what it was and how to kill it—was that it was slightly closer to a working treatment than natural rop’ngor would be. But, if it meant an end to the tragedies that had been haunting these people all these years…“Sandra Vallis’s work shows great promise, and I believe it should be further pursued. If it were possible to recover anything from the damaged lab—notes, samples, equipment—I could re-create—”

  “Re-create?!” Odell blurted. “Are you mad? After the hell we’ve been through, you want to start this all over?”

  Lense assured her, “It would be under the most stringent safeties and controls, of course.”

  “Oh, of course.” Odell sneered. “More grand promises from the bloody Federation!”

  “Brenna!” Her husband put a hand on her shoulder and turned her in her swivel chair to face him. “Are you even listening to what the woman is saying? She thinks she can cure us!”

  “That’s not what she said, Wilson; that’s what you wanted to hear. ‘Technology will save us again!’ It’s like the Sirens’ song for you!”

  “Madam Prime Minister, with all respect,” Lense interrupted, “this really is your best hope for saving this colony. Unless you want to subject more women like Frances DiCamino to their fates, or more children like Danielle to theirs.”

  “What? How…?” Brenna Odell’s eyes turned as hard and cold as winter’s frozen ground, and Lense found it impossible to look away from them. She had found, in the course of her investigation into Corsi’s tip, the birth record for Danielle Willa Odell-Granger, dated some forty weeks after the Enterprise’s departure from Mariposa. The infant’s death certificate had been issued the following day. “How dare you try to play my emotions like that?” the Bringloidi woman demanded, the heat of her outrage still not melting the cold of her glare. “You have no right! You have no idea, with your lofty position on your grand spaceship, what I carry in my heart every day!”

  Lense felt as if she were pinned to the back of her chair, the air squeezed out of her. No, she didn’t know; she didn’t want to know, couldn’t even bring herself to imagine…to even think…

  “All right,” Gold said, the sound of his voice pulling Lense back into the moment. “You want us to relieve you of the technology that set off this tragedy. Fine. I assume, then, that what we decide to do with it once we have it, you have no objections?” The captain gave Lense a look, making sure she understood and accepted this proposal. She somehow managed a slight nod for him.

  “There was extensive damage to that lab,” Victor Granger told them, frowning. “I wouldn’t count on there being anything of worth left to recover.”

  “That sounds like just the sort of impossible challenge the rest of this ship’s complement has been waiting for,” Gold told him, flashing a broad grin. “So, if there’s nothing else…” he said as he rose, effectively preempting whatever “else” might have been brought up.

  They all rose and started to file out of the observation lounge. The new security guard, Tomo Kim, stood just outside the door to escort the colony officials back to the transporter room. Victor Granger, however, fe
ll back beside Lense. “Doctor, may I have a word, please?” he asked in what Lense considered an uncharacteristically civil tone. She hesitated for a moment, then nodded to Kim, who took the cue and moved off with the two other colonists in tow.

  Once alone, the health minister said, “Dr. Lense, I want to formally thank you for the work you did to bring our epidemic under control. I also want to apologize for my prejudiced and distrustful initial attitude.”

  Lense understood this was more of a political nicety than a genuine admission of fault. But the fact that he had said the words at all, whatever the motive, was more than she would have expected. “Thank you, Doctor. I appreciate your saying so.”

  “I see you now as a dedicated physician concerned for the well-being of others,” he continued, perhaps a bit more sincerely now, “which is why I ask you now…please, just walk away from this.”

  Lense blinked as she took a second to register that request. “Excuse me?”

  “The last time the Federation ‘helped’ us with problems related to the propagation of the Mariposan people, they stripped us of our most highly advanced technologies, and placed the burden of four hundred backward bumpkins upon us. This time, we prefer to take care of our problems by ourselves.”

  Lense clenched her teeth to hold back a few choice words about Granger’s “backward bumpkins” comment. “It is going to be a long, hard time before your medical community recovers from this incident,” she said when she finally trusted herself to open her mouth, “and I’ve already spent more time studying this gen-eng virus than anyone else alive. What possible reason could you have for cavalierly dismissing my help?”

  “Because it comes under Brenna Odell’s technophobic terms,” Victor Granger sighed. “And that’s too high a price to pay. If I stand back and allow you to take this over, in a nonemergency situation, then I am tacitly agreeing with her that we cannot be trusted with our own technology.”

  Lense shook her head. “No, that wouldn’t be the case at all. These are singular circumstances.”