Sassinak

by Anne McCaffrey

  "I dunno. But being older ought to do some good, if being younger can't."

  At this, they locked glances and giggled. Fresh eyes, Lunzie's eyes, made no sense, and very good sense, and they were both more relaxed than necessary. Two hours later, poring over the personnel files, they had sobered but were no nearer solving Sassinak's problem.

  "I didn't think you needed this many people to run a cruiser," said Lunzie severely. "It would be easier to check a smaller crew."

  "Part of that great life I have as a cruiser captain."

  "Right. One more engineering technician, grade E-4, and I'm going to . . ." Suddenly she paused, and frowned. "Hold it! Who's this?"

  Sassinak called up the same record on her own screen. "Prosser, V. Tagin. He's all right; I've checked him out, and so has Dupaynil." She glanced again at the now-familiar file. Planet of origin: Colony Makstein-VII, somatotype: height range 1.7-2 meters, weight range 60-100 kg, eye color: blue/gray, skin: red/yellow/black ratio 1:1:1, type fair, hair type: straight, fine, light-brown to yellow to gray. Longheaded, narrow pelvis, 80% chance missing upper outer incisors. She screened Prosser's holo, and saw a 1.9 meter, 75-kilogram male with gray eyes in a longish pale face under straight fine, fair hair. By his dental chart, he was missing the upper outer incisors, and his blood type matched. "There's nothing off in his file, and he's well-within the genetic index description. His eyes are too close together, but that's not a breach of Security. What's wrong with him?"

  "He's impossible, that's what."

  "Why?"

  Lunzie looked across at her, a completely serious look. "Did you ever hear of clone colonies?"

  "Clone colonies?" Sassinak stared at her blankly. She had neither heard of such a thing nor seen a reference to it. "What's a clone colony?"

  "What databases do you have onboard? Medical, I mean? I want to check something." Lunzie had gone tense suddenly, alert, almost vibrating with what she wouldn't explain—yet.

  "Medical? Ask Mayerd. If that's not enough, I can even get you access to Fleet HQ by FTL link."

  "I'll ask Mayerd. They were talking about covering it up, and if they did—" Lunzie didn't go on; Sassinak didn't push her. Time enough.

  Lunzie was on the internal com, talking to Mayerd about medical databases, literature searches, and specific medical journals, in a slang Sassinak could hardly follow. "What do you mean, Essentials of Cell Reference isn't publishing? Oh—well, that's a stupid reason to change titles . . . Well, try Bioethics Quarterly, out of Amperan University Press, probably volume 73 to 77 . . . nothing? Ceiver and Petruss were the authors . . . Old Mackelsey was the editor then, a real demon on stuff like this. Of course I'm sure of my reference: as far as I'm concerned it was maybe two years ago." Finally she clicked off and looked at Sass, a combination of smugness and concern. "You've got a big problem, great-great-great-granddaughter, bigger than you thought."

  "Oh? I need any more?"

  "Worse than one saboteur. Someone's been wiping files. Not just your files. All files."

  "What exactly do you mean?" It was the first time she'd used her command voice in Lunzie's presence and she was glad to see that it was effective. It didn't, she noticed, scare Lunzie, but it did get a straight answer out of her.

  "You never heard of clone colonies, nor has Mayerd who ought to have. I was a student on an Ethics Board concerning such a colony." Lunzie paused just a moment before continuing. "Some bright researchers had decided that it would be a possibility to have an entire colony sharing one genome: one colony made up exclusively of clones."

  "But that can't work," Sassinak said, recalling what she knew of human genetics. "They'd inbreed, and besides you need different abilities, mixtures . . ."

  Lunzie nodded. "Humans are generalists. Early human societies had no specialization except sexual. You can't build a large, complicated society that way, but a specialized colony, maybe. They thought they could. Anyway, in terms of the genetic engineering needed for certain environments, it would be a lot cheaper to engineer one, and then clone, even given the expense of cloning. And once they'd cleared the generation-limit problem, and figured out how to insert the other sex without changing anything else, it would be stable. If you know there are no dangerous recessives, then inbreeding won't cause trouble. Inbreeding merely raises the probability that, if such harmful genes exist, they will combine. If they don't exist, they can't combine."

  "I see. But I'm not sure I believe."

  "Wise. The Ethics team didn't either. Because I'd been around, so to speak, when that first colony was set up and because I'd worked in occupational fields, I had the chance to give an opinion on the ethical and practical implications. One of a panel of two hundred or so. We saw the clones, well, holos of them, and the research reports. I thought the project was dangerous, to both the clones and to everyone else. For one thing, in the kind of environment the clones were designed for, I thought random mutations would be for more frequent than the project suggested. Others thought the clones should be protected: the project had a fierce security rating anyway, but apparently it went a step further and all references were wiped."

  "What does that have to do with Prosser, V. Tagin?"

  Lunzie looked almost disgusted, then relented. "Sassinak, that colony was on Makstein VII. Everyone in it—everyone had the same genome and the same appearance. Exactly the same appearance. I saw holos of members of that colony. Your Mr. Prosser is not one of the clones, though he's been given the somatypes."

  "Given?"

  "The Index entries were written to cover the appearance of the clones should any of them travel, while indicating a range of values as if they were from a limited but normal colonial gene pool. His somatype has been faked, Sassinak. That's why you didn't catch it. No one would, who didn't know about clone colonies in general and Makstein VII in particular. And you couldn't find out because it's not in the files anymore."

  "But someone knows," said Sassinak, hardly breathing for the thought of it. "Someone knew to fake his ID that way. . . ."

  "I wonder if your clever Lieutenant Commander Dupaynil could ask Mr. Prosser where he actually does come from?" Lunzie said in a drawl as she examined her fingertips, a mannerism which made Sassinak blink for it was much her own.

  She keyed in Dupaynil's office and when he acknowledged, she sent him the spurious ID they'd uncovered. "Detain," was all she said but she knew Dupaynil would understand. "Great-great-great-grandmother," she said silkily, well pleased, "you're far too smart to stay in civilian medicine."

  "Are you offering me a job?" The tone was meek, but the sharp glance belied it.

  "Not a job exactly," Sassinak began. "A new career, a mid-life change, just right for fresh eyes that see with old knowledge that has somehow got lost for us who need it." Lunzie raised an inquiring eyebrow but her expression was alert, not skeptical. Sassinak went on with mounting enthusiasm, building on that little inkling she'd had before lunch. "Listen up, great-great. Do you realize what you have, to replace what you think you've lost? Files in your head, accessible facts that weren't wiped . . . and who knows how many more than just references to a prohibited colony!"

  "The old clone colony trick works only once, great-great."

  "Let's not put arbitrary limits to what you have in your skull, revered ancestress. The old clone colony trick may not be all you've saved behind your fresh old eyes. You've got an immediate access to things forty-three and even a hundred and five years old which to me are either lost in datafiles or completely unknown. And this planetary piracy's been going on a long, long time by either of our standards." She saw the leap of interest in Lunzie's eyes and then the filming of old, sadder memories before the new hope replaced them. "I'm not offering you a job, old dear, I'm declaring you a team member, a refined intelligence that those planet hungry moneygrubbing ratguts could never expect to have ranged against them. How could they? A family team with almost the same time-in-service of say, the Paradens . . ."

  "Yes, the Paradens," a
nd Lunzie sounded very grim. Then her thin lips curved into a smile that lit up her eyes. "A team? A planet pirate breaking team. I probably do know more than one useful thing. You're a commander, with a ship at your disposal . . ."

  "Which is supposed to be hunting these planet pirates . . ."

  "You're Fleet and you can ask certain questions and get certain information. But I'm," and Lunzie swelled with self-pride, "a nobody, no big family, no fortune, no connections—bar my present elegant company—and they don't need to know that. Yes, esteemed descendant, I accept your offer of a team action."

  Sassinak had just picked up the brandy bottle to charge their glasses when a loud thump on the bulkhead and raised voices indicated some disturbance. Sassinak rolled her eyes at Lunzie and went to see what it was.

  Aygar was poised on the balls of his feet just outside her office, with two marines denying him entry.

  "Sorry about the noise, captain," said one of them. "He wants to speak to you and we told him . . ."

  "You said," Aygar burst out to Sassinak, "that as members of FSP, we had privileges . . ."

  "Interrupting my work isn't one of them," said Sassinak crisply. She felt a discreet tug on her sleeve. "However, I've a few moments to spare right now," and she dismissed the marines.

  Aygar came into her office with slightly less swagger than usual. If he ever dropped that half-sulk of his, Sassinak thought he'd be extremely presentable. He didn't have the gross heavyworlder appearance. He could, in fact, if he mended his attitude, be taken as just a very well developed normal human type. He'd fill out a marine uniform very well indeed. And fill in other places.

  "Did Major Currald recruit you?"

  "He's trying," and that unexpected humor of Aygar flashed through again.

  "I thought you intended to remain on Ireta, to protect all your hard work," Lunzie said in the mild sort of voice that Sassinak would use to elicit information. But she had a gleam in her eye as she regarded the handsome young Iretan that Sassinak also instantly recognized. It surprised her for a moment.

  "I . . . I thought I wanted to stay," he said slowly, "if Ireta was going to remain our world. But it's not. And there are hundreds of worlds out there . . ."

  "Which you could certainly visit as a marine." Sassinak sweetened her tone and added a smile. Two could play this game and she wasn't about to let her great-great-great-grandmother outmaneuver her in her own office.

  Aygar regarded her through narrowed eyes. "I've also had an earful of the sort of prejudice heavyworlders face."

  "My friend, if you act friendly and well behaved, people will like a young man as well favored as you," Sassinak said, ignoring Lunzie. "Life on Ireta and out of high-g environment has done you a favor. You look normal, although I'd wager that you'd withstand high-g stress better than most. Act friendly and most people will accept you with no qualms. Swagger around threatening them with your strength or size, and people will react with fear and hatred." Sassinak shrugged. "You're smart enough to catch on to that. You'd make an admirable marine."

  Aygar cocked an eyebrow in challenge. "I think I can do better than that, Commander. I'm not about to settle for second best. Not again. I want the chance to learn. That's a privilege in the FSP, too, I understand. I want to learn what they didn't and wouldn't teach us. They consistently lied to us." Anger flashed in his eyes, a carefully contained anger that fascinated Sassinak for she hadn't expected such depths to this young man. "And they kept us ignorant!" That rankled the deepest. Sassinak could almost bless the cautious, paranoid mutineers for that blunder. "Because we," and when Aygar jabbed his thumb into his chest he meant all of his generations, "were not meant to have a part of this planet at all!"

  "No," Sassinak said, suddenly recalling another snippet of information gleaned from the cathedral's Thekian homily, "you weren't."

  "In fact," Lunzie began, in a voice as sweet as her descendant's, "you've a score to settle with the planet pirates, too. With the heavyworlders who sent Cruss and that transport ship."

  Aygar shot the medic such a keen look that Sassinak damned her own lapse—that'd teach her to look at the exterior of a man and forget what made him tick.

  "You might say I do at that," he replied in much too mild a tone.

  "In that case," Sassinak said, glancing for approval at Lunzie, "I think we could actually take you on as a . . . mmm . . . special advisor?"

  "I've just signed on in a similar capacity," Lunzie said when she saw Aygar hesitate. "Special duties. Special training."

  "Not in the usual chain of command," Sassinak gave him a look that had melted scores of junior officers.

  "And who do I have to take orders from?" he asked, looking from Sassinak to Lunzie with the blandest of expressions on his handsome face.

  "I'm still the captain," Sassinak said firmly, with a glare for her great-great-great-grandmother, who only grinned.

  "You may be a lightweight, captain, but I think I can endure it," he said in a drawl, holding her gaze with his twinkling eyes.

  "Welcome aboard, specialist Aygar!" And Sassinak extended her hand to take his in a firm shake of commitment.

  Lunzie chuckled wickedly. "I think this is going to be a most . . ." her pause was pregnant ". . . instructive voyage, granddaughter. Shall we toss for it?"

  Just for a moment, Aygar looked from one to the other, with the expression of someone who suspects he hasn't quite caught a hidden meaning.

  "We specialists should stick together," she added, offering him a glass of the amber brandy. "You'll drink to that, won't you, Commander?"

  "That, and other things! Like 'down with planet piracy!' " She pinned Lunzie with a meaningful stare, wondering just what she'd got herself in for this trip.

  "Hear, hear!" Lunzie lustily agreed.

  THE END