The Quiet Pools

by Michael P. Kube-Mcdowell

  “What do you mean?” Christopher asked, grabbing at Keith’s elbow.

  Keith stopped and turned to face him. “You look at recent history and ask how we could do so many things that are anti-survival. Ocean pollution. Resource depletion. Ozone destruction. It isn’t just that we didn’t know. We kept right on after we did know. Because none of that matters. None of it. In the last hundred meters you give it everything. Because in this race, if you hold back, you die.”

  “Are you answering the question I asked?”

  “You still don’t see it?”

  “No.”

  Keith turned away and resumed walking, and Christopher hurried to keep up with him. “The Creator has a master plan, Christopher. And we’ve been following it for four billion years. It carried Eusthenopteron onto the land and Deinonychus into the air. It’s why whales beach themselves and cats climb trees. Do you want to know who God is, Christopher? God is two hundred and seventy-one codons on the twenty-first chromosome of the Chosen.”

  “In the Church of Sociobiology, maybe. I’m not a believer.”

  Nodding, Keith said, “That’s fine. But it’s a funny thing about Nature. She doesn’t give a high hoot what we believe. Everything goes on just the same.”

  “Biology is destiny.”

  “And purpose.”

  “What happened to free will? What about our choice? Doesn’t it count? Doesn’t it exist?”

  Keith stopped and gazed at Christopher, his head cocked at an angle. “Choice is noise on a picture with this scale,” he said. “I’ll gladly trade choice for destiny and purpose. Don’t you understand, Christopher? We are the von Neumann machines.”

  Later, as they shared a bench and a bottle of Canadian wine outside the shuttered Field Museum of Natural History—the irony of that was not lost on Christopher—Keith explained himself in less metaphysical terms.

  “Whatever it was in the beginning, we’re now talking about a three-gene complex. Pieces or variants of it have been found in thirty-one species, all but three of them chordates. There’s every reason to think that it’s found its highest, purest expression in us. I think of H. sap. as the trustee of the Chi Sequence.

  “The name doesn’t mean anything, really. That’s what it was called when it was a very minor mystery in comparative biochemistry. But you won’t find anything about it in Medbase or the NIH Index. They’ve been sanitized—papers withdrawn, copyrights and biopatents bought.

  “Three genes, A-B-C. Three messages. Direction—the where. Motivation—the why. And the activator, the little thirty-three codon sequence that says, ‘Go-go-go.’ ”

  His initial objections having been beaten down into silence, if not surrender, Christopher had listened with the kind of stunned amazement seen on the faces of young children after their first magic show. It was not his credulity which was being tested, but the agility of his mind. He was being shown marvels, and they had power and poetry even if he did not believe they were real.

  “It’s funny what happens when you only get one Chi gene expressed,” Keith was saying. “All the people through history who felt the call of the night sky. All the fanciful invention of heavens and wheels within wheels. They were pointed in the right direction, but never understood why.

  “And the way life here has spread into every possible nook and crevice, obeying the second part of the code. B for babies. B for be fecund. Go forth and multiply. Fill the world with your progeny.

  “And the activator, the trickiest of all, the one that flips the ambition switch to high. A-positives have to find their own directions, their own reasons. But the restlessness that sends them looking comes from inside. Hillary had it. Thor Heyerdahl. Earhart. You don’t need a microscope to make a list. But if we had a sample of their DNA, we’d find it, right there on the twenty-first chromosome. I don’t doubt it for a minute.”

  “So the Chosen really do exist,” Christopher said.

  “Not the way you mean it. Three genes gives eight permutations, not even considering mutations and unexpressed recessives. Nothing is ever as simple as a geneticist says it is,” Keith said, showing a smile. “But the triple actives—the pure Chi-positives—they’re the core of the Diaspora.”

  “And the Chi-negatives? Are they the core of Homeworld?”

  “Who knows?” Keith said, interrupting his answer for a swig from the bottle. “Homeworlders don’t tend to present themselves at the lab for testing. But if I were going to guess, I’d say that they’re mostly B-positives—they’re the most hidebound, the most sessile.”

  “That makes it sound like the different combinations have recognizable personalities.”

  “Not officially,” Keith said. “But of course they do. A gene that’s not expressed in structure or behavior wouldn’t be important. I’ve processed more than two thousand applicants. I can call them eight times out of ten. These aren’t just genotypes. They’re human archetypes. It’s affected how I deal with people, actually. When I meet someone for the first time, all I see is their Chi attribute.”

  “What is it you see?”

  “I told you part of it already,” Keith said. “Think of the A gene as ambition, the B as the breeding instinct, and C as the Call, and you can just about figure them out yourself.”

  “A-positives are adventurers,” Christopher said slowly. “B-positives are nestmakers. C-positives—what, hear voices?”

  “More or less. I call them the dreamers. Pure faith, pure reason, pure art. Priests, physicists, and philosophers.”

  “Do the traits combine?”

  “Of course. And there’s more variation in the combinations. BCs are the good citizens—workers and soldiers. The Call expresses itself as duty, allegiance. But put ambition and the Call together and you get a Creator—an artist or an inventor.”

  “Loi. She’d be an AC-positive, then?”

  “Probably.”

  “And Jessie a nestmaker. What else is there?”

  “Everyone’s favorite—the AB-positives. Ambition and nest-making builds kings and tycoons.”

  “And the pure Chi-positives? ”

  Another swallow. “Statesmen, saints, and avatars. And there are precious few of them.”

  Christopher counted. “Seven. One more. You didn’t answer before. Who are the Chi-negatives?”

  “Can’t you figure it out?” Keith asked, coughing. “Why do you think there are so many meaningless lives? They’re the people whose bodies give them no direction, no purpose. They don’t burn. They don’t want. They just are—instant to instant, day to day, like some cruel joke of nature. The hollow-chested Tin Men. The empty people. The damned.”

  The bottle was empty, and the sky overhead winter-black. They walked back in silence toward where the Avanti was parked, Christopher withdrawn, trying to absorb—or was it resist?—what he had heard. Keith’s steps and spirit seemed lighter, the difficult obligation discharged without disaster.

  “I don’t know what to think,” Christopher said when they finally reached the car.

  “Believe what you want,” Keith said. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Doesn’t it? How many Chi-positives are going on Memphis!”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Ten thousand?”

  “Oh, no,” Keith said, shaking his head vigorously. “Even if we could find that many. Chi-positives are difficult. It’s just the way they are. They’re the glue—but did you ever try building something from glue alone? Memphis has no use for kings and adventurers. Ur is in trouble because we sent her off with too many kings aboard—we didn’t understand yet what the rules were. And the nestmakers and dreamers have no use for us.”

  “So who are you taking?”

  Keith settled back against the fender. “Memphis needs a core of stable, loyal, dedicated people who know their place in the plan. It needs a leavening of creative types to keep the vision alive and deal with the unexpected. And it needs wise, unselfish leadership.”

  “BCs, ACs, and Chi-positives.�
��

  “I told you you’d catch on.”

  “But when Memphis gets where it’s going, then you’ll need the others—the kings and adventurers and the rest—to build nests and empires on the new world.”

  “Right. So they’re making the trip in steerage, where they won’t be any trouble.”

  It took Christopher a moment to understand his meaning. “The gamete banks—that’s what the gamete banks are for.”

  Keith made an imaginary mark in the air with his finger. “One point for the contestant from Oregon.”

  “So how many Chi-positives? Five thousand? Five hundred? Fifty? How rare are they?”

  “I told you, I don’t know,” Keith said. “They’re about four percent of the applicant pool. But that’s a self-selected sample. Why does it matter?”

  “Because of what Jeremiah said. What happens when they’re gone, Daniel? Are you stealing the spark?”

  A surprised laugh was Keith’s first response. “And John Gait said that he would stop the motor of the world,” he said. “Our poor little ten thousand, Christopher? We won’t even notice they’re gone.”

  “You just finished telling me how special they are. The pinnacle of evolution.”

  Impatience flashed across Keith’s face. “How about a little perspective? There’ve been at least fifty natural disasters and a hundred wars in the Christian era alone that killed a hundred thousand or more. There was a flood in China in 1931 that wiped out almost four million. The Second World War killed forty million.”

  “But who were they, Daniel?” he demanded, stepping closer. “Drones and breeders? The faithful and patriotic? How many of them had a chance to shape the world? How many of them even had a chance to shape their own lives? And even so, do you really think it doesn’t cost us anything when a whole race, a whole generation, is exterminated?”

  Keith held his hands palm-out in supplication. “It’s only ten thousand. Not a race. Not a generation. Do you know how long it takes the world population to replace ten thousand people? An hour. Forty-nine minutes, if you want to split hairs.”

  “You said it yourself. They’re self-selected. The manifest for Memphis is made up of ten thousand of the best educated, most talented, most highly motivated people we’ve produced. If this is where it’s all been pointing, how can it not make a difference? You can’t have it both ways. The birds are still here, but the rest of the dinosaurs are gone. Sometimes the torch passes.”

  “That’s fear-talk,” Keith said, straightening from his casual pose. “I expected better from you.”

  “Really? Is that why you brought the gun?” Christopher’s hand closed around the neck of the bottle in a fighting grip. “And please, don’t insult my intelligence. I saw it when you paid for the wine. How close did I come to being dumped into the lake?”

  With a slow, deliberate motion, Keith reached into an inner pocket and retrieved the contoured shape of a shockbox, which he laid on the roof of the car. “I wouldn’t come down here at night without something. It had nothing to do with you.”

  “I’d like to believe that, Daniel, except I don’t know what you’re up to. I can’t figure out why you told me what you did tonight.”

  “I told you the truth. Everything you asked.”

  “I know. You told me things I’d have been months finding out.”

  Keith shook his head. “You’d never have found them. There isn’t even anything in the hyper.”

  “You’re not helping your case. Nobody tells this kind of secret as a favor. We’ve been friends, but not that good of friends. What do you gain? Or are you supposed to kill me now?”

  “No.” Keith took a sideways step away from the car and the gun.

  “Then tell me what’s going on, goddammit,” Christopher said, looking around nervously. “I’m getting very jumpy out here. Why did you tell me?”

  “Because you’re Jeremiah’s son. But you’re also Chris. I took a chance because I thought you would listen.”

  “What?”

  “I wanted you to know you don’t have to be afraid of us. I want you to let us be. Don’t try to stop Memphis, Chris. Please.”

  Christopher stared. “Son of a bitch,” he said under his breath. “Son of a bitch. My father was afraid I wasn’t enough like him. And now you’re afraid I’m too much like him.”

  “I don’t know what to think, Chris. I really don’t.”

  Shaking his head, Christopher dropped the bottle where he stood and made for the door of the Avanti. “I’m leaving,” he muttered. When he reached the car, he knocked the gun to the ground with a careless, angry swipe of his hand, then pulled the door upward.

  “Chris—”

  He settled in the seat before looking back. “What?”

  “I can’t be sorry about Jeremiah. But I’m sorry about your father.”

  Christopher looked at Keith with blazing eyes. “My father was a king.” He said it pridefully, with a hint of a challenge.

  “Yes. I think he was.”

  Nodding as though satisfied with the concession, Christopher brought the car to life, the door still open. Then he seemed to take a deep breath, taking the control wheel in both hands as though he needed it for support. He looked over his shoulder out at Keith. “What am I, Daniel?”

  Keith came a step closer. “I was expecting you to ask that a long time ago—and you’re not going to like my answer. The truth is I know you too well to see you that simply. I can see all eight attributes in you—including Chi-negative.”

  “Then how do I find out?”

  “You can’t,” he said, shaking his head.

  “Doesn’t the company know?”

  “No,” Keith said. “That’s one of the questions that got me in trouble. You were an employee. You were never sampled. And there isn’t a lab anywhere outside Allied that knows what to look for.”

  “You knew I’d have to know.”

  “I was hoping you wouldn’t need to be told.”

  “Why?”

  “Can’t you feel it? Didn’t you say, ‘Yeah, that’s me,’ at some point in the list?”

  “Sure. Three times.”

  Keith frowned. “Then the key is your mother. Maybe you can figure it out from there.”

  “Maybe,” Christopher said, little hope in his voice or his eyes. He sighed and jerked his head toward the empty seat beside him. “Can I drop you somewhere?”

  The invitation was an apology and a peace offering, and Keith’s acceptance the signing of a truce. But they had little more to say to each other. From the time they lifted off to the time Keith climbed out in the driveway of his parents’ Stone Park home, only once was the silence broken.

  “One more question?” Christopher asked as they bore across the Loop.

  Looking out the side glass at the Daley Tower, Keith gave a slight nod.

  “Were you ever sampled?”

  “BC-positive,” Keith said. “Hardworking and loyal to a fault.” He turned back and showed a wan smile. “Most of the time, anyway.”

  “But they didn’t take you.”

  “My choice.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “I’m putting in my turn at the wheel,” Keith said. “There are a lot of us doing it. I’ve been promised a place on Knossos.”

  It was midmorning when Christopher reached the house on the ridge. After stowing the Avanti in the garage, he stopped in the bathroom to splash his face and in the kitchen to start coffee. While the coffee was brewing, he collected the Portables from his father’s bedroom and carried them into the den. He stacked them in three columns on the end of the comsole before settling, cup in hand, in the chair.

  “You there, Lila?”

  “Ready, Christopher.”

  “Any mail? Any messages?”

  “No. There are no new messages.”

  “What about for my father?”

  “I am handling Mr. McCutcheon’s correspondence.”

  “Still pretending he’s not dead?”

>   “I am doing what he asked me to.”

  “I don’t suppose you’d care to let me see what it is.”

  “I’m sorry, Christopher. I can’t do that.”

  “Have you heard from my father?”

  “No. Your father is dead.”

  “Does anyone besides us know that?”

  “No.”

  “You haven’t told anyone while playing secretary for him?”

  “I am conducting your father’s business according to his instructions.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I’ll bet the only people you told knew him as Jeremiah. And Jeremiah’s not allowed to die, is he? Who’s the new Jeremiah, Lila?”

  “I can’t answer that, Christopher.”

  “Right.” He sipped at his caramel-colored coffee, still steaming. “Do you know anything about a will?”

  “A will is registered with the Oregon State Probate Court. Since no death certificate has been filed, the will has not been presented.”

  “Who’s the executor?”

  “You are, Christopher.”

  It was only technically a surprise. “I guess I know better than to think he’d ask me. Was he planning to ever tell me?”

  “It’s not required by Oregon law, since an executor may refuse the appointment.”

  “Know anything about what the will says?”

  “No. The only knowledge I have of it comes from checking the court registry.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Christopher. “That’s how he was going to get me back here, wasn’t it? That’s why he left the archives.”

  “They were for you to read after his death.”

  “So you said. Well”—he patted the top of the nearest stack— “I’m ready to see the rest of them.”

  “I’m sorry, Christopher. I don’t understand.”

  “I want you to show me anything and everything about my mother that you have in your files or can find anywhere, including these archives.”

  “Checking. Your mother is Deryn Glenys Falconer?”