Seeds of Memory

by J. Richard Jacobs

  “I'm the LO."

  “Ah, that's something I've been meaning to talk to you about, Alex. Technically, you're not the real LO any more, and your only authority on this ship is habit."

  “What does that mean?"

  “We pulled out, remember. No contact. No return. No support and no organization. All that is ancient history, and, as far as we know, there may no longer be an SESC. How long do you think it'll be before everybody on this ship realizes that and starts acting like individuals instead of trained ants?"

  Lavan was right. She was right most of the time, and it was damned irritating. No, it wasn't irritating—more like just a little aggravating.

  “Not long, I imagine."

  “I suggest you get together with some of our Contact people. I don't have a diplomatic bone in my whole body, so I'm not the one to talk to you about it, but I think you ought to talk to someone about it before we have anarchy take root."

  “Good idea. I'll do that just as soon as we get set up on the surface. We have to stay a cohesive whole, or this entire trip could come apart."

  “We set up on the surface? Does that mean I'm going with you?"

  “Oh, hell, all right."

  “All right, what? I go, or we stay?"

  “Knit two sweaters."

  “Now, there's the kind of logic I like to see. In what capacity?"

  “Mother Protector, of course. You'll replace Wilson in my crew."

  “Have you decided how we're going to approach the natives?"

  “Armed and ready."

  “An invaders from space scenario, Alex? Are you sure you want to go down in the local history books, if they still have books, as the She Devil from A Far Star, or something like that?"

  “That's not funny, Marta, and it's not what I have in mind. Rammix reported a pulse weapon discharge on the surface, and I just think it would be prudent to be ready for a negative response to our arrival."

  “When did Rammix tell you about that?"

  “A few days ago."

  “And you didn't tell me?"

  “You're a doctor, remember?"

  “I'm also one of those command officers, Alex."

  “All right, I'm sorry."

  “You thought about trying the ISCU again?"

  “A shuttle's already on its way, but I'm not holding out much hope for success."

  “Worth a try, Alex. So, my dear, have you given much thought to when you want to begin your mothering experiment? Say, before we've conquered the savages, or after?"

  * * * *

  “He wants to go with us, you know,” Niki said as he cut off another piece of steak and slid it into his already full mouth.

  “What are you going to tell him, love?"

  “Well, if he really wants to go and we have room for him, I can't say much of anything but—yes. We don't have much to do with the seeding process. Everything we need to carry out that work is on the La Paz."

  “Mm-hmm. He's certainly an interesting character,” Pasha observed. “He knows that there's no turning back once he's committed?"

  “Uh-huh, and it doesn't seem to matter to him. He could be quite useful on a new world. He has extraordinary organizational skill, and his knowledge of Pazian history is phenomenal."

  “And Harko?"

  “He doesn't know. The subject came up just before they left. I imagine he won't like it much, but it's not his decision to make. That's strictly up to Sax."

  “Have you heard from Luto?"

  “Yes, and I meant to tell you about that earlier.” Niki stabbed another piece of shako, stirred it pensively in warm lazial bean sauce, then, with his mouth again pleasantly full, continued. “Kung and Malkin have told him they definitely want to come. Luto said they're very excited."

  “Didn't those two go to the box last year?"

  “Came close. They were censured for their work on genetic memory transference, but Biotech publicly recognized their work as a breakthrough in molecular biology and forced the Council to change the ruling."

  “Why is it politicians always believe they know what's best for everyone?"

  “They let them go, but you understand how people are. They haven't been able to work since then. People think we shouldn't be tampering with nature, as if nature were limited to one dimension, like there were something sacrosanct about it. Hah! If they only realized. No, let me restate that. Wait until they find out how unnatural they really are."

  Outside, the mounting wind howled over the Ganeden Plate, driving snow up into Palmer's Canyon and into the Pockets, piling it up around the shuttles so that only the tops of their black hulls could be seen in a blanket of unending white.

  * * * *

  “Yeah, Lisha, I'm listening,” Harko said.

  “Vagnu and sixty-seven of his group left for the pad at twenty-second hour. Looks like they want to get up there early. There's still no sign of any movement from Frank. Any thoughts?"

  “I don't know. Have there been any arrivals at Frank's place?"

  “Three. They showed up yesterday at seventh hour—no one has come in or out since then."

  “Hmm,” Harko said, rubbing his chin and staring at the files on his desk. “You know, Lisha, I think we may have a problem with that shagrat. Has there been any link traffic?"

  “There was a flurry of it when he first got here. Most of it was nothing but passing the time of day with some friends. After a brief conversation, he ordered the three I mentioned to come to his place—then, nothing."

  “Nothing?"

  “Not a thing. Do we move in?"

  “Not yet. Give him two more hours, then take the gaf."

  Trak's image was still fading when Sax walked in with a large pile of papers in his arms.

  “What the hell's that?"

  “It's the genetic stuff from the chip Kaznov gave us. I think you're going to find this very interesting, Boss."

  “Is that all of it?"

  “No, just the stuff you said you wanted in particular. There's not enough paper on Paz to run it all. There's more than—"

  “Never mind, Sax. Spread it out and let's have a look."

  * * * *

  Pel's Field was situated on a flat between two ancient rifts in the Pazian lithosphere. Ground water, seeping down to the bottom, would eventually come in contact with the hot lower levels. There it would be turned into steam and rise, forming a constant cloud of haze. With Halfyear approaching, the water vapor turned into tiny crystals that were buoyed up by the rising steam. The shimmering crystal cloud would then drift off and settle as an icy berm on the eastern edges of both of the seemingly bottomless fissures.

  As the huge Cadre rover crossed over the western edge of Tesla Gorge, the pilot fired the vertical thrusters, and the vehicle shuddered in response. It lost its supporting cushion from the fans, and took a little dip before rising on the roaring tongues of flame, stirring the crystal cloud into swirling eddies of steam to trail off behind the speeding craft.

  “Excuse me, Colonel. We'll be landing at Pel's in five minutes, and you may want to suit up now. Temp's minus twelve, and the internal docking bay doors are jammed with ice. We'll have to cross about two hundred meters on foot."

  “Thank you, Sergeant."

  Tazh fished his heavy heat suit from the overhead locker and drew it over his stocky frame. It was a nuisance having to do things this way, but there was no chance in hell he would put himself in the position he knew Harko and the rest of those shagrats wanted. He'd already suffered a big setback because he'd allowed himself to be caught off-guard, and it wasn't going to happen again.

  “What's the weather in Ganeden?"

  “As of twenty minutes ago, they were reporting a heavy snow and ice storm with winds in the nineties. The temp was minus twenty-six and falling, sir."

  Why had they located up there? Paz had plenty of equatorial sites they could have used that were just as desolate but where, even at Halfyear, daytime temperatures would climb to six or seven degrees. If only La
ng had been—ah, blessed past tense—more of a man, then Tazh wouldn't be where he found himself at the moment. Somehow, though, it was better this way.

  * * * *

  Luto excused himself from the table where he had been discussing the awakening with the five Biotech people he had encountered during his hasty journey to Nuperz, and crossed the room to answer a knock on the door.

  “Well, Lira. Please, bring your friends in from the cold. I see you've had good hunting."

  As they came in from the freezing rain and quickly filled the minuscule cube to capacity, Luto counted nine new faces.

  “Uh-huh. Niki was right. There are a lot of Gammas at Astro who are well into their enlightenment. Most have already left for Ganeden.” Lira glanced at the five seated at the table and smiled at Luto. “Likewise at Biotech, I see."

  “Oh, yeah—and very exciting. Come, listen. Dr. Malkin was just explaining—in terms a simpleton like me can understand—how memory transference was discovered, and it's really fascinating stuff.” He half dragged her to the table. “Dr. Malkin, Dr. Kung, I'd like you to meet Lira Rifkin, who has shown tremendous interest in genetics in the last couple of months."

  The two men, both looking much too young to fit their credentials and experience, rose to greet the newcomer, Lira, with friendly smiles and extended hands.

  Malkin, who appeared to be no more than twenty, motioned for her to sit and said, “As I was just telling your friend, Luto, the methods for encoding DNA for memory production are still beyond our reach, but we know, in a really basic way, how it could be done. Mike ... Dr. Kung ... comes from a background of neurosurgery originally. He recently discovered something strange in the brains of certain cadavers—all Gammas in the lots one through twelve. He ... well, he should tell you about it himself."

  “What I found,” Kung said, “was a gland unique to these seed-lot groups. It is located deep in the cerebellum—very neatly hidden, I might add. This gland, though obviously inactive, intrigued me for a couple of reasons, but, I have to admit, the most compelling is that I am a Gamma three, and if I have an extra gland ... I want to know why. Unfortunately, the samples I had were restricted to earlier generations, so this gland was not sufficiently well developed to draw any conclusions—the thing actually appeared to be vestigial. Imagine my surprise when I got a new crop to study after this year's Days of Disturbance. The things were fully developed, and secreting hormonal fluids directly to the surrounding tissues of the cerebellum and diverting some off to the cerebrum."

  “When Mike brought it to my attention,” Malkin said, “he wanted to run some experiments on my Supershags—some shagrats on which I'd been working, trying to increase their cranial capacity to see, in layman's terms, see if I could get that stupid little scavenger to do something besides dig holes and hunt for dead bloodworms. After just two injections, my shags, although still unable to read and write, were running the complex maze tests in half the time. Their intelligence was still slightly less than a dungbug's—but the improvement in memory was nothing less than phenomenal. They were—"

  “Yes, yes, yes—but most importantly,” Kung cut in, “their offspring displayed inherited memory. By that, I mean, they were able to repeat feats their parents had performed without being taught. These fluids..."

  * * * *

  The little transport hurtled off the track into the brush alongside a cleared strip of trackway, its vertical fans whining in a valiant effort to keep the vehicle upright and off the ground. Inside, the pilot deftly manipulated the controls and got the vessel under control just short of hitting the rocky berm at the edge of the roadbed at two hundred kilometers per hour.

  “Will ya watch where yer goin'? Yer gonna end us fer sure, not watchin’ the track like that,” Mills said. Anyway, so say it again. Who told ya he'd be at Ganeden?"

  “Why? Is your memory that bad, or do you just like hearing things over and over?"

  The man piloting the transport at top-speed-plus-a-little along the Palmer Outland track glared at Mills through a tuft of white hair, then put his attention back on his task. The thin line of trackway was broken by mounds of snow here and there so that it looked like a series of dark slashes in a surface that was getting more uniformly white as they moved north.

  “And for your information, I was watching the track. Ice gets hung up in the mag yoke, and that throws us off. There's nothing I can do about it other than slow down. Do you want to slow down?"

  “No, no, don't slow down—and yeah, I wanna hear it again. I still think yer taggin’ me."

  “I don't tag, Virgo."

  “So, who told ya he'd be there?"

  “My source at Apps in New London.” The pilot jerked at the mag control again as they lost contact with the track in an iced-over section. “Damn. No deicers out here. I think you had better hope it doesn't snow much more than this between here and Ganeden."

  “So, what about yer—source?"

  “You want the whole story again?” He reached down as soon as the transport stabilized on the track and cranked the cabin heat up another notch. “Well, I'm not going to tell it, Virgo. I've told you three times already, and that's it. If you really want to hear it again, play back the recording you made before we started this trip."

  “Recordin'? What recordin'?"

  “I'm talking about the chipcorder you have in your left coat pocket, stupid."

  “Aw'right, aw'right. Can't blame me fer wantin’ t'be certain, can ya? I get all the way to Nutroit, and I hear all this crap's goin’ on. Hell, I thought Washton was straight with me, ya know, and he turns out to be a no-good shagrat gaf—so now I don't believe nobody. Got his, though, he did."

  Mills settled back in his seat and laid his one arm on the shelf his belly made.

  “I got no boat, no job, hardly no notes—all because he wants the whole thing fer himself. Damn. And you ... you watch where yer goin', aw'right. And don't call me stupid."

  “All right, Virgo. Once more,” the pilot said in frustrated resignation. “My man at Apps is way up there. Not the head man, but close. Four days ago he tells me Nik's got the cores—and no, they're not what you thought they were. Then he tells me they're running all the shuttles to Ganeden, and he says all the info you were hoping to get is going to be given to every shagrat on Paz, so you don't have anything to gain on that score, either. So, here we are in the middle of the North-South Track, heading for Ganeden. Satisfied?"

  Mills had rolled the seat back to full recline, his eyes were closed and a low rumbling was coming from somewhere in the back of his throat.

  “Hey, are you listening or sleeping?"

  “Huh? Yeah, sure, I'm listenin'. Tell me the part about goin’ someplace else."

  * * * *

  In the days since he'd left Ganeden the thought that all may might not be as it appeared on the surface slowly crept into Vagnu's mind. By the time the flyer settled to the Ganeden pad, the thought had bloomed into full-blown worry. Why hadn't he thought of it before? Harko and Kaznov could have struck a bargain—with him as the prize—and here he was, walking right into whatever it was they might have waiting for him.

  Harko was known to the Council as a staunch and incorruptible defender of the law, one who never backed away from a case, no matter how trivial. So why would such a person back off a case of this magnitude? It could have been the situation itself that caused him to ease off, but Vagnu doubted that quite seriously. No—the shagrats had to have made a deal that would not be in his best interest.

  He could remain aboard the flyer and return to New London—but that wouldn't get him off Paz, and he knew the only thing that would keep his neck at its current length would be to get as far away from Paz as he could. His chances of successfully hiding from the law on Paz were zero. Eventually, they would find him—and when they did...

  His only chance was to go with Kaznov, in spite of Kaznov's not wanting him there. As dangerous and uncertain as that adventure sounded, it would be better than slowly choking at t
he end of the Terminator's line. He had to get aboard one of the shuttles without being noticed by Enforcement, Apps, or any of Kaznov's people. But how? Once they were off the planet, things would have progressed to the point where they wouldn't be interested in returning him to Paz, and he would be free to reveal himself. How to do it?

  The shapes of two rather large transports, probably Ganeden's version of Publics, were barely visible in the snow and ice that were being whipped around by powerful winds scrubbing the pad below. Vagnu reached over the seat in front of him and touched Prang's shoulder.

  “Yes? What is it, Dathan?"

  Vagnu leaned forward and spoke in a voice no one else but Prang could hear. “I need you to do something for me, Marcus.

  When he'd finished outlining the first part of his plan to Prang—the rest he would keep to himself until he was safely where he needed to be—he sat back and waited for the flyer to touch down and get secured to the ground to keep it from being blown away.

  The queue at the transport formed fast, as everyone wanted to be first in to escape the incredible cold on the pad—there was a good deal of pushing and shoving. How the fight began, no one could say, though it probably started when Prang violently ejected one of the younger members from the line. Whatever private altercation there was between those two erupted into a full scale free-for-all in a matter of seconds. In the confusion of the fracas, a shadow slipped unnoticed into the white background of mixed snow and ice—and vanished.

  The general storage and tool box in the back of the transport was cramped but warm, so Vagnu curled up and pulled the door closed. He assumed they would be heading straight for the shuttles, and when they arrived he would be able to work out the rest of what he had to do to get where he needed to be.

  * * * *

  Five Enforcement officers rushed through the smoldering frame where a door had been before the pulse struck and vaporized it. What they found was a vacant house smelling of ozone. There was no sign of Frank or his guests. In his office they discovered a door concealed behind a bookcase that opened out into a tunnel beneath the house.

  Trak, her handlight piercing the darkness, entered the passage and followed it for a hundred meters where it intersected with a larger tunnel. She pointed the beam down the narrow corridor, its light reflecting off the rail that disappeared to the east.