by neetha Napew
A fatal hemorrhagic fever...
Mary leaned back in Jock’s chair. She could taste bile climbing her throat.
Why on Earth would someone want to wipe out the Neanderthals?
But, of course, the question really should be, Why, withtwo Earths , would someone want to wipe out the Neanderthals?
Hemorrhagic fevers were contagious. Gliksins couldn’t cure them, and she very much doubted Barasts could, either, for two reasons. First, by virtue of never having developed agriculture and animal husbandry, the Neanderthals had also never had to develop techniques for dealing with plagues. And, second, all known hemorrhagic fevers were tropical diseases-something the northern-living Neanderthals would have had very little experience with.
Mary swallowed hard, trying to force down the biting, sour taste.
But why? Why would someone want to kill the Neanderthals? It didn’t make...
Suddenly Mary remembered her little exchange with Jock back at the Debral nickel mine:
“It’sastonishing,” Jock had said. “I knew in an intellectual sort of way that we’d screwed up our environment, but until I saw all this...” He’d indicated the pristine countryside. “It’s like finding Eden.”
And Mary had laughed. “Isn’t it, though?” she’d said. “Too bad it’s already occupied, eh?”
A little joke-that’s all it was. But Jock hadn’t laughed. All you had to do was get rid of those pesky Neanderthals, and an Eden awaited...
It was horrific-but Jock had spent his life dealing with scenarios of mass destruction. What was horrific to Mary was just another day at the office for him.
Mary’s first thought was to erase the computer files-but, of course, that would accomplish nothing. There would doubtless be backups.
Her second thought was to pick up the phone and call-well, as a good Canadian, she naturally thought of the CBC, which could then spread the news to the four corners of this world. There was no way people would stand for this sort of genocide.
But she didn’t know how far along Jock was. If he was ready to go, Mary certainly didn’t want him to feel cornered, since he might release his disease vector as soon as he heard that the public had gotten wind of his plan.
Mary needed help, ideas, support-not just from Ponter or Adikor, but from another Gliksin, someone who understood how this world worked.
There were people she trusted back in Toronto, but was there anyone she could rely on here in the United States? Her sister Christine-the real Christine-of course, but she was in Sacramento, clear across the continent, thousands of-ofmiles -away.
And then it hit her.
The obvious answer, as much as her youth and beauty rankled Mary.
The woman who had saved Ponter Boddit’s life when he’d first arrived in this reality.
The quantum-physics postdoc that Jock had scooped up to try to replicate the Neanderthal computing technology.
Louise Benoît.
Not that Louise would be much help in medical matters, but-
But her boyfriend! Granted, Reuben Montego was no specialist, but he’d be a lot more help dealing with a disease vector than would a physicist.
Mary knew that she might never again get access to these computer files. She looked around Jock’s office and found a spindle of blank CDs (Kodak brand, of course, this being Rochester). She took one, put it in the computer’s CD drive, and clicked on the CD-burning application. Just to be on the safe side, she selected all the files in the folder. The whole thing topped out at 610 meg-small enough to fit on a single CD. She clicked the “copy files” button, and leaned back in the Aeron chair-which, just now, didn’t seem comfortable at all-wishing she knew some way to calm her racing heart.
Chapter Thirty-six
“But therehavebeen objections to terraforming Mars from those who feel that, even if it has no indigenous life, we should leave its stark natural beauty pristine and unspoiled-that if we visit it, we should treat it as we do our Earthly parks, taking nothing but memories and leaving behind nothing but footprints...”
Ponter and Adikor had ended up spending the whole night at the hospital with Lonwis and Jock. Mary had eventually gone home alone to Bristol Harbour Village, without having had a chance to tell Ponter what she’d discovered.
Exhausted, she didn’t get in to Seabreeze until 11:00A.M. , but Ponter, Adikor, and Jock still hadn’t come in yet. After getting an update from Mrs. Wallace on Lonwis’s condition-stable-she climbed the stairs to Louise Benoît’s lab. “How about some lunch?” Mary asked.
Louise looked pleasantly surprised. “Sure,” she said. “When?”
“How about right now?” said Mary.
Louise looked at her watch and was clearly surprised by how early it was. But something in Mary’s voice had obviously got her attention. “Bon,” she said.
“Great,” said Mary. Their coats were on a rack by the mansion’s front door. They put them on and headed outside, into the crisp November day, a few snowflakes blowing around.
There were several restaurants on either side of Culver Road. Many were seasonal-Seabreeze was a summer resort, after all-but some were open year-round. Mary started walking purposefully to the west, and Louise fell in beside her.
“So,” said Louise, “what do you feel like?”
“I was in Jock’s office last night,” said Mary, without preamble, “while he was off at the hospital with Lonwis. He’s had a virus designed to kill Neanderthals.”
Louise’s accented voice was filled with disbelief. “What?”
“I think he’s going to wipe them out-all of them.”
“Why?”
Mary looked over her shoulder, just to be sure they weren’t being followed. “Because the grassis greener on the other side of the fence. Because he wants to claim their version of Earth for our kind of humans.” She kicked some litter out of her way. “Maybe so we can start over without all this.”
Up ahead, on the left side of the road, an amusement park was visible, closed for the winter, its roller coaster a lump of rusty intestines. “What-what should we do?” said Louise. “How do we stop him?”
“I don’t know,” said Mary. “I only stumbled onto the virus design by accident. My network connection went down, and so I went to his office to use his workstation, since he was gone for the day. But he’d left in such a hurry when Lonwis had his heart attack that he hadn’t logged off his account. I copied the virus designs onto a CD, but I think what I’d really like to do is get back into his account again, and modify the master file so that it won’t produce anything deadly. I presume he’s planning to feed those instructions into the codon writer, and then release the virus into the Neanderthal world.”
“What if he’s already made the actual virus?” said Louise.
“I don’t know. If he has, we may be sunk.”
They were walking along a narrow sidewalk. A car drove by them.
“Have you thought about just going to the media with the CD-you know, blowing the whistle?”
Mary nodded. “But I want to...todefuse his virus before I do that. And I’ll need help finding a way back into Jock’s computer.”
“The Synergy Group network uses RSA encryption,” said Louise.
“Is there any way to crack that?”
Louise smiled. “Before we met our Neanderthal friends I would have said no, there was no practical way. After all, most encryption systems, including RSA, are based on keys that are the products of two large prime numbers. You have to be able to figure out the prime factors of the key number to crack the code, and with 512-bit encryption, like our system here uses, it would take conventional computers millennia to try all the possible factors. But quantum computers-“
Mary got it in a flash. “Quantum computers try all possible factors simultaneously.” But then she frowned. “So, what are you proposing? That we have the portal shut down so that Ponter’s quantum computer can crack Jock’s encryption for us?”
Louise shook her head. “Sett
ing aside the fact that Ponter’s is hardly the only quantum computer that exists in the Neanderthal world-it’s just the biggest one, that’s all-we don’t need to go there to get this problem solved.” She smiled. “You may have spent the last couple of months gallivanting over two universes, but I’ve been hard at work right here, and my job was to build our own quantum computer, based on what I’d learned from Ponter during our quarantine. We’ve got a perfectly fine little quantum computer in my lab here at Synergy. It’s got nowhere near enough registers to do what Ponter’s big unit did-open a stable portal to another universe-but it certainly can crack 512-bit encryption codes.”
“You’re wonderful, Louise.”
Louise smiled. “Nice of you to finally notice.”
As soon as Ponter and Adikor returned from the hospital, Mary said they should go for lunch-hoping that Mrs. Wallace wouldn’t remark to Jock that this was thesecond time she’d supposedly gone out to lunch today. Once they were outdoors, Mary led them out to the back of the mansion, and they walked along the sandy beach, a cold wind coming across the gray choppiness of Lake Ontario.
“Something is clearly upsetting you,” said Ponter. “What is it?”
“Jock has created a biological weapon,” Mary said. “It’s a virus that determines if the host cell belongs to a Neanderthal. If it does, it invokes a hemorrhagic fever.”
She heard Ponter’s and Adikor’s Companions bleep; not surprisingly, the subject of tropical diseases had not come up so far. “Hemorrhagic fevers are fatal,” said Mary. “Ebola is the classic example from my world; it causes blood to leak out of the eyes and other orifices. Such fevers are highly contagious and we don’t have a cure for them.”
“Why would anyone make such a thing?” asked Ponter, his voice full of revulsion.
“To wipe your world free of indigenous humans, so that my kind could claim your version of Earth-as a second home, maybe.”
Ponter apparently could find no word in his own language to convey the sentiment he wanted to express. “Christ,” said his untranslated voice.
“I agree,” said Mary. “But I’m not sure how to stop Jock. I mean, he might be acting alone, or his government-and possibly mine, too-might be behind this.”
“Have you told anyone besides us?” asked Ponter.
“Louise. And I’ve asked her to tip off Reuben Montego, too.”
Adikor said, “Are you sure they can be trusted?”
But before Mary could answer, Ponter spoke. “I would trust those Gliksins with my life.”
Mary nodded. “We can count on them. But we can’t be sure about anyone else.”
“Well,” said Ponter, “not anyone else inthis world. Buteveryone in my world stands to lose if Jock releases his virus. We should go there, and...”
“And what?” said Mary.
Ponter lifted his shoulders. “And shut down the portal. Sever the link. Protect our home.”
“There are more than a dozen Barasts here, on this side of the portal,” said Mary.
“We must get them home first, then,” said Ponter.
“The reason they’re here is tokeep the High Gray Council from closing the portal,” said Adikor. “It won’t be easy to convince them to return-and, regardless, who knows when we’ll be able to move Lonwis?”
Ponter frowned. “Still, it’s too dangerous to let Jock have a way of transmitting his virus to our world.”
“Maybe we’ve got it wrong,” said Adikor. “Maybe Jock just hates the fact that there are Barastshere , on this Earth. Maybe he intends to release his virus here.”
“In which case,” said Ponter, “the first step is still to get all Barasts back to our side. But you heard what he said: ‘I get reports on all Neanderthal comings and goings.’ It would be easier for him to simply track down the handful of Barasts already here and kill us by more conventional means.”
Adikor took a deep breath. “I guess you’re right.” He looked at Mary, then back at Ponter. “When you returned from your first visit to this world, I asked you whether the Gliksins were good people, whether we should try to re-establish contact with them.”
Ponter nodded. “I know. This is my fault. It’s-“
“No,” said Mary emphatically. If there was one thing all the brochures Keisha had given her had taught her, it was that you can’t blame the victim. “No, it is not your fault, Ponter.”
“You are kind,” said Ponter. “So, how should we proceed?”
“I’m going to get back into Jock’s computer tonight, after he leaves,” said Mary, “and modify the viral design, so that it isn’t dangerous. Let’s just pray he hasn’t already output the actual virus.”
“Mare...” said Ponter gently.
“I know, I know. You don’t pray. But maybe you should start.”
Chapter Thirty-seven
“Who would have thought that both destinies for Mars could be fulfilled? But, of course, now they can. We will travel to the Mars of this universe, the one that graces the night skies of the Americas, Africa, Europe, Asia, and Oceania, and, as has ever been our way, we will conquer this new frontier, making an additional home forHomo sapiensthere...”
When they returned to the mansion, Jock was waiting for them. Mary thought her heart was going to explode. “Adikor, Ponter,” said Jock. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to leave us.”
“Why?” said Adikor.
“The hospital called. Lonwis’s condition is deteriorating, and they don’t know what to do. He’s going to be rushed back to the Neanderthal world, so that he can be treated there. I’ve arranged for a U.S. Air Force plane to take him up to Sudbury, but he wants the two of you to accompany him. He says-I’m sorry, gentlemen, but he says he may not last much longer, and he needs to go over his quantum-computing ideas with the two of you.”
Ponter looked at Mary. Mary lifted her eyebrows, wishing there were some alternative. “I’ll drive you to the airport,” she said.
“Say, guys,” said Jock, “before you go, one question.”
“Yes?” asked Ponter.
“When does-what do you call it?-‘Two becoming One’? When does that happen next?”
“Three days from now,” said Adikor. “Why?”
“Oh, no special reason,” said Jock. “Just curious.”
The codon writer remained in Jock’s safe, dammitall. Mary really wanted to take it with her when she and Louise fled to Canada, but that wasn’t going to be possible. Still, although the safe was apparently impregnable, Jock’s computer files were not. Louise had had no trouble compromising Jock’s password file-his password turned out to be “minimax,” a term Mary vaguely recognized as having something to do with game theory-and after everyone else had left for the evening, Mary slipped back into Jock’s office, while Louise returned to her own lab.
Mary entered “minimax” at the password prompt, gaining access to the hidden files on the Synergy server. She then clicked on the Surfaris icon, and the USAMRIID Geneplex program opened, displaying the virus’s design. Mary set about modifying it.
It was a heady experience. Despite her scientific training, despite everything Vissan had said, down deep, some part of Mary still thought there was something mystical about life; that, at its core, it was more than just chemistry. But of course it wasn’t; the geneticist in her knew that. Program the right sequence of nucleotides, and you’ll ultimately produce a series of proteins that will do precisely what you wish. Still, Mary could scarcely believe what she was doing. It was like back when she was married to Colm. He’d written poetry in his spare time, selling-in the poet’s sense of the word, meaning giving away in exchange for copies of the publication-dozens of poems to places likeThe Malahat Review ,White Wall Review , andHazMat . Mary had always been astonished that he could sit down at his keyboard, pounding away in WordStar-would he ever give that program up?-and produce something beautiful, meaningful, and unique out of absolutely nothing.
And now Mary was doing the same thing: specifying sequences tha
t would eventually be output as an actual life-form-or, at least, as a virus-that had never existed before. Of course, she was really only modifying the existing Surfaris template that some other geneticist had created, but, still, the resulting virus would indeed be novel.
And yet, the virus she was creating wouldn’t actually do anything. Whereas the original design would have aborted only if it was hosted in the cell of a Gliksin, rather than a Barast, Mary’s version would abortregardless of the input it received: it would do nothing no matter what sort of cell it was within. It was only the branching logic Mary was changing. She left the code that would produce the hemorrhagic fever intact not out of any desire to see it ever invoked, but rather to make sure that, at a cursory glance at least, her sequence would look like the one Jock had intended the codon writer to produce.
Mary wanted a name to mentally distinguish her version from Jock’s. She frowned, trying to think of something appropriate. Jock’s original had been named “Surfaris”-a word that even the on-line Oxford English Dictionary didn’t have in its database. But then it occurred to Mary that it might be a plural form, and so she tried what she guessed would be the singular, although that looked like it could be a plural in its own right: “surfari.”
And there it was: a blending of “surfing” and “safari,” referring to the search surfers make for decent waves. Mary couldn’t see the relevance, so she typed the term, in the plural form Jock had used, into Google.
Of course.
The Surfaris. A rock group who in 1963 recorded what went on to be a standard on golden-oldie stations, “Wipeout.”
Sweet Jesus, thought Mary.Wipeout.
She shook her head in disgust.
Well, what’s the opposite of “wipeout?”
At thirty-nine, Mary was young enough-barely-to remember the heyday of vinyl 45-rpm records. Doubtless “Wipeout” had been released in that format. But what had been on-she still remembered the term-the flip side? Google to the rescue: “Surfer Joe,” written by Ron Wilson. Mary honestly couldn’t remember ever hearing that song, but then again, that was often the fate of B-sides.