The Death of Wisdom

by Paul Brunette

  "Any idea how it's spread?"

  "Not precisely," Scissor said. "Most probably through touch—routine social contact."

  "Physic," Coeur said tersely, "this is your speciality. Have you ever seen anything like this before?"

  "Absolutely not. And frankly, it scares me."

  "Why?"

  "Because this is a targeted virus; it almost has to be."

  "All right. Why?"

  "Red Sun," the doctor said, "I assume you're familiar with Hiver anatomy—the closed digestive tract, specifically."

  "I suppose that's common knowledge, yes."

  "Right. Where humans have a mouth and anus, the Hivers have only one organ: the cloaca. As a matter of course, since Hivers ingest food and eliminate with the same organ, the cloaca produces powerful enzymes and antibodies that break down almost any bacteria—or virus—that gets into that area. Organisms this powerful," Physic tapped an aerial image of the nest, "that can get through the cloaca that easily, don't occur in nature."

  "And you're positive about that?"

  "Positive enough. I'll know for sure when I get some bodies to autopsy."

  "No problem there," Drop Kick muttered.

  "Another question. Why is this nest so far out in the middle of nowhere?"

  Scissor answered that.

  "Seabridge Nest was built to test methods for improving crop yields on low-tech planets. Beyond that, however, it was also felt that the nest should be far away from human development so there would be no conflict of land use, and in rugged, forbidding terrain so that larvae would have an appropriate area within which to develop."

  "I hadn't thought about that' Coeur said. "How are the larvae doing out in the wilderness?"

  "Apparently, they aren't affected by the virus," Physic said, "although it's hard to be certain. The Hivers don't pay much attention to their larvae."

  "But isn't this area," Coeur indicated a box of red dots on a wider-angle image of the land above the nest, "some sort of larva preserve?"

  "Negative," Scissor said. "We Hivers drop larvae wherever we are, but have no concern what happens to them afterward. Indeed, I have periodically fumigated this starship while it was in port, to kill any larvae that I might have dropped during the voyage. The area in that image was set aside by the human government to protect the larvae from human citizens who might injure the larvae; it would never occur to a Hiver to do such a thing,"

  "I see. Have any of those larvae had time to reach adolescence?"

  "Unlikely. The nest has only been on Ra for six months."

  "All right," Coeur said finally, "it's obvious we're not going to learn much more herein space. Before we land, though, I'll want everyone in vac suits—just in case this virus is a latent threat to humans."

  "Absolutely," Physic agreed.

  "Right. Drop Kick, prepare the AFV for action. We'll land in less than an hour."

  "Yes, sir."

  The name of Seabridge Peninsula belied its massive nature: 5000 kilometers from north to south, it was a continent in all but designation. Perhaps, Coeur thought, it was the relative size of neighboring Bannon—a land mass stretching 16,000 kilometers from pole to pole— that suggested less than continental status to the first surveyors, but whatever they called it, it was big; on the verge of Hornets descent from low orbit, it filled the entire horizon visible through her bridge window.

  As it was summer in the north, permanent ice clung only to the mountains and islands closest to the pole, far above the verdant forest that dominated the remainder of the peninsula. Not far from the retreating terminator to the west, the few sentient inhabitants of that forest were likely just beginning their day.

  "I don't see much on sensors," Coeur admitted, steering toward the nest's landing beacon, "I am registering Wilburton's power grid on short- range CMS," Deep Six reported. 'That and the Seabridge beacon are the main signs of habitation."

  Since Hornet hadn't yet landed and opened any hatches, Coeur let Deep Six man his post without his vac suit helmet on—an expedient that let him use his whiskers to control sensors and his tentacles to control communications. Once the ship was grounded, however, he would have to seal his vac suit fully as insurance against the unknown killer that sprang from the heart of the vast and empty land ahead.

  Just 2000 humans and Hivers live there, Coeur thought, feeling dense atmosphere grip Hornet's control surfaces. An army could hide in that wilderness, and no one would ever see them.

  "Track is clear," Deep Six said. "Range 500, altitude 50 kilometers."

  "Roger that. Setting flaps to 20 degrees."

  "Horizontal velocity 600."

  "Check contra-grav."

  "Contra-grav nominal."

  "Engaging contra-grav."

  Deep in Ra's stratosphere, Hornet suddenly lost airspeed in a manner that would have shocked any conventional aircraft pilot. Braking with contra-grav lift—and helped by a good thick atmosphere—2000 tonnes of starship lost 500 kph of velocity in a matter of minutes.

  Through Hornets bridge viewscreen the view was very suddenly of trees rolling leisurely by only a hundred meters below the bow. For the few people in their path, Coeur knew the gently falling freighter must be a sight both awesome and unexpected.

  "Range is 5 kilometers," Deep Six said. "Landing gear down,"

  "Secure for landing."

  "All stations send secure."

  The last few kilometers took Hornet across the River Tarn and Collins Bar, a scattering of buildings perhaps an hour's walk from Seabridge Nest. |ust seconds away lay a square kilometer clearing in the forest—the nest itself.

  In typical Hiver fashion, the conic buildings and cultivated fields of the nest showed no obvious order to the human eye, but Coeur delayed a closer look while she looked for a landing area. For the sake of safety, that area was a broad concrete tarmac by the river, well clear of the inhabited structures, "The ship is down," Coeur said, over the hiss of compressing landing gear shock struts.

  "All stations read secure," Deep Six said, "but I would attract your attention to our two o'clock."

  "Oh my God."

  Not a hundred meters away, near the edge of the nest proper, a half-dozen humans with bandanas over their mouths paused in their work to gaze upon the grounded Hornet. That work appeared to comprise heaving upward of 30 shrouded bodies into a common grave.

  "Welcome to Seabridge Nest, Hornet," came a familiar voice over the radio: Dina. "Our security chief has been alerted to meet you."

  Welcome, indeed, Coeur thought, watching the burial

  party go back to work, to hell.

  Hivers were pacifistic by nature, and therefore required no security forces to maintain order amongst themselves. On the edge of the hostile Wilds, however, one could never be certain when an attack might come from outside the Coalition, so Seabridge Nest was actively guarded—however lightly—by Company A of the 515th Ra Military Police.

  It was Captain Hayward Pratt, commander of Company A, who came out to meet Hornet, driving an internal-combustion ground jeep. Moments after he drove up, he was met by Coeur, Physic, Scissor, and Drop Kick—the former three in vac suits, and the latter in light battle dress—descending Hornet's starboard air lock ladder. Whether Pratt would have liked personal protection like their own was largely immaterial, Coeur suspected, since Ra's low-tech vac suits would be absurdly bulky and impractical for everyday use.

  "Captain Hayward Pratt," the haggard man said, saluting. "I take it you're Red Sun."

  "Affirmative," Coeur said through her suit speaker, and answering with her own salute, "And this is Drop Kick, a Marine cavalry sergeant; Physic, our doctor; and Scissor of the Aubaine Technical Academy."

  "M. Dina has instructed me to convey you to her laboratory, assuming this old rattletrap isn't too primitive for you,"

  'This will be fine," Coeur said, accepting the seat beside Pratt's. Drop Kick and Physic climbed in the back, with Scissor between them. A moment later the jeep's motor rattled to life
, and Pratt was steering back toward the center of the nest.

  If anything, the nest appeared more chaotic to Coeur from ground level, though it really wasn't that different from any other Hiver colony. In all likelihood, the nest had begun with a small core of fields and habitation domes, and added others as individual researchers concocted new ideas about land use.

  Vet, for all their individuality, the Hivers were hardly obsessed with personal property; the few do2en Hivers and robots visible in the fields seemed to roam around without any obvious boundaries on their movement. Only the human security patrols on the perimeter of the nest appeared to be concerned with remaining in properly assigned positions.

  "I don't see many Hivers in the fields," Drop Kick said. "Are the rest all sick?"

  "It's not as bad as it looks—yet. Until Dina finds out what's causing the epidemic, I've advised all the Hivers— sick and healthy—to stay inside as much as possible, for their own protection,"

  "Surely you aren't keeping the sick Hivers with the well ones?" Physic asked.

  "We try not to," Pratt said, "but without an antibody test to screen the victims, the best we can do is haul everyone with symptoms to special quarantine buildings."

  "You mentioned protection," Coeur said. "Do you mean from the natural environment?"

  "Negative, captain. These local structures can't be pressurized to hold out local atmosphere. What I meant was protection against the agents who released the disease."

  "I wasn't aware that that had been nailed down as a certainty," said Scissor.

  "Maybe it hasn't," Pratt answered, "but I'm certain enough.

  "I am curious," Scissor said. "Upon what do you base your conclusion?"

  "Security's my job, Scissor. For my money, nothing natural takes out a whole colony of Hivers in less than a week."

  'That's a pretty broad statement, captain," Coeur observed.

  "Are you kidding? Hiver larvae root around in muck that would kill a Marine, their skin's as tough as rubber, and their stomach juices'll burn through armor plate. I mean, really, they may not like a fight, but they're tough little buggers all the same."

  "Sound empirical reasoning," Scissor agreed, as the jeep slowed to a stop before one of the larger hemispherical structures—30 meters wide and sprouting a nest of radio aerials and antennae. Its wide front door, ideal for a Hiver but a bit low for a human, was guarded by a single MP.

  'This is the medical laboratory," Pratt explained, leading them out of the jeep and through the sliding front door, "although you might as well call it the hospital. It still houses more patients than any other building."

  From the first moment she entered the building, Coeur was grateful that smells were held outside her suit, for all around were disintegrating Hiver bodies. Right out in the building's foyer, four Hivers lay sprawled on cushions in various stages of painful death, the sickest among them caked with slick secretions from the swollen black pustules that covered their bodies.

  it must be a blessing, Coeur thought, that the sense of smell is rare in Hivers.

  More incapacitated Hivers, tended by healthier mates and remarkably agile Hiveroid robots, populated all the rooms of the lower floor, blotting from the minds of Hornets human crew the high sophistication of their surroundings. Later, Coeur would note that ail the Hiver buildings—though built from native wood and plaster— were suffused with expert computer systems controlling every aspect of environment, data access, and communication. for the moment, though, all she saw was death.

  "There are three floors in this building," Pratt said, leading the Coalition party through two concentric rings of rooms to a central elevator, "but the first and second floors are mostly infirmaries. We'll have to go up to the third level to reach Dina and the laboratory."

  And so they did, ascending through the center of the building to its highest level. Up near the top of the dome, the building was only 15 meters across and not differentiated into separate rooms. Instead, there were four partially partitioned areas arrayed around the lift shaft, stocked with elaborate medical lab equipment and staffed by a mixed group of robots and Hivers in vac suits.

  M. Dina, as it happened, was working alone when Pratt approached with the Hornet party. Accustomed to dealing with the human security detail, the Hiver wore a translator outside its vac suit habitually, even when it didn't expect human company.

  "Greetings, M. Dina," Sgt. Pratt said, saluting out of habit. "This is the party from RCS Hornet "Greetings," Dina said, turning from its work at an electron microscope. "I assume you are Red Sun, the vessel's commander."

  "Yes," Red Sun said, "and these are Physic, my doctor, and Drop Kick, a Marine trooper. I assume you know Scissor, or Cicero,"

  "Yes, I do," Dina said, directing an elaborate sequence of Hiver gestures toward Scissor, Scissor answered with an elaborate sequence of its own, "Manipulator Dina approves of my use of a vac suit," Scissor explained for the benefit of its mates, "since her agronomist associates here availed themselves of the few available vac suits soon after the medical staff was killed, and perhaps not coincidentally, have avoided a high casualty rate among themselves."

  "I'm not as certain that vac suits are necessary for your human crew," Dina added, "though It may be wise for you to wear them until the disease organism is isolated."

  "Wait a minute," Drop Kick said to Scissor, "what did you mean by 'manipulator?"

  "Allow me to explain," Dina said. "The term is an honorific, indicating an individual who is noted for its accomplishment of a significant historical manipulation,"

  "Indeed," Scissor observed. "M. Dina was responsible for convincing this nest that Seabridge was the ideal location for the agricultural research station."

  "Really," Coeur said.

  "In retrospect," Dina admitted, "it may not have been my wisest decision."

  After the initial greetings were exchanged, Sgt. Pratt excused himself to attend to other duties, and Dina got down to a detailed briefing of the epidemic situation for Coeur and her mates, Dina's data verified a crisis flying out of control. Although the virus clearly targeted a specific body system—reproduction—only complete lack of contact between Hivers was a practical defense. Unfortunately, the Hivers were very social, and a "hand-shaking" liaison with a passing Hiver freighter—just before the epidemic exploded—had not only spread the virus to every corner of the nest, but likely into space as well.

  "We have called the organism Hiver Retrovirus Zed," Dina said, "but we have neither isolated nor positively identified it."

  "Mutating too quickly?" Physic asked.

  "Yes. And our work is also complicated by the death of our two best microbiologists,"

  "Physic'll help there," Coeur said, 'That's her occupation,"

  "Yes," Physic agreed. "I'd like to get to work as soon as I can."

  "Very good," Dina said. "Since I was alerted to your imminent arrival, I have programmed a human-style workstation to translate our database into Anglic. The six medical robots in the nest are also programmed to speak Anglic, and one of them shall be detailed as your assistant."

  "What are we waiting for, then?" Physic asked, taking a seat at the reprogrammed workstation, "The sooner we start, the sooner we'll lick this thing."

  "I agree," Dina said activating a radio that was integral to its translator/voder. Seconds later, a Hiver robot strolled into Dina's lab section and signaled Dina with Hiver gesture talk.

  "This is Florence," the manipulator explained, "an expert laboratory technician. She will familiarize you with our laboratory procedures."

  "Greetings, Physic," the robot spoke through an integral torso speaker. "I'm looking forward to working with you."

  The three humans shot a disbelieving look at Dina.

  "Emotion?" Coeur asked.

  "Emotion simulation," Scissor corrected its shipmates. "True emotion requires sentience."

  "And sentience," Dina added, "is a property of Virus alone."

  Even if Florence and the lab computer
weren't vampiric Als, however, they had a degree of autonomous intelligence that impressed Physic. Within minutes of sitting down at her workstation, she was beginning a preliminary overview of research to date and visualizing the best way to exploit it.

  Coeur was pleased, and a little surprised, to have her friend so quickly at work on the epidemic, but there were other considerations that might not be uncovered in a lab. Why, for instance, had the disease blown up so suddenly out of nowhere?

  "Dina," Coeur said, taking the Hiver aside. 'There's obviously another thing to worry about: how the virus got into the nest. You might not have been overtly attacked, but is it possible that the virus might have arrived by other means? Say, unauthorized visitors, or strange samples from the fields?"

  "The thought has occurred to me," Dina said, "Though the security cordon is quite effective, and our satellite monitors local traffic most efficiently."

  "Surely," Drop Kick said, "some of your people must leave the nest occasionally, even if none of the larvae are old enough to have wandered back yet."

  "Correct. A Hiver named George, for instance, wanders in and out of the nest periodically, researching chemical properties of local flora,"

  "Is George around now?"

  "Negative. George came into the nest a week ago, and then returned to the forest."

  "Does he have a radio?" Coeur asked.

  "At his base camp, yes. He checks in periodically."

  "How periodically?"

  "The period varies. By his nature, he is among the more independent of our colleagues."

  "How long has the last interval been?" Scissor asked, vocalizing in Anglic for the benefit of the humans.

  "I shall investigate," Dina said, moving to a laboratory computer. The Hiver text it pulled up was presumably a communications log.

  "Curious," it said. "He has not reported in since his last departure."

  "Is his radio still active?" Drop Kick asked.

  "Affirmative. I shall attempt to raise him."

  A full minute of effort yielded no results.

  "This maybe a situation deserving study," Scissor said.