BEYOND EXTINCTION

by John Keeble

  "What should we do now?" Jack asks her. "Do we let Galen – the rebuild – reset his DNA? I've spent 20 years as a geneticist but I've never even imagined what Galen has achieved."

  "We've all paid the price for Galen's genius. I'm sick of it. I hope he's dead." She looks up sharply, catching Jack's eyes, seeing his surprise.

  "I've always known you were among the elite at the Center," he says, carefully formulating his question to avoid accidental conflict. "How deep is your technical knowledge?"

  "My role in life has been to support Galen. That, of course, is the numan way. Males to dominate and succeed, females to breed and the give everything in support of their husbands. Except 'husband' is a human term. The numan male and his two females are DNA linked before birth as a single unit."

  She knows I know this. Is she evading the question?

  "Just tell me: are you qualified to deal with our Galen-rebuild and his DNA problems?" says Jack.

  "Yes," she says, her eyes clear of any evasion. "I can make and administer the retrograde. It's just that this has never been tried on a rebuild before. The outcome is unpredictable."

  Especially here, where she has no proper lab and the military could hit us at any moment.

  *

  Aini hates these idiots in the military. Their jumped-up view of themselves. Their rudeness. Their infighting. And now, especially, their sub-orbital drone. Civilian sub-orbitals take passenger comfort into account. They launch and land along trajectories that people find comfortable. The military sub-orbital rockets into the sky and plummets to earth as if it is an attack drone going into combat. Pretentious idiots. My stomach is still at eighty thousand feet.

  He hides his anxiety and the pain in his feet, and shuffles with the disembarkation flow off the drone and into the Alice Springs intercontinental drone zone security checks. Metallic blue route for the military; orange for administrators and civilians. No one is heading for the third channel: the white track for those with problems like lost documents or security issues.

  "Commander Aindrea," says an unarmed arrivals officer.

  "Yes?"

  "You will come with me." The officer walks towards the white track without waiting for Aini.

  Aini assesses the moving mass of 30 passengers. Three security agents, two armed, are watching him with casual, low-key alertness.

  "Certainly," he says to the receding security agent's back and follows. Are they going to arrest me? I've done nothing criminal but that won't stop a spookpolice agent.

  The entry hall is a trap: the cunning design makes it look open and welcoming but the back is increasingly secure.

  "In here," the agent says.

  Aini feigns a meekness he does not feel. Let this spookpolice hero have his moment. He will be dead soon enough. But his feeling of scoring a sly victory bounces back on him. I'm bringing rot death into FedOz. I'll kill every living creature here. I'm a mass murderer.

  They stop in front of a cheap pwood desk and an entry investigator flicks his hand towards a chair.

  Aini sits with a sigh to show he is not content. I need to get out of here. Soon. "I have urgent business with—."

  "I know about your urgent business," says the investigator. "State your identity credentials."

  Aini starts reciting his identity code to match their biometric security scans but, from behind him, he hears: "Oh, I don't think that will be necessary." The voice is casual, familiar to Aini, but the investigator jumps to attention and Aini jerks round, at once both surprised into action and ashamed at his lapse of control. I need to get a grip.

  "Sir," Aini says, rising from his chair.

  "Commander Aindrea, welcome home," says the newcomer. "You look surprised. You will recall that you borrowed my communicator as we waited for the sub-orbital in FedUK."

  "Who are you, sir?" asks Aini. He's an official, probably senior security, definitely numan4. Why's he here?

  "I'm a friend," says the official. "That's all you need to know. We'll go for rehydration and then to your research center. You can show me Commander Galen's files. You have got them, I assume?"

  "They're in the devices that were taken from me by the military in FedUK," he replies, his face unreadable.

  "We can leave that fiction for your form-filling Director," says the official. "You look very tired. I think we need to conclude this matter and let you rest."

  "What shall I call you, sir?" asks Aini as they walk from the agent's bleak room, through an unmarked door, along a private corridor and into a luxurious private lounge.

  The official gives him the winter of a smile and Aini replays in his mind the summer smile at the FedUK drone zone and again in the investigator's room. "What would you like to call me, Aini? What about Daani, your father's name?"

  "Thank you for offering such an honor, sir."

  "Yes, it is an honor for one so undistinguished, but it will serve its purpose." He orders rehydrating post-orbital drinks. "Drink. Then we will go to your laboratory."

  *

  Chapter 31

  "Where's Max?" Alice says to Jack as she prepares the genetic downgrade to spray into the Galen-rebuild's eyes. The rebuild sits a couple of meters from Alice and watches her back as she works in the drone's medical cubby hole.

  "Max seems to prefer being in the refugees' camp – I wonder why," says Jack, smiling because they both know why. "I think he's safe enough."

  "I think so too," she says, "but I miss him."

  Alice feels Jack move closer, looking over her shoulder at her preparations. "Technically, this is quite easy," she says. "The rebuild—."

  "Call me by my name! It's Galen!" shouts the rebuild, struggling to get up and falling back hard as Jack swings around and pushes him down.

  "Stay calm, Galen," says Alice. "It will be over soon."

  She turns back to the DNA infusion, safe in the knowledge that Jack is protecting her. Jack will never harm me but how he will react when he discovers what we've done to him? She picks up the eye-spray, a clumsy affair designed for field conditions.

  "Galen," she says as she turns to him. "You know this has never been tried before. None of us knows—."

  "Jack certainly doesn't," sniggers the rebuild nastily. "He would be better off with a child's chemistry set."

  "Jack is going to fasten your wrists to the seat—."

  "No!"

  "Okay, then I'll put this infusion in store until you are willing to cooperate," says Alice mildly. He knows we cannot store this without it deteriorating. She turns away.

  "He can do it!" says the rebuild, slamming his wrists on the armrests. "I'm content to be restrained. I must have the retrograde infusion!"

  She waits while Jack secures him. "Galen, hold very still," she says. "This equipment is crude and can damage your eyes."

  "Just get on with it!"

  She gently places the twin eye covers over him, checks the alignment, and triggers the spray. "That's it," she says. "You will need to be restrained for 24 hours. The troopers will stay with you."

  Alice expects another hate-filled outburst but he smiles.

  "You used the retrograde design that I gave you?" he asks.

  "Yes, of course."

  "Then I am content."

  Alice moves away as Jack calls in the waiting troopers, briefed before the rebuild's procedure and curious beyond their ability to comprehend.

  "Is it a good sign that he's content?" Jack asks her as they leave the drone, her fingers reacting to his touch.

  "It's a good sign that he doesn't know what I've given him," she says. "I recognized his version as an unstable design used in a numan6 experiment. Instead, I used one of my basic research designs. If it takes, he will come out as a limited numan2 – he has always been a poor excuse for a numanbeing but my design will make him easier to live with."

  They stroll off, hand in hand, towards the trees and the numan2 camp. She can hear the children laughing and screaming as they always do when Max and the numan2s' dog, Xam, race
around with them. If only life could always be like this. But the storm is coming: I must face it soon. Will I lose Jack and see my lovely Max killed in the name of science?

  *

  Military intelligence agent "Deena" cannot decide if he despises or admires Aini. Maybe some of each. That is why he chose Aini's father's name for his operational name. Aini's father was a man who broke all the numan work rules but who never succeeded in breaking numan cultural resistance to unconventional thinking. That broke him. He was a genius but he was never allowed to blossom.

  "Why are you limping?" he asks as he follows Aini through the Center towards his laboratory.

  "It's not important," Aini replies in a dismissive tone that raises a gold warning flag in Deena's mind. His work is always about truth. What is true, what is accurate, what is probable, what is possible, what is unlikely, what is impossible. In theory and popular belief, no numan can lie or manipulate or fail to tell the whole truth. But, in his decades of experience, the reality is very different. Why would he lie about something as trivial as a limp? Unless, of course, it's not trivial.

  "I like to think that everything is important," Deena says in his warm, winning voice used so successfully in investigations and interrogations. "What caused the limp?"

  Aini turns into his laboratory entrance. "Stay back while my biometric readings are checked," he says.

  Deena does what Aini says but he has been slapped with an order from an inferior, and he does not like it. I will have to teach him the error of his ways. In that moment of anger, Deena misses Aini punching in a complex series of security symbols.

  "All laboratory doors are secure," Deena says. "Why do you need a second security system?"

  The lab door opens: he is close to finding the secrets that Galen refused to reveal on Wight Island.

  "Oh, just a moment," says Aini, turning abruptly and colliding with Deena. "Excuse me. I need to—."

  Deena does not hear the final words. He is too stunned by his nose being crushed and the unbelievable surprise of this little opportunist hitting him.

  A second later, eyes blurred and his hand clamped to his bloody nose, he hears the lab door slam shut.

  For the first time in his career, he feels the cold chill of serious failure.

  *

  Sara, the leader of the numan2 refugees, sits with her arm around Xam. She can feel the improvement in Xam's weight since the numan4s started feeding her. It makes her feel good to know that Xam is getting enough food. When Sara found her, she was not much more than a puppy and starving on the streets of Ramadi city. She fed her, made her healthy – and then all the good was undone in the panic when the troopers moved in and the massacres began. No one, people or animals, had food or shelter as they fled down the Euphrates.

  "What do you think, Xam – do we like Alice? Can we trust these numan4s?" she murmurs, her face nuzzling Xam. They offer a hope of survival but they are numan4s – and numan4s commanded the troopers who killed my husband and sisters. "You certainly like Max, don't you?"

  Around her, the rest of her refugee group take their ease after a day of foraging for food and materials that will, one day soon, enable them to construct a hut big enough for them all. Life will be so much better when we can stay dry.

  She casts her mind back to her conversation with the numan4s. The only female, Alice, asked all about Sara's numan2s, where they were from, when they came, was anyone ill, how long they were planning to stay. Why does she need to know all that?

  "I've told you about us," she had said to Alice. "Now tell me about you. Your drone terrified us. We thought you wanted to kill us."

  "Why didn't you run away?"

  "Where to? If you were going to kill us, you'd have found us."

  Instead of death, the numan4s are giving us food and life. They say they want nothing from us except help in making a place where we can all live.

  Alice always shows a keen interest in Xam. Not just affection like Sara shows Max when he stomps his huge feet on her in greeting. Alice gives Xam special food and medicine. The same as Max gets, she says. And she wants nothing in exchange – apart from changing Sa-tan's name to Xam. Why would she want that? Why would I refuse when Xam is getting food and medicine?

  "Hello, Sara," calls Alice as she walks into the clearing holding a small, covered tray. Xam leaps forward, dancing briefly at Alice's feet and belting into a noisy greeting frenzy with Max. The children appear from nowhere and run into the middle of the dogs, unafraid and scrambling to their feet as they get knocked over and licked around their faces.

  "It warms my heart to see them play," says Sara. "The children were traumatized by the troopers. Xam was too – she was so frightened."

  "Life will be better now," replies Alice, lifting the cover from the tray to show six pieces of pmeat. "If your people take what they harvested in the forest to the drone, Aleksi will process it into food and give you pmeat. Our pmeat flavors are limited but Aleksi made these for you to try. You can tell us which is best for your group."

  "Rimi! Bring me six clean leaves! Get the others to gather round!" calls Sara, eager to show respect to Alice and her group. I don't know how or why, but everyone sees me as our leader.

  She sets the leaves on the ground, places a piece of pmeat on each leaf and carefully uses her husband's knife to cut them into morsels as the women crowd close.

  "Ambi Alice says we can choose the flavor for our pmeat," she says, seeing the incredulity on every face. "Take only small pieces, so everyone can try."

  They gingerly pick up slivers of pmeat, some little more than crumbs, while she watches and waits. Let them choose. Let them feel they are getting some control over their lives with the help of Alice and her friends.

  "This one!"

  "No, this one!"

  "This is the best!"

  Sara takes in the group's taste responses, their smiles as well as their words. Now I can try. She leans forward to pick up the last piece of what is emerging as the favorite.

  "Max! No!" shouts Alice but she is too late. Max's huge mouth and tongue are on the pmeat leaves and Xam, timid Xam of a few days ago, is close behind as the women scatter.

  "Oh, Max, you are such a beast," says Alice.

  "I think we have chosen, Alice," says Sara. "I hope you saw which one."

  "Yes, it was our favorite too. That will make life easier. When we run out of that flavor, we can shut Max and Xam in the drone and choose the next flavor."

  Sara, alone and in need of a sister to share her life, can sense a depth of sadness in Alice and wonders how she can help to heal it.

  But Sara is also envious. Alice has a human animal who could be slaughtered to feed us all. She should share it with us.

  *

  I've made it! I'm in! Aini forgets the pain in his feet and the tingle of rot death starting to gnaw at his fingertips. He stares around his lab, reassuring himself despite knowing that no one can get in.

  He crosses to his desk mediamat and navigates through his symbols security maze. He stares in profound satisfaction. Everything is where he expects it: all of Galen's files, every—. His moment is shattered by Director Ra demanding his attention on an emergency channel.

  "Yes?" he says as he grabs his phone.

  "Report to my office immediately."

  Oh, what a wonderful moment. Finally. "Thank you for your invitation, Director, but I think not. You need to fill in your forms and I need to work on issues that you cannot possibly understand."

  "Open the laboratory door and then report here!"

  "Director, the door stays locked. If you obtain a World Council key and try to enter, I will self-destruct the laboratory with Professor Galen's files and myself in it."

  He ignores the furious response, and breaks the connection. That vacillating windbag will freeze for a week. The Center's med team will diagnose rot death in 48 hours and there will be no interest in me after that.

  "Now," he says to himself, "I must get on with saving my life and cr
eating a post-extinction generation." He smiles, happily, confident and without a doubt about his ability to understand and duplicate Galen's DNA designs for memory-enabled rebuilds.

  His first task is to identify how the rot death virus is affecting his microphysiology. Rot death is a weapon. It mutates from victim to victim too fast for any lab to design and manufacture a general cure or vaccine.

  His infection, a snapshot of a moment in the mutation chain, can be stopped dead with a unique DNA virus-killer. He can design it, cut and paste it into his pre-infection back-up DNA design, and then reset his DNA to produce an infection-killing enzyme. That will work.

  What about my wives? They have been good wives, though never as exciting as Balen and my years of secret, irresistible physicality with her. And our children? Can I save them? He hesitates, more a gesture than a possibility. There is nothing I can do for any of them. The lab door must remain shut.

  Three hours later, he slips on the virus eye-infuser and triggers the DNA upgrade. In 24 hours he will be safe, the pain will die away and his boosted immune defenses will get his body back to normal.

  He sits and stares into space for a moment. How does he feel? Relieved, of course; sad, yes. Triumphant? Yes!

  Aini sifts through Galen's files, through his background theories, his analyses of failures, his cold factual descriptions of his breakthroughs. And everywhere, Balen – my Balen! – is the ghost in the complexity. She is in the designs, in the analyses, in the test planning. She is the strong left arm to Galen's genius. Galen was always the genius. We were always the followers. But in Balen's son, did Galen ever realize we changed the genetic inheritance design from mine to his? He might be Galen's son genetically now, but I conceived him with Balen.

  A smile of pure pleasure creeps across his face.

  *

  Jack, one of the troopers, and Aleksi are digging hut foundations in a 30-meter square area cleared of rough scrub. The few trees left for shade look oddly naked with the bushes moved to the "village" edge.

  "This work suits you, Aleksi. You look fit," says Jack, feeling the pleasure of hard physical work with a drone trench-digging spade.

  "This new life is helping Aapeli and me to come to terms with the loss of our family. There's also something else." He trails off as Alice appears in the distance with drinks.