by John Keeble
"Our own sisters have been killed," says Sara. "We are alone. We should be sisters to console each other."
She expects Alice to say something noncommittal and, hopefully, think later about linking with someone who is only a numan2. Amazingly, Alice turns and puts her left hand over Sara's heart in a traditional numan female pledge. Sara does the same, hardly believing what they are doing.
"You are my sister, you are my family, you are my spirit partner," intones Alice. "What is mine is yours, what is yours is mine. May the Divine Consciousness consecrate our oneness and bless us both."
Sara, the surprise leaving her almost breathless, stumbles through the same pledge and ends it with a hug that fills her with joy and healing. Around the village space, the other women watch. Does Alice know what they are thinking?
Alice and Sara look awkwardly at each other as their life-changing actions sink in. Through the sweet pain of remembering past tragedy and looking to a promising future, Sara plans her next move. She will heal Alice, explain that every woman has sworn sistership, and remind her that she has promised to share everything – and that includes her human animal.
"You are my sister. Tell me why you are afflicted by discontent," says Sara. "I can see the Divine light has left your soul."
Sara waits but Alice cannot speak. The fluid in her eyes runs down her face – how can this happen? She has the grace and intellect of a numan4 and the emotions of a human animal.
"Sara, I have done terrible things to Jack and Max," says Alice.
"I doubt that!" replies Sara.
"I have," says Alice,
As they sit, upset and comforting each other, the rest of the numan2 women creep closer. They witnessed the pledge between Sara and Alice and now Alice is one of them. Numan2 women always support their own. And the new sister has a human animal to share.
"I want to tell you about Max," says Alice, quietly enough for only Sara to hear. "Max is very special – I know you love him too, but it's a different special that is difficult for anyone to understand without years of training."
Sara grips Alice's hands to reinforce support but she says nothing. I am not trained, except by life. I can offer her only sisterly love.
"Max has something very unusual inside him and my numan husband, a powerful World Council scientist, has ordered me to kill Max to harvest it." The shock rocks Sara back, its power striking too unexpectedly to be contained by the numan2 emotion-dampening genes.
"Kill Max?" she blurts.
"Yes, kill him and use his remains."
"You cannot!"
"No, I cannot. But I must!"
"No! It's wrong. He's not some human animal for slaughter!"
"You do not understand," says Alice. "The world is being purged by the rot death virus. Max contains the way for the world to be repopulated! He is a successful test. An animal. He has no rights and the future is at stake. Not just numanity but thousands of animals to feed, clothe and work for us."
"Max? He is all that?"
"Yes," says Alice, her voice unsteady and her hands trembling in Sara's. "Max is all that, and to release it quickly and fully, I must kill him very painfully and process his remains."
A sudden fear strikes Sara. "What about Xam? You have been giving her food and medicine. Are you going to kill her too?"
"No, not Xam," says Alice. "I will need any puppies she has with Max and I will want to use her to grow other animals."
Sara's disbelief at killing Max, her incomprehension at Alice's science talk, and her fears for Xam distill into fury. "You are going to kill the puppies too?" she shouts, flinging away Alice's hands.
"My husband—."
"No," shouts Sara. "Slaughter your human animal to feed us all. But not Max. He is a living, loving creature of this world like you and me. The Divine Consciousness will never forgive you if you kill the puppies."
"Sara, Max is an animal. He has no soul. I love him but he is on the Earth for numanity to use. Father Dick says that!"
How can a numan4 believe such lies? "Father Dick is a creation of numans," says Sara, not caring that she is showing the contempt she feels. "He speaks what numan4s want – and that is control and exploitation by the powerful. He does not speak for poor Max or any other creature on the planet."
"What should I do?" asks Alice. "I have told Jack and he has walked away from me."
"If you harm Max, Jack will never come back to you. He is another animal and all animals know the oppression of being on the Earth to serve us."
*
The rough, spongy Ecuadorian mountain terrain is cold and uninviting, a vista of dull greens and greys with a distant steel lake under a baleful sky. The thin Andean air, 13,000ft above sea level, is peppered with falling ice crystals. Galen surveys the scene through his laboratory window without seeing anything: his eyes move but his brain is quicksilvering through the byways of genetic engineering.
He steps back from the window with no more than a flicker of consciousness breaking into his stream of mental calculations. I can see it now. The rebuild failures were not emotional weakness. It was the very —.
"Professor, your new stock of human animals will arrive at 4 pm," breaks in the toneless voice of Lichas, Galen's assistant and the military's hopelessly obvious spy.
"Is it a full consignment?" asks Galen.
"Yes, Professor, 120 mature animals."
"What of the immature animals that I ordered?" demands Galen. These military idiots. I would rather trust a human animal.
"We are expecting 80 tomorrow," says Lichas.
"I shall need more."
"Of course. It's in hand, but it's becoming more difficult to find healthy human animals. Rot death is closing off our usual sources."
"I am not interested in your difficulties," says Galen. "I told your halfwit employers what would happen if they lost control of the rot death virus."
"Another problem, professor, is screening for rot death and isolating any suspected cases."
"Do not isolate. There is no time. Incinerate suspected cases and replace them. Do not put them through the slaughter process."
"Yes, Professor. It's possible to incinerate without slaughter, but it's regarded as a cruel practice and not a preferred method under research guidelines."
Galen turned to his assistant, his eyes dripping ice into Lichas's soul. "They are animals. We can do what we like with them."
"Of course, Professor. We'll do as you say."
Galen turns away, satisfied, and pulls up the genetic design for Galen-Rebuild7 on his mediamat screen. He makes two changes with a flourish like signing his name. All these experiments and I find the answer talking to Rebuild7 after Balen ruined most of my work.
"Lichas," he calls, "prepare six human animals for the laboratory now. I will select the two for use when I see them."
"Do you want them cleaned before selection, Professor?"
Is it worth the materials and time? At least it will reduce the stink. "Scrub them down and disinfect them. You can do the final cleaning of my selections in the laboratory."
Lichas backs out, and Galen turns thoughtfully into the lab. I can use the human animals to test the theoretical refinements to my Galen7 design but I will need to construct two full numan4 rebuilds to test emotional resilience in the wild.
Galen feels optimistic but tired. His use of himself for experiments was justified, and resetting his DNA gave him back his health and determination. Everything should be normal but it is not. I'm still getting emotion attacks and I should not be this tired.
He ponders his production-line options, a delicate balance of advantages and disadvantages.
His slaughter processing line can produce enough material for routine printing of numan2s. I can set up fast mass production. But each numan2 will need three months of intensive forced learning in survival and community skills.
Or he can take the slower, quality production route: numan4 and numan2 rebuilds with survival instincts installed. Galen has his
doubts: it will take time to make Balen dissect Jack Janis and, without that data, the rebuilds could be unstable.
Perhaps it will be better to mass print the numan2s and hand-build a few numan4s to lead the numan2s into their new world.
The frustration of Balen holding up his project crowds into his mind and triggers a broadside of hateful images. She thinks that I do not know what happened with Aini and our son. She thinks she can do it again with Jack and escape my justice. First, I will make her kill Max. Then I will make her kill Jack and give me the genetics data. Then I will detonate the rot death weapon in her drone.
Galen clicks his mind back to his memory-experiment rebuilds. Why have I never realized before today? The experiments were not failures. They were too successful! The rebuilds' instability was caused by his own DNA and memories. My genius and my intense emotions installed in brains too inferior to cope. All I need to do is get the mind-emotions balance right.
*
Chapter 33
Jack, still sitting on the fallen tree, sees Alice walking towards him. She is grim-faced, carrying something, and he is pleased to see her: he has spent four hours there, thinking, analyzing, running what-if mind recalculations of past events. Now he is eager for another fight with her.
She focuses his whole story: his lost Cambridge genetics job, his choice of Abbotsford, finding Max in an animal shelter, the magic and mystery of his life with her, and his book exposing numan dominance and human decline. Everything.
"I've been worried about you," says Alice as she strides up to him.
She looks as lovely as ever but her eyes are red and she has an air of vulnerability. His anger falters and he wants to hold her and tell her everything is all right, but he has to know the truth. I have let this go on too long.
"You look upset. Are you okay?"
"Yes, I'm okay now," she replies, sitting next to him. She has a mediamat, a clunky 2mm-thick all-weather contraption, and she is fiddling nervously with it.
"I can't go on like this," he says, aware of her nervousness and careful to keep his anger buried. "It's time for you to tell me everything about you, Galen, the work at the Center, and how it involves Max and me." He waits for her response but, suddenly, the repressed resentment and anger of continually turning a blind eye surges through him. "I need to know what is going on!"
Alice, even whiter, recoils from him. "And I need to tell you everything," she says, direct and final. "I am tired of keeping secrets. I need you to help me find a way out of what is happening."
But you are part of what is happening. You knew what Galen meant when he was talking about killing me and Max.
"Alice, when I'm with you, everything I do is focused on you." He hesitates, uneasy, angry, fearful of rupturing the vital link between them. "I need to ask—."
"You don't need to ask!" she interrupts. "I'll tell you everything." She thrusts the mediamat at him, its corner crumpling against his stomach. "I've been preparing this for you since we arrived in SubFedAntarctica. Everything about you and Max. Read it!"
He starts to open it but she rounds on him. "As for focusing on me, what about me focusing on you? Right from the start! Do you want to know why? Galen designed a DNA patch for you, me and Max. We are linked. We cannot part unless I rewrite our DNA. If you do not want me anymore, I can edit out that DNA text and release you."
A dusk chorus of natural insects is growing, an amazing and reassuring phenomenon. Everywhere Jack has been, natural insects have been obliterated by the agrochemical and agrotechnology conglomerates to force dependence on their products. Somehow, the warmth of nature seems to calm him and a shadow of optimism begins to grow.
"No," he says. "I don't want you to release us. I want you to tell me how this works with you being Galen's wife. Are you mine or his? You cannot be both."
"I want only you," she says, tears in her eyes. "Oh, I'm so tired of crying but I just can't handle these human emotions!" She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. "Jack, I have been DNA conditioned to obey Galen. You always give me the freedom to be myself."
"But you kept us both," he says, unable to stop himself. My bed and Galen's lab.
A rustling on the rough path from the numan2 refuge draws their attention. In the creeping dusk, the numan2 women are approaching. Why?
"Jack, my pledge to you is one that risks my life," she says.
He has eyes only for her but his ears and his mind are aware of the numan2s. Why are they here? They never venture this far into the forest.
"What are they doing?" he asks.
"I have no idea."
Sara is leading them. She is holding something. They all are. "They have weapons," says Jack. "Stones bound to clubs."
"Sara! What are you doing?" shouts Alice.
The file, fanning out into a line abreast, draws closer. Every one of them has a crude club. Jack stands, ready for trouble. This is organized. They have a purpose.
"What are you doing?" Alice demands again as Sara holds up her hand and the women stop, all eyes on Jack, determination on their faces.
"Alice, we are sisters," says Sara loudly. "What is ours is yours. What is yours is ours. We have voted to slaughter your human animal to feed ourselves."
A tension arcs between the numan2s and Alice. Jack holds on to the mediamat, useless as a weapon, but not to be lost. Sisters?
"Sara, you are my sister," replies Alice. "Jack is not a human animal for slaughter. He is my husband in his place. He is beyond what sisters share."
A growl and twitter of objections come from the numan2s. Thirteen of them with clubs. Some working their way around behind Alice and Jack. All the clubs ready and the numan2s looking eager to use them.
"He is a human animal," says Sara as she eyes Jack. "We are hungry. He must be slaughtered."
Sara advances. Jack gets ready to fight for their lives. Alice will fight with me. But two of us against 13 armed numan2s?
"Wait!" shouts Alice, a numan4 command. The numan2s waver, their hunger for human animal meat colliding with their lifelong conditioning to obey orders. "You will stop this!" she orders. "Sara, you know that Commander Professor Galen of the Military High Command owns Jack and Max. If you harm either, he will send the troopers here and kill all of you."
"But Jack is a human animal!" exclaims Sara. "He should be slaughtered for our food."
Alice, with an authority that makes Jack stare, says: "Jack is not a human animal. He is a numan test subject owned by Commander Galen. Either you stop this now or I will call in our troopers and then the Military High Command troopers. Do you want to die?"
Sara falters, her followers look shocked. The first defectors leak away along the path to their refuge.
"We will consider what you have said, sister, and decide what to do," says Sara, saving face as a leader who has failed to please her followers. She, and the rest, retreat – their earlier organized menace disintegrating into humiliating clumsiness.
Jack and Alice watch them go, ready for any change, and sit again on the fallen tree.
"Life doesn't get any easier, does it?" says Jack. She looks even more ill.
"It will," she replies. "I promise."
Jack is still holding the mediamat. "Why have you given me this?" he inquires, his earlier anger burned away by the drama of the numan2s and his concern for her.
"It contains your story and Max's."
"My book? How did you get those files?"
"No, not your book, Jack. The mediamat has the story of you, Max and Galen. The secrets you need."
He opens it with an eagerness that shuts out everything else.
"Jack, not yet," says Alice. "I'm not feeling well. I have done something... something that numan females believe is impossible. It is my gift and pledge to you but I cannot promise I will live long enough for you to enjoy it."
"What have you done?" he asks, his heart picking up his alarm.
"While you were thinking here, I did three things," she says. "I swore sisterhood wit
h Sara. I know it was stupid but I felt so desperate! I needed Dalen so badly. Then I took the security off this mediamat, so you can read what I have been preparing for you."
"They don't threaten your life," he says. Is this another secrecy game?
She looks at his face, bites her lower lip, so human, so unnuman. "I did something else," she says. "I have been working on a new DNA design for myself. I started it at the time that you saved Aleksi and his family from the human mob attacking his house. It is a DNA upgrade specifically designed to break Galen's DNA link with me. In all our history, there has been only one attempt to do this: the story is told in a Father Dick parable. The female turned to a pillar of pmeat."
She ignores his shock and carries on. "Max sat with me while I administered the DNA infusion an hour ago. He's such a clever boy. He knew something serious was going on. We'll see within 24 hours if my genetics skills are sufficient."
Jack can only hold her to him. "Why?" he asks. "Why take that chance? Why not find a safer way?"
"There is no other way," she says.
*
Director Ra cannot stay away from his office in the FedOz Genetics Research Center. He is alone. His wives are secured in his home: they have tested positive for rot death and will die there. Everyone else in their residential community has proved positive too. Death is the only outcome and Father Dick's priests are, finally, breaking out of their ceremonials and ministering to the people until they, too, rot away.
There is a calmness throughout the communities, a numan4 affirmation of the strength and values that have made them the greatest civilization the world has ever known. Even now, as the weak succumb and the strong keep their dignity, last organizational responsibilities are undertaken by civic leaders.
Human animals – including those allowed into homes as pets and servants – are being put down as the only numane course of action. They are the lucky ones. Numan4s, with souls that must face the Divine Consciousness, cannot end their own lives and must travel their natural paths to their Maker.
Ra forgives himself for the sin of pride as he reviews how his staff, his people, are behaving in the shadow of such hideous death. My leadership, my calm acceptance.