Shivering World

by Kathy Tyers

  He walked out, too, and then she smiled. She knew perfectly well Varberg didn’t leave those sandpiles. If Gaea employees suspected one another, so much the better. She didn’t want them making themselves at home on her world.

  Sand was one of Goddard’s cheaper law-­enforcement resources.

  Patterns

  Novia Brady-­Phillips raised a hand, gesturing welcome across her desktop. This was a happy moment; she’d tracked down another one of Henri Lwu’s surviving employees. “Sit down, Mr. Witt. Thank you for coming.”

  “Your invitation mentioned incentive money.” Lon Witt sank into the chair across from her desk. High-­backed, striped in tan and brown, it sloped comfortably.

  Novia swiveled her own chair. Her office had good lighting and ventilation, always desirable in habitat living. Along the left wall, mirrored shelves displayed tasteful ethnic artifacts from the Jordan-­Euphrates region of Earth, where three major human faiths had originated—faiths reconciled one hundred years ago within the doctrinal embrace of her own denomination, the Church of the Universal Father. She glanced at the framed three-­star emblem she’d been given for special service to the Church. CUF honored and defended humanity, the sanctified multimind of the one true god—who did, after all, visit Earth as a genetically unmodified human. The Eugenics Board preserved and protected that god-­endorsed genome. Novia was privileged to give her life to work that had such eternal significance.

  At the far left corner of her desk, a curved cup hid a glossy black ball that was visible only from the other side. She eyed Lon Witt across the desk’s expanse.

  Witt, retired two terrannums, had the soft chin and expanding waistline of someone who ate well, but he claimed he had money problems. “A nice incentive,” she answered, “payable monthly over ten terrannums. I know about retirement,” she added, raising a sympathetic eyebrow. “My grandfather complains constantly. I help him on the side, when I can.”

  Lon Witt nodded curtly. He appeared to share her pride problem.

  All the better. “What exactly did you do for Henri Lwu?” She knew the answer from EB files, but she always started with easy questions.

  “I wrote grants, looked for funding.”

  Money focus, a root of evil. Perhaps he had a guilty conscience. “And you remember some things that might be worth our attention.” She lifted a smooth green tiger’s eye marble from a cradle beside her antique fountain pen and cupped it in her right hand.

  “As a grant-­writing specialist, I learned to notice patterns,” he said. “Lwu’s funding came in oddly.”

  Quietly elated, Novia squeezed the marble, applying pressure and rotating it leftward. On the desk’s far corner, the mirrored cup copied that rotation in subtle slow motion. She released the marble. “That could be significant.”

  “Particularly since most of it wasn’t from companies at all but from wealthy families in Einstein Hab,” he said.

  “Oh?” Witt’s shoulders reached the second tan stripe on the chair’s back. She raised the mirrored cup slightly and asked, “Do you remember which families?”

  “Some were in local politics. Jensen, Dalquist, Morikone. I began to wonder if campaign donations were being diverted to Henri Lwu’s office.”

  “It seems unlikely that any politician would sacrifice his own campaign money for fetal research,” she said. “Wouldn’t do him much good.” She replaced the marble in its cradle and pressed her right knee—the good one—against a flexing desk panel. In five minutes, Witt would be immobilized below the neck. The chair would cradle his body. He would not fall; the experience was no more embarrassing than was absolutely necessary. “What about the non-­political families?”

  “Lwu’s research benefited heavily from Marc Lierx’s estate, back in 2122.”

  “Ah. Him, I remember.” Founder of a pharmaceutical empire, Lierx had supported several fringe denominations as well as social work among humankind’s less desirable factions. “What do you know about the experimentation itself?”

  “Fetal work,” he said. “Trying to improve cross-­hemispheric connections in the male brain. That much was public. But—” Witt raised his head—“that wife of his—”

  “Palila?”

  “She was a geriatric specialist.”

  “Yes.” Novia already thought the fetal-­geriatric marriage an odd one. “Maybe that would explain the politicians’ interest. We all grow old.” Truly, merciful euthanasia was better than letting invalids gasp out their last breaths in pointless pain.

  Witt fingered the crease in his double chin. “She published several papers stating that over time, the body develops borderline immunities to itself, causing gerontological breakdown. Aging.”

  And Palila Lwu’s aunt was a lab child, one of the few whose full-­body irradiation didn’t kill her right away. Novia tapped her pencil against the desktop. “Was she having any success? With the research, I mean. We’ll discuss funding presently.”

  Witt swung his chair left and right. “Her primary research grew out of cancer work that took a left turn back at the end of the twenty-­first century. She managed to find a group of families without any history of chromosomal fragile sites.” He paused, looking her in the eye, obviously wondering if she knew what he was talking about.

  She nodded. Others had talked, persuaded by EB funds. “Fragile sites,” as well as “programmed cell death,” had been mentioned several times.

  He continued. “We know she isolated several genes those families carried, transferred them into gribien populations, then started stress work. I think she might’ve been looking for key gene complexes, hoping to help the immune system stave off aging.”

  Novia repressed a shudder. Supergening created abominations, and every attempt to alter humankind resulted in tragedy—such as the Strobel children’s aggressiveness, which caused the catastrophic Troubles. Any supergened group that seized resource-­rich Earth or a productive orbiting habitat might subjugate humankind in short order.

  No wonder the Church of the Universal Father, founded just over a century ago, grew quickly. The desire for self-­protection proved stronger than any other spiritual concern. A few Hebrew scholars claimed that humans once lived for centuries, before the Flood mentioned in many cultural myths. Contemporary science claimed it was still possible to live that long. She shuddered to think what supergened creatures might achieve if they lived three or four hundred years. Each couple might have two or three hundred offspring, like insects or amphibians.

  “Gene complexes,” she said mildly. “Ah. No wonder you felt it your duty to come to us. Well done.”

  He nodded stiffly.

  “She—or her husband, Henri—mentioned no significant success in the aging research while you were there, though?”

  “I’m afraid not. Does that mean I don’t qualify for money?”

  “It doesn’t mean that at all.” Just one less thing to ask about today. “Already you have been most helpful. Perhaps you left Henri Lwu’s employment because you guessed his wife meant to involve herself once again in homogenegineering?” Convicted practitioners were professionally defrocked. Witt must have feared for his own career.

  “That was part of it,” he said, “yes.”

  “Then, naturally, you are innocent of criminal intent.”

  She had been trained to notice the tiniest glance or other sign of evasion. His irises flicked sideways now. Perhaps he was beginning to notice the lethargy field’s effect.

  “Mr. Witt, if you will commit yourself as a Board witness, no charges will be brought against you.”

  “What? Are you hinting—” She recognized his next gesture, an abortive jerking back of elbows as he tried to grip his armrests and pull himself upright. The lethargy field hadn’t yet immobilized him, but sluggishness was enough if he would cooperate.

  “To qualify you for the reward money,” she said calmly, pulling open a desk drawer, “I must confirm your testimony using a cerebral monitor. I will then be able to erase your name fr
om all EB records except payroll. It’s big fish we want, Mr. Witt, not fingerlings.”

  He scowled when she said fingerlings. Here, definitely, was a pride problem.

  She could use that weakness to help him cooperate. From the drawer she drew out a rotary depilator. “Only the temples need to be shaved.”

  Many witnesses balked at this point. One had injured her badly enough to necessitate hospitalization. An assistant stood ready in the hall, but she didn’t want to call him unless absolutely necessary. Jambling made people uneasy.

  “I haven’t done anything,” Witt insisted.

  Novia pressed the knee panel again, deactivating the black ball. “That’s good,” she said, “and think of the incentive money. Turn your head left, please.”

  To her relief, he cooperated. She cleared one pale temple. From among the artifacts on the mirrored shelves, she drew out a small box and applied an electrode patch it held. “To the right now. Thank you.”

  Prepped, he sat nervously with his double chin twitching. Novia slid a larger box off the shelf and touched its power panel. “Were you involved in homogenegineering research, Mr. Witt?”

  His eyes stayed wide. “No.”

  On the green screen inside the box’s hinged lid, she read numbers off a chart. Shunting of impulses from speech and reason to fear centers would challenge Witt’s truthfulness. That didn’t happen, though. So far, he spoke truth. “To your knowledge, was either Henri or Palila Lwu?”

  “I don’t know for certain.”

  Again, verity. He was, indeed, a fingerling.

  “But Palila mentioned it to be among her interests,” she suggested.

  “She did. I already said that, I think.”

  “Explain,” she ordered, “the connection between her research and the aging process. Take your time, giving as many details as possible.”

  As Witt rambled, she watched the instrument’s screen. In some places he remembered less than he thought he did, but at one point, he paused. “Six,” he said. “They celebrated one night, something about having found the sixth one of something. They felt it was a critical number. Another fragile site, maybe.”

  Novia gave him a bland smile. By itself, that wasn’t grounds to convict anyone—but puzzle pieces were falling together. She could almost taste another round of USSC funding.

  “Can you move your hand, Mr. Witt?” she asked, guessing she’d learned all he knew. All that mattered, anyway.

  He flinched, plainly startled, when it lifted easily off the armrest.

  “It’s really a temporary, harmless procedure.” Deftly she plucked the patches from his temples. “I’ll need one more thing—your signature on a release form stating that this information was furnished without duress.”

  She knew it for hypocrisy, and when his eyes narrowed, she knew he recognized it, too. This was another critical moment. If he signed, the information was “obtained conscious, legally,” and OCL data would stand up in any court under USSC jurisdiction. Otherwise, she would need a second witness’s testimony to the same bit of information.

  He hesitated. Novia drummed two fingers on her stiff left knee. She could, if necessary, offer a ten percent bonus on his blood money. She wanted that OCL signature.

  Witt stared down at the floor, plainly comparing his options. She waited. If Lwu’s heirs had to be investigated out in the field, she alone might carry the responsibilities of inquiry, prosecution, and punishment. Cautious groundwork could turn a potential botched case into a USSC-­net auto-­convict. How satisfying it might be to execute God’s judgment on site, in person.

  Every terrannum or so, EB operatives caught one or two renegades who bilked payment out of some ambitious parent who wanted supergened children. So far, those arrested were just frauds and charlatans.

  Novia had to believe that the smart ones, the real supergeners, were still out there. They were the true idol-­worshipers of this century. The creatures they bred spread violence, warfare, and death.

  Witt wrinkled his nose. “I’ll sign,” he said stiffly. “It’s for a good cause.”

  “Well done,” she said, giving her knee a pat. She comforted Witt with small talk while his muscle tone returned, then walked him up a wide bright hall to the exit. He departed with a credit chit in his pocket. The disbursement secretary said nothing about the shaved spots on his temples.

  ―――

  Graysha dumped her breakfast dishes in the housing cafeteria and hurried to work, swinging her arms as she made the hard left turns into the Gaea corridor. The outside temp had crept back up, and topside, snow was melting. She’d just reached her lab when Dr. Varberg hailed her from the break room. “Graysha. In here a minute, please.”

  She’d been greatly relieved to read in the Bday evening bulletin that Varberg’s murder charges were converted to manslaughter and the case was declared shut. Anyone could “commit” an accident. Anyone might hope not to be caught in it. Now she could stop worrying about a schizic running loose.

  Inside the long break room, that weird mixture of coffee, soil, and rodent smells made her feel at home. Varberg stood beside a tall shelf, and with him hunched the stowaway. The youth managed to appear both sullen and frightened, dipping his chin to glower up from under his eyebrows. He no longer smelled like a goat barn, and now he wore baggy browncloth pants and a shirt.

  “Dr. Graysha Brady-­Phillips,” Varberg said with an uncharacteristic sigh, “this is Mr. Ex, aka George Smith. Chairman DalLierx assigned him to us as laboratory help. ‘He who will not work,’ and all that. The chairman suggested since you’re new on our deck, you show him around and ask questions for two. Any objections?” He laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Ex” wriggled it off.

  Graysha straightened her spine. “No objections. I asked for him, in fact. I’d like to train him as my second tech.”

  Varberg brushed imaginary dirt from his hand onto one pant leg. “Oh. Well, that’s fine with me. Mr. Ex, you’ll touch out on your time card in my office at five-­oh.” He strode out, leaving Graysha alone with the animal noises, her unanswered questions about Jon Mahera, and Ex, aka George Smith.

  He twisted full pink-­brown lips to one side of his face, amazing her: he could make himself look homelier. Scraggly eyebrows and sunken cheeks accentuated the shortest, broadest nose she’d ever seen. One earlobe was noticeably higher than the other, just as she remembered from the shuttle lander. “You asked for me?” he demanded, sneering.

  “I came in by shuttle when you did.” She studied the pouting set of his lips, hoping she hadn’t made a judgment error. “We new people ought to stick together. I have plenty of work to keep a tech busy. Laboratory technician—translation, drudge. It’s not such bad work, really. I mucked animal cages for my first annum of college.”

  He wrinkled his mouth, sticking his lip out farther. She fought the temptation to laugh.

  “I am Dr. Brady-­Phillips,” she offered, “but I prefer Graysha. The tall woman who works up here goes by first name, too. Jirina. Maybe you’ve met her.”

  He shook his head rapidly, about one centimeter each direction.

  What a ham. At least he responded.

  “Do you want me to call you Ex?” she asked. “I’d rather not. I have an ex back at Einstein. Ex-­husband.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Your problem, not mine.”

  “I’ll bet George isn’t your name, either,” she said evenly. She guessed him to be seventeen or so. She’d worked with that age, teaching the usual mixture of achievers and reluctant learners. Some stayed in school only because it kept them off lab-­drudge jobs. Habitant teeners were required by law to train or produce. Ex, she guessed, was used to getting his own way.

  She waited. Something made digging noises in a cage nearby.

  “You can call me Trev,” he said, barely opening his mouth.

  Hoping he’d decided to trust her, she smiled. “Thanks, Trev. Want a look around the floor?”

  Trev showed little interest when she led him
past the automated media kitchen and when she raised the lid on a steaming, smelly incubator, but he gave off flickers of attentive disgust as she explained the soil-­layering terraria back in the break room. “You people make this?” He pointed into a glass cubicle black with rich histic loam. “You can get a doctorate from brewing mud?”

  “Some do. I didn’t cook that up,” Graysha admitted. “I just arrived. This is a biannum potting. My predecessor started it, and I work with the same kinds of bacteria.”

  “What’s so great about dirt?” For the first time, he stared into her eyes. Beneath those scraggly eyebrows, she caught a glimpse of a teachable moment.

  At what level did she start explaining, though? “The pulverized rock out there—regolith—has been seeded with bacteria that break it down, releasing nutrients for higher plants and animals. Nutrients such as oxygen.” She paused.

  “Bacteria?” he repeated. “Eating rocks?”

  Not scientifically literate, she decided. Testing that guess, she started a detailed explanation of the nitrogen cycle. Within two sentences he was tuning her out, turning aside to the animal cages.

  She fell silent.

  “Trapped.” He addressed a long rectangular pan covered by a metal grate and inhabited by a 30-­centimeter female rodent. “What is it?” he demanded.

  Graysha turned to the brown creature, which raised a whiskered nose to sniff the air. It probably expected to be fed whenever someone paused nearby. “Those are yabuts.”

  “Yabuts?”

  “Some gene jockey’s idea of a joke,” she explained. “ ‘Rabbit? Ya, but . . .’ ” She winced.

  Trev peered into the cage. “Stinking, filthy, and ugly as sin—” The yabut waddled closer, dragging several hairless pink progeny under her belly. “Ee-­uch,” Trev exclaimed. His lips twisted, first pursing and then frowning. He wheeled toward Graysha with fear-­wide eyes. “You aren’t going to cut her up, are you?”

  “No,” she said softly. “Yabuts are our primary upside herbivores. We test experimental feeds made from gene-­engineered plant species on them.”