Shivering World

by Kathy Tyers

  She had a lot of explaining to do. First, though, she still felt grimy and sweaty. She headed for the clean room, dropping clothing on her bed as she walked. Emmer squeaked protest. Chuckling, she arranged her sweaty shirt around Emmer like a nest. The gribien clicked contentment.

  Two minutes later, half finished with sink bathing and naked and chilly, Graysha gripped the basin’s edge while the ground rattled and shook. Rumblings echoed off into the distance.

  Back in Einstein, huge metal struts occasionally rearranged stress up and down their length, but those shakes always came down from overhead. No matter what Jirina said, shudders from below rattled her nerves. Not only was Goddard open to the sky, it had a core of molten metal. Magma seethed under crustal plates that hadn’t moved for millennia. Maybe, by restarting continental drift, Gaea was asking for trouble.

  And can you do anything about that, Graysha Brady-­Phillips? she asked herself.

  Of course not. She slipped into thick pajamas and covered them with a browncloth robe. Then, still wondering what to tell Luce Coyote, she pulled her perfuming box out of her clothes closet and opened its top and bottom. Something old style, green or floral, would make her feel rooted and grounded tonight. Hearing from Luce reminded her how alone she was.

  Plucking six ester vials and the fixative from their slots, she lined them up, then took out the tiny micropipette with gradations along one side. Did any Gaea chemists in residence share her hobby? she wondered. Easing microliters from the ester vials through their sampling nipples, she added the tiniest draw of fix and shook the dropper.

  She squeezed the resultant potion onto one wrist, then pressed both wrists together and sniffed.

  Lilac. The bushes had grown outside her bedroom window at her parents’ home in Newton.

  Breathing deeply the scent of childhood, she turned her chair to face the desk and started typing.

  2 February 2134

  Dear Luce,

  She paused and touched her left wrist to the skin under her nose. What to tell? That she was earning three times as much as Luce anticipated? That she was stuck on a bare, unstable rock with colonists who were somehow both kindly and militaristic? That she worked with an oceanographer who had to be the best-­looking man she’d ever met?

  Or—again she sniffed the fragrance of lilacs, organic and springlike on this stony, shivering world—maybe she should tell Luce she was homesick tonight for Einstein Habitat, where the ground arched comfortably overhead.

  Graysha fingered the rough desktop, considering the Lwuites against all her mother’s lectures. In her own opinion, genetic healing was like terraforming. Each was a use of intellect leveled against a potentially animate object. Either had potentially good uses. Either could be turned to evil.

  Did human gene tampering fall into the same category? Should each case be considered on its own merits?

  The thought made her stifle a bitter laugh. By the standards of her own upbringing, she was thinking treason—or even heresy.

  ―――

  Late that same evening, Ari studied a letter Graysha Brady-­Phillips had placed in the outbound queue, headed for transmission to Copernicus Hab and thence outbound to Einstein Habitat. Luce Coyote might be a real person. The message might be what it appeared, a simple social letter. Ari’s decoding program hadn’t found any secret message.

  Still, certain words might be prearranged signals, set up before Graysha left Einstein Hab—and its Eugenics office.

  Ari’s most recent gamble, rigging the firing-­range crates to tumble by remote control, had seemed like a clear opportunity. Too bad she’d muffed it. She hadn’t even brought on another attack of Graysha’s infamous disease.

  On the other hand—she rubbed her forehead—this small failure might’ve saved her from serious consequences. Axis Plantation could’ve tipped toward giving Lindon the sympathy vote if his sister Crystal had died down there. Sacrificing an innocent bystander was one thing. If she threw the election out of sheer stupidity, she never would forgive herself.

  Her friend Chenny HoNin still spoke well of Lindon, but Ari was sure Chenny had never cared for someone, then had him treat her like such filth that her feelings slammed around 180 degrees. “Unbeliever,” he had called her. To her face!

  Masiihi pretty boy. Of course she believed. She just didn’t buy into his patriarch-­god.

  Well. Flexing her fingers, she reached for the keyboard. She wouldn’t waste time second-­guessing Graysha Brady-­Phillips. For now, the solution was simple. Nothing originating with that woman would go offplanet.

  Using her own security override and adding DalLierx’s authorization code to muddy her trail, she destroyed the outbound letter.

  Tell

  Uncle Paul

  Graysha reported to Melantha Lee promptly the following morning. From where she sat, one of the regal white cranes seemed to peer over Lee’s shoulder, and a mug full of small round flowers bloomed beside Lee’s keyboard. Though she would have preferred to cover for the colonists, she dutifully mentioned weapons training.

  Dr. Lee rocked her chair, curling both hands around its armrests. “We would normally expect colonists to ask for USSC security at this stage,” the supervisor observed. “They’re supposed to be too busy planting crops and digging bunkers to build weapons. Since they already have operating pistols, plainly they’ve been at this for some time.”

  Graysha chose not to guess out loud where they might be manufacturing guns or what else the gunsmithing know-­how implied.

  Lee opened her small pocketknife and flipped it over and over. It was amazing what people would play with if they didn’t have pencils handy. “You did well to speak with me,” she said after a long silence.

  She had to ask one more question. “Dr. Lee?”

  The supervisor’s head came up.

  This wasn’t easy. Confronting people went against her nature, so she’d rehearsed this request. Lee’s answer, pro or con, should be revealing. “Some of these colonists are deeply concerned about the recent cooling trend. If I check a few figures for them, that won’t create a problem, will it?”

  Melantha Lee pressed her palms together. “You will find that you’ve enough to do over the next few days, settling back in after your relief week, without engaging in extraprofessional research.”

  “Very well.” She mustn’t argue, but that answer took her breath away.

  “We should have dinner together sometime,” Lee said. “I’d like to know you better, Graysha.”

  It sounded like a dismissal, so Graysha excused herself, but she also wondered if Lee were looking for leverage to use against her, to keep her in line. Disquieted, she rode the elevator back up to her lab and signed in on the Gaea net.

  The incoming line of reports didn’t faze her, nor did Jirina’s break-­room gibes about “Private Brady-­Phillips” an hour later. She brewed a cup of alfalfa tea, sniffing appreciatively while the dried leaves steeped. She’d developed a taste for that deep green scent. It smelled like morning. Libby wasn’t due to come in today, so she wouldn’t need to create tasks for anyone but Trev. Instead, she settled in at the computer to read what had developed outdoors while she took a Goddarday off.

  Evidently, after the brief warm spell, winter was continuing to deepen. Several experimental soil organisms she’d seeded into her media collection were adapting less hardily than she’d hoped. It was a normal problem for gene-­spliced bacteria, but she’d taken Varberg’s claim of extra hardiness at face value. Should she suspect that claim, too?

  With cooling—and Lee’s caution—on her mind, a report from Botany caught her attention. An experimental fenced zone north of Axis—she’d never heard of Lower Infinity Crater—was losing its plant cover. After reading the brief report twice and considering the break-­room intercom (which wasn’t exactly private), she opted for the supposedly secure net and messaged the botanist who’d filed the report.

  She took time to check on Trev, who was leaning over a scope countin
g spots on a culture strip, and took a long drink of her cooling tea, and then the computer called her back with two beeps. A. Fong, fourth floor, had come on: +Here.+

  +G. Brady-­Phillips, fifth floor,+ she identified herself. +Just got back from my relief week and read your report. What do you think the cause could be?+

  +I only reported the botanical aspect. Problem’s plainly overgrazing.+

  Graysha knew of only one herbivore up on the wild. +By yabuts?+

  +Our Van Dyk weasel-­crossed lynxes have vanished, so yabuts are stripping greens it took us half a G-­year to encourage into full foliation.+

  She nodded. In a predator die-­off, herbivores would multiply out of control. +Could lynxes be hibernating?+

  +Dutch cats and yabuts both transgened not to hibernate unless average temp falls below -10 C. That’s why we planted dwarfalfa. It’s good to -12. Remaining dwarfalfa looks sickly, though. Theory, not yet published: Plants went down first. If a few yabuts tunneled under the fence looking for more food, lynxes could’ve followed them.+

  Dutch cats—official designation, Van Dyk weasel-­crossed lynxes. Earth’s mid-­North American Hollander community, a hardworking agricultural group, had fallen headlong into enthusiastic terraforming. She flexed her wrist, remembering the scent of lilacs on a potato farm she once visited. +All of them?+

  +Why not? Cats love a chase, and those yabuts might be smarter than we think. Must try stable isotope tracing.+

  +Ho,+ Graysha typed. +What made dwarfalfa sick? Cold damage?+

  This time she waited several seconds before Antonia Fong came back. +Are you baiting me?+

  Graysha tightened her lips, daring to hope. Maybe she’d found another Gaea person not infected by Consortium policy, someone with facts to support that stand. She typed quickly, +Not at all. I’m concerned about this cooling business.+

  +Me too,+ appeared instantly. +Will look you up sometime. We need to talk.+

  +I’ll expect you to call some evening.+

  She keyed off the net, then sat and stared. It wouldn’t take a hugely multiplied herbivore population to strip weakened vegetation. All these balances were incredibly delicate. She hated to precipitate a split among Gaea people, but disagreements often led to progress, and she must find out why the planet was recooling.

  She flicked on the next report.

  When break time arrived, she still felt unsettled. She got to the break room so late that Trev was already counting yabut progeny in the breeding cages. He’d developed a fascination for the creatures, though he still made faces whenever he dumped the smelly old cage litter.

  “So how was your week with the colonists?” Will Varberg drawled as she walked in. Behind the massive supervisor, Paul smiled a quieter greeting. His cadet-­blue lab coat seemed to light his blue eyes, making them shine more intensely than usual.

  “I don’t know.” Graysha rinsed her cup, then filled it with fresh coffee that had a darker, smokier scent than the colonists’ co-­op brew. “They’re incredibly good at not talking about their religion. I didn’t even hear anything that sounded like in-­group language.”

  “They are strange,” Jirina said. She curled her fingers around her other arm. “Well, go ahead. What else?”

  “It’s hard to put my finger on this, but—” should she even mention it? “—well, it seems to me that the differences they’re trying to overcome between sexes aren’t any greater than standard differences among normal males or normal females. We’re all different, aren’t we?” She swept out a hand, indicating the group gathered in the break room.

  “I would hope so.” Varberg sank into his chair and glanced up at Ilizarov.

  Emboldened, Graysha said, “For example, the woman in charge of the D-­group, Coordinator MaiJidda, is extremely aggressive. Nothing’s been done to ‘fix’ her.”

  Jirina grinned. “What did you do besides lidar?”

  “Would you believe we had handgun training?”

  Jirina’s grin winked out. Varberg pulled up straighter in his chair. Only Paul Ilizarov’s posture remained languid, with both thumbs tucked into his lab-­coat pockets. His steady stare, interpreted in light of that stance, gave her goose bumps after a week spent mostly with women.

  “Handguns? On Goddard?” Varberg asked.

  “The real thing. They claim they might need them for hunting. Frontier survival and all that.” She thought about mentioning “forced evacuation” and decided against it.

  “You told Dr. Lee?” Varberg stroked his chin.

  “Of course.” Flexing her legs, Graysha sipped her coffee. Ari MaiJidda would push even harder the next time around, she guessed. She’d better be ready for stiff exercise—and she’d better change the subject. “Jirina, do you work out?”

  “Twice a week. And not with handguns. Why?”

  Involuntarily, she flicked a glance at Paul. “I’d just hate to lose the bit of body toning I’ve started.”

  He blinked slowly.

  “Talk to you later about it,” said Jirina.

  “Just be careful,” Varberg said. “Don’t overdo.”

  “I did fine in training, and they didn’t go easy on us.” I am not an invalid! There was a brief silence perforated only by sipping noises. Trev rounded one end of the cage rack, removed a wire cover, and reached into a plastic cage.

  “People,” Graysha said at last, “did anyone else read Dr. Fong’s report?”

  “Yes.” Varberg’s huge hands looked as if they were steaming. There was a cup between them, somewhere.

  Jirina nodded. Paul’s shoulders rose and fell.

  Graysha tapped a foot against one rung of her stool. “I really am concerned. A planet at this distance from its sun would become a stable ice ball if it froze, and Gaea’s technology would take centuries to thaw it. Meanwhile Gaea goes leggy-­up, and the Lwuites lose their chance for a—”

  “No, no, no.” Will Varberg crossed one leg over the other. “Graysha, you’re too young to remember Messier.”

  She frowned, recalling his narrow escape.

  “Messier started out warmer than this, it’s true. Still, with the introduction of water, it needed a cold trap and greenhouse layer beneath to catch warmth, otherwise it would have done exactly what you’re worrying about: It would’ve become an ice ball before we had enough of a planetary ecology to create the Gaea effect and make the planet live.”

  “I’ve heard all that,” she said softly.

  “Keep listening, then.” He steepled his fingers. “If we hadn’t been in such a rush to add atmosphere to Messier, if we’d done it more gradually, we might have kept it in balance. But!” He raised a finger. “It’s safer to keep things on the cold side here than to run the slightest risk of jet-­stream shift.” He shook his head. “The slightest,” he repeated. “Goddard’s settlements are separated farther from each other, too. A local difficulty could still arise suddenly, but it wouldn’t endanger our whole population.”

  First Lee, now Varberg—all this protest over supposedly insignificant cooling. Graysha set a palm on one hip. “If something is going awry here, now,” she said, “the Messier disaster has nothing to do with it.”

  Paul reached out and touched her arm. “You’ve been with the colonists for a week. We all understand your concern, but there’s simply no indication we’re about to lose Goddard. You’ll find just as much field data indicating solid warming as in alarmist reports like Fong’s.” His hand rested on her shoulder, warm and smelling of citrus.

  “Okay.” Graysha clenched her cup two-­handed. “Different groups will interpret identical data differently, depending on their bias and what they’re looking for. Time will tell whose interpretation of these seasonal fluctuations is correct. But will we know the truth before it’s too late? We stand to lose less than the Lwuites do.”

  “We’ll know. Easily.” Varberg pushed up out of his chair and stood looking down at her, tipping his head back in a gesture she now recognized as “me-­dominant, you-­subservient.” “And i
f there’s too much cooling, we simply increase CFC production.”

  “With what carbon?” she asked. “Where do we get the base that quickly?”

  “It’s all around us.” He squeezed the shoulder Paul wasn’t touching.

  Feeling surrounded, she asked, “Where?”

  He shrugged. “Geology has prospectors out constantly. Ask them. It’s not our department.”

  “All right,” she mumbled. Of all the people on Goddard, she mustn’t antagonize her supervisor. “Come talk to me later, Paul.” Clutching her cup, she backed out into the hall. Several steps along, she heard someone behind her. To her surprise, Jirina followed on long legs.

  “Talk with you a minute?” Jirina asked.

  Graysha led into her office, where Jirina sat down on the floor. Graysha joined her down there. Hard cement chilled her hindquarters.

  “So. Did you get to keep it?”

  Graysha wriggled, trying to find a comfortable position and finding only a colder one. “The handgun? No, they were on temporary issue.”

  “That’s a relief anyway.”

  “I have to go back for practice.”

  “Were you good?”

  “I improved.”

  Jirina ran one finger along a tiny ridge in the concrete floor. “I wonder if I’m being paranoid.”

  “About the possibility of armed colonists?”

  “Mm-­hmm.”

  “It occurred to me, too,” Graysha admitted.

  “Anyway, that isn’t why I came down. Paul was asking about you while you were gone. Thought you’d better be warned once more.”

  “You did mention social diseases.”

  “He’s made the Gaea rounds once or twice. DalLierx is getting fed up with Paul romancing his little pigtailed girlies, too.”

  That didn’t make a nice picture. “The famous Ilizarov charm.”

  “He does stick to single women, but that’s most of us. Your Lwuites probably think we’re all either irresponsible or undesirable.”

  Maybe we are. “Or genefective,” she said lightly.

  Jirina paused, staring at the floor. “Graysha, it’s none of my business, and I mean nothing personal against your mother or anyone else. But seems to me, they ought to allow genetic manipulation in cases like yours. It’s not like you’d be selfish, asking for a gene fix. It wouldn’t help you, would it?”