April 2: Down to Earth

by Mackey Chandler

  Our lives, our treasure, our honor, in friendship and loyalty, April thought silently, with an inner surge of pride, remembering a toast, a solemn oath and an earnest hope for a nation that had come wonderfully true, but said nothing aloud. That story was way too private to share with anyone, even her grandpa. "If you look at the question, well, why shouldn't we both be his friend?"

  He wanted to say people don't do that, but they do he knew, if not easily or often and he'd feel stupid to say otherwise. Still, he thought it would be a rarity if they were close without conflict or deception. Anti-bonding meds or no, he had seen even chaste same sex friendships destroyed, over refusing to share a friend. The very expression best-friend was singular. Not best friends. Maybe a mate and a best friend? But he had also seen people drive away a spouse's friends, from before their marriage… He realized he had stopped chewing and frozen up all conflicted unable to answer her.

  He suddenly wondered if that was why he hadn't married, because he assumed it would limit whom he could have as friends. How could such a young girl make him ask such disturbing questions about himself? April saved him from answering that he had no idea, by going on.

  "So, how about your modification to reflexes, is it something I could buy?"

  "You know I'm not a Medical Doctor don't you?" he asked carefully. "It's one of the big reasons I'm here, because I can pursue what I'm interested in without being hampered by studies and regulations which would slow me down. Back on Earth I'd be old and dead before I could accomplish anything. So everything I do will be experimental and there will be risks which are unacceptable to North American law and regulation."

  "We're results oriented here. You can't be licensed, because we don't have such a thing yet. Don't know if we ever will. You must feel this mod is safe, or you wouldn't be carrying it in your own body."

  "More than you can know," he said, surprised at her perception. "The reason I don't have many modifications is two-fold. One," he said lifting a thumb in the European manner, "it was safer in North America to be visibly lacking in any life extension, when my work was already suspect and two," he said lifting the index finger, "I plan to live a long time, so I don't want any modification done I am not sure I can undo later, if something better came along. I'm in good shape and there's no reason I can't wait and let the technology mature another twenty years or so, before I commit to any significant therapy. Since I'm not living down there, I can be a little more liberal with minor treatments which show. When I knew I was defecting, it was easy to convince myself to do this treatment, because I reasoned it could help me if I were on the run. I'd be harder to capture and much harder to shoot as you pointed out."

  "I researched you a bit. You were involved with veterinary. Does your treatment use animal genes? I don't know how I'd feel about that, but I know a lot of people are squeamish about using them."

  "The reason behind the prejudice, is people imagined because we don't know what all the genes express, if we added cat genes say, which altered the eye, we might be adding an unknown change. We might change personality for example and become a killer lacking in compassion like a cat with a mouse and far less human. It's sort of a modern version of the animist belief, that you take on some of the qualities of the animal when you eat it. And it has its basis in the same error - not understanding in detail how the process works at a molecular level,"

  "Now it is true, in the very early days of gene mods, when we just looked for a marker, entire blocks of genes were moved to create a change, when it was not understood how all the instructions in the block were expressed. That fear might have had some basis in reality then. But it would be a far greater risk something far less subtle would be expressed wrong, like a change in an enzyme or hormone which would cause the person to be sick or die. Especially when they could not control the insertion point with any accuracy. They created quite a few problems with that shotgun approach, including inducing cancers."

  "Now what I do is quite different. I find a model for faster reflexes and then create an entirely artificial gene with that information, which causes your body to create the same sort of mechanisms but without ever taking an actual physical piece of genetic material from an animal and inserting it. There is no opportunity for extraneous instructions to be dragged along."

  "But doesn't that accomplish the same thing?" April protested.

  "Let me illustrate. Say your ship built here has a motor in the back with a stainless steel valve and you find out the Chinese have a valve made of titanium and it works a little better than yours. Now if you capture a Chinese ship and yank a valve out of it and adapt it to substitute for your original, it's fair to say your ship is part Chinese now isn't it?"

  April nodded in agreement.

  "But if I hear that report and go back to the shop and tell them, ‘Make up some new valves to connect to our pipes, but make them out of titanium now. Change the dimensions, or whatever you need to do in our design to take advantage of the new material so it works better, but start from scratch with new materials." Now, is the ship still part Chinese, or is it all Home?"

  "It's all Home, but you aren't as sure you are going to get what you want from the change if you didn't understand why their valve is better. You may think it's the material and it turns out it's the shape of the innards or how it bolts on the pipe or something."

  "Right you are. And so you better have the guy doing it be someone who knows all about the different kinds of valves and why they work. If you don't have someone like that, better leave well enough alone. And there are still lots of poorly understood processes in the human body, which we would be wiser to leave alone right now." He looked in regret that all his plates were empty and salvaged one little fleck of whipped cream that had escaped on his finger and stuck it in his mouth.

  "So, is there any down side to being faster?" she pressed to know.

  "Oh yes, you are more likely to hurt yourself. It becomes much more important to stay in good shape with training. You might tear tissues or even break a bone, if you act rashly without being conditioned. And as I found with Ruby, if people become aware of your edge they tend to play tricks on you."

  "If you would consider treating me what do you need?"

  "I'd need permission from your guardians," he said, but stopped because she was shaking her head emphatically no.

  "I'm a legal adult. You can check the public record. I have the honor of being the first person on Home voted their majority, instead of attaining it at an arbitrary age."

  "I'd heard about that, but I didn't know anyone who had done it. When I meet someone how am I to know if they are a minor or an adult?"

  "For business I'd check the public records. Really, even with a set age of majority we still needed documentation before, because it was becoming difficult to judge a person's age with LET. But most of the people here are adapting the social convention that adults wear weapons, even if just symbolic ones like a Sikh's sword might be a pin on his turban. So if you meet a young boy in the corridors and he has a knife on his belt chances are he's an adult. You might think about doing it yourself. It's getting to be people think you're an Earthie if you aren't carrying," she teased.

  "Then all I really need is a copy of your genome and a history of your in vitro modifications and your usual medical history. I'd still encourage you to discuss the change with a trusted mature friend. Do you have somebody, who you'd trust their wisdom in the matter?"

  "My grandfather will do fine. He's extremely safety conscious."

  "You should also not take any anti-viral medications. I'm afraid you are going to have a mild cold for about three days and you'll have to isolate yourself to avoid passing it to others. I have a counter infection, but you'd put us in an awkward legal situation if you were negligent and carelessly changed someone's genome who might not welcome it. You also can't take anything which compromises the immune system and you must be absolutely sure not to get pregnant. I'm happy actually to have a famous client from an importan
t family. So let's keep my fee reasonable. Is fifty thousand EuroMarks good for you?"

  "Sounds fine. I'm concerned though. Is the infection tailored to me? Is there any danger the infection would be fatal or damaging, if someone got it off my laundry or by coming in my room?"

  "No the carrier is a really mild corona virus, which produces such mild symptoms many people aren't even sure they have a cold. They may get a bit sniffly or feel tired. But people can get very upset if something is forced on them against their will, even through carelessness. And an accidental transmission might be to someone pregnant or immune deficient."

  "Are you developing other treatments?"

  "I will be continuing some studies with that goal. I may be able to offer greater strength soon, but I'm debating if it needs stronger bones to go with it. The delay right now is I have to buy lab services somewhere, to have them run tests on mice. I'll supervise remotely and send samples back and forth, but I'm already living in the back of my office cubic and I doubt that housekeeping would like me sharing it with twenty thousand white mice, even if I could afford them here."

  "Any chance you could make a mod to help a person take higher acceleration?"

  He didn't hesitate long before shaking his head no. "You better look to an engineering solution on that. It's way too complex for me to tackle at this stage."

  "Since you've had your treatment do you feel any faster? I mean does it alter your time sense? I'd hate to feel like everything around me was in slow motion and it would take forever to get through the day."

  "Funny you should ask that. I never thought of that possibility before I did this. It would have been a big shock if I'd felt such an effect. I feel like I always did, but when I move I'm able to get there a little faster. It may look fast to you, but it just feels natural to me. Slowed time sense is one of the unpleasant withdrawal effects of a number of addictions. So I do know it's possible to induce it. In studying the matter I found out a few athletes are capable of basically the same level of performance I've induced, but I could never get one to agree to allow me to take samples and do biopsies. I'd really like to have access to such a person someday."

  "I'll mail you what you need. And the fee. Say, half now and the remainder on success?"

  "Works for me," he agreed. "Shake on it?" he offered across the table, relaxed.

  She grasped his hand firmly and smiled at him. There was just a moment's awkward hesitation where she delayed letting go of his hand. Looking him eyeball to eyeball. He thought how she could have stopped him from pulling away if she wished, better reflexes or no. He could picture the dagger coming out in the other hand while the right held him trapped. It was a chilling thought which flashed on him unexpected.

  As if to underscore it was a lesson she told him, "If you are going to be a spacer now we don't shake. It doesn't work in zero G so it's better unlearned. Just touch your finger tips in the palm of my hand." This time he reached up and her finger lightly brushed his palm at the same time he touched hers. It was a gentler custom. And so much safer too, he thought.

  Chapter 3

  Done with Jerry and quite pleased with what she accomplished, April immediately headed for the North hub of Home to consult her gramps about Jerry's treatment. April hadn't seen him or Jeff and Heather her favorite co-conspirators for days. It made her feel disconnected if she only talked to them on the com. They were all working today in the Lewis family cubic, outspin. Jeff and Heather were still using the loaned space her gramps had made available to run his nano-electronic processors. Without his devices their rebellion last year would have been impossible. With a little luck she'd be able to ask her grandpa about the viral mod, without making it seem like a big serious conference.

  April dove through the bearing gate, that separated the spinning and stationary parts of the station. It rather looked like the drum of an enormous washing machine. She caught the rail around the opposite opening to kill her spin and hung there a moment to tuck her slippers under her belt. She already had on footies, with individual toes like a glove. Some people liked a footie with just the great toe divided off like a Japanese sock. But she liked the full division.

  The dispenser charged the same to measure your foot and it didn't take any longer to cut them so why not? She had spent a lot more time in zero G the last year, so she was much more skilled going down the corridors here and she arrived at their cubic quickly.

  He grandpa didn't trust a sensing safety lock, so their lock was a full certified Mitsubishi lock, with redundant controls. The same as would meet code to be used on an outer bulkhead, instead of on a corridor. That saved them somebody snooping in their space every year for a safety inspection too. She let the pad taste her hand for entry and manually opened and dogged closed the corridor hatch. She saw the screen inside added a glowing line to the log, noting her entry. She could see her gramps through the small port, working inside unsuited, so she skipped checking the gauge. If he hadn't been visible she would have not only looked at the gauge, but opened a cock and ran a safety wire through, to confirm the instrument was working. Her gramps was fanatical on safety and she intended to live every bit as long as him.

  Going through the inside hatch, she shifted hand grip to foot grip and was happy to see Jeff and Heather at the far end removing some nano-electronic foils from the processing boxes, that needed zero G. After they worked together on the Happy Lewis, Jeff and her gramps had not parted ways, but settled into a steady relationship doing design and prototyping new products based on Jeff's ideas.

  What exactly their arrangement was she had never asked. She knew with the ownership of the Rock secure, her grandfather wasn't hurting for money. It was getting close to the production stage of that project, where they would vacuum distill the asteroid into its constituent elements. It shouldn't be long until he had a nice income from it and she had a small share too. She knew from her own experience Jeff wasn't tight in sharing and would treat him right without being forced. Something she wished he could teach her brother. Bob was cheap to the point of embarrassment.

  The two of them just seemed to have an affinity, that cut past any difference in age. She didn't begrudge it and Heather seemed unthreatened by it too. Her grandpa was hovering in front of his old tool box, a downdraft tray of small fittings in front of him, checking them with a micrometer. He wore footies and held himself by his toes on a bar that ran the length of the work bench. Watching him work she glanced at the tools in the oak box. Some of them she knew how to use, like the one he had out now and a few were still strange. He was talking into a pad as he worked and gave her a facial gesture in the silent helmet-talk construction workers used, which said he didn't want to be interrupted, so she veered off to her friends. Interrupting inspections caused errors, so she wasn't offended. She might have to fly those parts.

  "More fusion generator strips?" April asked Jeff and Heather.

  "Yes but these are an experiment." He put the old roll of foil in a foam lined box, careful not to catch an edge or corner and opened another box of feed stock for Heather. She skillfully inserted a new blank strip in the fabricator box, delicately feeding the end into rollers that grabbed it and pulled a few millimeters in. They didn't have coveralls or hair nets, but wore white clean room gloves.

  "We have twenty production boxes coming up from France. The USNA companies kept finding reasons not to deliver. I think the government was leaning on them. So that frees these up to do experimental work," he said, gesturing at the six microwave oven sized boxes. They all fed off a common power outlet and a vacuum manifold vented to outside. "I want to do a hydrogen fusion foil with normal hydrogen, not deuterium, so we can use the common isotope instead of paying the premium for the heavy isotope, then the resulting product which is itself deuterium, can be used in the generators like I have already made, that are much easier to get to work."

  "This is tougher to make work?"

  "These are the fourth batch I've made and the first one had reactions take place, but i
t couldn't make enough power to sustain itself. The two supposedly improved versions haven't worked at all," he admitted ruefully. "Then, when I get this sorted out, I'm going to make a generator that will produce energy to sell, but as a waste product creates tritium, which I intend to sell too. But mainly I want the tritium available to us as a fuel."

  "Why, if you have both regular hydrogen and deuterium as fuel, do you need the tritium?"

  "A tritium - deuterium reaction produces about four times more power," he looked a little shy but went ahead and told her what that meant. "It'll make exploring the outer system a lot quicker and easier and we may need it for the first star ship."

  April considered making a sarcastic joke about making a faster than light drive, but swallowed it. At some very deep level, she wasn't sure even that was safe to joke about with Jeff. He was so smart she might have to eat her words someday.

  "And while you're at it, I was talking with a new guy who set up a business here to do gene mods and he recommended I ask if you can come up with something to neutralize the effects of acceleration. He said a biological fix is way beyond the art right now." Jeff gave her the oddest look and she was sorry she'd asked. He looked startled and then thoughtful. At least he didn't tell her not to be silly.

  "It is theoretically possible to do so," he answered, still looking distracted. She suspected most of him was off in some alternative mental space, working on the problem."There have been schemes proposed in fiction, such as suspending a piece of super dense matter ahead of the pilot so the gravitational attraction works against the acceleration. You move it closer as the acceleration rises. You have problems with tidal effects and the ship would be massive to support it, but it would work. I'll think on it and see what else I can come up with," he said, visions of a brass weight on a wire in his mind. Accelerate the entire reference frame and what would the weight feel?