He Without Sin

by Hyde, Ed

  “But you…”

  “Let me finish. I am not going to let my mistakes up to this point taint the mission. I know what you are thinking and believe me Wesley knows exactly how I feel about… all of this. That’s precisely the reason I am having him clean it up.

  “Now, your part. I need you to help clean up too,” David says, and I can feel a different mood overtake him in that his face has softened and the tone of his voice has mellowed. He works his lip a couple times before speaking. “Did any part of the Resource team’s data—their private channel—yet make it to the main system archives? I mean is any of it…”

  “I know what you mean. I will have to check but I don’t think so. It seems to me that the reason for their insistence on private communication and data storage was for situations just like this and so…”

  “There are other reasons for privacy, so don’t go there. Back to the point. Please take a look. Verify that nothing makes it through except for bone fide mission documents. If any of it did make it through… well, let me know what you find and…” and David trails off looking as if for me to finish his thought.

  It’s my turn to pause, look David in the eye, and say, “I understand. I’ll take care of it.” No need to mention right now that I have made my own copy and have it safely tucked away.

  ______

  “I did get an assignment after all, but my part is easy. Important to David and our mission legacy, and easy in the execution,” I say to Carol out at the bluffs. It is late evening and the warm breeze has died. The clear sky holds an impressive canopy of stars and we are on our backs looking up. The hiss of the surf endlessly cycles through its frequency shift: low, slowly rising, rising, and then effortlessly and quickly falling low once again to start over. The waves are coming in at an angle to the shore and so the sound has the additional feature of pleasantly gliding from right to left, north to south. I check my genie but am careful to keep the illumination low so as not to degrade my night vision.

  “What are you doing? Do you keep looking at the time?”

  “Nothing. No reason. Just checking the proximity alarm.”

  “But there’s nothing out here to be afraid of. You’ve told me this more than once.”

  “Have I? That’s right, don’t worry, there’s…” At last a bright speck catches my eye, moving against the background of stars. “There. See? There it is. Right on time.”

  “What? Oh, there it is. I see it. What is… oh, that’s the old girl herself isn’t it. That’s the ship!”

  “Right you are.” We are both watching silently for several heartbeats. “Grigor’s up there at the moment.”

  “Yes, awesome. Grigor? Wait, I think… Yes, I see him. Odd… he seems to be complaining about something,” Carol says and laughs.

  She’s the best. We watch the speck of the ship glide past. I am happy and relieved that I said something to David. It was the right thing to do. I am also happy to be with Carol. I roll over toward her and embrace her. We kiss.

  “Don’t start something you can’t finish,” she whispers in her teasing way.

  “Don’t worry.”

  The times away with Carol are magical and refreshing. We have already talked about when we can do it again. Where to go? We both like our spot on the bluffs. Sometimes the wind is too much, and nearly constant, but the scenery along the coast, the isolation—can we beat that? Porter said something about his favorite spot, east was it?

  The problem with going inland is the loss of the isolation factor. And not just from people, but animals too. It’s wild out there. If there were a small island… Carol has done extensive mapping; it’s time to check it out.

  My part in David’s ‘correction plan’ is done. Brachus has disappeared from the base camp area lately, as has Lester. I met with Craig and Porter together at the mess hall and they are pretty shook up about something. They clammed up when I joined them. You could see from their faces that something’s wrong—pale, unsmiling. They are not expert at hiding their emotions. They wouldn’t hold eye contact and were slow in responding, even to casual conversation.

  Mark seems normal. He’s not as swamped as he was, apparently, and has some new little pet project he’s doing on the side. Wouldn’t show me.

  Dylan’s not normal. I mean, he’s recovered from the cat attack, but he’s got something serious on his mind. I know because he stalked right into David’s base camp quarters when Carol and I were out once again at the rock ledge seat. We could see his determination as he went in. They were in there a long time and when he came out his expression was grim. Not his usual demeanor at all.

  Drastic Measures

  “I can’t believe it. I really can’t.” His eyes are misty and he keeps moving them from one person to the next, and then back to the images he is holding in his hands.

  We are in the mess hall with a small number of the crew minus Wes and Les, minus David and Doc. Carol left already.

  “Can I see again?” Tracy asks. Dylan flips the pictures toward her across the small dining table. They slide and separate and end up near enough for her to grasp.

  “You can’t hide something like this. It’s massive destruction of several adjoining populations in the lowlands.” Dylan is livid. “I went to David. I went… I went too late.”

  “What are we looking at here exactly?”

  Dylan peers across at the page she has on top. “Let me see it.” She tilts it. “That’s the ‘before’. Look at it next to the other. The pictures are of nearly the same area. The clouds are hiding some… You can spot the landmarks. Look.”

  I get closer and look too. The edge of ‘our’ mountains is just inside the image and I can make out the coastline nearest to us. Those look the same. But other features are different. The one large lake—the one into which the little bio camp stream empties—is different. Its shoreline has changed, expanded dramatically.

  “Ok fellas, that’s it,” says Grigor when he looks up from the images and around the table at all of us. “You see what’s happening? You do see… right? What have I told you? These are the people we are takin’ orders from? This is what we’re here for? Good luck to us all.” And he walks away muttering, roughly brushing past Mark, Aileen and Alain.

  Although no one says anything, I can see their glances. I can see their looks.

  “Mark—wait. Don’t go. I need to get down there again. What’ve you got?”

  “Yeah, sure Dyl sure. Jimmy, fix ‘im up.”

  ______

  “What exactly happened?” Carol asks after we get back. I went out with Dylan to see too. Carol thought he shouldn’t go alone. She was correct.

  “A few things happened, all more or less at the same time.” “The guys are talking. Not Brachus or Lester, but the others are.”

  “Yes, yes. Go on.”

  I glance around and behind me; we are at our table in the corner of the mess hall. “I think David got scared. Maybe he scared Wes too. The idea that any ‘fingerprints’ remain must’ve done it. It looks like the traces of meddling were eliminated…”

  “Is that what Dylan was showing us?”

  “That’s the main part. The lowlands where a large portion of the people were living was flooded.”

  “Flooded. But how? I saw… I know about the big lake.

  Was it deliberately…?”

  “Looks like it,” I reply and as I look up I see Carol looking over my head.

  “That’s bull, man. It’s the rainy season down there. They were gettin’ washed away by the minute.” It’s Lester. He must’ve heard some of our conversation.

  “Uh-huh. So you guys didn’t do anything to…

  “It was full, overflowing. It would have gone any second anyway.”

  “So you did. You ‘helped’ it along…”

  “Look, we saved the people we were told. We saved ‘em. We’re the good guys here.” He rakes his shiny hair straight back and has an expectant look. Expectant and vulnerable.

  “You’re the… You
’re somethin’ all right.” I avert my eyes from him trying to make it clear that we had a private conversation going. “Where were we, Carol?”

  Lester leaves without saying a word more. I was expecting a snide closing remark—but nothing.

  “What in the world does he mean, the good guys?”

  “Carol, look, without picking a right or wrong, I can see both sides. Assume David’s worried. He is. He’s got to be. Ok, we still have a chance to fix this—I’m thinking as he would now—and get back on track. That’s what he’s saying. What with the so-called giants, the interbreeding, whatever other supposedly sterile rejects from the old bio camp were mixing in—the genome is messed up. And the evidence is out there. Was out there.” I look at Carol to see any reaction before continuing. Nothing so far, she’s just listening. “That’s what he means—they cleaned it up. From that perspective, it’s a good thing.”

  “Is there no other way…” Carol starts but she trails off.

  “Of course,” I say, and again look around to see we are not overheard. “The right way is to not let it ever come to this. That’s where it went wrong. But it did, and they did, and here we are.”

  Carol says, “For sure my opinion of David has dropped several steps; my opinion of Wesley remains the same; it cannot drop further. Do you actually think David okayed this? This method?”

  “My personal opinion? No. I think he left it up to Brachus. The details anyway. The guys were saying too that there were some relocations. Not many. And also some chemical sterilization, not just the flooding. I’ll bet you any money though that Brachus either didn’t think the area affected would be so large or else never thought it would get the attention that it has. One of the two.”

  “Dylan was pretty upset.”

  “Yes he is and I’ll tell you something else. He normally keeps cool and calm but he told me that he went to David and said ‘Never again’.”

  The concept of massive annihilation is troubling, and not to just a few of us. It takes a real effort of will to look towards the long term benefits.

  David made a general and official announcement about the current status. He emphasized that his work, our work, has led to the happy discovery of one small subset of the population, a family really, that has, in fact, far surpassed our mission target and will, given enough time, surely spread to cover the globe. He has charged Brachus with monitoring them and taking the necessary steps to see that they flourish. That was it.

  It amazes me that leaders such as David, but not only him if history tells us anything, seem to have a capacity for self-delusion. That is, in this case, even though inept manipulation and unethical interference by David and at least some of his crew have resulted in the wholesale slaughter of thousands, the right person can spin the situation such that it seems like a good thing. It’s as if the fact that we ourselves caused the problem can be forgotten.

  Carol and I both feel that, given his level of emotional maturity, leaving Brachus to see to it that the select group ‘flourishes’ is a mistake. It’s just asking for more trouble. Why is it that David doesn’t get it?

  Part IV

  Field Reports

  I don’t get it. Sure it’s a wonder, it’s a marvel, but let’s go back already.

  “Isn’t that something?” asks Porter, his glasses more askew than usual.

  “Yeah, something,” I respond without really looking anymore.

  “No, look. Look over there—where the glacier meets the ocean. A sharp line. Looks like it’s been cut with a knife,” exclaims Mark.

  “Mark, you’re getting awful excited about this. You haven’t been getting out much, have you?” I counter, still not looking. I am not impressed with our flyover of the northern polar region. Ok, maybe the first few minutes. But when you’ve seen one incredibly vast blindingly white nearly featureless expanse…

  “That’s all water ice and snow?” Porter asks, looking first at me, then Mark.

  “Absolutely, temp and pressure tells it all. It has to be. Maybe some pockets… No, I don’t think so; it’s all H2O,” answers Mark.

  “Shall we go down and see?”

  “No,” I say immediately.

  “Right over there. See? Right there—looks like a safe spot. What kind of ground signal?”

  “Says we are good. If we sink in, I’ll get us right out. Hold tight just in case.”

  “Am I not here? Can you not hear me? I said ‘no’. Am I out voted—is that it?” I ask of no one in particular and their response is to ignore me once more. We settle without incident and these two tourists are already preparing to exit. The blast of arctic air only reinforces my desire to not get out. “Guys. Seriously. Are we not adults? You act like you’ve never…”

  “Come on. Sure, we’ve all seen ice and snow. It’s like a vacation. Come on, we’re getting out.”

  “You have to get out.”

  “No, I don’t have to get out.”

  Out they go. These supposed adults are making sounds like children out there. It does seem like we are on solid ground. Or ice. I see we are at 90 West and 62 North.

  I remember one time we went on vacation to a snowy area—Mom, Dad, Tom and I. I was real young, just in the first grade or maybe second. It was the usual stuff, playing in the snow, sledding. I don’t remember what all, but I do remember what happened on one of the mornings. There was a new snowfall, fresh and deep. I don’t know where Tom was; when you’re young, an age difference, even a couple years, is huge and we didn’t hang out like we did in later years. I was all bundled up and out by myself in the bright sunshine in the snow. On me it was deep enough to make walking difficult, but walk I did, enjoying being the first to explore the pristine landscape—alone against the wilderness, sort of. I wandered off and up the side of a small hill, but the wind had blown the snow such that the contour of the ground was hard to judge visually. I lost my footing, turned and fell backwards off the side of the hill into a deep drift. I was OK but at first disoriented by what had happened and by the handful of snow melting wet on my face and eyes. As I lay on my back looking up at the clear deep blue sky through a perfect outline of my body, I realized I was indeed alone. In all likelihood, no one knew where I was and certainly no one could see me. With my bulky snow outfit I wasn’t cold in the least, but was restricted in movement. It felt like I couldn’t move my arms or legs, surrounded as they were. It’s then that it dawned on me that I might have fallen into a serious situation. A moment of panic, and then I realized I had no choice. It’s up to me to get out. No one else is coming; no one else knows I’m even here! With some thrashing and twisting I eventually righted myself and plowed my way out of the nearly neck-high drift. The panic was real; the thrill and relief of survival was too.

  Well, I’d better go out and see what they’re up to after all—just in case they break a leg or something. I don’t hear any more laughing and shouting. Worst case, I will have to drag their frozen carcasses back inside. Whoa, it’s cold— really cold if I face the wind! Right after I exit the runabout and look for them I catch a snowball on the left side of my face and neck, just below the ear. Perfect. Some snow gets in one eye and I have to wipe and blink it clear. I see Mark grinning like an idiot and preparing more ammunition. I quickly scoop up some snow of my own and retaliate. I miss Mark by a wide margin but to my delight Porter is a better aim and hits him square in the chest. With this distraction I am able to fire off a couple more at Mark and quickly retreat to the safety and warmth of the interior. That’s plenty for me.

  “Lousy packing anyway,” complains Mark as they both finally climb back in, red-faced and panting. “Too cold.”

  “If you boys are done playing, can we head back now? Please shut the hatch, my hands have almost thawed.” Porter has to clean his glasses—they are wet and have fogged over after coming in from the cold.

  ______

  It’s not long after the polar sightseeing trip that I have a chance to sit and talk with Porter again. More about his discoveries
as he has been shuttling people and materials all over the planet.

  “Volcanoes, you say? And active at that?”

  “Active and spewing! From complete and permanent ice cover to spewing molten rock. And everything in between. Anytime you wanna see any of it, let me know.”

  “You’re going to kill yourself out there.”

  “Might be. The volcanic ash is a killer all right. It gets in everywhere and is abrasive as all get out.”

  “‘As all get out’? Ha. That’s a good one. Where did that come from I wonder? I mean originally.”

  “Huh? It’s abrasive, that’s all. Really abrasive. And it gets in everywhere. I know ‘cause I went right thru an ash cloud.”

  “Oh, I get you alright. I was just thinking of the origin of the phrase ‘all get out.’ Ever think about that sort of thing?”

  “Um, no, can’t say that I do,” replies Porter with a look of puzzlement. “But, like I say…”

  “No, that’s ok. Don’t worry about it. Thanks for the sightseeing offer, and I’ll take you up on it sometime. I bet Carol would like to see some of that.”

  “Anytime, pal, anytime.”

  “Anytime? Anytime what? You guys want another go at the frozen north?” says Mark as he approaches and sits with us.

  “Yeah, sure, I still have one good eye,” I quip. “How goes it, Mark?”

  “Oh it goes, and it goes.” Mark gives me a look that I interpret as meaning ‘I’ve got plenty to say but I’m not going to do it now.’

  “Hey Mark,” says Porter in greeting. “Let’s all go again! We’re expecting Dylan, Craig, Trace, and Aileen in any minute. Aileen won’t come but…”

  “Nope, their flyer is mine as soon as they land. And I’m busy with it for the rest of this week. Maybe after that.” Again with the look. It’s easy to tell something is going on, with Mark, but it’s no use trying to guess.

  Small talk ensues, which I block out effectively and wonder what Carol would think of a visit to the arctic. I hear the arrival of one of the flyers and sure enough Dylan and Craig and the girls debark and head off to another part of base camp. It crosses my mind that these men and women are the future the dean spoke of. And Porter too. They are eager, competent, confident and, I believe, trustworthy. I can see them fulfilling the vision statement from what seems to me now so long ago. Where do I fit into that vision? They nod as they pass, see Mark’s questioning look, and Craig gives him a thumbs up. As I turn back, Mark and Porter are both looking at me.