by David Brin
SAUL
Not paying attention, Saul thought. That was our basic mistake, these last few centuries. Nature flowering and bursting with life all around us, and we never paid enough respectful attention.
He was waiting for the others to arrive in sleep slot 1, trying to rest in these few free moments. Avoiding thinking about the daily slot meeting, about to start.
You’d think we’d have caught on with the limestone business. He smiled wanly. Only blue-green Earth burgeoned with life. And Earth had proved to be the only planet with an oxygen atmosphere, thick, yet transparent enough to let excess heat escape. It had taken generations to realize that the latter fact did not cause the former. No, it was the other way around. Life…trillions of tiny cells in the early days of Earth, had pulled the carbon out of the primordial atmosphere and stored it in their bodies, which silted to the ocean floor and became limestone beds… changing the air itself in the process.
Science was still fumbling with the notion that life might be driver in the evolution of worlds, rather than a simple passive passenger, shoved about by the rude winds of astronomical fate. After the bleak vistas of Venus and Mars, scientists still assumed that minute changes in planetary mass or distance from the sun made life impossible. Like all the others, he had ignored the possibility that life had spawned in comets. It had tailored this ice mote, too, carving caverns and spreading seeds.
A tiny Gaea… a self-regulating ecosphere scaled in ice, revived when the sun’s licking warmth came to briefly banish the long night… and perhaps trillions of others, too, swooping in from the far dark… He would have to mull that one over, if he ever got a spare second…
“My, how serene.” Virginia’s lilting, affectionate sarcasm cut through his musing.
“Um? No, just my ritual worrying.” He sat up, feeling dull aches rearrange themselves in his legs and back, even in the faint gravity.
Virginia sat beside him on the narrow bench that was the only furniture in sleep slot 1’s observing room. In the pale enameled light he studied her with wonder. She was trim and sure, her milky green pullover covering but not concealing a flat stomach, breasts hard and high, a muscular calm. The septic certainty of the room numbed his senses, but she redeemed that with a soft warming presence, calling up memories of humid, spice-laden Hawaiian air. Yet she likens herself to her machines, cool and cyborg-certain. How wrong!
The quiet comfort of being with her reminded him of other days, of cramped apartments, gas flames licking the dark as friends talked far into the night, meals of peppery meats and crisp onions, an enfolding sense of an enduring natural order—
He cut off the thought. Nostalgia clutched him sweetly with hollow, fuzzy fingers whenever he let it, and this was most certainly not the time.
Virginia said lightly, “You look like something the cat dragged in.” She scratched the back of his neck.
“You can’t turn my head with mere compliments.” He rubbed his eyes. “Besides, we have no cat.”
“Lucky we didn’t thaw the pets right away. Or would they be susceptible?”
“Of course. These viroids love lung tissue—I suspect some spread through the air.”
“So Spot and Fluffy would buy the farm, too.”
“Definitely.”
He did not mention that he and Matsudo had thawed some rabbits and monkeys already—had to, for tests of new treatments. Of course the poor creatures had to be sacrificed. He had never been able to do that without a twinge of guilt. Yet you chose to be a biologist.
She looked out through the transparent wall, to where several suited figures labored over pale, waxy bodies. “If we could just stop the stuff from spreading! Particularly that green gunk climbing the walls—it gives me the shivers.”
“I suspect the algoids and lichenoids aren’t the true danger.”
“They’re spreading so fast!”
“There are so many variants, it’s difficult to control them even with the microwaves. But we’re making progress.”
She wrinkled her nose. “The stuff smells.”
An introspective, distant smile creased his leathery skin. “Aesthetics come later. If ever.”
Virginia frowned. “Do you think you’re learning… well… fast enough?”
“My father always said that life was like giving a violin concert while you are learning the instrument.”
She grinned. “And while everyone you care bout is watching.”
“Quite so.” He was aware that Virginia was trying to cheer him up, but a more sunny smile would not do it. He was familiar with his own moods, the fitful depressions that had come more regularly these last few years.
Not that he did not have ample cause now, of course. With more self-knowledge than he would have liked, he understood his own brooding as another evasion. Ever since the fall of Jerusalem, he had found it far easier to meditate, to pontificate, than to throw himself fully into the raw world, to feel all its stings and scrapes. He still needed the security of his emotional calluses.
Virginia had seen his mood. She put her hand in his and said softly, “I know…” He squeezed her hand. “If there’s anything—”
“Get this straightened out,” a thin man said loudly as he came into the room with Suleiman Ould-Harrad. “Damned if I’ll let them play the angles while we sit on our asses.”
Linbarger nodded toward them, his lean face self-involved. “I figure it’s obvious—we’ve got to keep normal people on top, where they can see everything’s run right. We can’t let the Percells move up! If the casualty rate keeps on this way, they’ll outnumber us, maybe even two to one. Unless we hold the commanding positions, they’ll make every decision, run right over our interests.”
Ould-Harrad looked embarrassed. “I will have to confer.”
“No conferring to it! This is an executive decision, you have to do it. Start taking a vote and we’ll be goners.”
Saul grimaced. “Is this what it sounds like?”
Linbarger turned, hands on hips. “I’m trying to make sure our people don’t lose control of the situatio.”
“Our people?”
“Right. You heard? Oakes has that sky-high fever, the one that fries the brain in a couple hours. She’s going into a slot right away.”
Saul said, “Oh damn,” and sat down. Maybe I should’ve spent more time in sick bay. I might’ve made a difference…
“Someone has to do the research,” Virginia whispered, as if reading his thoughts.
Bethany Oakes had been barely adequate in these last few days, but at least she had been the obvious successor to Miguel Cruz. Continuity was important.
After Major Lopez was slotted, skin half-gnawed away by some slimy fungus, Ould-Harrad had been pulled…and now dropped into a command position no one could envy. The tall, rangy black man had never been more than the nominally senior of the five section heads. He carried no cachet of command. Certainly the dour African had not been selected for his skill at balancing political forces and quieting clever loudmouths.
Linbarger nodded, licking his lips. “Pretty fine mess, huh? It’s either the fever or the chills with the blue spots all over you, or else that shaking thing—all of ’em fatal.”
“I believe I’ve isolated the agent that causes the chilling disease,” Saul said quietly. “A vaccine should take only a few days. The skin infections show signs of vulnerability to microwave.”
“But there’re eight or ten diseases already!” Linbarger shouted. “And that’s just the ones we know of. That we can spot easily.”
Saul looked into the man’s pinched, anxious face and read there something that felt like a cold draft let into the room.
“There are some promising measures for the rest. That’s all I can tell you right now.” He glanced at Ould-Harrad. Take the wind out of this fellow’s sails, Saul thought, as if to will the African into action. But Ould-Harrad remained impassive, eyes distant, his arms folded across his broad chest.
Linbarger seemed to feel he
was gaining momentum, winning an argument. He looked at the two men, ignoring Virginia. “With Lominatze out there getting iced” —he pointed at the transparent wall— “and Byrnes and Matsudo headed there before long, that means Percells are going to be running both Power Systems and Tunnels and Gases.”
Saul said formally to Ould-Harrad, “May I ask why Dr. Linbarger is at this meeting?”
The tall black man’s face took on a wary, diplomatic cast. “I felt each, ah, faction in the crew should be represented in making slotting decisions.”
“Yeah,” Linbarger said. “That’s why she’s here.”
Saul looked at Virginia. “Oh? You came at Ould-Harrad’s request?”
She nodded. “I was free. Most Percells are either asleep or working in the tunnels. Or sick,” she added pointedly.
“I’m taking a risk just being in the same room with her,” Linbarger muttered.
“No one’s assigned vectors for most of the diseases,” Saul said carefully, restraining his rising irritation. “There’s no reason to believe the genetically augmented people carry anything.”
“Just because they’re immune doesn’t mean they can’t be carriers,” Linbarger said. “I know that much.”
“There is no correlation—“Saul began, and then realized no scientific discussion was going to reach the man. “Look. We need to learn more, and that means cooperating with every.”
“Pretty soon they’ll be giving us orders! If—”
“Shut,” Saul said precisely. “Up.”
Linbarger frowned, puzzled, plainly feeling betrayed. “You’re a biologist, you know three of us get these diseases for every one of them.”
“Then thaw out more Orthos,” Virginia said cuttingly. “Swell your ranks.”
“And see most of them die?” Linbarger whirled toward her, fists clenched. “You know a man fresh out of the slots is more vulnerable to these bugs!” Linbarger glared at her, but was obviously playing to Ould-Harrad.
“We must use all those available hands,” the African spacer said at last. “Especially if we are to save the Newburn.”
“You’re approving the mission?” Saul asked, helping the apparent effort to change subjects. Bethany Oakes had ruled out the effort to seek and recover the long-lost slot tug.
“Yes. Carl Osborn’s case is convincing. It may distract us from our… disputes.” Ould-Harrad glanced pointedly at Linbarger. “They are our comrades, aboard the Newburn, and if it is God’s will, Inshallah, we shall rescue them.”
“Who goes?” Virginia asked.
“I shall decide later. First we must refine more tritium from the ice—”
“Jeffers is already doing that,” Saul put in. “He says he can get us enough in a week or so.”
Ould-Harrad pursed his lips. “You people have been continuing work even though Bethany vetoed it?”
“Well, Yes,” Saul admitted with a small smile. “The refining uses big surface mechs which weren’t doing anything else.”
“Ah. So be it. Then the hydroponics pods must be arranged, the majority brought into Halley.”
“I’ll do that,” Linbarger said. “Some of my buddies will pitch in, too.”
Anything to get away from Percells, Saul thought. He’ll have plenty of Ortho volunteers.
“Very good,” Ould-Harrad said warmly. “As for the rescue crew, I will decide after careful—”
“I’ll go,” Linbarger said. “if Osborn isn’t in charge.”
Virginia smiled dryly. “You want an all-Ortho crew?”
“Why not?”
“You’re more likely to have sick people going, then,” she said.
Saul frowned. Soon he would have to break it to her that he was going as ship’s doctor.
Ould-Harrad said soothingly, “We all are taking risks.”
“You have no idea if Lintz and van Zoon and the others will find cures,” Linbarger’s mouth knotted up into a sour, disgusted sketch of impatience. “If they don’t, and I get sick, they’ll never bring me out of the slots.”
Ould-Harrad spread his hands, open and uplifted, showing his good will. “Then you will finally wake up on Earth.”
“Nobody intended us to sleep seventy years sick! Metabolism is slow in the slots, but it’s not zero. All the experience has been with people who’re well, right? We could all die.”
Linbarger had a point, but Saul was damned if he would admit it. “There is ample reason to expect that.”
“Ha! ‘Ample reason.’ That’s not enough for me and my friends.”
“Which friends?” Virginia asked. “More dumb Arcists?”
Linbarger bristled. His voice came out thin and reedy, as if from a tight place inside him. “Yeah, some of us. Got kicked out of Indonesia for being against land rape and poisons and experimental animals like you.”
Virginia muttered, “And made up for it by shooting people in Pan-Africa.”
Saul tried to cut in. “Just a.”
“No, let him babble,” Virginia said evenly, her arms held ready, a concentrated energy in her stance. “I’ve heard it before. His kind took over Hawaii. Governor Ikeda’s dead, Keoki Anuenue’s uncle is in prison. I want to see what kind of creature does things like that.”
Linbarger did not seem to notice her rigid restraint.
“I’m an Arcist, sure, but I’m talking for all the normal people. We aren’t going to take orders from Percell pigs.”
Saul said, “You watch your.”
“Sure, we’re herding you Percells into camps in Hawaii—and we’d be better off doing the same thing here!” He shook a fist in her face.
Virginia caught him full in the stomach with a quick, savage kick. Linbarger flew backward with a heavy grunt and smacked into the wall. Ould-Harrad moved to block Virginia but she compensated neatly for the low gravity and slipped past him. She clipped Linbarger neatly on the chin with the heel of her hand, putting the full force of her shoulder behind her chop. Linbarger made a gurgling noise and spun away, still conscious but limp.
“Stop!” Ould-Harrad cried severely and unnecessarily—Virginia had already come back to an automatic zero-G defensive stance, floating, eyes gleaming like ice.
“Sorry,” she said. “It was a reflex.” Obviously she regretted nothing.
Ould-Harrad and Saul checked Linbarger, who waved them away feebly.
Virginia said, “I’ve been hearing Arcist bullshit for days now, holding my tongue. No more. He’s endangering the whole expedition.”
“Do not overstate your case, Dr. Herbert. Dr. Linbarger has a right to his opinions,” Ould-Harrad said judiciously.
What does it take to stir him up? Saul thought. Or has he witnessed scenes this bad already? An unsettling suspicion. Saul hadn’t been socializing himself for a week.
“In any case,” Ould-Harrad said, shaking his head gravely, “nothing excuses such conduct as yours. If we were not desperate, I would confine you to quarters.”
“Oh, please do,” she said sarcastically. “I need the sleep.”
Linbarger opened his mouth to say something, but then the prep-room door opened to admit Bethany Oakes. They all fell silent as the official commander slowly entered with her escorts.
Said was shocked at the sudden change—at her red-rimmed eyes, bone-white face, and shambling walk. Her palsied hands trembled and her mouth sagged vacantly.
“Betty, you shouldn’t be walking,” Saul said.
Then he saw Akio Matsudo and Marguerite von Zoon following respectfully, their eyes beseeching him not to interfere. She way making a brave show, the commanding officer committing herself gallantly. Even Linbarger saw it, and though his face was still compressed with anger and resentment, he kept quiet.
Matsudo did not look very well, either. His eyes were glazed and his face had a hard, sweaty sheen. If he goes, that will leave only Marguerite and myself to run the hospital. That’ll keep me off the Newborn rescue for sure.
Bethany Oakes met his eyes briefly. “Saul…” Her smil
e was wan, sad. “Persevere…”
She passed slowly into the chilly inner chamber and the waiting techs.
Damn. Saul was uncomfortably aware that Oakes might well never revive from the slot-sleep process. If the disease could continue to do its dreadful work as she floated through the dreamy years, she might well be going to her grave. The accompanying party had probably guessed this, and there came upon them a reverential silence as Oakes insisted on struggling up onto the slab herself. She gave a fluttering wave of farewell and then sank down into the pink nutrient web. It was a release for her, Saul saw, amid the chill promise of salvation, to lie down gratefully into the embrace of fog-shrouded, gleaming steel and glass.
Saul looked up at Ould-Harrad. It was easy to read the African’s silently moving lips, shaping words in Arabic. Saul knew that the prayers were only partly for Oakes, but also for the new, reluctant commander, Suleiman Ould-Harrad himself.
VIRGINIA
“Damn! I wouldn’t put it past him to have done this on purpose!”
Virginia paced back and forth in her tiny laboratory. It was difficult to do in less than a milligee, but she managed by holding on to a nearby console. Her velcro soles scritched softly as she walked from one end of the room to the other, tossing her hair and muttering to herself.
“Carl planned this. I know it!”
The main holo screen rippled. A face appeared, but the “man” was no member of the Halley Expedition… nor indeed any man at all. The visage was long-cheeked, with reddish locks and a curling, salty mustache.
“Sure an’ ’tis a churlish deed, liken to the way Queen Maeve was deprived of her beloved,” the figure agreed.
Virginia sniffed. “Oh, cram it, Ossian. I don’t need sympathy from literary simulacrums, I need Saul! And I don’t want him blasting off in a stripped-down, overaged spaceship that needs fifty years of overhaul before it’ supposed to fly again!”
The display flickered. Another face formed… a graying eminence in scarlet robes. The woman on the screen held up a sign of beneficence. “It is a mission of mercy, my dear child. Forty souls are at stake…”