Deucalion (15 page)

‘A hopper?'

‘That's SecCorp jargon. A hopper is a flyer with motion-detection screening. Very expensive, very sophisticated. The only time they can be detected is when they are stationary, or moving very slowly. The effect is that one minute the flyer appears on the screen, the next it “hops” and we lose it.'

‘And this hopper appeared and disappeared outside the hospital?'

‘At the exact time the two of them pulled their own disappearing act. It headed off due west, then blipped out.' He looked her in the eye as he came to the point. ‘But here's the key. There was another report of a hopper about a week earlier, at the entrance to the Genetic Research Facility—'

‘On the night Hendriks disappeared.' Jane finished off the sentence, and it was Denny's turn to look suitably impressed.

‘Don't ever let anyone tell you you aren't smart.'

She reached up and stroked his cheek with the backs of her fingers. ‘Nobody ever did. As far as I can remember.'

Denny touched her hand and went on, ‘We won't be able to track them in motion, but if we can attach this little baby to the hopper while it's still on the ground, we'll be able to pinpoint where they end up. All we have to know is the “where” and “when” – which you have neatly scribbled on the back of your hand – and be there when they land.' He sat down. ‘You can congratulate me now.'

Jane leaned across and kissed him. ‘Don't let anyone ever tell you
you
aren't smart.' She paused. ‘But I'll save the congratulations until you succeed in tagging the hopper.'

16

ON THE ISLAND

Carmody Island

Inland Sea (Eastern Region)

16/11/101 Standard

DARYL

Standing at the edge of the cliff, I could feel the wind tugging at me, trying to pull me towards the sickening drop just a few centimetres away. It reminded me of the feeling that had swept over me so often as we shuffled our way along the narrow track across the top of the Ranges, a few months earlier.

In another lifetime . . .

I came up onto the cliff-top often. Just to be alone. It wasn't like I had anything to complain about. Certainly not with the way I was being treated. The whole community on the island was friendly, and I wasn't singled out because I was different. After all, Hendriks was different, and he was running the place.

Apart from him, there were four or five of us, but the others were all ‘attached' in one way or another.

They had let me use my expertise to revamp the security systems on the island, and in the four months since I had arrived, they'd done what they could to fill my shopping list of gadgets to make the island and its activities ‘invisible' to the outside world. If anyone in that world was bothering to look in our direction in the first place.

Anything more than a few hundred clicks west of the Ranges seemed to hold no interest for anyone. There were enough mineral resources along the east coast and on the Fringes to keep the whole population of Deucalion occupied for another fifty years, so it wasn't worth the expense of looking further afield. Especially not as far as the inland sea. The island was as safe as anywhere.

They tried to make me welcome. I was invited to all the gatherings, where people made an effort to talk to me. And as far as Elena was concerned, I was still like a favourite uncle. A favourite, retarded uncle.

I kept remembering the reception I'd got from Gwen, that first night on the flyer. She'd seemed distant to me, patronising almost, even though I was maybe four years older than her. Getting to know her later, I realised that she really wasn't like that at all. In fact, except when she was preparing for a mission, she was a lot of fun.

But she was different from me. They all were. It was a fact of life, and I couldn't escape it.

Up there on the cliff-top, I was alone. But no more alone than I felt in the middle of the group, with them all carrying on conversations around me that I had no chance of becoming a part of.

To be fair, from time to time they would strike up a conversation in language I could understand, but you could see they were making the effort for my benefit. Even Elena, who until four months earlier had known only one language . . . even Elena needed to concentrate to remember that she had to say the words aloud.

Hendriks didn't seem to worry about it. But then, he was so obsessed with the problem of reversing the ‘ageing factor' that he often didn't emerge from his lab for days at a time. When I did get to talk to him, it was usually about his work, and his efforts on behalf of ‘the kids'.

You see, apart from Hendriks, at twenty-two years old Standard, I was the oldest person on the island.

In the beginning, he informed me, there were a few more like him, but they had since died; some ‘mysteriously', some of natural causes. Together, years earlier back on Earth, they had begun the rescue operation. Now ‘the kids' were basically running it themselves, and he was desperately trying to find a way to keep them alive past the age of forty.

How can I explain the island – or ‘the kids'?

I guess the only way is to try to fit together the bits and pieces I managed to drag out of Hendriks during my time on the island, and what I learned later from others. No one ever sat down and told me the whole story. Maybe nobody knew the whole story.

Anyway, here goes:

The story began back on Old Earth, around 2195
ad
. I'm still not exactly sure of the conversion scale, but that would put it about half a century, Earth standard, after the foundation of the colony on Deucalion, or around seventy Earth years before I ended up on the island. When you try to do the conversions between one planet and another, it's easy to get messed up, so let's just say it was somewhere around that long. Of course, for most of the individuals involved, fifty of those years were spent in stasis, travelling from Earth to here.

But actually, the story began with the establishment of the settlement on Deucalion.

Being human, and not having too much respect for anything that wasn't human, the colonists on the first C-ship decided that, rather than send the ship back empty, the scientists back home might like to take a look at the Elokoi firsthand. So they kidnapped a couple of the creatures, put them into freeze-sleep, and sent them off.

Of course, it wasn't until after the ship was on its way that they discovered the Elokoi's Gift. And they had no idea of the effect the freeze-sleep would have on a mind that remained awake for the entire fifty years, even while the body was in stasis.

By the time the creatures reached Earth, fifty years of solitary confinement had reduced them to madness, but that didn't stop their arrival being treated as an event among scientists. After all, while the ship had been in transit, hundreds of warp-shuttles had made the two year round trip out to Deuc and back to the mother-planet, many of them with news of the Elokoi and their ‘special capabilities'. So they were a long-awaited happening.

By then the World Government had passed a whole range of Native Species Protection Acts, which made it illegal to do what had already been done fifty years before. There were also strict rules against the ‘unauthorised manipulation of human genetic material'. Which is why the
Icarus Project
, as it was codenamed, was so secret.

It was simple in theory. The minds of the unfortunate Elokoi were gone, but their genetic material was intact, and locked inside those genes was the secret to the mind-power that men had dreamed of for millennia. If the responsible genes could be isolated, telepathy was within their reach.

The gene-cluster was located, and a secret batch of forty or fifty embryos was created, with surrogate mothers hired to bring them to birth. None of the mothers knew the nature of the experiment. They were just poor women, offered what was, by their standards, a huge amount of money to have a baby and keep quiet about where it came from.

But there was a leak somewhere. No one knows who or what alerted the authorities, but the net began to close and the scientists panicked.

By that stage, the first generation of Icarus kids were about two or three years old. Suddenly they started disappearing. Hendriks was a newly Funded Researcher assigned to the Seoul Facility, and he came across the project by accident, at just about the time when the Grants Council pulled the plug on the group involved, and issued the ‘termination' order. Under the Act, the children were ‘unauthorised and illegal experimental material, subject to summary termination'.

The whole thing was never made public, of course. It was an election year and the moral arguments on both sides could have proved politically damaging, so it was all swept under the rug, with everyone sworn to silence on pain of a cancellation of their Funding.

I wonder, sometimes, if it was just the nature of the experiment that prompted the reaction. If it had been different, if it hadn't involved such a potentially powerful ability, would they have been allowed to live anyway? But I guess the decision-makers got nervous.

How many politicians could stand the thought of a whole group of people out there being able to tell what really went on behind the big smiles and the baby-kissing?

Whatever the reason, Hendriks and a few of his closest friends were unwilling to regard the kids as ‘experimental material', so they worked out a rescue strategy. The colonisation drive was in full swing by then, and for a little extra money they were able to persuade most of the surrogates to make the move before the authorities caught up with them. Those who didn't agree were persuaded to give the babies up for adoption, and other potential immigrants were found.

The deal was a good one for the mothers. There wasn't exactly anything on Earth that they'd want to hang around for, and the amount they were paid, plus the fifty years of interest it earned while they were in transit, meant they would never have to worry about money again. A change of identity, and they were ready to go.

Hendriks applied for reassignment to the Facility at Edison, so that he could make certain nothing went wrong at the other end, and the rescue was on.

Of the forty or fifty original children, they managed to save around thirty or thirty-five, who arrived in the colony with new names and no idea of their past. All reference to the
Icarus Project
was removed from the mainframe database on Earth and on Deucalion and that was the end of it.

The children grew up showing little evidence of the abilities the scientists had hoped for and the politicians had feared. Hendriks kept track of them over the years. As they matured and began to have children of their own, he was able to stay in the background, watching, and building his career at the Facility.

Then Gaston rose to prominence, and the Icarus children began dying . . .

HENDRIKS

The screen was filled with endless columns of data, which the program had selected as possibly important. Strings of DNA code-symbols, compared and contrasted by a machine which could operate at the speed of light, spitting out calculations and information as fast as he could request them, but showing all the insight of a plate of pasta.

Which I could do with, just at this moment.

Hendriks allowed the thought to break his concentration. The whole line of enquiry was wrong anyway, and he knew it. What he needed was a completely new approach, but he was too tired to work out where to begin.

Time was running out for his charges, and he had run out of ideas. It wasn't the sort of research you should attempt to run on your own, but who else was there? Who else could he trust?

He sank his head in his hands, and closed his eyes.

Gwen would be halfway to Edison by now. The pick-up was scheduled for just before midnight; usually the safest time. But safe or not, he could never relax until they were safely back.

He stood up and moved across to the window, looking out over the lush greenery of the forest. It was the main reason he had chosen the island. It provided protection, and it reminded him of his childhood on the island-province of Tasmania. One of the last true wilderness areas of Old Earth.

How long ago it seemed. How long ago it was. And how far away.

He was weary. He would sleep . . . No time. Tomorrow, maybe. With a long, last look at the wall of trees beyond the glass, he turned back to the machine.

17

RENDEZVOUS

Central Greenspace, Edison

16/11/101 Standard

JANE

Hidden just inside the cover of the trees, the man stood with two small children. The girl, who was about two or three years old, was crying quietly, and he reached down awkwardly to touch her hair, as he tried to support the baby with his other arm.

It was dark. Deucalion's twin moons were at opposite ends of their cycles; their crescents hung in the sky like a pair of parentheses, bracketing nothing. We were taking turns watching the man through one of the hi-resolution 'scopes which Denny had ‘liberated' from the Security stores. The 'scope was switched to infra-red at maximum magnification, and we could see and hear everything.

‘Come on, Mariella.' He sounded tired, and there was a pleading tone to his voice as he spoke to the little girl. ‘I need you to be brave. You promised Mummy, remember?'

The girl looked up and wiped her eyes. ‘Where's Mummy?'

For a moment the man didn't reply. Then he crouched down, trying not to disturb the sleeping baby, and looked into the little girl's eyes.

‘Mummy's gone away, Marrie. The bad people sent her away. She won't be coming back. Now we have to go, or the bad people will come for us. I need you to be brave. Just for a little while. Soon our friends will come and we'll be safe.'

The little girl said nothing and the man stood up again, switching the baby from one arm to the other. The child stirred in its sleep then settled again, and the man stared up into the sky, facing west. Waiting.

Five minutes later a flyer swooped down from overhead and came to rest a few metres from the group. Denny was in motion before the supports had settled onto the grass of the Greenspace. I had to run to keep up with him.

As I ran, I watched a group of four or five young people climb down from the flyer and approach the man and his children. The 'scope was hanging from my neck and I supported it as I moved, but it was switched off and there was no chance of listening in to what was being said beneath the trees.

A few metres from the flyer, Denny dived to the ground and began shuffling up to the vehicle, commando-style. I crouched in the shadow of a bush and watched.

He reached the flyer and slapped the magnetic tagging disk hard against one of the support struts. The flyer was situated between my vantage point and the group under the trees, so I was blind to what was going on. I switched on the 'scope and pointed it in the direction of the group, but the bulk of the flyer muffled the sounds of conversation.

I was concentrating hard and watching Denny crawling back, when I felt a faint buzzing, like an itch deep inside my head, where I couldn't scratch. It was only momentary, but it disturbed me. I let the 'scope fall and shook my head to get rid of the dizzy feeling. Then I heard the voice. Perhaps ‘heard' is the wrong word. ‘Felt' is probably more accurate.

– Your name . . . is Jane?

The words formed in my mind and the buzzing returned.

– I feel your thoughts, but they are . . . strange. Weak, and hard to read. Why are you here, Jane?

As I watched, a young woman stepped around the flyer and into the pool of light formed by one of its landing lights. She was looking straight at me – straight
into
me – and as I looked back, I felt a strange . . . peace spread over me.

– Do
not be afraid. We are . . .

At that moment, she caught sight of Denny stranded halfway between the flyer and the safety of the bushes. He was only a few metres from her, and as she approached him, he stood to face her. But there was no struggle.

The girl approached almost casually, and reached out her arm as if she wished to shake his hand. But as he raised his own, I saw a bright blue flash leap from her hand to his, and he collapsed. For a moment I was frozen to the spot. Then I started running towards them. I reached her, pushed her away, and fell to my knees over him.

‘What have you done to him?' I shouted the words as I turned to look up at her.

There was no emotion on her face as she replied, ‘He will be fine. A small taser charge. In an hour or so he will come around, with nothing more than a headache. But you . . . we knew nothing about you. How did you know where to find us? We—'

She got no further. Suddenly, my fear and anger exploded and I leapt at her, my fingers grasping for her throat.

As if she knew my intention, she simply swayed backwards and placed her leg out in front of me, so that my momentum carried me over it, and I found myself sprawling at her feet.

She leaned over as if to help me up, but as her hand came close, I saw the small black box she held in her palm. She depressed a small button, and everything went black . . .

17/11/101 Standard

DENNY

The world swam into focus, and the first sensation he could feel was the dew soaking into his shirt, as he lay on his back, staring at the sky.

He tried to get up, but he was still paralysed. He felt a fleeting moment of terror, then forced it down. It was not permanent; with effort, he could move his fingers. Just a touch, but the movement was coming back. It was another fifteen minutes before he could struggle to a sitting position and take stock of what had happened.

The flyer was gone, of course. And so was Jane. The knowledge sat in his heart like a piece of glass.
She should never have come. You should never have asked her.
The small voice of self-accusation sounded in the back of his mind, but he pushed it away. Time for the guilt trip later. Right now he had to think. He had to find a way to get her back.

They had taken her with them, that was obvious, so they had a reason for wanting her. That meant that she was almost certainly still alive. They had not killed him, so they were unlikely to do worse to her. Breathing space. But why Jane? Why not him? Why not both of them?

He dragged himself across to where his backpack lay beneath one of the bushes. His legs were still too rubbery to take his weight, and he sat rummaging through the sack, looking for the location-finder.

Taking it out, he keyed in the activation sequence. Almost instantaneously, the vid-screen lit up. But instead of a set of coordinates, there was a message:
Unit is not operational at this time . . .

Not operational. Damned microchip double-talk! What did that mean, ‘Not operational'? That they'd found the beacon and destroyed it? Or that they were still on the move, and the motion-detection screening was preventing the signal from getting through? There was no way of knowing. All he could do was keep trying. And hoping.

But why Jane? Why immobilise him, and take her? It didn't make sense. Which should come as no surprise. Nothing about this whole mess made any sense.

He tried the screen again, but the message was the same.
Unit is not operational at this time . . .

Placing the instrument back into his bag, Denny Woods reached down and began trying to massage the life back into his legs.