Kate Wilhelm in Orbit - Volume One (7 page)

A car horn blasted in his ears. He switched off his ignition and he got out as Stu Evers parked next to his car. “I see the old bats got here,” Stu said. He walked toward the lab with Darin. “How’s the Driscoll kid coming along?”

“Negative,” Darin said. Stu knew they had tried using human sRNA on the boy, and failed consistently. It was too big a step for his body to cope with. “So far he has shown total intolerance to A-127. “Throws it off almost instantly.”

Stuart was sympathetic and noncommittal. No one else had any faith whatever in Darin’s own experiment. A-127 might be too great a step upward, Darin thought. “The
Ateles
spider monkey from Brazil was too bright.

He called Kelly from his office and asked about the newly arrived spider monkeys they had tested the day before. Blood had been processed; a sample was available. He looked over his notes and chose one that had shown interest in the tasks without finishing any of them. Kelly promised him the prepared syringe by 1
p.m.

What no one connected with the project could any longer doubt was that those simians, and the men that had been injected with sRNA from the Driscoll boy, had actually had their learning capacities inhibited, some of them apparently permanently.

Darin didn’t want to think about Mrs. Driscoll’s reaction if ever she learned how they had been using her boy. Rae sat at the corner of his desk and drawled insolently, “I might tell her myself, Dr. Darin. I’ll say. Sorry, Ma’am, you’ll have to keep your idiot out of here; you’re damaging the brains of our monkeys with his polluted blood. Okay, Darin?”

“My God, what are you doing back again?”

“Testing,” she said. “That’s all, just testing.”

Stu called him to observe the latest challenge to Adam’s group, to take place in forty minutes. Darin had forgotten that he was to be present. During the night a tree had been felled in each compound, its trunk crossing the small stream, damming it. At eleven the water fountains were to be turned off for the rest of the day. The tree had been felled at the far end of the compound, close to the wall where the stream entered, so that the trickle of water that flowed past the hut was cut off. Already the group not taking sRNA was showing signs of thirst. Adam’s group was unaware of the interrupted flow.

Darin met Stu and they walked together to the far side where they would have a good view of the entire compound. The women had left by then. “It was too quiet for them this morning,” Stu said. “Adam was making his rounds; he squatted on the felled tree for nearly an hour before he left it and went back to the others.”

They could see the spreading pool of water. It was muddy, uninviting looking. At eleven-ten it was generally known within the compound that the water supply had failed. Some of the old chimps tried the fountain; Adam tried it several times. He hit it with a stick and tried it again. Then he sat on his haunches and stared at it. One of the young chimps whimpered pitiably. He wasn’t thirsty yet, merely puzzled and perhaps frightened. Adam scowled at him. The chimp cowered behind Hortense, who bared her fangs at Adam. He waved menacingly at her, and she began picking fleas from her offspring. When he whimpered again, she cuffed him. The young chimp looked from her to Adam, stuck his forefinger in his mouth and ambled away. Adam continued to stare at the useless fountain. An hour passed. At last Adam rose and wandered nonchalantly toward the drying stream. Here and there a shrinking pool of muddy water steamed in the sun. The other chimps followed Adam. He followed the stream through the compound toward the wall that was its source. When he came to the pool he squatted again. One of the young chimps circled the pool cautiously, reached down and touched the dirty water, drew back, reached for it again, and then drank. Several of the others drank also. Adam continued to squat. At twelve-forty Adam moved again. Grunting and gesturing to several younger males, he approached the tree-trunk. With much noise and meaningless gestures, they shifted the trunk. They strained, shifted it again. The water was released and poured over the heaving chimps. Two of them dropped the trunk and ran. Adam and the other two held. The two returned.

They were still working when Darin had to leave, to keep his appointment with Mrs. Driscoll and Sonny. They arrived at one-ten. Kelly had left the syringe with the new formula in Darin’s small refrigerator. He injected Sonny, took his sample, and started the tests. Sometimes Sonny cooperated to the extent of lifting one of the articles from the table and throwing it. Today he cleaned the table within ten minutes. Darin put a piece of candy in his hand; Sonny threw it from him. Patiently Darin put another piece in the boy’s hand. He managed to keep the eighth piece in the clenched hand long enough to guide the hand to Sonny’s mouth. When it was gone, Sonny opened his mouth for more. His hands lay idly on the table. He didn’t seem to relate the hands to the candy with the pleasant taste. Darin tried to guide a second to his mouth, but Sonny refused to hold a piece a second time.

When the hour was over and Sonny was showing definite signs of fatigue, Mrs. Driscoll clutched Darin’s hands in hers. Tears stood in her eyes. “You actually got him to feed himself a little bit,” she said brokenly. “God bless you, Dr. Darin. God bless you!” She kissed his hand and turned away as the tears started to spill down her cheeks.

Kelly was waiting for him when the group left. She collected the new sample of blood to be processed. “Did you hear about the excitement down at the compound? Adam’s building a dam of his own.”

Darin stared at her for a moment. The breakthrough? He ran back to the compound. The near side this time was where the windows were being used. It seemed that the entire staff was there, watching silently. He saw Stu and edged in by him. The stream twisted and curved through the compound, less than ten inches deep, not over two feet anywhere. At one spot stones lay under it; elsewhere the bottom was of hard-packed sand. Adam and his crew were piling up stones at the one suitable place for their dam, very near their hut. The dam they were building was two feet thick. It was less than five feet from the wall, fifteen feet from where Darin and Stu shared the window. When the dam was completed, Adam looked along the wall. Darin thought the chimp’s eyes paused momentarily on his own. Later he heard that nearly every other person watching felt the same momentary pause as those black, intelligent eyes sought out and held other intelligence.

“…next thunderstorm. Adam and the flood…”

“…eventually seeds instead of food…”

“…his brain. Convolutions as complex as any man’s.”

Darin walked away from them, snatches of future plans in his ears. There was a memo on his desk. Jacobsen was turning over the SPCA investigatory committee to him. He was to meet with the university representatives, the local SPCA group, and the legal representatives of all concerned on Monday next at 10
a.m
. He wrote out his daily report on Sonny Driscoll. Sonny had been on too good behavior for too long. Would this last injection give him just the spark of determination he needed to go on a rampage? Darin had alerted Johnny, the bodyguard, whoops, male nurse, for just such a possibility, but he knew Johnny didn’t think there was any danger from the kid. He hoped Sonny wouldn’t kill Johnny, then turn on his mother and father. He’d probably rape his mother, if that much goal-directedness ever flowed through him. And the three men who had volunteered for the injections from Sonny’s blood? He didn’t want to think of them at all, therefore couldn’t get them out of his mind as he sat at his desk staring at nothing. Three convicts. That’s all, just convicts hoping to get a parole for helping science along. He laughed abruptly. They weren’t planning anything now. Not that trio. Not planning for a thing. Sitting, waiting for something to happen, not thinking about what it might be, or when, or how they would be affected. Not thinking. Period.

“But you can always console yourself that your motives were pure, that it was all for Science, can’t you, Dr. Darin?” Rae asked mockingly.

He looked at her. “Go to hell,” he said.

It was late when he turned off his light. Kelly met him in the corridor that led to the main entrance. “Hard day, Dr. Darin?”

He nodded. Her hand lingered momentarily on his arm. “Good night,” she said, turning in to her own office. He stared at the door for a long time before he let himself out and started toward his car. Lea would be furious with him for not calling. Probably she wouldn’t speak at all until nearly bedtime, when she would explode into tears and accusations. He could see the time when her tears and accusations would strike home, when Kelly’s body would still be a tangible memory, her words lingering in his ears. And he would lie to Lea, not because he would care actually if she knew, but because it would be expected. She wouldn’t know how to cope with the truth. It would entangle her to the point where she would have to try an abortive suicide, a screaming-for-attention attempt that would ultimately tie him in tear-soaked knots that would never be loosened. No, he would lie, and she would know he was lying, and they would get by. He started the car, aimed down the long sixteen miles that lay before him. He wondered where Kelly lived. What it would do to Stu when he realized. What it would do to his job if Kelly should get nasty, eventually. He shrugged. Barbie dolls never got nasty. It wasn’t built in.

Lea met him at the door, dressed only in a sheer gown, her hair loose and unsprayed. Her body flowed into his, so that he didn’t need Kelly at all. And he was best man when Stu and Kelly were married. He called to Rae, “Would that satisfy you?” but she didn’t answer. Maybe she was gone for good this time. He parked the car outside his darkened house and leaned his head on the steering wheel for a moment before getting out. If not gone for good, at least for a long time. He hoped she would stay away for a long time.

• • •

Windsong

(Orbit 4 — 1968)

We are three. We drive along the coast slowly until Paula says, “This one.” Then we get out of the car and walk around the house nonchalantly, wade through the dunes to the ocean and swim there alone, away from the crowds that form a solid crust like soiled snow up and down the public beaches. How Paula knows this house is empty, but not that one, we don’t know. She is never wrong. Subliminal signs that only she can perceive? A shade drawn wrong, a chair outside that should have been moved from the sun, a garment, long since dried, sun-bleached even, still flapping in the wind? We never know, and she can’t tell us.

Paula is the windsong, quick, nimble, restless, long hair salt-dulled most of the time, too thin, sharp elbows, knees, cheekbones, collarbones. No makeup; she is in too much of a hurry. A nail breaks and she bites it even again. She never pauses to examine anything; her restless gaze flicks here and there, noting perhaps, not lingering, and she says, “We have to go back. A storm is coming.” How does she know?

Gregory says she noticed the grey in the water far out near the horizon. That and the feel of the wind on her skin, and the way the clouds scudded now, all were clues for her. But he can’t tell when a storm is coming. Gregory is her twin brother. Both are fifteen this summer. Gregory is the rock around which the wind sings and flutters, departing to pry into this and that, but always whirling back again. Gregory can give reasons for most of her conclusions, but he can’t reach the conclusions intuitively as she can.

Dan Thornton stirred in his seat and opened his eyes slowly. There was no sound that had roused him, nothing out of the ordinary. He listened for a moment to the familiar soft humming of the computer at his right side and before his gaze turned to it he knew the rippling play of lights would be normal. The instrument panel before him showed nothing abnormal either, no flashing amber light, or worse, the steady throbbing of the red light. Systems okay. He yawned and stretched. Time to make the routine checks. He opened and closed relays, turned the television camera on and studied the passengers, all piled in boxes like rows of frozen goods on a supermarket shelf; he turned the camera off again. Readings on his instruments, all normal. He got out the food capsules carefully, and put them on a sectioned dish and slid it into the recon unit. He waited until the light went on, killing two more minutes, then slowly drew out the dish of scrambled eggs and bacon, toast and honey. He dropped another capsule into a cup and slid it in, then sat down with his breakfast. Presently he had coffee and his first cigarette. He looked over the book titles on the spools. He dropped the spool he selected and some of the thread-tape unwound as it rolled across the cabin. He kicked it hard and abruptly sat down. The computer was calling him.

The alarm clock hummed, and Thornton woke up groggily, feeling the ache of unrested muscles. He turned off the clock before it could start its second phase: a raucous buzz that sounded like fifty men with fifty saws clearing a swath through a forest. His hand left the clock and groped for his notebook and he wrote down the dream details before they began to flit away. He paused and tried to remember something: a dream within the dream? Nothing came of it, and he wrote about the cabin he had seen, and the books on spools like thread. The re-constituter for food struck him as a particularly good idea, one he had never encountered before. He finished the dream sequence and only then stretched and felt each muscle protest again.

He padded in bare feet across the room to the bathroom and stood under a hot shower for ten minutes. The icy follow-up failed to revive him and he knew that his efficiency would be at about 60% of normal unless he took his zoom-wowie pills. He looked at the small bottle disdainfully, but swallowed two capsules and only then looked at his face.

“This is the way we start most of our days, old man,” he said to the face. “Aches, try to shock the system into awareness, then the pep pills and a gallon of coffee. It’s no good, old man. You know it’s no good.”

The old man in the mirror didn’t answer, and he was almost sorry. The day the image did answer, he’d quit, just walk out and never come back, and that would be nice. Shaving, he repeated to himself, emphasizing each syllable of it, “That would be nice!”