Species (2 page)

It was time for the final check of his shift, so he swallowed the last spoonful of soup then plucked the clipboard holding the transmission monitor record out of its slot and stood. Filling out the list would start him at the computer to his far left and from there he would work his way across the room. He already knew that his clipboard would look the same as it had every day since he’d started this job two months ago: a line of
Xs
along the left margin in the “yes” box under the heading
Transmitting Properly,
and three
Xs
along the right in the “none” boxes under
Signals Received.
Some things just didn’t change—

—until a red light began to blink on the receiver four feet away and he saw the needles on the computer recording devices sitting steadily in the center of the red strip that indicated they were active.

Frowning, Miguel thought the equipment was malfunctioning until he checked the electronic readouts and realized this had been going on for at least two minutes and forty seconds. More checks and hastily typed computer commands told him that the signal coming in was not a malfunction, nor could it possibly originate from Earth. Everything indicated that it was a narrow radio wave from space rather than a wide communication band, and
that
suggested that it was from an artificial source, not a natural phenomenon. In short, he wasn’t sure
what
it was.

Miguel picked up the telephone and punched in the numbers that would connect him to the office of the head of the Observatory. He had no problem finding the correct number; it was written in indelible red marker across the bottom of every computer monitor in the room. He was particularly proud of his ability to speak clearly and concisely, with no trace of hysteria in his voice as he told the person on the other end that the facility was receiving a transmission from deep space, origin and type unknown. He listened to the man’s instructions, said “Yes, sir,” and hung up the telephone without a hint of fear in his tone.

While he waited for the Observatory officials to arrive he continued his work, as he had been instructed. But by the time Miguel and his clipboard stopped at the third of the trio of display and analysis systems, his hand was shaking so badly that the
X
he had put in the “yes” box in the
Signals Received
column looked more like a thick, sprawling arrow.

1993

“I
think I’m onto something,” Penny Garnock said. She leaned forward and peered intently at her computer monitor, nose nearly touching the glass. Brown hair the color of grocery bags feathered into her face and she blew it out of the way without changing position.

“You’ve said that before, wonder girl.” What he said aloud be damned, though, because inside Toyo Sagami was cheering her on with everything he had. He’d been at the NSA’s Ft. Meade, Maryland facility for two years since transferring from a smaller office in Columbus. This wasn’t the first time Toyo wished he’d had the sense to stay put, and he was sure it wasn’t the last. But . . .
damn.
Filed with his transfer request to Ft. Meade had been a carload of expectations—transferring so close to Washington, D.C.
had
to mean decoding covert operations plans, terrorist activity logs, you name it. He and Penny had gotten a few minor jobs over the past fourteen months or so, but they always ended up coming back to
this
one. Penny said she felt in her soul that it was based on the English language, but so far neither of them—or the other ten cryptanalysts working on the message—had gotten squat.

Toyo ran a hand through his thick black hair and typed in another experimental cipher-text code, with no result. He sighed; he’d run out of ideas on this project, and spending ninety-five percent of his time working on the same thing really sucked—especially when it was high pressure and higher competition. When the diskful of undecipherable text had first come in from Arecibo, Toyo had wanted more than anything to be the cryptanalyst who solved it. The secrets it might hold were endless—the potential keys to life in the unknown reaches of space, interstellar travel . . .
any
thing. The text was undoubtedly an asymmetric cryptosystem and now Toyo wished any
one
would break it—even sexy, shaggy-haired Penny, at whom he stayed perpetually angry because she wouldn’t go out with him.

“No, I mean
seriously.”
A decade and a half of staring at computer screens had gifted her with bifocals at thirty-nine, and now her eyes—the same beguiling paper-bag tan as her hair—squinted even more behind the lenses. She began banging savagely at her keyboard, and Toyo’s heart skipped slightly. She never typed like that unless she was close to success, he’d seen her do it before on the Devon Project—

“I’ve got it!” Penny said triumphantly. She whacked the enter key with enough force to make her keyboard extender vibrate, then sat back and watched the data on her screen begin to flow. There was a nerve-racking and uncommon one-second lag as the scalar processors in the SX-4 supercomputer worked their way through Penny’s final program commands, then Penny threw him a smug grin. At the same time she leaned back and crossed her hands behind her head, her gaze fixed to the monitor. Symbols that had only been a mystery moments before suddenly formed recognizable words:
methane . . . oxygen . . . fuel . . .
and more. When the message
ANALYSIS COMPLETE
flashed in the bottom left corner, she saved the file, flipped disks, and shoved in the one marked
Message No. 02.92/11/07.
Toyo watched open-mouthed as the symbols rearranged themselves and began to spell out the names and specific quantities of minerals, chemicals and enzymes.

“What on earth?” He abandoned his console and scooted his chair next to hers. “I . . . would you look at that!”

“It’s a DNA double helix,” Penny breathed. Her face was shining. “It’s a formula for . . .
life,
Toyo.

“From somewhere out
there.”

1

TODAY . . .
The Mojave Desert, California

“S
he knows.”

Dr. Xavier Fitch jerked at the unexpected sound of Kyle Jacobson’s voice, but the lab assistant didn’t care. “Don’t be absurd,” Fitch snapped. “She’s sleeping.” He bent his head back to his work and Kyle heard him mutter, more personal ranting about all the effort and wasted time, endless hours of research and reams of paper that had gone into this project. Kyle knew he was the only lab assistant Fitch thought might have a passably useful brain, and now he felt foolish, sniveling like a guilty five-year-old caught with his hand on the gearshift knob of the car. He didn’t care about that either.

“It doesn’t matter,” Kyle said softly. “She’s not stupid.” He ran his fingers through his too-long sandy hair and rubbed them together when they came out oily. His hair needed washing, but he hadn’t slept in thirty-six hours or been home since last Thursday—five days. He’d seen his wife a whopping three times since the final phase of the project had begun two weeks ago.

Fitch lifted his pen from the surface of the form he was filling out and from his position at the window ten feet away, Kyle could hear the noise the doctor’s teeth made as they ground together. The older man looked as if he were trying to restrain himself, then he gave in to the urge and slammed his pen on the desktop. Kyle jumped and glanced back at him, then turned back to the control booth’s window and stared out. After two years the lab still resembled a warehouse more than a scientific center, and no other vantage point in the cavernous room supported that view as strongly as this sealed observation booth. Twelve feet below was the transparent “cage” that had been completed only two weeks ago; clad in a hospital gown—at least it was one of the newer, flower-patterned ones—its occupant sprawled innocently across the width of a white-sheeted cot. Kyle was still stunned at how quickly she’d grown, but the baby-fine blond hair and guileless blue eyes undeniably belonged to a child; he estimated her age at twelve. She could’ve been an average teenager if it weren’t for the dozen or so wires running from the surface of her skin to machines and monitors parked around the interior of the glass enclosure. Other things were scattered around the girl’s cot, too: children’s picture books and a few soft toys, all examined and discarded almost immediately except for one miniature pink teddy bear. That one was tucked securely within the crook of one elbow as she slept.

“I think I have enough on my mind without listening to this crap.”

Fitch’s voice was cold and came from just behind Kyle’s left shoulder. The younger man couldn’t help flinching at the sound; sometimes Fitch moved too quietly, reminding him of an alley cat waiting for a rat to make the move that would turn out to be fatal. The man always seemed to have an unexpected move waiting in the wings. Techs and assistants scurried around the enclosure below them like highway personnel at the site of a car wreck, eyes gleaming with a frightening sort of kill-the-cat curiosity that Kyle found far too morbid. This whole thing bothered him more than it should have—the decoded message and instructions, the girl in the reinforced glass enclosure below, the decision to terminate the project.

Especially that.

“Go down and help them set it up.”

Horrified, Kyle gaped at Fitch.
“Me?”
As if she’d heard, the eyes of the girl below suddenly blinked open and looked up, seeking the observation booth and him automatically. Their gazes locked for a fraction of a second, then Kyle yanked his away. “But she trusts me!” he protested. “I can’t—”

“You can and you will,” interrupted Fitch. “This project is over and those are your instructions.”

Kyle opened his mouth, then shut it again. Punishment? Probably; his work here went a lot further back than two years, and if he blew it now by refusing direct instructions, his future would fade to nothing but a gray void. Fitch might think his work was decent—barely—but the wrong response could turn Kyle into just another member of the Fitch Lab Assistant Alumni. He gave a curt nod and headed down to the first level; what he did here today might haunt him for a while, but he wouldn’t spend the rest of his life working for Fitch and time would eventually dull the memory.

Sometimes the other workers down here reminded him of androids, robots in sheaths of human flesh doing Fitch’s bidding without question or emotion, mobile computers hardly capable of making an independent decision without additional input. In fact, the only thing that seemed alive down here right now was the girl, whom Fitch had code-named Sil for some unknown reason. Fitch insisted that it was nothing more than a randomly assigned computer code, but for all Kyle knew about the older man, the letters could have represented anything from Fitch’s mother’s initials to an obscure acronym known only to the doctor. In the lab area around Sil’s enclosure, the other workers moved with the practiced efficiency of those who had terminated projects before and knew exactly what was expected of them. The main monitors were being shut down by a dark-haired tech whose brilliant white lab coat made his sallow skin look unhealthy under the harsh fluorescent lighting; one by one, the machines inside the glass enclosure went dark as their power sources were disconnected. Kyle could see Sil sitting docilely on her cot, following the shutdown of the monitors with little turns of her head as the powerdown made a circle around her confined area. No one that Kyle could see would look Sil in the eye, and from his spot coming out of the elevator he saw her staring fixedly up at the control booth. When he followed her line of sight, he realized she and Fitch were in a staring match, a visual battle for dominance.

“Hey, Jacobson!” Kyle turned and saw one of the labor supervisors directing his men as they connected the feed lines from four slender tanks to closed valves at the bottom right corner of Sil’s glass cage. The heavyset man said something into a radio clipped to his left shoulder, then listened and nodded. “Dr. Fitch says he sent you down here to man the valves. We’re just about ready.”

Kyle nodded grimly but said nothing. It figured; he’d dared to show a little compassion, so Fitch would make him do the ultimate dirty work. By the time he reached the enclosure, Sil was standing again and watching the activities outside her window with narrow-eyed interest. The tanks were in place and the supervisor was doing a final check; clearly visible on the sides of all four tanks were the stenciled words
HYDROGEN CYANIDE.
Kyle reminded himself that it didn’t matter, Sil couldn’t read, but when she saw him she tapped urgently on the window and tried to get his attention. He forced himself to meet her gaze calmly, but couldn’t hold the connection. Was it fear he saw reflected in those clear blue eyes?

Now the lab area was nearly empty. The supervisor and his workers had made tracks as soon as the last valve was tightened, and the sick-looking medical tech had pulled the last of his power plugs and gotten the hell out. Only a few guards, Kyle, and two or three more technicians stuck it out. And Fitch, of course, lording high above them within his own disconnected world inside the control booth.