The Braided World (10 page)

There was static for a few moments. Then Webb said,
People are afraid, Captain. We thought we had this licked. We don't.

“I'm sorry I'm not there to help you,” Anton murmured.

We don't want you here. We're infected, for God's sake … Sorry sir. Tempers are a little frayed tonight.

“Keep me posted, then, Sergeant.”
Keep them loyal
, he wanted to say. Anton hoped Webb had it in him. He was a good man, middle-aged, a lifer in the service. He was also a long associate of Captain Darrow, and would have gone to the wall for him. But loyalties, Anton knew, didn't mutate as fast as microbes.

He put Zhen on the comm. She talked directly to the medical staff, and by her expression, learning more did not improve her mood.

Anton turned to his groundside crew They all looked sober. The
Restoration
was now under the command of a sergeant. The virus was back, or one of its cousins. More virulent than before, more canny than before. Anton didn't want to think that the virus ravaging the ship wasn't done with them yet. But maybe it wouldn't be satisfied until it was the only living thing left on board. He stared at the floor. He and Phillip Strahan had played cards, been rac-quetball partners on board, been friends. They were all friends—all forty of them who set out on the mission, all thirty who remained. As Anton looked at the faces of the ground team, he felt a terrible helplessness. As captain, his job was to protect them.
Not doingmyjob
, he thought.

When Zhen joined them again, they considered their situation among the Dassa. Zhen looked bleak. “We could be exposing the Dassa,” she said bluntly.

Bailey snapped, “We've been over this before. We're all showing negative for antibodies.”

“The tests are meaningless,” Zhen said, “if the virus is hiding in a reservoir in the body or if it takes several weeks—which it could—for antibodies to develop.”

Bailey sniffed. “We waited a decent interval to come down. We've done what we can. We're not even sure the Dassa are vulnerable to human diseases.”

Anton saw the look on her face, the one that said,
It's already been decided.
“Zhen,” Anton said, “we'll begin testing on a daily schedule.”

Nick jumped in, asking, “What's this business about the virus being smart?”

“Nothing ludicrous, Venning.” Zhen smirked. “Did you think viruses had little meetings to decide how to be nasty?” When he didn't rise to the bait, she went on, “We've seen this kind of thing before, back home. It's like the virus has its basic genetic material, kind of like a computer's data cube. Sometimes, a virus emerges that can scan the cube, turning off and on various genetic programs and databases. Or they can snatch information off of plasmids and transposons drifting by that carry bits of genetic data and programming. They turn stuff on and try it, and then try something else. It's faster than random mutations from reproduction.” She shook her head at Nick, at the expression of bafflement on his face. “If this stuff was simple, would Earth be dying? Think about it, Venning.”

He turned away. They had all grown silent.

Bailey stood in the center of the room. “I suggest we go easy on each other.” She eyed Zhen and Nick. “A 11 of us. We need to hold together, and bickering doesn't help. Carry on, Captain,” she added. “I'm with you, of course.”

It was a good speech, and Anton thanked her as the group dispersed, each member looking for time alone with his or her thoughts.

Anton judged that the sun was about to give up for the day and he raised the blind, then ducked out for fresher air.

Nick stood behind him. “Captain, I'm sorry.”

Anton turned to face him. “Forget it, Nick. I think we're going to need each other, more than ever. Can we put the past behind us?”

There was a lot of past involved. He wondered, if he was in Nick's place, how hard it would be to watch Nick take command and make judgments he would not make.

Nick nodded, making eye contact fleetingly but making it. “Yes, sir.”

It was the right thing to say. Anton didn't ask for enthusiasm, though it would have been nice. He just needed the
Yes, sir.
That was how the military operated. Friendship had to fill in the spaces. Or not.

Left alone, Anton stared out at the burnished red of the river, dyed by the sunset. A thought that had been nagging at him now came into focus. If Webb hadn't initiated contact this evening, Anton would have. Because there was a task left uncompleted.

Back in communication with the ship, Anton asked Webb to bring in another satellite for inspection. There were four satellites, and so far the crew had taken apart just one. Duplicate satellites could have been used to assure that over thousands of years the broadcasting function would remain despite meteorite damage or system failure. Quite possibly all the units were the same, but Anton wanted to be sure.

Webb resisted the order. Crew were taxed too far as it was, he said, and there was no time or resources for extras. Eventually, under a direct order, he agreed, but Anton had not helped his relationship with the man.

It was time, though, to call in favors, to play his strongest cards. If the science team was under stress now, what would things be like if the contagion spread? He didn't want to think it, but it was conceivable that the ship and its crew might not have much time left.

Worst case, they had no time left at all.

Before dawn, Anton slipped into the lagoon. This
remote area of the palace grounds was deserted at this hour, a welcome relief after the long session on the radio with Sergeant Webb.

The banks of the pond were slick with mud, but erupting here and there with brassy green leaves, sprouting from rhizomes. It was a world returning from the flood. Swimming through the cool recesses of the cove, Anton submerged into the black waters. He felt his hair lifting in the water, his skin tightened to the cold plaits of the current. He surfaced, dove again, but his thoughts followed him.

He did have faith in the crew. The ship's science team was capable of powerful responses to infections, genetically designing many different classes of antivirals, engaging in the usual dance of drugs and resistance factors. Now, however, it seemed the microbes had learned some new steps…

Webb's desperate voice needled at him:
We don't want you here. We're infected, for God's sake.

No one called it a plague ship. No one needed to. They
could turn around and go home, but what were the chances any of them would be left alive by the time they returned to Earth?

In the midst of this crisis, Webb kept up the reconnaissance flights, using the ship's atmospheric drone. They agreed on a sustained survey of the upcountry areas, the lands of canyons and clouds, but weather decreased the imaging success. Add to this the task of the capturing and reverse engineering of the second satellite, and the depleted crew would be very busy indeed. But better that way— keeping busy, fending off anxiety.

Anton let the black water take the night's work from his body and from his mind.

Finding the bottom, he stood up in the rich muck, shoulders above the surface. He didn't know if this was a permanent lagoon, but by the position of the arched bridge nearby, he guessed there was at least a dry season stream here.

The dawn sifted into the palace compound with fingers of delicate light. But in this tucked-away place, surrounded by a screen of trees and far from the main byways, the night still clung.

Over the tops of the trees he could see the highest levels of the palace, looking like celestial floating cabanas, a dwelling place of the gods. Corrupt gods, certainly, strong on privilege and light on mercy. Much like his own family estate, with its hereditary wealth and power, where during one virulent outbreak of superresistant bacteria, his father had sent Anton's mother out the door in the estate wall. She never came back. It was only a week later that his sister also went through the little door in the wall. Anton stood in the garden, meeting her eyes. In that moment Anton's heart turned against his father, and years later, the day Anton left, he told his father why. They'd never spoken again.

The military had taken him in, and it became his home, Spartan and satisfying. Now, in this world of dynasty he was once again entwined with the aristocracy—as Nick was so
swift to point out—those with the power to wear silk and clip tongues.

He swam to the bridge and under it, into the shadows. His hand touched something. It twitched. Recoiling, Anton found the bottom with his feet, and backed away

Near the edge of the bridge, he saw a group of plants moving. They were like the other vines along the shore, but fleshy and swollen, with a vaselike structure opening up, peeling away. One of the pouches disgorged a tiny gecko. He'd seen such plants before, what the Dassa called
fulva
, varieties of birthing pouches, half vegetable, half animal. But it was always unnerving.

Some of the crew casually called this prevalent fulva mechanism a mutation. But the science team agreed it wasn't a random mutation. The birthing pouches of both humans and other animals were deliberate, an effective device to rapidly build populations. That was the prevailing theory. The Quadi had started with zero individuals, and had to bring the population to sizable numbers, including a rich genetic diversity. They'd altered the genomes, designing a reproductive process that could create a population virtually overnight. With plants, though, seeds could do that. It was just the animals that required modification.

The process was in some ways not so different from creating proteins as the bases of biotech drugs. Human technology could clone living gene sequences useful in treating disease, by growing them first in host cells and then in nutrient broths. The excruciating difference here was that the Quadi had begun with digital information, not a biologically active molecule. This old race could not only reproduce life, but create it.

He dove again, into the cleansing black waters, tunneling into the deepest part of the lagoon.

When he next broke the surface, he had company.

A Dassa woman stood on the bridge, looking at him. Except for her light-colored gown, he wouldn't have seen her in the shadows of this place. They stared at each other.

She approached, stepping off the bridge and picking her way down the muddy bank to stand by the water's edge.

“I am Maypong,” the woman said. She bore a package in her arms, and now undid it—or rather, unfolded it, for it was a length of cloth. “Here is a cloth to dry yourself.”

It was a polite command to get out of the water, but he saw no reason to jump to her command.

“I'm swimming,” Anton said.

“Oh yes. But now I have found you before damage is done.” She shook the towel at him.

“Does the cove belong to someone?”

“The king is happy to share his cove with you. But not for—swimming. “

“I thought the Dassa swim every morning.” From early dawn, the river was full of boats, men and women paddling to the variums of the uldia.

The woman frowned. “In the Olagong, we do not swim in the free waters. It is a private varium duty of procreation. To swim otherwise is exceedingly distasteful, if others should see you thus.”

Distasteful to swim. Nick would love this: For all their sexual abandon, they were sensitive about the procreative act. Giving up on his swim, Anton moved to the bank and climbed out, where she wrapped a cloth around him.

As he dried himself, she went on, “The king has appointed me your chancellor, so future mistakes need not occur.”

“Chancellor?”
Anton said. “I'm no royal, to need a chancellor.”

“No need? When you swim publicly? Offend the king? Go through walls of course?”

Someone was keeping lists. He wondered if buttons and failing to bed the princess were on her list as well.

He dressed as she watched him. “Shim has been advising me,” he said.

Maypong brushed this aside. “Shim advises the king, and
has a babe on her back, Anton.” She said his name better than other Dassa.

Looking up, he squinted at her in the semilight. If he was to have a personal attendant, perhaps it was a sign of the king's favor. If Maypong could help him, she would be very welcome. But if she was here to keep him from breaking the rules, by God, they might clash. “Maypong,” he said, “if you're going to be my chancellor, I hope you'll teach me everything. Not just what you think I should know, but what
I
think I should know.”

“A little of each, perhaps,” she answered with a more pleasant tone. Folding the cloth he'd used for a towel, she watched with curiosity as he threaded laces through his shoes.

He smiled up at her. It was a fair thing to say.

“When you learn every needful thing, you will be fit to go among us.”

Anton got to his feet. Was she saying he would be free to leave the palace? “In Lolo?” he asked.

“The Olagong is larger than Lolo. We would have you know we are not hiding things. Not hiding messages.”

Nearer her now, he saw that she was shorter than he by a little. And that she looked familiar. He would have offered a hand to help her up the mud bank to the bridge, but of course one did not offer a hand to a Dassa.