Vale of Stars (16 page)

“You’ll see,” she said puckishly, drawing some more water from the tap and adding the contents of the cylinder.

“Oh. Sugar, huh?” Rice said.

Yallia added more and more to the cup of water until Rice finally arrived and took the container. “I think that’s enough, dear,” he said kindly. Yallia took the cup and drank most of the water in a sustained gulp.

Yallia smiled brightly at him when she had finished. She laughed at the grimace on his face.

“
That’s
better,” Yallia said, wiping her mouth with her sleeve. “Here, Mr. Rice, you take some.”

“That’s okay, Yallia.” He pushed the tumbler away.

“No, go ahead. It’s really good.”

Rice looked uncertainly at the cup.

“Go ahead, Mr. Rice.” 

Rice downed the remainder of the drink, then coughed and spluttered, spraying the water out amid gales of laughter from Yallia.

“Salt!” he managed to croak. He recovered enough to laugh. “That’s disgusting! Why did you drink that, Yallia?”

“I told you. Because the water tasted funny before.” She eyed the salt container on the kitchenette counter. “But this made it better.” She stared at the salt container for a few more seconds, feeling a strange hunger. When she looked back at Rice, she was a little surprised to see what looked like fear in his eyes.

*   *   *

Dr. Onizaka had only spent four hours analyzing the genedata from Central, but she knew Tann would be pleased with what she had already found. She had not looked gene by gene but instead concentrated her search in the sectors of the DNA that would reveal if the project had produced a success. And it had.

She leaned back in her chair and savored the discovery for a moment before reaching for her intercom and calling Tann.

“Carll Tann,” his flat voice answered.

“We got it,” she said triumphantly.

“I’ll be right there.”

Twenty minutes later, Carll Tann entered her office and pointedly shut and locked the door behind him. He gave the holo a brief glance before rounding on her. “Well?”

“Yallia Verdafner’s DNA shows many of the same changes as the gengineered mammals I’ve made in the lab.” Onizaka said it simply, but the effect on Carll Tann was quite remarkable.

He balled his fist and pounded it into his hand, once, twice. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought the gesture was one of revenge finally realized.

“She’s a chlorine-breather?”

“That’s what the DNA says. I haven’t done a full analysis, of course—that’ll be a project for several years yet. But—”

“Will she breed true?”

The question surprised Onizaka. “Uh, I’m not sure. I guess so. This isn’t a radiation-induced mutation, so there shouldn’t be any side effects like sterility.” She stopped at the strange glare he shot at her. “What?”

Tann’s face swiftly regained its composure. “Nothing. Congratulations, Doctor. And will we be seeing more and more of this from other children?”

“From the hybrids, you mean. Yes, we will. Though I’m not sure the mutation doesn’t need a trigger of some kind.”

Tann thought for a moment. “Yes, but that would be easy to arrange, yes?” He swatted the potential problem away with a wave of his hand. “Have there been any reports of true shippie children showing signs of the mutation?”

Onizaka smiled. “I knew you’d ask me that. No, Carll. You and I agreed that we wanted to limit the exposure to hybrids only. Even though I didn’t agree at first, you convinced me. And now, I’m glad I agreed.”

“Why?”

“We couldn’t do anything to the argies—that was obvious. There would have been no way to force them all to submit to any kind of new immunization program. We had to use the shippies.”

Tann listened without comment, his face unreadable.

Onizaka went on. “But I had my doubts about a self-canceling virus, at first. I wanted to use the entire shippie population. More test data to work with.”

“Doctor, we’ve been through this. The then Commissar-General would never have approved such a project without some safeguards.”

“Oh, I know. I understand, I suppose. Still—” Onizaka trailed off, thinking of what might have been. How many more subjects could she have had?

Tann let the silence grow for a while, then asked, “So will this mutation breed true?”

Onizaka returned to the here and now. “It’s not a mutation like you are thinking, but…yes,” she hazarded. She had not even begun to analyze the relevant data on Yallia, but her instinct told her that there was no reason why the mutation would not breed true.

“How soon before the mutation is noticeable?”

Onizaka shrugged. “I don’t know that. It all depends on how efficient her body is.”

“When can she go outside?”

Onizaka’s eyes grew wide. “Outside? You mean, outside the Dome?”

“Yes.”

Onizaka could not answer immediately—not because she did not know the answer but because the very idea of sending her only test subject outside the controlled environment of the Dome unsettled her.

Tann added, “For testing, I mean.”

Onizaka paused before answering. “We wouldn’t need to do that. We would just do it in the lab.” She watched him intently, her unease fading.

Tann nodded. “Of course. What was I thinking? Is the little girl all right at this moment? Do you think she is experiencing any discomfort?”

“I doubt it. The incident at the school was almost certainly the trigger that activated the gene, sort of like puberty activates certain functions in the body. She might have odd cravings or tastes, but she ought to be fine.” Onizaka shrugged off the last remnants of unease when she heard Tann’s sincerity. “Part of the mutation involves adaptations—improvements, really—to the organism’s electrochemical system. Once the chlorine is liberated from the salts in which it exists as a solid, it would ordinarily place a high demand on the body for electrons. That would do serious damage to an unaltered metabolism, but the mutation allows the organism to form complex compounds using the H+ atom, which it then either metabolizes or expels. If she survived the exposure to such a high concentration of chlorine, that means the mutation is working perfectly.”

“Good. I’m already ashamed enough that we had to do it this way—I’d hate to think some sweet child is suffering as well.” Tann smiled and said, “You did it, Doctor. Your name will be remembered forever now. You’ve created the first new humans who will one day live and work on this planet outside the protection of the Domes.”

Elated at the thought, Onizaka looked away from Tann to indulge in fantasy. When she looked back some moments later, he had gone.

*   *   *

Jene was able, with surprisingly little difficulty, to clear her schedule for the next few days and return with her daughter to New Chicago. She had wanted to contact Commissar-General Newfield from her office, but Kuarta had seemed…reluctant.

Jene looked at her daughter as they rode the wirebus back home. The fire that had burned in Jene when she had been younger wasn’t as bright in her daughter. Perhaps that was not the right analogy—Kuarta was dedicated to her job as fiercely as Jene had been to hers, and by all accounts, loved Yallia as much as Jene had loved Kuarta as a child. But there was more of Renold in Kuarta than Jene cared to admit. It was easy to forget him. Looking at Kuarta sitting stoically in her seat on the wirebus, Jene realized that he was very much a part of her.

“I should tell Dolen as soon as we get back,” Kuarta said, her eyes still turned toward the scenery outside the tunnel.

“Kuarta, I know you sealed the medical data, but you don’t really think this will stay quiet, do you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I found out about it rather easily.”

“But you’re her grandmother and a Commissar.”

Jene snorted. “So? You don’t think the girl who did this to her will keep quiet, do you? Or the school personnel? If it hasn’t already, news will leak out.”

Kuarta appeared to think before answering. “I—I haven’t thought about that yet. I’ve been thinking about Yallia.”

“People in New Chicago will talk.”

“You’re right,” Kuarta sighed. “But you don’t think people will suspect what we suspect, do you? Most people who hear the story will think Yallia was very lucky to be alive and unhurt, but that’s all.”

“Yes, but we can do our part to encourage that view. Tell people that she didn’t really eat that much and that what she did eat she threw up. That’ll help keep things calm.” Jene was already thinking about the public fallout. In a sectioned-off corner of her mind, she worried about Yallia’s health, but her training as, first, a doctor, and now a political leader, had given her the ability to compartmentalize such thoughts, to be dealt with as appropriate. Kuarta did not have Jene’s experience nor her ability.

“But, Ma, we’re not going to keep this a secret forever,” Kuarta said suddenly. Jene looked at her daughter quizzically.

“What?”

“This business of the genedata investigation. How did Newfield know about the incident so quickly? And why would he want the genedata if there were no reports of colony-wide problems? No, Ma. Someone was watching all this, and someone has done something to our family. Someone has to answer for it.”

“Now, Kuarta, don’t jump to conclusions. I’m sure that—”

Kuarta cut her off. “I can’t believe you are going to step in to defend the government! You, of all people!”

“Government is not always a bad thing, dear,” Jene said softly. “If you think I’m some kind of anarchist, you must have me confused with someone else.”

“Why did you start the war on Ship then?” Kuarta said bitterly.

Jene felt herself rock backwards mentally. Kuarta had never asked that question before. When she had finished asking it, Jene knew that there was an unasked question behind it that Kuarta did not trust herself to pose. But it screamed loudly in her mind:
“Why did you kill my father?”

Jene didn’t answer for a long moment. She had been asked that question, in many different forms, throughout the twelve years.  It had been the only armed conflict her society had known in over one hundred years. The question had been the central one at her largely ceremonial “trial” held just before planetfall while Ship was still a sovereign body.

Perrault had been the adjudicator and had been overtly friendly to Jene. No one seemed to mind, though—there were few friends of the old Council regime left, and those quickly renounced and reversed their views when Jene told them all what Eduard Costellan had told her. She told them of the already-established colony on Epsilon Eridani III and of Arnson’s knowledge of it. She told them that Arnson’s plan to slowly cut away at the weaker, more dependent members of the colony had been put forward while he himself knew how unnecessary it was—the colony on EE3 was a well-established one and had been in place for sixty Ship years and would be more than able to care for the Class D children.

She had been officially absolved for any possible wrongdoing in the affair, but nothing the newly elected and very temporary provisional government on board Ship could do would bring back her husband.

And now Kuarta asked her the same question she had asked herself, unconsciously, every day of her life since. She had not needed to start the war—Arnson’s plan could not possibly have succeeded with the colony in place. The dozens of deaths she had caused weighed heavily on her in ways Kuarta would never understand.

“I thought I had to,” she whispered to her daughter.

“You knew he and I were hostages. You knew what could happen,” Kuarta said. “I’ve been told the story many times and read about it extensively in the colony library. It was filed under ‘Ship History.’”

“Yes. Kuarta, you have to understand—I was fighting a larger fight. I had more to think about than just myself. Ship had been my entire world—I couldn’t just watch while innocent children were left to die.”

“So you sacrificed my father for them?” Kuarta fairly shouted this, half rising from her seat.

Jene glanced at the other passengers only to find them watching the exchange carefully. Dozens of argie eyes were on her and her daughter, and their expressions indicated they had been watching and listening for quite some time.

Jene kept her voice low as she said, “Yes.” The word shocked both of them. Jene knew it was the truth—she had known what she was doing when she made that terrible speech over the comweb. She knew what she was setting in motion for her world and family. “I don’t expect you to understand because I don’t fully understand. Maybe I felt guilty for you—for your having escaped genetic damage while scores of children of your generation were born horribly deformed. I don’t know. I miss your father, even though I never speak of him. He was a good man.”

Kuarta could not hold on to her bitterness. “I…can’t remember him.”

“I can.”

The argie eyes turned away as the two women talked in soft tones about Renold Halfner.

*   *   *

Mr. Rice raised his ordinarily calm voice when he saw Yallia sneaking into the kitchenette again. “Yallia! Come back here!” She disappeared behind a cupboard, and Mr. Rice excused himself from the play of the suddenly giggling argie children to pursue her. He entered the kitchenette, wondering what had possessed Yallia to try to eat salt straight out of the container so many times. She was doing it again when he entered—she had upended the salt canister and was frantically pouring the granuals into her mouth.

“Stop that!” Mr. Rice said, making a grab for the salt canister. Yallia dodged him, spilling some of the salt on the floor but quickly adjusting her position to continue eating. Mr. Rice made another grab for the canister and got it this time.

For a moment, he forgot himself. “What the hell is the matter with you?” he said, noting how little salt was left in the two-kilo container.

Yallia did not answer. She darted to the floor and started to lick up the small amount of salt that had spilled from Rice’s first attempt on the container.

Rice watched, feeling sick. Yallia’s behavior had become bizarre to the point of serious concern. He bent down to pick her up and heard laughing coming from the entry to the kitchenette. Six or seven argie children were watching, pointing and laughing at Yallia as she lapped at the salt like an animal.