Burnt Ice (23 page)

A tearful Fritz met him on the
main staircase.

‘Can I see her? Please, Marko.’

‘No, Fritz. This you do not want
to see.’

‘I have to see her, Marko!’

‘No.’

‘Please! Marko, I really have to
see her.’

Marko stood with Sirius’s remains
in his arms, but Fritz would not get out of his way.

‘Fritz, mate. This you do not
need to see. I know you were close, but brother, believe me, this, what I have
here, is not her. Veg, can you help please?’

Veg, who was standing silently
further up the staircase, walked down behind Fritz, gathered him up and quietly
hugged him as one would a distraught child. Marko nodded his thanks to the big
engineer then walked past. Stephine was waiting in medical. She locked the
door.

‘Put it in the chiller drawer,
Marko. Fritz will not be able to get in here. I believe Michael will ensure
that. Jan is on her way to perform the autopsy, with a Lotus proxy recording.
It is no longer our concern. You appear very tired, my friend. Time for a cup
of something hot and a meal, yes? Go freshen up and meet me in the mess in ten
minutes.’

Stephine presented him with her
version of scones, with cream on top of them, but both had textures and tastes
he had not experienced before. The apricot jam underneath the cream also
intrigued him. And on the table she placed a huge mug of tea. Even that was
different. Deliciously different to Marko. She sat opposite him and watched,
taking pleasure as he enjoyed every mouthful.

‘Stephine, you are just plain
bloody marvellous. I really needed that. Thank you.’ He paused to take a sip of
tea. ‘Well, that was nasty. Still can’t figure why a chunk of comet would
explode like that. The Lotus proxy imaged the very edge of the detonation,
calculating the trajectories of the remains. Lotus believes that a meteorite
strike caused the explosion. Can something be that unlucky being in the precise
place for the worst impact? Still, it would have been brutally quick. Not that
I like the monitors. But this one was different, somehow, almost nice to have
around. Quite considerate, in fact. I’ve never encountered that with one of
them before.’

‘Yes,’ said Stephine. ‘There is
something about being in the best or worst place, depending upon your point of
view. I have seen such many times. I don’t like the Games Board or their
monitors, either. They are always playing a game of sorts with the rest of us
and I don’t believe that it’s all about entertainment, either.’

‘The boss studies history.’ said
Marko. ‘He reckons that to record events does not require the wielders of the
recording equipment to be stripped of most of their humanity. To have spirit,
and to do the right thing,
is
the thing. But embittered old men and
women telling you to feel superior to others and to want to control them
because their beliefs are different from your own, is something else again.’

Stephine nodded. ‘Would you like
to see what I have been up to in the hydroponic area, Marko? You and I have a
lot in common. You manipulate gene sequences and then grow creatures, and I
manipulate another group of gene sequences, and create delicious things for us
to eat and drink. I wonder who is having the greatest fun?’

Marko had not had a chance to get
into the hydroponic gardens since Stephine had been on board. Originally, they
had been set up to augment the food supplies for a full crew, so they took up a
good part of a deck. Being on a military ship, they were constructed so that
the banks of plants could withstand a fair amount of knocking around. They
supplied a good service to the atmosphere in the ship, but with the standard
atmospheric engineering capability already there, the hydroponic units had not
been a serious issue on most craft Marko had been on. The crews saw it as a bit
of fun to have the odd interesting, freshly picked salad or tomato with their
meals, but that was about the end of it. They were, however, also set up with a
closed recycling system so that if a ship and crew were stranded, they would
have food for a long time.

To Marko’s mind, the improvements
were astonishing given Stephine had taken the gardens over only weeks earlier.
He was really impressed by her changes. They had been expanded to take up most
of the deck. The place was alive. There were exotic plants everywhere, most of
which he didn’t recognise. The air quality was superb and the whole area had a
vibrancy, with the plants seeming to burst with life and vitality.

‘Wow, Stephine. What is all this
stuff? I’ve been in plenty of hydroponic systems on lots of ships, but I’ve
never seen anything like this.’

‘Thanks, Marko. As soon as we
realised that we were going to take much longer to get home, Veg and I went to
Michael and laid out this plan. I suppose that Harry has told you of my own
computer? Yes? Well, I am a biologist who studies dead planets, or ones that
have had a catastrophe. My expertise is deciding whether something can be done
with the planet, then creating a plan for it if so. You will understand that
left to themselves those plans would take enormously long periods. Well,
sometimes we are able to speed things along. What I do is to take very
fast-growing attributes from one plant and attach them to a slow-growing plant.
The trick is to allow the genome to revert, after, say, fifty generations, to
the normal state for that species, once the climate has stabilised again.’

‘Sensible.’ said Marko.

‘That is what I have done here.’
said Stephine. ‘I have drastically altered things. You see those nuts on that
vine? They are walnuts. They normally grow on a tree that takes twelve or so
standard years to start bearing. It takes about twenty-five years before it
will produce a large crop. I took a potato plant that you had as part of your
hydroponic stock, spliced a hardwood series of genes into the plant, then
another set which really sped things up. Those vines now produce a kilo of nuts
every few days. See those cabbages? I now have them going from seedling to
maturity in ten days. The fruit trees are also going to be vine-based and will
be producing a whole variety of fruit in about a month.’

‘It’s a lot of effort.’ said
Marko. ‘Why do you do it, Stephine?’

‘Well, we could all just go into
hibernation for the trip home but there still has to be someone awake for the
whole trip, and one thing that we have learnt is that food is the ultimate
stimulant and comfort for the soul. One thing I can guarantee you is that once
this journey is ended, every one of you will be a good cook. By making an
effort here with all the herbs, spices, flavours and some interesting exotics I
know about, we will all eat well — and be comfortable as a crew. Here, smell
this.’

Marko sniffed. ‘Wow, that’s
amazing.’

‘Taste it if you like. It’s
basil. Now, see this? I have taken some of the created chicken flesh that you
are fond of, and rebuilt it. Now, with this material as a base, I can create
all the edible avian meats that we humans enjoy. More importantly for cooking,
I will be able to create hen eggs. You’ll taste what a real omelette is all
about! I have also done the same with red and other white meats. Within a few
months we will all be eating real roasts, not the pap that the military
victuallers have been feeding you for all eternity. To make real meat, I need
fungus. Now that’s been tricky to find. This place has been well maintained,
but fungus of any sort is not present. I had to delve deeply into my database
to create edible fungus, using the same Universal Genome Template that you use.
That protein, once I have a nice breeder unit up and running, will produce the
material for us to create the meats. Oh, and I have also started to create the
base units so we can have flowers on our tables. What’s your favourite flower,
Marko?’

‘I like dahlias, but I’ve only
ever seen images of them. I also often wonder what they smell like.’

‘Yes, we can grow them but they
usually have no scent of any note. We can change that, as well.’

‘What are these, Stephine?’ Marko
indicated a line of short plants in the hydroponics to his right.

‘My first crop of grains. I
altered standard corn so that the entire cob can be ground to produce whatever
flour we want. So we will have real bread. Marko, can I ask you a question? How
did a military type like you get so involved in base animal splicing? That is
such a rarefied field. You could make a fortune on civvy street.’

‘My family has been doing it
since the Originals fled Earth before the Flare. Like so many of those
families, the old people had to take work wherever they could get it, as a
displaced people. It’s become a bit of a family tradition, actually. We are all
taught how to be good designers and splicers, but we are also expected to know
at least two other trades in depth. My mum is a very good engineer,
specialising in plasma fusion. When she was invited into the family group by my
aunts, she brought those talents and skills as part of her dowry. My two
sisters and I, as her children, were expected to learn her skills in splicing
and manipulation and at least one new skill to take back to the family. I’m
still looking for that one. Military skills are good, but the family already
has plenty of those, so I’m still looking. But having said that, the military
has at least given me good opportunities. I’m very fortunate to be part of this
crew.’

‘You are indeed most fortunate
with this particular crew. I am very impressed with all of you,’ said Stephine.
‘Now, I would like to know of your projects, Marko. I am reasonably familiar
with what you do and, from what I have heard, your ACE creatures are well
received. In fact, I had the pleasure of meeting two of them. So, how did you
address the problem of throwback temperament?’

‘Yeah, that’s always a tough
call; accept the eyes of a leopard and parts of its brain to control those eyes
to best ability, and before you know it, the predator is slowly taking over the
rest of the brain. What I do is set up a balancing act between all the
components for the creature. I have a few ACE commissions at the moment. One of
them, from the description, will almost certainly turn out as a kind of dragon.’

Stephine was enchanted by the
idea. ‘A dragon!’

‘Yeah.’ said Marko. ‘So for that
one I’ll take a whole lot of abilities, from a large group of creatures, but
then take a different brain structure from any of the originals as the overall
controller, to establish the temperament. For a creature that is made of lots
of different predators, I use a brain and nervous structure from a more
peaceful one. A herbivore, for instance. Done right, the creature, when graded
up to sentience, is thrilled to have all these abilities, but its ancestry as a
prey creature also allows it a more relaxed attitude to
using
those
abilities. Ever noticed how the true adept of martial arts skills is also the
calmest and the most likely to find an alternative to fighting? It’s the same.
I create gentle creatures with teeth, the ability to use them, but the
temperament to prefer not to. Makes for much more engaging and interesting
companions. But now I have a problem.’

‘A problem?’

‘A worry, then.’ said Marko. ‘Several
of my creatures have worked out their indentures to their owners. I wonder what
they will do next. Stay with those who had them created, or move out into the
Cosmos, as creatures of their own volition and will. It interests me to see
what they do. I mean, they are my children so, yes, I worry for them.’

‘You have never made a creature for
yourself?’

‘No. I have been designing one
for a long time. Maybe now that we have a lot of time on our hands — without
the usual work pressures — it’s time to build my friend.’

‘Have you ever considered placing
some of yourself into the mix, Marko? It strikes me as an even more elegant
solution than a herbivore’s brain. Why not a little of your own? You appear to
be a well-balanced, well-rounded person.’ She smiled then added, ‘Of course,
like everyone there is room for a little improvement but we all come to that if
we exist for long enough.’

Marko returned her smile and
nodded. ‘Yeah, I know I can be impulsive sometimes. I don’t know about
including my DNA, Stephine. That creature would then be related to me. I’m not
sure that would be such a good idea. What if I had to ask him to die for me —
could I do that? I am not sure if I could, then the entire crew may be at risk.’