Deucalion (8 page)

Still, five days or more walking through some of the toughest terrain on the planet . . . I looked down at Elena. She was still asleep. Five days of forty-plus temperatures, and maybe 20 clicks a day on foot. I looked at Saebi and Cael. I owed the two of them my life, but I wondered if I was soon going to live to regret it.

7

ICARUS

Genetic Research Facility, Edison

15/7/101 Standard

JANE

‘Why aren't these files logged on the central database?' Jane slapped a pile of plastic hard-copy sheets on the desk in front of her superior and watched them slide off the edge onto the floor. She made no move to pick them up, and Hendriks remained motionless behind the desk, giving no indication he had noticed them. He was looking in her eyes, trying to read her mood.

‘Which files?'

‘The ones dealing with Singh's animal experiments. I had to dig the hard-copies out of Storage, and there are huge holes in the data. Where are the original files?'

‘They'd have to be on the mainframe database, Jane. You know that. All the peripherals are ether-linked, even the personal punchboards. Anything he was working on would have been downloaded automatically.'

Hendriks was about forty-five Standard. His black hair was shot through with grey, and he had the stooped posture of someone whose responsibilities were too heavy for his shoulders.

Jane didn't dislike him, but she had the vague feeling that on Earth he would have been put out to pasture years ago – though she could no longer remember what it was actually like back in Osaka. Not that he was anything less than brilliant. No one could rise to his position, even on Deucalion, without incredible ability. It was just that Hendriks had lost his ‘edge'. That instinctive desire to push beyond the boundaries. To take risks. To pursue the impossible as if it were just a matter of working out the details.

‘Then can you explain to me how I could find these notes—' She crouched down and gathered the plastic sheets together before slapping them again onto the desk in front of him. ‘How I could find them in the repository, but not on the mainframe?'

Hendriks picked up one of the files and glanced down the columns of data it contained. For a moment he was silent. Then he checked the filename, and a puzzled look drifted across his face.

PROJECT:
ICARUS

STATUS:
CODE ALPHA (LEVEL FIVE CLEARANCE)

‘There
is
no
Icarus Project
.' Spinning his chair around, he touched the screen of his desk monitor, tapped at the keyboard, and looked up to see if Jane was watching. She was. ‘This is a breakdown of all the genetics projects, current and terminated, in the last fifteen years. See? No “Icarus”.'

For a moment they were both silent, staring at the screen, as if there must be something obvious they'd both overlooked. Then Hendriks turned to his younger colleague, a puzzled expression on his face. ‘How did you know where to look?'

‘I'm sorry?' The question made no sense.

‘For the hard-copy. How did you know there was hard-copy on this
Icarus Project
in Storage, if there was no record on the central database?'

Finally she understood. ‘It was just a fluke. I was going through some of Singh's data on hybrid strains – you know, the work he did on fruit trees. Well, anyway, he was rabbiting on about the possible application of new hybridising techniques to animal experiments, and he made a passing reference to something called “Icaruss” – with a double “s”. But when I cross-referenced, I came up with a blank.'

She paused, but Hendriks remained silent. ‘I checked Singh's personal data-files, just in case there'd been some sort of glitch in the downloading. Nothing there either. I nearly dropped it right there, but I was feeling stubborn, so I made the trip to Storage and accessed the library catalogue. Of course, there was no “Icaruss” there either. So I did it by author and requisitioned hard-copies of all Singh's notes. That's where I found these.'

Hendriks stood up and walked across to the window, looking down on the gardens which ringed the complex. ‘I don't understand. It's impossible to have hard-copy in the repository without the originals being on ROM-file. Unless . . .'

The realisation hit them both at the same moment.

‘Unless,' Jane interrupted, ‘the files were deleted from the mainframe on purpose. It's the only explanation. After I found these notes, I did a search through all the files on the computer. I put in “Icarus”, and had it look for any reference to the project, any mention of it at all. A complete blank. Think about it. This is a pretty tight community. What project is so damned secret that no one in the whole Facility knows about it?'

Hendriks shook his head, and she went on. ‘Nothing is
that
secret. So the only other answer is that there
were
references to the project, but that someone systematically erased any mention of it from every one of the files. It wouldn't be that hard to do. Just run a search like I did. Then, every time it came up, doctor the file, and soon . . . the project never existed.'

‘But what about the fail-safes?' He turned to face her. ‘You can't just edit or delete ROM-files. Not without high-level clearance.'

‘It's a machine! Any safeguard you can think up, they can get around – if they have someone who's good enough with computers. And in this place, there would have to be at least two hundred candidates.'

‘So how come
you
could find it?' Hendriks seemed to be struggling to understand. ‘If they did that, how come—'

‘Like I said. Pure fluke. Singh must have used a keyboard instead of voice-activated dictation. What I found was a simple typing error. “Icaruss” with a double “s”. Whoever did the search got sloppy. They must have programmed the correct spelling, but they didn't allow for human error, so they missed that particular reference, and it stayed on file.'

‘But . . . If they went to all that trouble to get rid of any file references, why would they leave the hard-copies? It doesn't make sense.'

‘It makes perfect sense. All the computers and the peripherals are linked, you said so yourself. They could doctor the files by remote control – and remain totally anonymous. They even doctored the library catalogue. But the hard-copy files were different. You can't get rid of them without physically breaking in and stealing them. Or destroying them. They probably considered it, then decided it wasn't worth the risk. After all, with no references on the mainframe, and nothing on the Storage-library catalogue, who was going to know the files were there? Have you ever been to Storage?'

Hendriks shook his head. ‘I never had any reason.'

‘I can tell you, they'd have every reason to feel safe. There's mountains of information. Everything's filed under alphanumeric codes. You couldn't find a thing in there without a catalogue reference. A file could stay there for a thousand years without anyone ever coming across it. I don't think the important question is “how?”. What we really need to ask is “why?”. What's so important about this
Icarus Project
, that they'd go to so much trouble to hide it?'

Hendriks made no attempt to answer. He was staring out of the window again, thinking.

She went on, ‘What do you know about Singh?'

He spoke without removing his gaze from the gardens. ‘Not much. He died just after I arrived on Deucalion. Some kind of flyer accident. I've read his papers on genetic hybrids and high-yield agriculture, of course. They're classics. But the man himself . . . nothing.'

Jane moved across to the desk. ‘There isn't enough here to give much of an insight into what Icarus is all about, but I can see why it might be something they'd want hushed up.'

She glanced across to gauge her superior's reaction. He turned towards her, a questioning expression on his face. Looking down, she picked up the top sheet from the pile on the desk in front of her. ‘It's another hybrid experiment. But look at the DNA-configuration coding in the Primary Subject column. Notice anything familiar?'

Hendriks took the sheet she held out to him and she watched his face fall, as he struggled to make sense of what he read. ‘But it can't be. No one would dare. If anyone found out, they'd lose—'

‘What? Their Funding?'

‘Everything.'

Sitting on the edge of the desk, Jane reached out and took the sheet from between his unresisting fingers. ‘I'm sorry, Stanley, but I've got news for you. Someone
did
dare.'

‘But human beings? The guidelines—'

‘I know. The guidelines have been in place for over two hundred years. Strict limitations on the manipulation of human genetic material. Correction of genetic defects, that sort of thing. Nothing more. But it wouldn't be the first time they've been breached. I guess this opportunity was too big to miss. Did you happen to recognise the coding on the Secondary Subject column?'

‘No, I—' Hendriks was almost beyond speaking.

‘I didn't think so. I only recognised it because it's one of my areas of specialty. The secondary genetic source is Elokoi.'

She paused, watching his reaction. He just sat silently, with his face buried in his hands, as she continued. ‘There isn't enough data on the few hard-copies I've got to be able to work out exactly what they were aiming at, but I know what interested us back in Osaka. And I don't think that anyone is likely to risk a ruined career and a long jail term just to find out what a human being would look like with silver-grey fur, or long flexible fingers.'

‘You mean—'

‘I mean, they were going for the pot of gold.' Suddenly, her voice grew quiet and distant, barely more than a whisper. ‘I mean, why stop with rats?'

Hendriks looked up, confused, waiting for her to go on, but she was staring out beyond the window, lost in thoughts that spread an expression across her face which might have been guilt, but looked more like horror.

Genetic Research Facility, Edison

15/7/101 Standard

JANE

Just because it's pointless doesn't stop me trying. Yet it makes no difference. I still don't remember what kind of a person I was before.

Just how channelled was I? I was only just nineteen when I left. How far removed from reality can you get in a life that short?

When I got back to my workstation, I looked at the evidence I had in front of me. It wasn't much, I'll admit, but it was enough for me to fear the worst. I sat at the desk and called up my old notes. The ones I'd brought with me from Old Earth. There was Hakawa's data, and my plans for refining the techniques and the experimental method. And it was all written in such cold, objective terms. What kind of a person could write all that and not see where it would eventually lead?

We were all so damned brilliant. Technology had given us the tools, and we were so dazzled by what we could do with them, by just how far we could go, that we simply forgot to consider exactly how far was far enough.

What is it that makes life any more than a series of biochemical reactions? At what point does it become just too precious to mess around with? Where do you draw the line? With the rats? Or maybe the dogs and cats? What about the apes? Why stop there? Nature takes a million years to evolve anything really useful. Why not jog her elbow a bit?

After all, if God hadn't wanted us to have telepathy, he wouldn't have given us the Elokoi – or gene-splicing . . .

I switched off the machine, and pushed my seat away from the desk. A year is a long time in Research. Who was it who said that? Who cares? It's true.

What about fifty years? How far had they progressed with Hakawa's work?

For the first time, it hit me just what it meant to spend the best part of half a century in freeze-sleep. Until that moment, I'd been able to block it from my mind. After all, I was still the same age, and I had the same job – even if I couldn't remember what it had been like before.

It was easy to overlook the fact that Deucalion was a frontier planet. That even Edison, with all its technological know-how, would be a long way behind a place like Osaka. If they'd carried on along the lines I could see developing in my notes, if they'd found a way around the Human Genetic Manipulation Convention guidelines – or if they'd simply ignored them – people like Hakawa . . .
like me
. . . could be into their second or third generation of hybrids by now.

Something struck me. A subconscious itch that I'd been too preoccupied to try scratching. Suddenly, it shifted into focus. Don't forget, I knew only one calendar, one time-frame. All the habits of my past existence had passed away with my memory. For me, the year was 101 Standard. Old Earth time was the farthest thing from my mind as I scanned the hard-copies, trying to interpret the clues the unfortunate Singh had left behind him. Trying to fathom the extent of the insanity that Icarus seemed to represent.

Lying on the desk in front of me was the table of DNA-configuration codes that I'd shown Hendriks. I picked it up, but instead of looking down the various columns, I let my gaze focus, perhaps for the first time, on the file identification data at the head of the page:

PROJECT:
ICARUS

STATUS:
CODE ALPHA (LEVEL FIVE CLEARANCE)

SITE OF DATA-SOURCE:
GENETIC RESEARCH FACILITY,
SEOUL, ASIA/SOUTHEAST SECTOR

FILE ORIGINATION DATE:
12/1/2195.

2195
. Two years before I was born. For a moment, the page went out of focus and I felt my head spinning. It was impossible. Hakawa didn't even start his work for another twenty years.

I checked the data again. There was no mistake. The gene codings in the Secondary column were Elokoi. Which meant that for twenty years before Hakawa and I began our research a secret project had been in place, which made all Hakawa's work and most of my own obsolete. That Icarus was not some madness that one or two misguided Researchers had cooked up here in Edison. That it had been in operation on Earth for almost three-quarters of a century.