He Without Sin (12 page)

“So, it’s safe?”

“I told you, drink it if you want. It produces mild physiological effects but no serious long term concerns that I can detect.” With this, the doc indicates clearly but non-verbally that it’s time for me to go, and turns to other business in his small, ground-based lab.

I take a stab and say, “I haven’t seen David around base much lately. He’s doing OK as far as you know?”

Gleshert nods without turning. “Oh, he’s around. He was here recently and practically cleaned me out of reagents.”

Time is passing quickly now that I’m into a routine. The local years are flying by, it seems. I’ve visited a
few more of the remote sites. Some are truly
spectacular to behold. We see less and less of
David and Wesley. Both seem to have dug in for
the long haul—Brachus somewhere out in the field,
and David splitting his time between the bio camp
and sequestered in his makeshift lab in his quarters
here at base. Brachus is occasionally seen teetering
about base camp on his spindly legs with a big grin
on his face. I heard from Craig (confirmed by
Porter) that he’s fashioned—Brachus, that is—his
own “headquarters” out in the wild somewhere
mostly out of native materials along with some
construction and connection pieces from Mark. He
uses the transport unit to cart the pieces to the site
and then when the flyer returns, it is loaded with
ore or whatever other raw materials he has located for Mark. Ok, I have to hand it to him, that is a
clever arrangement.

I try to spend as much time as I can with Carol. Her
setup for linking to the astrophysics equipment up
top, on the Hobbe, is very cool indeed. I make
excuses to visit her as much as possible and
pretend to adjust and tweak the electronics. She’s
on to me of course. The good news is, she doesn’t
seem to mind at all. She is really good to talk to
and I found out she has a background in botany of
all things. Who knew? Well, this must be a paradise
for studying new and exotic plants. This entire
planet would be the textbook definition of ‘new
and exotic’ wouldn’t it? I keep vowing to collect
and bring her some that look especially interesting.

I know there is something Carol is holding back
about Brachus, but I have been making an effort
lately to concentrate on other things. Everyone has
their own responsibilities and I have mine; so be it. I don’t like the private channel business, but I keep
getting periodic official reports submitted by him
and his team (their reports are filtered through
Brachus, which I also don’t like, but nobody cares
what I like) and that’s enough.

I also have been spending some time with David. He’s reviewed my background and he quizzes me
about it and my other interests. You can never
predict his mood though. As Grigor quipped, you
don’t know if you are going to get David or Mr. Means from one moment to the next so it’s like
walking on eggs around him.

He’s been working on his “specimens” now for
some time and I get the feeling that something is
not right but he hasn’t opened up enough for me to
confirm it. I confided to him that the idea of
treating the natives like lab animals doesn’t sit well
with me but he countered with the notion that they
are already in essence being tested in their natural
environment and evaluated for survival by
evolution; we are just trying to speed things up a
little and make sure we nudge the process in the
right direction. That was the word he used, nudge. I
guess by comparison Dylan’s interaction with the
natives is mild and benign.

The Big Picture

The team has been on the ground for more than 50 local years. I should just say plain old ‘years’ and get used to it. The native animal and most plant populations are on a very high metabolic rate, compared to us. Dex is long gone, but Dex’s descendants are around and Dylan continues to interact with them and the natives. He thinks more highly of their current state of development than does David. He, Dylan, has learned the basic languages for the areas he routinely visits.

Carol and I have opted out of the ‘medical relief program’ (yes, that’s right!) and now spend more time together than ever before. This is going to be a good trip, no matter what else happens!

I had a big flurry of activity recently after a major solar storm impinged on this world. Carol had warning via her shipboard sensors but it still caused havoc. I had to return to orbit and look after my responsibilities there, not to mention a short list of items to check for every crew member. Everything is restored now. The good news is that a repeat is unlikely. A direct hit like that from a solar storm is a low probability event.

The flurry over, I collect my thoughts. I am surprised at how the ship seems to me now. It is sterile, but not entirely lifeless; it lives the ‘life’ of a complex, life-sustaining machine, constantly humming and occasionally clicking and clacking. It has a sound and feel and smell all its own. There is some comfort of security in its close surroundings; my work and bunk area, with its sprinkling of personal artifacts, evinces a feeling of calm and familiarity. But compared to the world below… There
is
no comparison to the fresh expanses of a brand new world.

I return to base camp and to Carol to hear the troubling news that David has indeed begun experimentation with his selected subjects. Not just documenting, but experimenting. Gleshert has reluctantly admitted that one native in particular has been deemed ‘the right one’ by David and has been receiving t-session treatments. David’s reasoning: if we prolong the reproductive stage, the more offspring there will be; the more offspring, the wider the distribution of the selected genetics. By inference, I assume he believes that the descendants of his starting stock will become the dominant variant on the planet.

“They’ve got too much time on their hands. We all do.” I know who Carol means when she says ‘they.’ She means David and Wesley. “Idle hands and all that,” she continues. We’re sitting at our favorite table in the mess hall. “You saw the timeline. We have barely begun our stay. Mark laid it all out. It’s a complicated process to refit for our departure. You should talk to him, by the way. I can tell he’s not happy about something but as usual, he’s being Mark about it.”

“What do you think about the overall mission now, the big picture again? Should we be here, and elsewhere, interfering not with just bio systems, but with intelligent beings like we are doing? What I mean is this: do you buy into the whole program of expansion and survivability? I know that you said you were OK with it before, but now, in the middle of the actuality, do you still agree with it?”

“Jason, I do. Maybe I spend too much time looking out into space and the vastness of it, but in the
really
big picture we are small potatoes. Sure, we’ve visited and affected any number of worlds but there are, without any possibility of doubt, many many more that we haven’t visited or affected. Those worlds will, if conditions are right, and, again, there can be no doubt that conditions
will
be right on some percentage of them, develop life on their own. And let’s say intelligent life. And let’s say aggressive intelligent life. And let’s say these beings are very successful and begin their own campaign of expansion. Now, even if we assume that the basic building blocks, the amino acids for example, are much the same as ours, we must assume that the genetic code is not. That is, the letters that form the language of inheritance must almost certainly be different from ours, since they are, at the core, a random assignment. And what if they are incompatible? What if, upon the meeting of our two civilizations, this alternate structure and composition is fatal to one or both? What if a basic incompatibility—it doesn’t matter what it is: virus, germ, protein—exists?”

“That’s a stretch, Carol,” I respond. “I know you are right in your chain of thought, and I know it agrees with what we were taught, but it’s still a stretch. May never happen. Probably won’t happen.”

“But should we risk an entire civilization along with its history and achievements when we have the technology to try to prevent it? Even though we are a very small part of the universe as a whole…”

“Small potatoes as you say…”

“… yes, it’s true. But even so, our civilization as a whole has amounted to
something
. All the achievements, discoveries, inventions, ideas… These, I believe, are bigger than us. I think they’re worth trying to save and protect. And if that means saving and protecting our civilization as a whole, I’m in.”

“Ok, let’s go with that, just as you describe. Why not be satisfied with simple seeding? Why go to the extent that we do? We seed the possible planets with compatible starter materials, ensure that basic code is the same, and let it be?”

“That plan would work only up to a point. It works only for those worlds that are barren when seeded. And sometimes things go awry even with successful seeding. You told me you are researching histories of previous missions. Evolution is unpredictable in its details. Sometimes a planet becomes dominated by a non-intelligent species and in such a way that an intelligent one is never likely to arise, at least not in the foreseeable future. In a case like that, it’s best to start over, unless we just give up and write that one off as a loss.”

“But David—what he is doing—what do you think about that?” I ask, having earlier confided in her about my qualms regarding his searching for and finding an ‘ideal specimen’ and what I think that means. “Can’t we just leave these people alone? Let’s finish with our business and move along.”

“Alright, but are you sure you really know what he’s doing down there? I mean, it’s just rumor.”

“Good point. But I hear the source is Doc and he’s not one to spread unfounded rumors. Something is happening beyond just recording data.”

“Ok, maybe so then. That’s tougher for me to take as well but look at it this way: we’ve already been here. What you see around you is partly our doing. We’re already deeply in the game. You do like it here, right?”

“Alright, that’s a good point, we’re already in deep. But it just pushes the question farther back to the previous intervention, and so on, back to the first step of the program.”

“Ah, but wait, now I have you!” she says with a sparkle in her eye. “I keep coming back to my garden example. Let’s say you paddle out into the ocean back home and find an unknown uninhabited island. It’s teeming with plants and animals, some poisonous and dangerous. What do you do? Assume you are going to be stuck there for a while— years—maybe forever.”

“I would order in some food on my new genie model Gni-M and scout out a place to camp right near the beach.”

“You goof. You know what I mean; no communication devices,” she says, taking a breath. “Here’s what a
normal
person would do. Once you’d figured out that you will survive—the food and water problem solved—you would begin eliminating the poisonous plants and dangerous animals. You know you would. Over the years, not as some evil and dastardly scheme, but as the normal course of events, you would change your environment to be more and more compatible with yourself and your survival. It’s normal; it’s what you would do. Start with a small garden and expand it to cover the entire island if necessary.”

I see where she’s going, but simply nod and keep quiet.

“Well, there you go. Here we are. This is the island. This planet. The modification of the biota is exactly the same process here as on our imaginary island. No difference in concept. None.”

“Yes… ok, but there are no people on that island…” I start to say, and then notice that Grigor has joined us, standing nearby, and has evidently heard the last part of our conversation. “There are no people…”

“If there were people, it would nice if they too were compatible, yes? If they were of the same mindset, in the broadest sense, people that you could communicate with, work with, live with...”

“If not, we should wipe them out and start over, eh doll?” interjects Grigor. “That’s the human thing to do, is it not?”

“Hold on a minute…” I start to say.

“It’s ok. Grigor, I’m sure has a point. He’s a smart guy,” says Carol.

“Tendin’ the plants ‘n’ animals is one thing, but if it can talk—leave it alone,” says Grigor. “It’s not our business.”

“What about our mission here? Recording the genetics, monitoring the evolution. You know there’s been some genetic manipulation already…”

“I know it, but I don’t have to like it. And certainly don’t agree with it. We don’t have a clue what we are doing. Manipulation…” Grigor makes a sound of disgust instead of finishing his thought.

“But David’s had training, and many others before...”

“Trainin’? Don’t make me laugh. It’s like me teachin’ you two how to use my tool belt here and sending you up to work on the ship… It’s like me decidin’ today that I’m a brain surgeon. Here Jason, lay your noggin on the table. Porter,” he shouts. “Hey Porter… Rick… hey Rick, toss me a butter knife. Today I’m a surgeon. I’m going to operate on poor backward J-man here and fix ‘im up good. Maybe a fork too, he needs a tune up—sputterin’ bad.”

“Oh no, don’t tell me,” I say to Grigor. “You belong to one of hands-off groups back home…”

“I do, and you should too. Look, it’s enough already. They’re on their way, let’s leave ‘em alone.” We are all three silent for a moment. “And, sayin’ that folks, I’m on me way too.” He looks each of us right in the eye before turning to go. “Think about it,” he says as he heads out of the mess hall.