He Without Sin (15 page)

Dylan confessed to me that he thinks David’s
attempt to improve native stock is misguided. Not
only misguided but doomed to fail.

First, he says, at least some of the rejects—the
supposedly sterile natives who were used by David
in the early part of his testing and experimentation—are in fact reproducing. And not
all of the results are benign. He, Dylan, has
personally witnessed a strain of very large
aggressive adults, about 25 to 30% physically
larger than the average adult that we have
recorded so far. They do not mix well with the
untouched population and he has seen the gory
results of one of their clashes.

In the second place, again according to Dylan’s
theory, David’s attempts are already doomed since
Al and Bee have not begun to propagate, yet the
others, the rejects, are, and are doing so at the
normal high rate. This means David can say
goodbye to a pristine gene set; it will never
happen. The others will outnumber A&B (Al and
Bee) and their offspring right from the start and by
a large factor.

He does acknowledge that only A&B are being
given the t-treatments, and so will have a much longer time to reproduce than any other of the
planet’s inhabitants but he doesn’t think it will
matter. He thinks the head start of the others, and
the fact that their supposedly inferior gene set will
taint the pool going forward, will combine to
ensure that David’s work is reduced to a waste of
time. I tend to agree with Dylan on this point but I
reminded both him and myself that David’s
background is in this field and ours is not.

Dylan’s last comments strike me as important and
insightful. He says that the natives, before any of
this current manipulation, are at a higher level of
development than David or any of the team has
given them credit for. He has seen their use of tools
and has noted in some cases their rapid advance,
culturally, during just the time that we have been
here. He thinks, and here I agree completely, that
there is no way to force cultural maturity, it has to
develop on its own. David’s attempt to bring their
genetic development along is one thing but to
believe he can “manipulate” them into being
civilized and mature is another.

ABCs

I casually ask, “David, are you aware of the broken cam and A/V transponder?”

“Electronics fail occasionally and need to be fixed. Which one are you talking about?”

“No, this one didn’t fail; it was smashed on the ground.” I began to see fire come into his eyes.

“Alright, then the cams are not hidden well enough. It can’t be that difficult…”

I interrupt him by showing him the mount that I had taken off the tree. “Look,” I said, “the cam unit wasn’t broken off the mount. See? It’s bent but you can see it was unscrewed. With the proper tool.” I don’t mention about the other cam being installed and, interestingly, neither does David. Why?

______

Lester is in the bio enclosure on some errand for Brachus. I confront him about the incident out by the broken cam unit.

“Quit screwing around. Somebody’s going to get hurt,” I say. I mean me almost falling out of the tree but hope he will interpret it differently.

“Get over it, it was a joke,” he says. But he doesn’t move away.

“I know one of you took the cam unit off the mount.”

“Yeah? You don’t know anything,” he says and clams up. He crosses his arms and I get a good look at his pinky ring. It has the image of a face or skull set into the silver with deep red stones. He stands silent.

“You can’t knock out one of David’s cams and replace it with one of your own, especially one that we can’t access since it’s on a private channel.”

He looks at me with his slight sneer, rakes his hair straight back, and says, “Wrong. I can do whatever I want.” And he turns and walks away.

______

I am in my bunk area trying one of the newly-approved fruits from our little orchard right outside the bio camp. Delicious. Really good. I have been preoccupied with Greg’s request and my determination to comply, but my comfort level is decreasing, not increasing. I do have some ideas about how to test for the cognitive functions of interest to David, but am dreading the actual implementation.

I look up and see two of the crew approaching. It takes me a second to realize they are coming to see me.

“At your service boss,” says Craig. I stand and discard the juicy remnants of my snack, wiping my hands dry. I’m still impressed by how young he looks. Aileen is with him. She looks tan and not as thin as I remember her.

“Hi. What’s up?”

“The Commander sent us to you. He said you’ll fill us in and put us to work.”

I look at Aileen for confirmation; she nods, smiles, and says, “We hear you have a project. What can we do?”

______

What a relief! I tell you, when David has his head on straight, he’s all right. It turns out that Aileen has experience in teaching, especially with the young. And Craig is willing to do whatever is needed. This is a huge burden off my mind. We discuss how to handle the natives and agree that for safety’s sake they both will always work together. We arrange to receive language training from Dylan.

It’s cramped down here relative to base camp but I set them both up in our bare-bones ‘visitors quarters’ and they stow what few supplies they have brought with them. They walk through a brief orientation—Craig has been here, but not so Aileen—and then we head out, taking the usual precaution of first scanning the outside area. I stress the importance of being careful not to betray the location of the hidden door.

“This area will work. We’ll set it up right here.” I take a look above and around. There’s a fine spot for a hidden cam. “You guys will be out here always together. I’ll monitor the cam should anything happen.” This spot is very near our small garden and can be reached from the camp in seconds if need be. “No matter, always carry your standard protection, just like out in the field.” I look at them both. “You both were out in the field, right?” I search their faces for signs of concern. None. Is it just me that feels exposed and vulnerable out here? I look around one more time, judging carefully how secure from surprise this position is.

“Do you think this will take long? I mean the whole project—do you think it’ll take, what, days? …years?” asks Aileen.

“It’s only results he wants. Certainly more than days, less than years. Most important is to see if you can document any improvement over the baseline… Dylan says he’s already talked to you…”

They both nod, and Aileen answers, saying, “We are good there. Dylan will take us out to see first-hand how they talk and act. Plus, he’s got a lot of contact experience already. He’s going to take that and work it into language training. You’ve got to jump right in, he says.”

“But what about this ‘baseline’?” asks Craig. “Where do we get that?”

“The baseline is where they are now. It’s a little fuzzy, but you are to look for a change from what they can do now.”

Nods only.

“Perfect. Perfect. It’s a go then just as soon as the cam is set and running.” I pull the cam hardware from my pack and give Craig tools and instructions on how to mount it. He is able, after some struggling, to reach the spot I had eyed earlier, to attach the hardware and activate it.

______

It’s really turning out well. The set-up I mean. It’s too soon to tell if there are any meaningful results. Aileen says it is going to be difficult in any case to say without doubt that our little family is above a baseline. I agree with her and can understand.

I’m happy with the safety aspect. Craig is always there and someone is always monitoring the cam. So far so good. The initial meeting, set up with and by Dylan, was a hoot to watch. Al is more cautious than Bee, and you could see that they both trust Dylan. He started with introductions. Aileen becomes just Ay, and that was easy. Craig’s name, on the other hand was more difficult to convey. A couple others were watching and listening to the cam feed with me, and we nearly wet ourselves laughing. I made quite sure we were on mute. Anyway, his name ended up something like Cray-gah. That’s the first two-syllable name I’ve heard any native use.

For the life of me I cannot figure out how Aileen maintains the natives’ interest. She is able to set them at ease and they keep coming back for more. And strange to say, Al and Bee have ‘selected’ the time. Our clearing has become one of their regular stops during their day it seems.

She uses Craig to set up something for the day, like maybe items of differing colors, or sizes, say, and uses them to test or expand vocabulary. She works with extremely basic math skills by repeatedly counting objects, and later asking ‘how many’ when there are one, two or more, and also asking ‘how many’ when there are none, just to see how they handle that.

I am watching a session and see her point to objects— these are objects not normally found in the native environment, but still made out of natural materials—and see if Al or Bee can remember what they were called during a previous one.

“Box.”

“Correct.”

“Plate.”

“Correct.”

“Ton.”

“No. Not ton.”

“Not ton.”

“No.”

Silence. Craig brings the object to Aileen.

“Tube. This is a tube,” she says while holding it to her eye and looking through it at her subjects.

______

It’s frustrating and curious that the sessions have taken on the character of three steps forward, two steps back. While most of the time Al and Bee seem to be advancing in terms of comprehension and conversation (don’t get me wrong, they converse only about the most basics things— weather, injuries, food, and such—and in the simplest terms) sometimes they show a dogged determination not to cooperate during the very next visit. It’s at these times that I get the most nervous. Craig says he gets nervous too, and that can’t help the situation since I’m sure the natives can sense it. If the back-and-forth between the four continues, all is fine; when there is silence and staring, it’s something else again.

Which brings me to David’s pet peeve: Al, and presumably Bee, simply will not stay clear of the central bio camp enclosure. I have to admit it is carefully concealed behind a wall of dense native vegetation and it is large enough not to betray its presence by having an easily distinguishable shape or visible top, but they surely know it’s there and continue to circumnavigate the camp periodically and to poke and peek at the border. I have stood quietly outside and can hear absolutely no sounds from within but there’s not much we can do about the flyers’ sounds and certainly nothing we can do about their being occasionally spotted. The foliage blocks most of the view, but someone in the right place at the right time could spot them. It’s also likely that someone has been seen passing through the hidden entrance even though we try to scan the area to locate anyone nearby before using it.

David’s annoyance with their persistent curiosity, however, seems to me to be incommensurate with the undesirable behavior, if you catch my drift. He’s overreacting.

“No, that won’t work. Think about it: if you tell someone ‘Don’t go there’ where do they immediately want to go?” I say, after he asks me to have Craig or Aileen warn them to stay away. I know it is risky to question his order. As I’ve found out, I never know ahead of time if I will get the calm and reasonable David or the angry and defensive Mr. Means.

“We must not let the presence of the bio camp disturb the testing of their abilities. We want them to behave as naturally as possible while spending exactly zero time thinking about any of our other activities, installations, or comings and goings,” he says calmly and reasonably.

I just don’t see this as a realistic wish. “David, whatever you do, don’t think of Vanessa up at base camp. Especially don’t think of her red fingernails when we were all back at the Academy.”

He looks puzzled for a second, working his mouth habit, but then smiles and says, “I see. You got me.” And then, “Move the testing area out farther. Get them away from here.”

Aileen came up with a fascinating activity for Al
and Bee. She’s showed them how to weave these
long thin dried leaves from common local plants
nearby into sheets. The sheets can be folded or
curled into shapes—like a basket, or hat, or a
rope—and fixed into those shapes by weaving or
tying more leaves to hold them. Craig pulled tough
fibers from some plant (not sure which) long
enough for tying too. It’s a limited technology, but
technology for sure.

We three went out to find a new location to
continue “Ay” and “Cray-gah’s” work. Our decision
was to rotate from clearing to clearing, always
near one of the hidden cams, on a regular basis
instead of setting up a permanent site. I’m not
thrilled with them being farther away in case of
danger, but it seems to be working so far. Aileen
has been using a bell sound to begin and end their
sessions. It’s curious to watch the reactions as the
ending bell is anticipated, and then rings.

David seems pleased with the reports he’s getting. Brachus needs to pull Aileen and Craig out for a
few days, and that’s a good thing, a break is in
order. She tried to explain to Al and Bee they would
be gone. Not sure if it took. Craig cleared off the
flat surface of a big rock at one of the clearings so
that marks could be made. Aileen had a series of
marks made and then, each day, crossed one out—like a calendar. She had Al begin crossing them out
eventually, at the end of each session when the bell
rang.