The Cage of Zeus (7 page)

“I don’t quite know what to think, as I’m perfectly satisfied being a man and a Monaural. I can appreciate the concept of a gender-free society. But a society that is free of sexual distinctions by changing the human physiology goes beyond what I’d consider ordinary.”

“You’ll get used to it. We all need time to adapt to a new value system.”

Adapt to what?
Shirosaki thought.
To the fact that humans are becoming absolute hermaphrodites? Or to the idea that I would grow accustomed to a society without sexual differences?
“Harding brought up the subject of language discrimination earlier. I understand there are words we shouldn’t use in reference to the Rounds.”

“There’s no need to be overly sensitive. The Rounds are fully aware of their differences and they won’t fault us for a slip or two. But there are some things you’re better off not saying out of consideration for the Rounds. ‘You look feminine for a Round’ or ‘You look masculine for a Round,’ for example. Surely you must have assumed Dr. Tei to be a woman when you first saw em.”

“Yes, I did,” Shirosaki admitted.

“When we Monaurals see a Round, we tend to recognize traits of one gender over the other. Which is why we say a ‘feminine Round’ and a ‘masculine Round.’ For those of us accustomed to having gender differences, we can’t help seeing the Rounds in those terms as well. And maybe we’re projecting our desires upon them too. ‘I hope that Round is feminine.’ Or, ‘That Round has to be masculine.’ Nothing more than an illusion on our part. The Rounds have no awareness of being more one sex than the other. What exactly did you feel was feminine about the doctor? Eir slender proportions? Or eir features?”

“I suppose it was the voice,” Shirosaki answered. “Ey looks like a woman, of course, but I detected a kindness in eir manner of speaking and timbre of eir voice that I perceived as distinctly feminine.”

“That’s all strictly according to your own definition. In your mind, you have some standards by which you distinguish the sexes. But those standards won’t work with the Rounds.”

“This is all so very confusing.”

“There’s no need to feel bad about yourself. Few of us have ever been in contact with the Rounds. It’s natural to feel uncomfortable. Your thinking will change while you’re here. By the time your assignment here is done, I promise you your views about sexuality will be completely transformed. Oh, and another thing—please don’t call the Rounds ‘sea hares’ or ‘snails.’ The Rounds hate it when Harding calls them that.”

Shirosaki and Kline exited the observatory and boarded the high-velocity elevator, which took them to the special district in mere seconds. Kline stood in front of the entrance where a biometric scanner worked its way up and down her entire body.

After the system finished reading her personal information, the door opened.

Shirosaki’s eyes grew wide.

Lush greenery filled his field of vision. It was like an entrance to a botanical garden.

The special district lacked the subdivisions and corridors of the station staff’s residential district. The entire space lay open like a magnificent garden. Not so much a garden but closer to a small cityscape. The ceiling was thirty feet high. The garden appeared to slope up into a sharp incline at both ends. Because the area was free of obstructions, unlike the Monaurals’ residential district, Shirosaki could see the curvilinear shape of the cylindrical station.

A wide path snaked along the shape of the central axis, branching off into various areas of the district along the way.

Kline gestured toward the path, and they began to walk. Shirosaki felt as if he were being led through a garden made for pleasing tourists.

Suddenly the image that had triggered his wakefulness in the hibernation chamber came flooding back to life. The oppressive smell of greenery. The memory of the Summer Dome. A prophetic dream? Or coincidence?

Shirosaki asked Kline, “Is the entire district a plantation of some sort?”

“There’s a separate garden elsewhere. These plants have been bioengineered. They constantly release oxygen and absorb CO
2
gases regardless of the availability of light energy. They take in the air and release just the oxygen back into the environment.”

“Water and nutrients?”

“They don’t require as much of either as normal plants.”

“I see they bear fruit.”

“Not edible, I’m afraid,” Kline said. “They absorb just the carbon from the CO
2
gases. When they mature, they’re harvested and processed for carbon fiber at the recycling plant.”

Kline picked one of the fruit and handed it to Shirosaki. It had none of the fleshy elasticity of edible fruit. Shirosaki squeezed it and the fruit crumbled, leaving a powdery residue in his hand like pumice.

Shirosaki and Kline passed by several Rounds as they walked.

The Rounds wore flat shoes and long tunics, which resembled quarter-sleeved Chinese dresses with stand-up collars. The front of the lightweight cloth was decorated with embroidery from collar to chest. Since the tunics were identical, the embroidered designs alone seemed to reflect individual tastes. The children, scampering around the garden in sandals, were dressed more simply. All of the Rounds wore portable comm devices on their arms or chests.

“I feel as if I’ve wandered into an ancient civilization.”

“When we considered the proper attire for a society without sexual distinctions, this was the design we came up with.”

“It seems a bit more classical-looking than unisex. It’s enough to make you forget this is a space station.”

“Would you have preferred a different design? Such domestic matters tend to take a back seat here.”

“Are the Rounds happy with it?” Shirosaki asked.

“They don’t say either way. Although the embroidery was their idea.”

None of the Rounds registered any emotion upon seeing Kline and Shirosaki.

Their oddly tranquil gaze as they walked past without so much as a smile reminded Shirosaki of Dr. Tei’s light brown eyes.

“I have a feeling we’re not welcome here.”

“Don’t let it bother you. It’s a kind of etiquette here.”

“How do you mean?”

“The Rounds have a different physiology and accordingly, they have different values. Disregarding the other is the most peaceful method of interaction,” Kline explained.

“But you all live on the same station.”

“This is the special district. It isn’t like the other parts of the station. You musn’t think of this place in the same way.”

Residential units were scattered throughout the garden. The yellowish-ochre modules bunched together resembled an insect’s nest.

“Those are the residential quarters,” Kline explained.

“Does each of the quarters house only one Round?”

“There are units that accommodate one, and larger units that house five or six.”

“Are they resistant to gunfire and explosions?”

“Not likely. Under fire they’d probably just fall into a heap in seconds.”

Shirosaki stared at the clusters of units as he continued to walk. There were residences scattered all throughout the district. Impossible for an intruder to take many hostages at once. Most of the residents should be able to escape.

Since the plan was to neutralize any threat of an attack at the docking bays, it was unlikely anyone would penetrate the station this far.

A Round family was peering at Shirosaki from the window of a residential unit. Shirosaki smiled and waved as he would to his own child, but neither the adult nor children registered any response. Turning away, they disappeared from the window. Shirosaki lowered his hand and asked Kline, “Were those children third-generation?”

“Yes.”

“They seem awfully big considering when these experiments began.”

“The Rounds mature at a much faster rate than we do. They reach adulthood three times faster.”

“Then they have a shorter life span?”

“Actually their rate of aging slows upon reaching adulthood. If you try to guess their age by our sensibilities, you’ll find yourself mistaken. The Rounds have a growth calendar uniquely their own. One Round year is different from one Monaural year.”

“How is that possible?”

“Through the miracle of space medicine, really,” Kline said. “One of the advances in biogerontology. Mars and Earth have also pursued it, but the research on Jupiter-I is the most advanced. The technology has to do with controlling the secretion of growth hormones and telomerase synthesis. Given the need for good people to work on the cosmic frontier now, all the better if they mature faster and live longer. There’s no need for a waiting period. We don’t have the luxury of waiting eighteen or nineteen years like on Earth or Mars.”

“So how are the Rounds different?”

“According to the Monaural growth calendar, our body secretes an enormous amount of growth hormones until we’re six and begins to secrete gonadotropins at seven until maturation. Once we reach adulthood, the body secretes less gonadotropins and begins to produce telomerase.”

Telomerase is an enzyme that acts upon a base sequence of DNA called telomeres, which limit the number of times the body’s cells can divide and replicate. The number of telomeres decreases as cell division is repeated. Once the telomeres are completely gone, the cells cannot reproduce. The telomerase essentially acts to replenish the telomeres as they erode so the cells can live longer. Theoretically, the body’s cells can go on replicating endlessly as long as the telomerase remains active. The body can continue to produce tissue, thereby slowing the aging process.

“The Rounds receive injections of telomerase genes, and T-antigen genes. Scientists also made modifications to the Rounds’ klotho genes, to mitigate the aging process as well as change the 5,178th base sequence of the mitochondrial DNA from cytosine to adenine. A nanomachine that replicates neurons is implanted in their brain. The Rounds are also much more resistant to cosmic radiation.”

“Do you mean to tell me that we have the technology to make us immortal?”

“Oh, no. There’s much more research to be done before we attain immortality. We may have succeeded in prolonging the life span of the Rounds, but the technology is far from perfect. We estimate the Rounds will continue to live healthy lives past two hundred, but the first generation has already begun to show signs of aging. Although they appear outwardly young, their blood test results tell another story.”

“Still, they’ll outlive us. Is that right?”

“Probably. Without ever experiencing senility or physical impairments.”

Kline’s gaze wandered and her face lit up. “Ah, we’re in luck,” she said. “That’s the leader of the Rounds over there. I’ll introduce you to em.”

The Round was picking fruit from the bioengineered plants. Ey was tall with eir long straight hair behind em. Ey appeared to be a little older than Dr. Tei.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Kline called out.

The Round turned around and looked at Shirosaki with placid eyes.

“This is Fortia, the superintendent of the special district,” said Kline.

Fortia bowed eir head slightly and said, “Welcome to the special district,” in fluent English. Ey spoke politely, but there was a chill in eir look. Unlike the other Rounds who’d remained expressionless, ey was clearly gazing at Shirosaki with a look of caution.

“
Fortia
is Latin for ‘strength,’” Kline explained. “All Round names are derived from Latin words. The Monaural names are gender-specific. Lucy is a woman’s name, Jim is a man’s name, and so on. Since names connoting gender distinctions aren’t appropriate for the Rounds, we decided to give them Latin names in the tradition of scientific names. The names come from nouns, verbs, and at times, adjectives. We came up with the names for how they sound, so please don’t read too much into their original meaning.”

Fortia twisted eir lip into a smile and asked Kline, “Is he part of the security staff?”

“There’s no need to be alarmed. Not everyone on the security team is like Commander Harding.”

Fortia appeared masculine to Shirosaki. Maybe it was eir build. Compared to Dr. Tei, ey was taller and had a much bonier physique.

If Shirosaki stared long enough, ey might have even looked like a strapping middle-aged woman or a life-weary mother. And yet, Shirosaki sensed something very masculine about Fortia. He didn’t quite understand the standards by which he was projecting his own perceptions of masculinity and femininity onto the Round. Was it one’s outward appearance and attire? The timbre of the voice? Mannerisms? None were factors that definitively distinguished one sex from the other.

People whose gender identity was incongruous with their biological sex were no longer a rarity even in Shirosaki’s society. Sexuality was not determined by one’s physiology alone. Then by what standard was he intuiting Fortia’s sex? On what basis was he perceiving one sex more strongly than the other?

Fortia asked Kline, “Has something happened to prompt a visit from special security?”

“We’ve received word of a possible terrorist attack. We expect to contain the threat in the docking bays, but Commander Shirosaki is inspecting the layout of the facilities just in case.”

“We should go inside. This isn’t something we should be discussing here.” With that, Fortia turned around and made eir way down the path.

The exterior of Fortia’s residence was painted a light green, making it easier to pick out from among the others.

As soon as Shirosaki entered the room, he let out a cry of admiration. The interior was made of wood. For Shirosaki, who’d been born on Earth, it was nothing if not a nostalgic sight.

The polished boards were not poor imitations made of nonflammable synthetic materials or metals; they had been cut from real trees. From cedar and cypress trees no less. Where did they manage to procure this much wood? Wood panels covered the hall, ceiling, and the entire walls. The stairs leading up to the second floor were also made of cut logs. The rustic interior seemed entirely out of place on a space station responsible for developing the latest scientific technology.

“Does it interest you to see a house made of wood?” asked Fortia.