The Godwhale (S.F. Masterworks) (17 page)

Several days later Drum realized where the structure got its name. An oblong dish, a rabbit’s ear, was slowly taking shape.

Captain Ode lost six crew members to agoraphobia. Another dozen were in various stages of catatonia.

Rorqual
raked well. Her hold bulged with a hundred thousand tons of calories for the Hive – flavoured calories. She reeled in her nets and digested them, returning the polymers to their holding tanks. Bacteria – cellulose – cracking fermenters – were seeded into the hold, where they busied themselves digesting plant fibre. Algae cells walls became polysaccharide – edible sugars.

During the voyage back to Orange Sector
Rorqual
detoured up the coast to the point where she had sighted Opal. Her port crane sprinkled the surface of the water over the reef with steaming sausage-shaped masses of fermenting plankton – flaky, green biscuits that barely floated.

‘What’s this?’ exclaimed Captain Ode. ‘You are losing part of the cargo. Did you have an accident?’

The ship’s printout did not make sense to the Nebish. He interpreted the event as an offering to a water sprite – superstition buried in the ship’s old memory banks. He decided not to make an issue of it.

Trilobite towed hemihuman Larry through a school of tiny fishes, then back to the surface to catch his breath. While Larry basked on the meck’s body disc the tail rose out of the water and broadcast a call to
Rorqual
.

‘Still thinking that ship Opal saw was your deity?’

‘Must be,’ said the meck. ‘Her description fits perfectly. Even if the Hive did make a copy of her it wouldn’t put those trees in her hump.’

‘Why doesn’t she answer?’

‘She could be on manual override, or her communicator system could be knocked out.’

‘It’s a big Ocean,’ said Larry. ‘It will be hard to find her if she is deaf and dumb.’

They continued to drift with the current until Trilobite noticed a familiar outline in the foam along the shore. Plankton biscuits had washed up. The meck darted in and collected a mouthful.

‘I know it was
Rorqual
,’ said Trilobite. ‘Her flavour is all over these biscuits. She must have been by here a few hours ago.’

‘This is Opal’s reef. I don’t think it is a coincidence. She’ll be back.’

They dived to Halfway. Listener looked at the biscuits and nodded.

‘Four hours ago. Same floating island, or Leviathan – leaving a trail of those green things. It went south along the coast.’

‘Did you hear anything unusual on the web while it was overhead?’

‘No. Never have when it is around. If it can communicate over a distance it doesn’t use any of the usual bands.’

‘Trilobite thinks it can’t talk.’

Listener nodded. ‘The Benthics had better stay away from it until we know what it is up to.’

Captain Ode was enjoying temperature luxuries with his flavours: icy parfait and steaming consommé. Dispensers with heat pumps were rare. He had been accustomed to heating his soups on a separate heater coil. This one even made ice cubes.

The
whooop whooop whooop
of the alarm siren called him from his cabin. The deep nets were bringing up a humanoid silhouette. Ode glanced at the deep scanning screen and thought they might have netted a canal sirenian or other aquatic mammal, but as it was brought closer he saw that it was clearly a hominid – giant, naked, and primitive. The crane extruded a soft polymer net and gently dragged the body up on the deck. The crew shuddered at the size of the brine-soaked hulk: six feet long – two feet taller and a hundred pounds heavier than a Nebish. It wore a rope belt, had leathery burnt-sienna skin and large five-toed feet. The crew scattered, wet boots squeaking.

The Sharps Committee met and issued Captain Ode a curved blade. He walked up to the Benthic and nudged it with his boot. It was cold, stiff – lifeless. As a precaution Ode cut the left carotid artery. The blood was purple and jelly-like. Eight Nebishes carried the Benthic down to the freezer. Ode returned to his cabin and dictated his report to
Rorqual
. He theorized that it was a fossil hominid that had been carried there by a bottom arctic current after melting out of some glacier. An elaborate theory, but he knew very little of the world outside his Hive.

‘Can you send that?’

The printout explained that work on the ship’s communicator gear was not complete. He shrugged and went below decks to speed things up.

‘Roots in the plates?’

The Electrotecks were scattered throughout the crawl space between decks with their small tools, sawing the gnarled, invading wood and chipping away thick green flakes. The entire nervous system of the ship was shorted out between the forebrain and the hindbrain.

‘How long is this going to take? This is our second voyage. You don’t seem to be making much progress.’

The Squad Leader sat up and wiped his hands. A pair of worn gloves protruded from his hip pocket. ‘I sometimes think the roots are growing faster than we can cut them. That salt spray is eating up the wires.’

‘I want the long ear back in working order,’ said Ode firmly. ‘Can’t you rig up something temporary – jumper cables or something?’

‘We would have to run them down the corridors. That wouldn’t fit the ship’s blueprints.’

‘Do it. I want this ship functioning on all systems. It doesn’t have to be neat.’

Spools of insulated wire began to rattle around the ship. Contacts were closed.
Rorqual
began to see with more eyes and hear with more ears. The fore and aft brains shared their inputs again. Ode’s report was sent to the CO.

The report bounced. Although five-toeds were officially classified as extinct, or nearly so, this Benthic beast was clearly no fossil. Jelly-like blood is recent. The inner lining of the artery was still white – the tissue had not yet stained. Printouts on shore went to Drum and Wandee.

Drum toggled into the long-ear line and called Ode.

‘So you finally got your communicator working.’ Ode grinned. The view-screen showed Drum’s new Sewer Service office near the Shipyards.

‘We were waiting for you to repair yours,’ said Drum. ‘This isn’t a social call, old friend. We are worried about you out there with that Benthic beast.’

‘An interesting fossil. But you should see the fish, if you think those fish were big last time. Some of these are averaging over a pound – hardly planktonic.’

‘It isn’t a fossil.’

‘Nonsense. The meteors can’t bring back our ancestors. Why everyone knows—’

‘It is not a fossil!’ repeated Drum. ‘Maybe they’ve been out there all along. anyway – they are dangerous.’

Whooop whooop whooop!
The Benthic that crossed the scanners was not dead this time. It climbed up on the decks and stood dripping and naked – towering over the panic-stricken deck hands. The deck sensors felt the bare-foot contact.
Rorqual
shuddered. The crew fled, boots squeaking. Two men fell overboard. Others hid among the trees.

‘Sharps Committee!’ Ode shouted.

Only two Committeemen arrived in his cabin. They fumbled their keys into the weapons locker, but two of the keyholes were still empty. The door wouldn’t budge.

‘Defend the ship,’ shouted the Captain. ‘Use whatever means are available.’

The siren continued to rise and fall – bewailing the ship’s fate. Even knives and forks were locked up. The reluctant squads that climbed back out on to the deck were carrying such non-weapons as drinking jugs, chairs, and heavy spools – useless. The beast hesitated – looking down on them – puzzled. Someone threw a four-inch bolt at him. It missed, but that clarified the situation in his mind. He lunged into the little Nebishes, kicking and flailing. Soon the decks were splattered with rose-water blood and five-toed footprints. Screams and cries of the injured filled the ship’s ears.

Drum cursed his helplessness as he monitored the one-sided battle. The Benthic was not even wounded, yet he was disabling the entire ship’s complement. Captain Ode was still tugging on the door to the weapons locker when the Benthic found him and threw him against the wall. The communicator’s faithful sound reproductions transmitted the sickening thud. Drum winced.

The Benthic tracked red below decks until he found the frozen body of the other giant. This seemed to satisfy him. He wrapped it in netting and heavy tools. The decks were quiet when he jumped into the ship’s wake with it.

Drum stood on the docks with two dozen White Teams.
Rorqual
nosed into her berth, hatches open. Rows of stretchers lined the foredeck. The walking wounded had tended the more seriously injured as best they could. The dead were on ice.

Drum went straight to the Captain’s cabin. Ode was heavily sedated. He was alive and stabile, but had sustained multiple fractures of the pelvis and lower extremities, as well as several undisplaced rib fractures and a linear skull fracture.

‘You’ve got to be more careful,’ chided Drum.

Ode grinned out of his stupor, but said nothing. The Mediteck examined him and shook his head slowly. They tubed and wired the old Captain to keep him alive and moved him to the White Meck’s cradle.

‘What are his chances?’

The teck shook his head again: ‘Almost every bone in his body is broken. Those below the waist are displaced. Looks like his bladder is leaking too. That urine will slough off any tissue it gets into. And if all those fractures soak up the blood they need for healing he won’t have a drop left. I don’t know what kept his pressure up this long.’

‘Can’t we do something?’

‘Best we can do is freeze him – TS until we can mobilize half the Clinic to work on him at once. It will be a long time before we can get around to that – unless his priority is raised.’

‘But he’s a captain—’

‘Was a captain, you mean. He’ll not sail again.’

A furious Drum stomped in on the Hive Committee meeting.

‘Why does
Rorqual
have to remain neutral?’ he demanded. ‘We lost the whole crew to a creature the ship could have dispatched with one swat of its crane.’

The representative from Security, a fat compromising neuter, turned piggish eyes to him and spoke slowly, didactically: ‘Your ship is equipped with the WIC/RAC genius circuit. I understand this enables it to survive in very hostile environments. However, we learned a long time ago that our genius machines must never be given the option of killing a hominid of any kind. It might discover a very logical reason to kill us all.’

Other Committeemen nodded. They pointed out that even the CO used a megajury of Citizens to execute capital offenders.

Drum sat down, mumbling: ‘Then why send a crew at all? That ship could harvest pretty well on its own.’

‘The
Rorqual Maru
must be manned at all times,’ ordered the CO. ‘She takes long voyages and gets lonely. To permit her to sail alone is to invite a commandeering by the Benthics.’

The teck from Synthe stood up.

‘Plankton clouds are widespread. I’m certain we can plot a course that avoids areas controlled by the Benthic.’

‘And,’ said Wandee from Bio, ‘we are working on the genes of a new prototype Citizen who will be able to fight the Benthics. A stronger, bigger Citizen – who will also fill the job requirements at the Shipyards.’

‘Big enough to handle a Benthic with his bare hands?’ asked Security.

Wandee nodded.

‘Why – his body would be classified as a weapon. How could you ensure his loyalty?’

‘Just as certain ants ensure the loyalty of their warriors. We’ll design him so he can’t feed himself.’

Drum was shocked. ‘What do you mean – no oesophagus or no hands?’

Wandee smiled. ‘Oh, nothing so crude. He won’t even notice anything amiss. We’ll delete one of his key metabolic pathways so he’ll be dependent on a special diet that only the Hive can give him. Without it he’ll sicken and die.’

Drum shuddered. Now he was sorry he had asked. A tied-off oesophagus could be corrected by a friendly Tinker. What could a poor warrior do about a defective enzyme system if he wanted to quit his job? Nothing.

‘Here is a copy of the traits we hope to program into the genes of our warrior,’ said Wandee, handing him a clipboard.

Drum glanced at the list. ‘Sounds good, but will it walk?’

‘Walk, run, swim – and fight,’ said Wandee.

Drum was sceptical.

‘How can you be so sure? Just a couple of years ago your Spinner couldn’t construct a gene map for a simple marine protozoan. Now you think you can spin us a superman?’

The clipboard was passed around the table. The battle gear it listed was very impressive: heavy bone and muscle, a fast reflex time, high pain threshold, potent nerve-endocrine axis. None of the committee members really understood details of gene spinning. Wandee wanted to quiet Drum’s objections without exposing the other complacent Nebishes at the table to a lot of new terms that might disturb them. Drum had an exceptional grasp of matters beyond his specialty, and more – he had an open mind. He was a Leo.

‘Growing this prototype warrior is much simpler than the marine biota project. We do not have to build an entirely unknown gene. Human genes have been mapped many times, and about twenty percent of the map is pretty well understood. Enough for us to design certain broad traits we are interested in. We will use the known map of the most primitive human we have on file – Larry Dever – from before the Era of Karl. We still have some of his alpha renal nuclei in Suspension. By using his chromosomes – and deleting what we don’t need – we have relatively few genes to actually assemble.’

‘You are going to assemble a Larry Dever?’ asked Drum.

‘Modified. We’ll grow an Augmented Renal Nucleus Of Larry Dever – an ARNOLD – with the traits listed.’

The chairman had dozed off. He awoke with a start. ‘You two can continue this discussion down in the Spinner Labs. Meeting adjourned.’

Warrior human being
Under Hive control—
Spinner made your genes.
Who made your soul?

Drum marvelled at Wandee’s deft manipulations. The dividing renal cell was spilled into the sorting chamber, filling the screen with X- and V-shaped chromosomes. She selected those to be augmented. Wandee’s electron pencil carved as she talked.