The Mendel Experiment (5 page)

Chapter Five

Corree woke from her sleep, pain knife-sharp in her chest. She took a shuddering breath, feeling the air whoosh into her lungs with almost explosive force. The pain subsided into a steady ache, and Corree noticed the throbbing in her hands and feet. She flexed her fingers in the darkness, and that pain eased as well. Still, her body was stiff and her muscles sore. Her joints popped audibly and her head pounded in protest to her movements. She sat up cautiously, wondering what had caused all this. Something she had eaten? Corree scratched under her chin where the skin itched horribly and realized that she itched all over.

The light glow on the walls was diffused and dim, as though the little creatures were sleeping, too. The underwater glow creatures had disappeared. She counted only six sleepers. Breeann was gone. Several of the group lay near her, so Corree eased from her place in the warm sand as carefully as she could. The walls nearest her sensed her movement and brightened.

Corree knelt over the dark, still waters. She reached her hand toward the surface and then jerked back in shock. Her almost claw-like nails had receded and there was webbing between her fingers. She gasped when she saw that her pelt had disappeared or flattened into a smooth, rubbery skin. She was changing. She had changed. Just like in her dream!

Her chest felt strange, almost hollow; but Corree could breathe all right. She touched her ears and was relieved when she felt the rounded appendages.

There was a light touch on her arm. It was Breeann, seawater sluicing down her body. “You have changed! I would not have thought it possible after our first change.”

“I wouldn’t have, either.” Corree was dismayed to hear her voice crack slightly.

“I think the color is very pretty,” Breeann commented, lightly stroking Corree’s new skin.

“But I didn’t want to change again,” Corree retorted, jerking away from the touch. She felt tears prickling the corners of her eyes and she blinked hard to stop the embarrassing display. It didn’t do any good. How in the world could she live in the forest now? Like this? Tears slid down her cheeks. Corree was ready to throw herself on the sand and bawl.

Instead she forced herself to draw in a deep breath. Before she could say anything else, Lenden popped above the surface. The glow creatures accompanied him. Another sea person surfaced next to him. He sat down next to Corree.

“You have changed,” he stated the obvious.

“Yes,” Corree said and twitched at a quick pain in her chest.

Lenden’s luminous eyes bored into hers. “You are feeling something inside?” he asked, concern in his voice.

She rubbed her chest and the throbbing eased.

He smiled, which only frustrated her more.

“What I am thinking is that now you’ll be able to swim with us.”

“I swam with you yesterday,” she pointed out. All she wanted now was to be back in her rainforest with her family. All those wonderful ideas about finding the other mutated humans seemed so stupid now.

“No, we led you here. You don’t know how to swim.”

She deflated. “That obvious?”

He nodded. “No place to learn in a forest.” He put his webbed hand on her arm. “How quickly did each member of your group change when you…landed in the forest?”

Corree wondered where he was going with this questioning. Her thoughts returned to that early time when they woke up in the pod in the middle of the forest. She had changed almost immediately. By the second day she had her pelt. Her eyes were more sensitive to the movements in the under story. By the end of the second day her gliding flaps had begun developing, as had her claw-like nails and strong fingers and toes. Within three days the changes were completed. Most of the others were still changing. Corree had buried Migo alone.

She had wondered about that back then, but not for long. There had been no time to consider anything except how to avoid being killed. “What are you thinking, Lenden?”

“You adapted quicker than anyone else back then; you have adapted very quickly here....”

“Do you think I will change again?” she asked.

“Maybe. I think so.”

Corree frowned and looked down at the cave floor. That was not what she wanted to hear. She wanted him to be positive and say “absolutely!” To be honest, though, that was the only thing he could say.

“But since you have changed…” He pulled her toward the water. “I can teach you to swim.”

She allowed herself to be led to the water’s edge, but didn’t go in. “I have to return to the forest soon.”

“How? Even though you’ve developed the ability to stay in the water, there are too many predators to swim to the mainland alone,” Lenden reminded her. “You were very lucky on the way out.”

“What would you suggest,” she snapped. “I can’t stay here. You know that.”

“Yes, I know,” he replied soothingly. “As much as I would like for you to stay, you’re right. Everyone possible needs to be contacted. They need to know what you’ve learned, especially if they don’t have communication with a pod. You need to know what everyone else feels.” Lenden rubbed the back of his head absently. “They want us to be a viable member of the Federation, but they send us to so many different habitats. At the rate we’re going, it will take generations before we have enough population to have a secure claim on Mendel. With all of us so separated… That doesn’t make sense to keep us away from each other.”

“Easier to keep us under control?” Corree shrugged. “Maybe they expected more of us to live through our change and first years.” If we could adapt to each place, we could gather together somewhere.”

“Where would that be? Your place or mine?” Lenden rebutted. His eyes held a twinkle of humor.

“Good point,” Corree conceded. “Maybe what they want is for us to have separate colonies but with a central meeting place.”

“Then why didn’t they say that?”

“I don’t know.” Corree chewed her lower lip. “Maybe they wanted to see if we could figure it out on our own.”

“Maybe it’s also because they can’t come down and punish us if we do something wrong,” Lenden laughed. “They taught us to survive and obey. They succeeded in neither, at least not with us.”

A sudden inspiration almost made her gasp. Could the scientists still be experimenting on them; seeing if they could mutate more than once? Perhaps they had wanted her to visit other groups. But why? How would they know? Would they expect her to just trot back to the teaching pod and tell them?

Lenden studied her carefully. Could he read her mind? She didn’t have any clear answers to anything right now, so it was useless to worry. “Whatever they want us to do for them, we still need to know each other and figure out how to work together despite our physical differences.”

Lenden’s face was impassive. “Somehow, I am thinking that no matter what we do, we’re playing into their plans.”

“Maybe. Regardless, we can’t pretend they aren’t out there and we can’t live alone anymore. I mean we can’t ignore each other.”

For several heartbeats there was no sound except for the dripping water. “I feel we should visit this pod,” Lenden mused. “We already know a great deal, but I think we need to know more.” He rubbed behind the back of his head again. “You don’t believe they did anything to you?” he asked.

“Other than the sleeping gas, no. In fact, the man could not touch me, and I didn’t see any robots or machines that could move.”

“It’s nice they can’t send anyone down to do anything to us.” He grinned.

Corree laughed. It felt good joking with someone her own age. How old did the holo-man say she was? Fourteen? Despite the lack of a pelt, Lenden was very handsome.

“Besides, if we all go to the mainland together, you will have a much better chance of getting back alive.”

“Your group won’t be in any more danger?” she asked

Lenden shrugged.

“No more than usual,” Breeann interjected. “I’m tired of hiding in the caves, anyway.”

“I am, too,” Matak chimed in. “When are we going to eat?”

“Matak! Your appetite is the reason we need to leave,” Lenden complained.

Matak didn’t look the least bit penitent. “Still hungry. Bet you are, too.”

“Would you like to come to the feeding grounds and help us gather, Corree?” Lenden asked.

“As you said, I’m not a good swimmer,” Corree admitted. “Wouldn’t I put your family in danger?”

“You will learn as we go,” Breeann told her. “It will be a simple adjustment.”

Corree certainly hoped so. This time when Lenden motioned toward the water, Corree didn’t hesitate. She took several deep breaths exhaling completely between each one. Breeann nodded her approval.

“We won’t go far at first,” Lenden instructed. “Take in a lungful of air and see how long you can hold it.”

“It wasn’t very long before.”

“You weren’t changed before,” he reminded her.

Corree did as she was told and was surprised when her lungs seemed to swell beyond its previous capacity. She walked into the water, and when it was chest high, she ducked beneath the surface. Corree blinked and gazed around. Multi-colored seaweed caressed her legs. The small light creatures were much brighter this morning, or whatever time it was. Her webbed fingers propelled her along the bottom of the cave pool so that she swam almost as fast as she had glided in the forest canopy. Her gliding flaps didn’t impede her progress. Rather they acted as extra propulsion, pushing her along. Watching the others, Corree kicked her feet rhythmically. She exulted in the free movement, unimpeded by gravity. Following Matak, Corree circled this way and that. When he shot toward the surface, Corree was reminded she needed to replenish her air supply. She was not desperate though, as she had been when Lenden led her here.

Corree rose leisurely and broke the surface. Breeann and Lenden were waiting for her.

“Well?” Lenden asked.

Corree had a pretty good idea what Lenden was wanting, but she wasn’t going to let him know just yet. “Well, what?” she asked.

His smile told her he already knew. “Lot easier this time, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. How long can you stay under?”

“Long. We don’t have any way of telling time other than the sun and we don’t go out very often. I’d guess if we aren’t swimming, we can stay under for the space of…” Lenden held his hands apart. “This amount of time the blue sun takes across the sky, I think.”

Corree gaped at him. That was the length of one of their rainforest nap times. Until she had changed this time, she wouldn’t have dreamed of such a thing.

“Being able to trance has allowed us to stay alive many times,” Breeann added.

“Trance?”

“We’ll explain after we have finished gathering,” Lenden told her. He sucked in a deep breath and ducked under the water.

The others followed his example, including Corree. She felt her lungs press against her rib cage. Still, she didn’t think she had gotten enough air. Corree exhaled and breathed in more air. She also felt a surge of energy. This time she glided underwater and looked for the others. She saw Breeann near the bottom of the pool waiting for her.

As Corree approached, Breeann turned and swam through a cave toward more open water. Several of the light creatures accompanied them. She was able to examine one and saw that it was only as big as her thumbnail. It had ten tiny legs or arms that flowed in a circular motion. Right in the center of its body were two tiny black dots. Corree assumed they were eyes, or something similar.

She followed Breeann out of the cave to a semi-dark canyon where most of the light was supplied by luminous plants that grew in clumps on the walls and floor. The sea group ignored them and concentrated on small animals that scuttled in the more shadowy parts of the canyon. Matak grabbed a squirming grub-like animal and popped it in a pouch at his side. One of the others pried a shelled animal from the bottom of a rock.

Corree swam closer to the bottom, scanning for anything that moved. The little light creatures stayed above her, well away from any outcropping. She saw something wiggling in front of her and grabbed for it.

Don’t touch that!
she heard in her head. It sounded like Lenden. Corree snatched her hand back in surprise. She had not “heard” that. It had been in her mind. Lenden had sent her a message from his mind to hers?

Yes,
he thought to her.

How?
she thought back.

Later.

With that, Corree went back to her foraging. With each breath, she seemed able to stay under longer. She became more comfortable swimming among the rocks and tall pipe stem plants that grew in clumps on the bottom. Her eyes picked out slight variances in color among the sea plants, even in the dim light. The tall plants weren’t just blue; they were variegated with slightly lighter shades in the middle and darker near the edges. Red flower-like plants clung to the rocks that lined the entrance to the cave, waving long fronds in a rhythmic cadence.

Ten-legged shellfish, the front four legs ending in over-sized claws scuttled into shadowed corners trying to escape the humans’ darting fingers. Corree snatched at one and rapidly jerked her hand away. The creature was hanging on to her index finger with an iron-hard grip. She almost sucked in a mouthful of water in her pain and surprise.