View from Ararat (4 page)

For though he walks and whistles and watches the sun setting behind the buildings, Carlos Ruiz is already a dead man . . .

2

Containment Procedures

(Extracts from the works of RJ Tolhurst transcribed to Archive Disk with the author's permission, 12/14/165 Standard. Used with permission of her estate.)

From:
Footprints on the Threshold of Eternity – An Informal History of Human Extraterrestrial Exploration (
Chapter Two
)

. . . The importance of the warp-shuttles in the establishment of Deucalion has been well documented.

Apart from the key part they played in the original discovery process, and their essential role in the interplanetary transportation of those raw materials and manufactured goods that could survive the bizarre time relativities of DiBortelli physics, they proved to be an incredibly efficient communication device. Information, news, gossip, key economic data – anything that could be stored on piezolaminate-disk or in a casserite-cell – could be transmitted from Earth to Deucalion or back in about twelve months, instead of the decades required by conventional radio-transmission-beam techniques.

Without such relatively swift communications, any notion of trade or coordination between the distant planets would have been laughable. Imagine negotiating export contracts with a century-long turnaround in any information exchange. And this was, of course, the primary function of the large bulk of communications carried in the data frames of the warp-shuttles.

But the social importance of the exchanges between artists and writers on the different worlds, or the scientists and Researchers in facilities separated by thirty-four light-years of uninhabited space, can never be overestimated.

The ‘warp' was the bridge between two slowly diverging cultures . . .

Medical Research Facility

Edison (Southwest)

Deucalion

21/14/202 Standard

CHARLIE'S STORY

‘CRIOS?' Galen was almost shouting – which he was prone to do on those rare occasions when he didn't understand something. And he sure as hell didn't understand this.

‘What the hell
is
CRIOS? This report reads like an epidemiologist's nightmare. Something totally new, that spreads like wildfire, turns your organs and circulatory system to stone, and kills you in a couple of days. But they didn't even bother to
mention
it? Shit, Charlie. What were they thinking?'

I looked up at him and turned my seat around on its swivel. Sometimes in quiet moments he would apologise to me for having to put up with his moods – but usually not until some time afterwards.

When he was revved up he wasn't usually aware of it. I guess he had a kind of tunnel vision. It comes with the territory in most branches of Research, but especially in medical. I guess the stakes are higher.

And you could say he was revved up at that moment.

Revved up nothing. He was spitting mad.

‘How could they fail to inform us? I mean, of all the dumb, stupid . . . Don't they have procedures for this kind of thing on Earth? Look at the date on this memo. For God's sake, Charlie. This report is forty years old. Something as serious as this, and they never even bothered letting us know.'

I just shook my head. I knew how he was feeling. I'd gone through pretty much the same thing about half an hour earlier. I stood behind his wheelchair and began massaging his shoulders. They were almost rigid.

‘I get the feeling we wouldn't know even now if they had their way,' I began. ‘The memo was slipped in, hidden on an embedded file, among the ROM transcriptions that Professor Hansen sent me from Earth on the last warp-shuttle. You remember, the ones of the keynote speeches from the World Epidemiology Conference? It wasn't mentioned in the file-manifest, and Benjamin didn't make any note of it when he downloaded them. It only appeared when
I
logged on, so it was obviously meant for me, and you can bet it wasn't an accident. You know Hansen – he's a whole lot like you. Something like this would definitely set him off.'

Galen laughed, but his shoulders had begun to relax a little. He was always like that. High-octane explosion, quick recovery.

I went on. ‘My guess is, Hansen had just come across this by accident. Poor old fart probably had a major coronary on the spot. This would be his way of telling us without getting himself canned.'

I took my hands from his shoulders and moved around in front of him. ‘Look, Galen, I wouldn't worry too much. Whatever this CRIOS is . . .
was
, it couldn't have amounted to all that much. I mean, forty years. If they hadn't controlled it, we'd have heard
some
thing.'

He looked up at me. ‘You've seen the report, Charlie. It didn't sound like they had too much control to me. Besides, what makes you think we
would
have heard? Look . . .'

Punching up the cover-page, he pointed to the source information.

GLOBAL HEALTH ORGANISATION

Confidential Memorandum

(punishment code # 23/511 applies for any breach)

PROJECT:

CRIOS

STATUS:

ALPHA (LEVEL FIVE CLEARANCE – NTK)

SITE OF DATA-SOURCE:

GHO CENTRE FOR COMMUNICABLE DISEASE CONTROL, NEW YORK, ATLANTIC/NORTHWEST SECTOR

FILE ORIGINATION DATE:

23/6/2332

TOPIC:

A DESCRIPTION OF THE POSSIBLE ORIGINS AND SYMPTOMS ASSOCIATED WITH COSTA RICAN ISOMORPHOUS OSSIFICATION SYNDROME (CRIOS), ALSO KNOWN AS ‘CRYSTAL DEATH'

RELATED DATA:

# CLINICAL CRYSTALLOGRAPHY

# DISEASES OF EXTRATERRESTRIAL/UNKNOWN ORIGIN

# ELECTRON MICROSCOPE STUDIES OF CRIOS SEED-CRYSTAL SAMPLES

# HAEMATOLOGY (cf: ECCENTRIC BLOOD PATHOLOGY)

# INORGANIC CONTAMINANTS – TREATMENT REGIMENS

# QUARANTINE PROCEDURES – INCURABLE/FATAL INFECTIOUS DISEASES

# SUGGESTED METHODS FOR CONTROL OF ANY FUTURE CRIOS OUTBREAK

‘
And
?' I still didn't get it. I never did have his eye for detail. Not that kind of detail.

‘
And
they slapped a Level Five clearance on it. And not
just
a Level Five. See there . . . NTK.' He tapped the screen. ‘
Need To Know
. . . Not just a Level Five, but only those Level Fives who absolutely had to find out about it. How Hansen got hold of it I can only guess.'

‘But that doesn't alter the fact that it was written forty years ago, Galen.' I was making a real effort to sound positive. It was a reflex. My way of trying to balance his natural pessimism. Galen always said it's one of the reasons we made such a good team.

‘Think about it,' I went on. ‘In all this time there's been no word of any epidemic of – what did they call it? – “Crystal Death”. So doesn't that tell you something?'

He knew what I was getting at, but I could tell that something wasn't sitting right. He frowned and looked back at the screen, as if the cause of his unease might be flashing there in huge red letters.

It wasn't.

I walked around and stood in front of his chair, before I went on.

‘What it tells
me
is that it didn't get loose. That whatever this CRIOS was, the containment measures must have worked. Otherwise there's no way they could ever have kept it secret. It would have been all over the networks, and we'd have heard about it on the next warp-shuttle. Which, incidentally, would have arrived on Deucalion about twenty years before either of us was born.'

It was a sensible argument. At least, it was the comforting one. I mean, they must have controlled it, or . . . Well, the possibilities didn't bear thinking about.

I changed tack. ‘Want some Ocra?' After years of working with him, I knew his addictions as well as I knew my own. He nodded without removing his gaze from the screen.

As I left the room to brew his tea, he leaned forward towards the console and began reading the report again.

Two minutes later I was back.

‘What's “Vesta”?' He asked the question before I was halfway through the door.

I placed one mug on the tray-arm of his chair, took a quick sip from the other, and looked at the report. I'd skimmed it earlier, but with Galen skimming wasn't nearly good enough. I'd learned not to answer any query off the cuff. He could be cutting – even with me – if he was in overdrive, like he was at the moment, and you tried to ad lib.

I started at the top of the screen.

INCUBATION PERIOD:
Undetermined. Victims demonstrate rapid and irreversible deterioration from the onset of major symptoms, but no data is currently available on the period between contact with CRIOS seed-crystal and initial pathological changes.

‘Seed-crystal.' What the hell did they mean by ‘seed-crystal'?

ORIGIN OF INFECTION:
First reported case: (Carlos Ruiz, 28 [Earth standard], Hispanic) Security operative, JMMC ore-processing facility, Puerto Limon, Costa Rica. Admitted, comatose, to JMMC plant med-centre, 23:09, 2/5/32, symptoms initially diagnosed as allergic/anaphylactic shock, erratic pulse, cyanosis, muscular rigidity. Zero response to adrenalin/antihistamine treatment. Unprecendented blood pathology – high-level, unexplained crystallisation of plasma, blood-calcium, red and white corpuscles. Zero response to anticoagulants. Progressive organ failure. Pronounced dead 01:04, 3/5/32.

Twenty new cases reported by 5/5/32 – all in Puerto Limon facility (eight from Security and twelve from crushing mills, but none reported initially from separation plant). 100% fatal within thirty-six to fifty-four hours. Infection-transmission mode unknown in initial investigation phase; airborne spores suspected.

GHO
notified, 3/5/32. Blood samples, pathology and post-mortem data forwarded by Security courier to
GHO
New York Centre for Communicable Disease Control, 4/5/32.

Quarantine measures (Code Amber: Suspected communicable pathogen of extraterrestrial origin) initiated, 14:30, 4/5/32. Immediate emergency JMMC Security blockade of facility, company precinct of Callas and surrounding company-controlled common land. Medical centre and processing plant hermetically isolated. Contagion rate within facility complex 99+% by 8/5/32. Further outbreak reported in Callas 7/5/32.

Under orders from
GHO
, upgraded quarantine measures (Code Red: Confirmed presence of pathogen of extraterrestrial origin – virulent/malignant) initiated 9/5/32. Containment procedure ‘Vesta' ordered 10/5/32. Immediate execution. Outbreak officially controlled 11/5/32.

One day from the GHO containment order to ‘Outbreak officially controlled'. I closed my eyes and tried to fathom it. I couldn't. Or rather, I don't think I really wanted to.

‘So what's “Vesta”?' Galen repeated the question as I finished reading.

‘Beats me.' I was standing behind his chair, reading the screen over his shoulder. Moving across to my own console, I touched the ROM icon on the screen and leaned towards the v-a pick-up.

‘Vesta. VESTA.'

I didn't normally spell things out, but the voice-recog was playing up, and I didn't want it to bring up ‘fester' or ‘festa' or whatever else it might think it heard. I added ‘Cross-ref on “Old Earth”, and “containment procedures”, slash “disease”, slash “epidemics”.'

There were a couple of references, but neither of them were of any use. I summarised the results for him.

‘It's a town in Costa Rica, about 40 clicks from the processing plant, and it's the name of an Ancient Greek goddess they probably named it after. Maybe they used the town as a control centre for the blockade and the containment. I mean, they wouldn't want to draw too much attention by organising things in Puerto Limon itself. Not if they were trying to keep it under wraps.' I shrugged my shoulders, and moved back to stand beside the wheelchair. ‘Otherwise, I wouldn't have a clue. It must have been an internal Security codename. There's no ref on file of any official containment procedure by that name.'

‘No,' he replied. ‘Well, there wouldn't be, would there? Pretty bloody effective, whatever it is.' He spoke the words more to himself than me as he reached for his ‘fix'.

I took another sip too.

But suddenly I had the feeling that a cup of Ocra tea wasn't going to be enough to settle the butterflies that were beginning to flex their wings in my stomach.

Forty years ago
. . .

That was what the date on the report said.

2332
ad
on Earth. 153
as
here on Deucalion.

Which was exactly the year when the next three approaching C-ships took off on their long, sub-light journey to the new world. Our world.

And the first one was due within the month . . .

3

Destiny

Al-Tiina Village

Wieta Clan Lands, Vaana

24/14/202 Standard

LOEF

Kaeba has climbed too high. As usual.

He feels her sudden fear like a jolt in the chest, as the realisation of danger grows in the young one's heart.

–
Breathe slowly. Swallow your fear. Fear is your enemy, Kaeba.

He makes his way across the open space behind the communal meeting place, sending to her, soothing her anxiety, as he closes the distance between them.

–
Find a strong branch and hold tightly. I am almost with you . . .

A few moments later he stands beneath the spreading shadows of the huge Balaan, and touches the wrinkled armour of its bark, breathing in its essence.

The Balaan commands reverence. It stands as the oldest living thing in all the Wieta Lands. The motions of three hundred and eighty-four seasons have passed through its branches since it was planted, on the day of the Arrival, in the year of Returning, when Saebi's Vision brought the remaining twenty-nine Clans of the Elokoi out of the desert, back from the eastern lands, to Vaana. Back to the land of the Ancestors.

And high in those branches, clinging to the ancient bark, Kaeba looks down, her huge eyes seeking his.

Loef grasps the tree and begins to climb . . .

–
Ciiv has never seen a cub quite like her. And Ciiv has taught the young ones the Thoughtsongs for more years than anyone can remember.

The thought runs out, and Loef looks across at Raatal, his mother. She watches Kaeba from the doorway of the shelter, and there is the pride of kinship in the colour of her mind-tone, as she continues.

–
Ciiv says Kaeba has the love. One hearing, and she can repeat a Song or a Story with every tone and every emotion. The legends say that Saebi herself was such a cub. If ever there was a young one who was born to the Telling, Kaeba is destined—

–
If she survives that long
, Loef interrupts.
Did you know, I had to climb the Balaan this afternoon and carry your ‘born Teller' down on my back?

But there is no venom in his tone. He loves Kaeba.

Everyone loves Kaeba.

He moves across to the doorway and stands beside his mother, looking in the same direction. Across the Greenspace, Kaeba withdraws her attention from Ciiv the old Teacher and looks back at the two of them.

–
Saliba, Loef. She sends the formal greeting, but with a thought-tone that hints at mischief. Saliba, kinmother Raatal.

But Ciiv has spent too many years Teaching the young ones to be ignored. She bespeaks the cub silently in mind-speech, and Kaeba returns her full attention to the lesson.

The old Teacher looks across at the pair in the doorway and nods slightly, then turns back to the cub.

Loef looks at his mother. And his nervousness leaks past the mind-shield. She returns his stare.

–
What is it, Loef? You have been prowling the village for day, with all the control of a Yorum in the mating season. Speak to your mother.

She sits on her bed-platform and indicates a spot next to her. He obeys the wordless order and sits down beside her.

She waits. Finally, he begins.

–
Juuls returns to the island of Caarmody tomorrow. He has invited me to go with him. To see the school and his friends. He says I can learn much about the humans. And that I can teach them much. About the Elokoi . . .

Raatal gazes out of the window in the direction of the Great Desert. Then she places a long-fingered hand on her firstson's arm.

–
On the island
, she begins,
they have excellent teachers. And Cael the Teller lives there for five months of every year, as his mother and grandmother did before him. He shares the Songs and the Stories and the Journeys with the special young humans of the island, and teaches them about the Elokoi way. Things which you are yet too young to understand so well yourself, my son.

She can feel the disappointment building in him. Loef would never argue with her decision, of course, but he is young. He is quite capable of allowing his emotions to leak out. Just slightly. Just enough to let you know how he feels about being denied.

It is behaviour unacceptable in a mature Elokoi, but for the young, rules and acceptable behaviours are things to be tested.

She turns to look at him. He is his father's son.

Mael, her firstmate, is still the only one of her three mates who can make her do things against her best judgment.

She stands, looking down at him. Then her mind-tone softens. Just a touch.

–
But
, she continues,
there is a time in life when it is good to be challenged. And to learn from experience. Your father lived with the special humans on the island when he was not much older than you are now. And it taught him many things. I think that my firstson could do worse than to learn those things too.

She holds his gaze while the meaning sinks in. Then the wave of his excitement washes over her, and he leans forward to touch foreheads.

–
I will tell Juuls.

And he is running for the door.

Halfway across the Greenspace he stops and looks back.

–
Thank you, Mother.

Then he is gone.

Raatal turns back into the hut and moves towards the cooking fire. For a few months there will be more room in the hut. And more food in the store-cupboards.

She is missing him already.

Al-Tiina Village

Wieta Clan Lands, Vaana

25/14/202 Standard

JULES'S STORY

Right up to the last minute I wasn't sure the old tyrant would really let him go.

In spite of that tough exterior, you couldn't help loving Raatal, but she was stubborn, and if she got hard-line on something, a stampeding Utiina herd wouldn't make her change her mind.

Loef was her favourite – which was natural, I suppose. Not because he was her firstson, which is almost as important among the Wieta as a firstdaughter. It was more than that. It was Loef himself.

Loef was always special. He didn't have any particular talent. Nothing you could point at and say
that's
what Loef was really good at. He wasn't an artist, or particularly good with the Thoughtsongs or the Stories. He didn't have a way with the crops that the Wieta rely on so heavily. And he was too young to hunt, so no one knew how good he'd be at that.

Loef was just . . . Well, he was understanding, I guess you'd say.

I know, all Elokoi are, to a large extent. But Loef's capacity for understanding was amazing, even for an Elokoi.

He was special. And he was my friend. That was why I wanted him to come to the island with me.

I wanted him to learn. About us. The few hundred of us on Carmody Island, and all the thirty-eight million other humans on Deucalion.

Don't ask why. I'm not sure it was a thought-out thing. In fact, I know it wasn't. It was just something I felt strongly about.

Loef was going to achieve something great. I didn't know what, but I knew that he was destined for it. And I knew that he was going to need to understand human ways a whole lot better than any Elokoi before him had ever understood them, if he was going to be ready when the moment came.

At exactly midday the flyer from Carmody touched down on the Greenspace of Al-Tiina village and we said our farewells.

I stood and watched as Loef touched foreheads with Kaeba, his cousin. After that, it was his siblings – Kaalis and Hiejha his sisters, and Raanji, his baby brother. Then, formally, he touched with Hailf, his mother's thirdmate, Zhial, her secondmate, and Mael, his truefather, and Raatal's firstmate.

And finally he faced his mother. She took his face in her hands and touched her head to his. It was the gentlest gesture I think I ever saw her make.

Then she turned and walked away towards the hut without looking back. Not even a glance. It was her way, I suppose. Elokoi females are strong, and they don't show their emotions easily.

Loef watched her for a moment longer, then turned towards the flyer.

I took a last look around the village and followed him.