‘At least they’ll have had some fun. Lived some life of their own.’
‘And recycling…death…might begin to mean something to them also.’ Shelby shook his head. ‘Something for them to fear.’
‘So? Isn’t that what we all fear? We all die in the end, right?’
‘Hmmm.’
‘Better to have had something and then lose it…than never have had that something?’ She looked up at Jez. ‘Right?’
Jez nodded. 'She’s right. Let 'em live a little.’
Shelby tugged on his lip thoughtfully. ‘If you two abolutely insist…but, I warn you, they will have to be recycled eventually. This isn’t meant to be a zoo.’
‘How about until that supply shuttle arrives?’ said Ellie.
Shelby sighed. ‘Ridiculous….but all right.'
‘Yay!’ Jez raised her left hand to high-five Ellie’s. ‘Oh…uh, sorry.’
‘And the other creatures,’ Shelby continued, ‘Graham and I will dispose of those.’
‘Good,’ said Ellie. ‘They were horrible.’
‘The large one that attacked you, we’ll have a look at that one though.’ He shook his head. ‘It really shouldn’t have behaved that way. I can’t see how it passed through quality control without something being flagged up.’
Ellie nodded. ‘It nearly killed me.’
‘It might have been an accident?’ said Jez. ‘Or maybe it got confused or something?’
‘There should be absolutely no confusion. Every fabricated creature is designed to know, to absolutely one-hundred-percent-know, whether it is interacting with another fabricant or a human client. Something went wrong. That’s a serious health and safety matter we need to look into.’
‘Was it my fault?’ asked Jez. ‘Did I do something wrong with the design?’
‘The design software shouldn’t have passed it on for production. Either the design software is faulty, or something went wrong in the fabrication process.’ He looked at Ellie. ‘During the wargame, did any other creature act threateningly towards you?’
She shook her head. ‘No. I don’t think so. It was just that scorpion.’
He shrugged. ‘Then perhaps it was a one off. Maybe it’s chemical receptors were confused or damaged in the combat somehow.’ He frowned, losing interest in talking with the girls any longer, now deep in thought about the problem. ‘For some reason…it didn’t recognise her as a human.’
‘Yeah, it happens to her all the time,’ said Jez.
Ellie rolled her eyes and Jez provided her own laughter as Shelby turned and walked away, still tugging thoughtfully at his lip, Frasier accompanying him up the path leading to the control tower.
They watched them go, then Ellie sat up on the sun couch. ‘I guess you’ll be heading back to Gray’s weird world now?’
‘Nope. I’m sticking with you El’.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Oh, don’t thank me. I’m staying ‘cause I feel fregging guilty about your hand. Cause you’ll need some help. Cause I’m your friend. Cause I’ve been neglecting you recently. All that kinda stuff.’ She sat down on the end of the couch. ‘And because Gray seems to be…in a total fregging shitty mood right now.’
‘Why?’
‘I dunno. Maybe he feels like it was his fault too. I suppose he should’ve checked over my creatures first. I think he’s really embarrassed about this whole thing. I haven’t spoken to him in days.’
They sat in silence for a while, watching the jimps tending the gardens and a flock of bird-like things swooping around the real oak tree in the distance.
‘Jez?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Do you think…?’
‘What?’
‘Do you think…there is something different about me?’
‘You’re kidding, right?’
‘No.’
‘Well duh, of course there’s something different about you!’
‘I mean…sort of…I dunno, not quite right. Not quite human-’
‘Duh! You’re the most human person I’ve ever met! That’s what’s so different about you. You’ve got an energy about you…a get-up-and-go-ness that I love about you. That’s what I fell in love with when we first met; the fact that you were thinking of the stars, wanted to get the fregg out of that crap-hole domed city.’
‘I’m not like my folks really though, am I? They-’
‘I loved your family too! They were….’ Jez quickly bit her lip and puffed her cheeks, ‘they are adorable. Particularly Ted. He’s such a…a…total little clown.’
‘I really hope they’re okay. Do you think there’s a way I could try and contact them? Let them know I’m still alive?’
Jez shook her head quickly. ‘No! No…that’s not a good idea, El’.’
Ellie looked up at her. 'Surely-'
‘The…the Administration, Ellie, I’m sure they’ll be snooping on everyone right now. Listening in on communications. You ring home and they’ll track your call somehow.’ She nodded. ‘Oh…and also, that might draw the Administration’s attention to them. Put them in danger. No, that’s probably the last thing you should do right now.’
Ellie figured she was probably right. Until they found a way out of this system they were sitting ducks. Just like back at that abandoned colonial outpost, hiding in that store locker, they'd been trapped. Out there a net had been cast across the entire system. Bit by bit the Administration would be reeling that net in and eventually she and Jez were going to land in their laps, flapping and flopping like fish on the deck of a boat.
We have to get out of here. We have to leave…before they come and check this place out.
‘Ellie?’
‘Hmm…’
‘Something I’ve been kinda thinking about, a bit.’
‘What?’
Jez’s lips mewed to the side like she probing the back of her mouth with her tongue. ‘What if….that scorpion attack wasn’t an accident?’
‘Huh? What makes you say that?’
‘Stupid.’
‘No…go on. Why did you just say that?’
‘Maybe I’m catching my paranoia from you, but…?’
‘But?’
‘Something Gray said to me. Before the wargame.’
‘What?’
Jez looked away from her guiltily. ‘He asked me to stay on here.’
‘When the shuttle comes?’
She nodded.
‘What did you say?’
‘No, of course. I told him where you go, I go. That we were The Inseparable Twins; SexBitch and WonderGirl.’
‘What did he say to that?’
‘He said this place was, like, the perfect world. The perfect playground. That I could be a God of my own world here. I’d never need for anything again. Thinking about it…it was sort of a bit of a don’t-leave-me-baby speech.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘We kinda rowed a bit as well. I told him that we’re a team and I was definitely leaving with you.’
‘How did he take that?’
‘I think we was pretty hurt. I guess. You know Gray, he acts all cool and laid back. But I think that really, really stung him.’
They looked at each other. A disturbing, unspoken thought, hovering between them. ‘Are you saying you think he…?’
Jez shook her head. ‘I don’t know…’ She chewed on her thumb nail. ‘It’s not like I actually really know him, is it? Not really.’
‘But you think he could have..?’
‘Tweaked my creature design?’ She managed the tiniest nod. ‘It’s possible. I got a shitty feeling he might be the possessive type.’
Ellie felt the skin on her arms goose bump. She’d just about managed to put that creepy discovery on the mezzanine decke behind her, and been ready to accept that either Shelby or Gray had assembled those things in a momentary outburst of sentimentalism.
‘Ellie…do you wanna show me that room?’
‘The creepy shrine place?’
‘Uh-huh’
‘O
kay.’
‘And one other thing. Did you mention it to Shelby yet?’
Ellie shook her head. ‘I wasn’t sure what to do.’
‘You reckon we should? If it's Gray we're worrying about now…?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe…we should.’
CHAPTER 16
‘This is it?’
Ellie nodded. The three of them stared at the unmarked door.
Shelby shone his torch up and down it. ‘You’re quite right…there’s no identification number for this storage vault. Very odd.’
‘You’ve never noticed this room before?’
He sighed impatiently. 'I haven’t been down on this deck in years,’ he replied. ‘I’ve never had a need to. And believe me, there are a LOT of storage vaults. Decks and decks of them.’
Ellie studied his face. He didn’t seem to be hiding anything. If anything he seemed keen to press on and see what it was that Ellie wanted to show him.
‘So what exactly is in here that you’re so very keen for me to take a look at?’
‘Let’s have a look shall we?’ said Jez. She pulled down on the locking handle and shoved the heavy door. It’s creaky pneumatic hinges echoed down the passageway as it swung slowly inwards. They stepped over the bulkhead lip into the gloomy space beyond. Soft crimson safety lights along the bottom of the walls blinked on.
Shelby shone his torch around. ‘Hmmm. Well, it’s mostly empty.’
‘No…over there, the crate? See?’
‘A crate. Yes, I see a crate. So what?’
‘Just go take a look at it,’ Ellie replied.
They walked across the vault towards it. Closer, Shelby swung his torch beam across it. ‘What’s that? A blanket?’
They came to a halt and looked down at what appeared to be a quilted purple bath robe, and, carefully placed across its folds, like pieces of jewellery in a store window, were a number of personal effects.
‘What is this?’ he asked.
‘They’re all things that once belonged to your colleagues I think.’
He frowned. He reached out and picked up a hairbrush. A number of dark hairs were tangled into a nest at the base of the bristles.
‘ID tags,’ said Jez. She reached across and picked up several of them. ‘Dr Diana J. Sembala? Who was she?’
‘A senior botany geneticist,’ replied Shelby. ‘A very boring woman.’
‘Dr Ron L. Hibbard…’
‘Enviro-Systems programmer.’
‘Jonathan T. Kemble…’
‘He was an irritating man.’ Shelby picked up a pair of antique spectacles. ‘Financial Oversight. A corporate bean-counter.’
‘Shelby,’ said Ellie, ‘they all died…horribly. Don’t you even…’
‘Miss any of them?’ He shrugged casually. ‘Not really.’
‘So, you didn’t set this place up?’ asked Jez. ‘You didn’t do this?’
‘Nope. Why would I? Annoying bunch…the lot of them.’
The girls looked at each other. ‘Then Gray must have done this?’
Shelby picked up the remaining ID tags. ‘I suppose he could have. Never thought of that idiot as the sentimental type though.’
‘This isn’t sentimental,’ said Jez. ‘This is weird.’
‘That’s what I thought.’ Ellie shone her torch across the robe. ‘It’s like a trophy table….’
‘Like some videe-gamers tag-room,’ added Jez. She looked at Ellie. ‘You kill another player in a shooty game…you get to keep one of their avatar’s accessories. Kinda like that.’
‘Right.’ Ellie looked at her. ‘That’s why it feels creepy. Like whoever did this was sort of pleased with himself.’
Jez nodded, her face was beginning to drain of colour. ‘My God. Have I been hanging out with some psycho weirdo?’ She looked at Ellie. ‘Me and Gray…we…we…’ She looked like she wanted to sit down.
‘I really don’t think you should go back to his world, Jez.’
‘No shit.’
‘This…this doesn’t make sense,’ said Shelby.
‘This doesn't seem like him, is it?’ Ellie turned to him. ‘I know what you mean. You think you know someone inside and out then-’
He shook his head. ‘No. Not Gray. He's an idiot. But not a murderer.' He stared intently at the ID tags in his hand. ‘This doesn't make sense.’
‘What?’
‘I…I remember these people. I worked for years with all these people. I knew them all very well.'
'I'm sorry,' said Ellie. 'This must be horrible to…'
'Don't be sorry. I said I knew them. I didn't say I particularly liked them.'
'You said 'it doesn't make sense',' said Jez. 'What doesn't make sense?'
'There were twelve of us employed to maintain this place. The system log reported ten fatalities on that date.' He held out the ID tags. 'And there are eleven tags here.'
'And then there's you and Gray.'
'That makes thirteen,' said Jez.
Shelby nodded. 'That means log has been altered by someone.'
CHAPTER 17
My plan…my project…
Mason had been a much younger man, in his forties, when he’d first realised the enormity of the impending crisis facing humanity. It had come to him as a sudden epiphany…not the problem…but the solution.
The crisis, the growing problem had become - to use a curious Old Earth saying - the Elephant In The Room. Among the corridors of power, among the ruling elite on Liberty, the problem was right there, front and center and had always been right there in front of them. But, while it was manageable, containable, it was something that could be labelled and filed under ‘somebody else down the line can worry about it’.
So, while the issue could be disguised and brushed under the carpet, given a department and an increasing year-on-year budget to keep it out of sight and mind…it was a problem left alone.
The crisis, the 'Elephant', so to speak, was the increasing fragility of the human genome. Mason had realised not long after being appointed to run The Department of Genetic Analysis, that he and his department were an integral part of the problem. The meddling, tinkering, engineering of generation after generation of babies was producing a steadily increasing number of failed growths on the vast floors of foetus incubators. The percentage rate of death-in-vitros, stillborns, misshapen horrors that had to be ‘terminated’ before full-term, increased year on year, month on month. Far worse than that, were the number of apparently ‘normal’ babies being sent out to their waiting parents, only to later develop grotesque abnormalities as they matured and reached puberty.
Even managing to reach adulthood without some genetic code mis-firing was no guarantee of immunity. It was the fear that every citizen in Human Space quietly lived with the fear that one day, a slight skin discolouration, or a mild ache, or a strange lump might be the very first symptom of a mutation.
And every citizen unfortunate enough to fall foul of this cruel genetic lottery dealt with it in exactly the same way. Denial at first. Then, as the condition developed, resorted to hiding it. At first from loved ones…then as it became more difficult to conceal, sharing the dreadful news with their nearest and dearest, soliciting their cooperation in keeping the condition a secret for as long as was possible.
The Administration’s method of dealing with this was to deny the issue and hide it. And Mason could see they really had no alternative. Human Space, being such a sprawling thing…spread out across so many star systems, so many hundreds of worlds…so many billions of people, was an almost impossible province to govern. The only viable method for maintaining any semblance of cohesion was to maintain control of one thing…the supply of future generations of citizens.
The year 2751 :OE, nearly four hundred years previously, was the year in which the last recorded natural births had occurred. The Administration had used the expedient that after the disastrous colonial war, in which far too many worlds had been completely ‘glassed’, new worlds needed to be tamed a
nd terraformed by hardy first-generation colonists. People would need to be made tougher, more resistant to harsh ecosystems, to new strains of exotic alien bacteria. They needed to be engineered.
Thus, fertility had been edited out of humankind. Between fifteen to twenty generations of tinkering had occurred since, and like any one of millions of software engineers out there, Mason was well aware that code, in the hands of too many programmers becomes prone to bugs, instability and eventual catastrophic failure.
Twenty-five years ago, Mason had discovered and subsequently decoded a segment of genetic code that had been encrypted, much like a scrambled digital signal. It’s purpose was quite simple; to switch off the production of luteinizing hormones that stimulated oocytes to become human egg cells.
That day, two and a half decades ago, Mason realised something quite astounding. Up until then he’d assumed the ‘editing’ by previous generations of genetic programmers had rendered women irreversibly infertile. But on the contrary, every woman in the galaxy was perfectly capable of having a baby. The equipment was there, right inside of them and ready to get to work…it was simply inert. Switched off by that strand of DNA. And he’d asked himself…
What if that switch could be flipped back on?
Now, Mason lay on the cot in his cube and looked out of the small window at the underbelly of the pedestrian plaza above. The neon lights of passing holoboards flickered against it bringing the pitted slab of plasticrete to life.
About the same time, back then…something else had happened. Something that turned Mason’s wistful thoughts into a very real possibility. Through a friend of a friend of a friend, a chance encounter, Mason had met a man with sympathetic views towards a new cult who’s numbers seemed to be growing daily. They called themselves ‘a religion’, but as far as Mason could see they were just a cult - they believed a Big Change was fast approaching and that a final prophet from God would come and live amongst humanity.
Mason had been about to laugh at the man’s superstitious nonsense, until the man had mentioned one of the faith’s core beliefs…that this prophet would blessed with a gift from God. The gift from the Almighty, would be the gift of natural childbirth.
And that’s when Mason first conceived of The Idea.