Darrell Bain Page 10

  "Oh. Yes, I remember. It's disconcerting."

  "Oh, don't give up all that easily, Sira. Hell, maybe it's me. Maybe I'm just too hard to please. Not that men don't like to think they all have balls bigger than Texas grapefruits."

  "I doubt it's your fault. Tell me more."

  So we had another drink and I did. During that period she dropped the Mai and began calling me Cherry like most people I was close to.

  It was on another night, toward the end of the first week when she sprang her big surprise that would impact the rest of my life. We had stopped by the day room and lounge after calling it quits at work, but found nothing interesting going on there. No interesting men, I should say, so after two drinks we left.

  We had stopped for a sandwich in the cafeteria first so we'd already eaten. I cracked open a bottle of wine when we got back to the apartment and turned on the television to see if there was anything worth watching. Nada. There seldom was, to my notion. I switched over to the news. We sat and sipped our wine and talked when nothing worth listening to was being reported, just gabbing.

  Perhaps it was the liquor that made me agree. Or maybe not. Anyway, the news anchor was devoting what little time they allowed for science news that night to a discovery that might eventually contribute to lengthening the human life span. I think Sira noticed how closely I was paying attention to the segment because when it was over she eyed me carefully, then said, “Mai, are you interested in prolonging your life?"

  I shrugged. “Depends. I can't see any purpose if it's simply lengthening the time I'd spend drooling in a wheelchair. They always very carefully leave those things out. If we learn how to extend or slow down the aging process, it simply leaves us open to more debilitating diseases. Or maybe I'm a pessimist. Some approaches involving telomeres and the RAS2, SCH9 and SIR2 genes, along with a few others in various combinations or deletions are promising, but we're a long way off yet. And even if we find the key we'll need to learn how to reverse the aging process or a lot of people will be very unhappy. Anyway, I've looked into the approach that was just mentioned on the news and don't think there's much to it."

  "Suppose you could stay young? Would you like that?"

  "Sure. Who wouldn't?” I suddenly realized from her expression that she wasn't just making idle chatter. “Are you getting at something, Sira? Did you find anything in my notes that might lead to such a thing?"

  "No. I could do it for you, though. I'm not familiar with the nomenclature yet but I know how aging works in humans."

  "What! I mean ... you could? You do?"

  "Didn't you know Jeri did that for Kyle? Made him younger? And stronger? Healed his old war injuries?"

  It was news to me. “How do you know?"

  She looked slightly ashamed. “While Kyle was with her once at the time she and Ishmael were helping me with my conversion, I inadvertently examined Kyle with my perceptive sense. I didn't know that much about acceptable mores at the time. Anyway, I couldn't help but notice that she'd worked on him and when I asked her about it later she told me the whole story. She cautioned me not to broadcast it, though. She said humans would become very upset if they knew only special ones were being given extended life spans and superior bodies."

  "So why are you telling me, then?"

  "She didn't say I couldn't tell anyone, just not to go public with it. It's not something that can be done instantly is why. Even if it could be, can you imagine Jeri and me standing still while the whole human race passed in a march past us in order for us to extend their lives? We'd die of exhaustion before even getting started good. It took Jeri several weeks of work with Kyle but she showed me how it could be speeded up now that it's a proven success. Not by that much, though."

  "And I still have a couple of weeks before I report for my training course? Is that why you brought it up now?"

  "Yes."

  Lord help me. What to do? Did I want it? Of course! Not much of a decision there. But how about being one of the few? The one-eyed woman in the country of the blind isn't the queen—she's a prize to fight over. But most of all, why me?

  "Why me, Sira?"

  "Because you deserve it,” she said simply. “Just as Kyle did. Just as some others do, which I'm sure Jeri will provide for, as will I, as time and circumstances allow."

  I lowered my eyes while thinking about it. And to repeat, perhaps it was the drinks that made me agree, because I was intelligent enough to know it wouldn't be a picnic if anyone ever found out. Finally I looked at her and nodded. “Go ahead. And thank you, Sira. That's the finest compliment I've ever been paid."

  We hugged, both of us shedding tears. And then she got busy.

  * * * *

  "I don't feel a bit different,” I told Sira a couple of days later. We were reviewing my equations and models of how the effects of possessing a number of particular genes of the XX chromosomes during the conversion process from Crispy to human tempered the ill effects of the coding for microprotein formation of adjacent genes. It is a subtle process and Sira was working with me on the models, using her perceptive sense to show where I'd gone slightly wrong in the way I'd oriented one of the proteins.

  "You won't ever feel it but in another ten days or so you'll be a new person inside and out, much stronger and with an indefinite lifespan,” she said, touching the keyboard and flipping the model 45 degrees so I could get a better view of it. “There. Can you see it now?"

  I bent forward to get a closer look. “Oh, yeah. No wonder I couldn't make it work the way I thought it should. Sira, that perceptive sense must be what propelled you guys so far into microbiology that you learned how to change shapes and genomes without killing yourselves.” I brushed an errant lock of hair from my forehead while thinking how nice it would be if I could change my hair color at will, the way she could. I like the dark brown I've always worn but any woman wonders what she would look like in various other colors and most experiment some time during their lives.

  "Oh, we figured that out long ago but it happened so far in our past that no one knows how it occurred. Now it's instinctive. That's why we don't have a real science of genetics like you do and why we work well together. You provide the theory and I can check it with my perceptive sense."

  Sira didn't start altering my facial features to remove the trace of wrinkles and the faint crow's feet from my eyes until two days before I left the enclave. I had just turned 30 and ordinarily they weren't even noticeable with makeup. When I looked in the mirror the last morning as I was getting dressed I realized they were gone completely and that I no longer looked my age. In fact, I seemed to be not much older than Sira, who resembled a teenager. We were counting on being gone for two weeks of training to make people forget my original appearance. And it wasn't as if I had been seen around a lot. I had spent much of my time buried in work.

  When I returned I'd claim all that fresh air and exercise contributed to how good I looked. I never felt a thing during the process and it wasn't until after I reported to camp for my training that I realized what a change had taken place in my body.

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  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  "All right, listen up, people! My name is Technical Sergeant Juan Melandez. I'll be your primary tutor while you're here. We've got one week to run you through this course, so pay attention."

  The big army tech sergeant stood with hands on hips and glowered at us. I wondered what was going through his mind at having to teach an abbreviated course in small unit tactics to a bunch of civilians, some of them already approaching middle age. He must be curious as a pup in a new home even though all of us had either been through basic at one time or had just graduated from the baby basic or refresher course. Whatever he was thinking, it couldn't be very complimentary if his expression was any indication.

  We'd finished the small arms course, a refresher for me but for others it had been their first contact with army weapons—or even first contact with weapons at all! It must have grated on him, kn
owing a bunch of barely trained civilians had to be going on some kind of special mission that involved danger, adventure and excitement while he was stuck at the training base somewhere in Georgia.

  We had been told that's where we were but the actual location had been very carefully concealed from us. I didn't think it was in Georgia but it might have been.

  Someone in the front row had the temerity to complain.

  "Sergeant, are we going to be doing much running?"

  I guess the guy thought once he'd finished the baby basic training he'd never have to exercise again. It made me wonder about the criteria used to pick prospective starfarers!

  "You're goddamned right you'll be running!” Melandez shouted at him, and glared even more fiercely. “You'll also be hiking and walking and crawling in the mud, for that matter. What do you think this is, a Sunday school picnic? You're learning how small groups function in combat situations, and I'll be damned if I've ever seen combat take place on a golf green or slow down to accommodate someone who doesn't like to run."

  "Well, there's no need for profanity just because I asked a question."

  "Bud, I'll be just as fucking profane as I think I need to be, in order to drum it through your thick civilian heads that combat isn't a game of badminton. It's life and death, not only for you but for your comrades. And in case you haven't been told, you have to pass this course to go wherever the hell you're headed for. And I'm the son of a bitch who can give you a down check and send you back to wherever you came from. Now let's get started."

  I didn't hear very many more questions. The ones I did hear were usually astute and needed to be asked. Sgt. Melandez had very little time to teach the basics of what every space-bound scientist and technician had to know, by order of General Shelton. There was no telling what we might run into that the military contingent couldn't handle by itself.

  We spent 12 hours a day for seven days studying tactics, maneuvering as an attacking unit on rescue missions and then retrograde movements while defending a site or bringing out a party that was in trouble. First we studied the tactics then practiced them in scenarios as realistic as possible. Having been through basic training and kept in shape, I was far better off than some of the group. I have to give it to them, though. Almost all of those men and women were in their late thirties and early forties and they all hung in there. I guess the chance to go on an interstellar expedition was a pretty good motivator. I know it was for me!

  I had an easier time of it than most of the others for two reasons. First, as I said, I'd already been through basic training, albeit a number of years ago, and had kept in shape. The second reason manifested on a day when John Smackers, a young man in his late twenties, got into trouble. It was his own fault.

  Most of the training involved surprises just like you'd run into during combat. I was crawling along the edge of a narrow ravine with him and three others. Our leader for the day was Madeline Graham, a pleasantly pretty astronomer with graying hair I'd met a few times back at SFREC. Everyone called her Maddie. She had already spotted a crossing point a hundred feet up ahead where we could get to the other side and come back in time to set up a defensive position to allow the following squad to jump past and set up the same kind of site for us. Smackers decided to take a short cut instead of obeying orders. He found a spot he thought he could leap across. He backed up a few yards.

  "Hey! Get down!” Maddie yelled. “You'll get spotted."

  "Here's how to do it the easy way,” he yelled. He bent down lower as instructed but went his own way otherwise. He stayed crouched down while he ran toward the edge of the ravine, intending to leap across and show how simple it was. Instead, he tripped and rolled sideways over the edge, saving himself from a nasty and possibly fatal fall by grabbing hold of the trunk of a small bush embedded in cracks on the rocky side slope.

  I saw the bush start to pull loose. I was the nearest person to him and without even thinking, I jumped to my feet and ran to him. I reached down and grabbed his wrist just as the bush came loose. By all rights, his weight should have pulled me over the edge. Instead, I gave a hard yank and fell backward, dragging him back up and down on top of me. I shoved him off my body and shouted, “You stupid shit! Never try to be a goddamn showoff. All it'll do is get you killed."

  He was still shaking but once he got to his feet he forgot all about how he almost killed himself and me, too. “I could've gotten back up by myself."

  "The hell you could.” I turned away, seething inside at his stupidity. He was treating the training as a lark, a game.

  The others came running up. “It's okay,” I said. “Let's finish the problem."

  We did, with Smackers keeping his distance from me the rest of the day.

  That evening, Sgt. Melandez stopped me while I was on the way to the showers, which consisted of an outdoor drum rigged up to pour enough cold water on top of you to ruin your whole day, not to mention your hair.

  "Are you a weight lifter?” he asked. “You really don't look like one.” His countenance was much more pleasant than the first morning when he had introduced himself. In fact, he was rather handsome when not glowering at over-aged trainees.

  "No.” I tried to let it go at that. I'd been thinking about what I'd done and knew damn well I shouldn't have had the strength to pull Smackers back up from the side of the ravine. And I'd noticed how easy the rest of the physical part of the training was for me. It had to be Sira's work but she hadn't told me that what she was doing would turn me into a superwoman. Or had she? Then I remembered her saying something about how I would be stronger. Sure, but...

  "You've got to have some kind of muscles under that outfit to do what I saw.” He eyed my body in a way that might have been either offensive or pleasant, depending on the situation and the man doing it. In his case I decided it was more pleasant than not.

  "He helped with his feet,” I said, hoping he didn't question our young would-be hero.

  Melandez clearly didn't believe me but let it go.

  The outfit he was referring to was more or less what we'd be wearing if and when we landed on an alien planet. It was army gear, a tough chameleon material normally a silvery shade but capable of changing colors to match its surroundings when power-activated. It was covered with pockets and places to attach weapons and equipment. It was called a chameleon suit but its functioning was stolen more from the cuttlefish than the little lizards it was named after.

  "Wherever you people are going, I sure as hell hope you aren't going to face as much trouble as it appears you are,” Melandez said late the third morning after we'd trudged back to the base camp for lunch and lectures. “Where are you going, by the way?"

  No one answered.

  "Good for you.” He grinned slyly. “I was going to flunk anyone who told me. All right, take out your maps and compasses. We'll pretend you don't have a GPS module."

  It was doubtful any planet we touched down on would have a magnetic field matching our north and south exactly enough to use standard compasses but the ones we'd be issued would presumably be capable of setting to a new alignment if a planet had a magnetic field.

  An hour later a helicopter took us out a ways and dropped us into a deep forest in pairs. I was with Maddie again but this time I was in charge. They tried to give us all a chance at leadership roles during the training. A good idea, I thought.

  "We'll have the drinks waiting on you!” Smackers called to us over the noise of the idling helicopter blades thwacking the air.

  I grabbed my hair to keep it from blowing around my face and ran toward the tree line from the narrow clearing we'd landed in. I gathered up my hair, retied the band that had come loose, and waited until the noise had abated.

  After the chopper was gone I lined us up with the compass and map coordinates, then double-checked by asking Maddie if she thought I was correct.

  "Looks good to me, Cherry. Bet you a dollar John Smackers won't ask his partner's opinion."

  "I wouldn't take that
bet. He's going to be trouble if he goes on the ship with us."

  "Any reason why he wouldn't?"

  "Maybe we'll get lucky and he'll flunk. He just barely passed the small arms course and the grades were lowered quite a bit from the army standard."

  "That's right, you've been in the army, haven't you?"

  "Uh-huh. Been a while though.” I glanced up ahead and down at my compass. “To the right a smidgen, I think."

  "Ugh! We've got to go through that?"

  That was a mud bank along a stream, thick and gooey from a recent rain. “Yup, unless you want to go around, and we haven't got all that much time."

  Maddie sighed. “At least in space there's no mud."

  I laughed. She was going to be one of our astronomer /navigators. The term astrogator hadn't quite caught on yet but I thought it would before long, especially once we were under way. It still seemed unreal to me. Something I'd dreamed and read about in fiction all my life was actually coming true. And it had all happened so suddenly. At this same time one year before, there'd been no inkling of aliens or interstellar travel. Now we were building starships. The prototype model had actually gone out to the Oort cloud already and the first real one was on its way to the stars!

  We did get muddy. And scratched. And bug bitten. However, I was pleased when we were the first team back. John Smackers and his partner were the last ones in and they weren't speaking to each other.

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  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  I was looking forward to our graduation exercises. Everyone had made it, even Smackers, damn it. I just hoped he stayed away from me in the spaceship. I finished the ice cold shower and was back in the barracks, such as they were, with a towel around my hair and dressed in jeans now that the training was finished. I wore a pullover and light jacket, the one I always carried my little S&W in.

  Graduation was set for an hour later, giving me time, I thought, to freshen up. Then, at the little party that would follow, I intended to see if I could convince Sgt. Juan Melandez to show me where he slept, since he would no longer be an instructor. He was a real alpha male and I found myself attracted to him. I liked the glint of humor in his eyes, too, even if it hadn't manifested much while he was instructing us in weapons and tactics. Or maybe it was just biological pressure built up over time and demanding to be let loose. Whatever, I was looking forward to the festivities and what I hoped would follow if he proved to be as compatible off duty as I hoped.