DV 3 - The Lazarus Effect Read online

  "Shadow!" Ale's voice carried a cautionary note.

  "Sorry." Panille bent to his controls. "But the kelp gives us a control that has kept Vashon out of real danger through this area for the past few years. Other Islands, too."

  What an astonishing claim! Keel thought. He noted from the edge of his vision how carefully Ale watched every move Panille made. The young man nodded at something on his readouts.

  "Watch this," he said. "Landro!" An older woman across the room glanced back and nodded. Panille called out a series of letters and numbers to her. She tapped them into her console, paused, hit a key, paused. Panille bent to his own board. A flurry of movement erupted from his fingers across the keys.

  "Watch Shadow's screen," Ale said.

  The screen showed a long stretch of waving kelp, thick and deep. The V-200 still blinked in the corner square. From it, Keel estimated he was looking at kelp more than a hundred meters tall. As he watched, a side channel opened through the kelp, the thick strands bending aside and locking onto their neighbors. The channel appeared to be at least thirty meters wide.

  "Kelp controls the currents by opening appropriate channels," Ale said. "You're seeing one of the kelp's most primitive feeding behaviors. It captures nutrient-rich colder currents this way."

  Keel spoke in a hushed whisper. "How do you make it respond?"

  "Low-frequency signals," she said. "We haven't perfected it yet, but we're close. This is rather crude if we believe the historical records. We expect the kelp to add a visual display to its vocabulary at the next stage of development."

  "Are you trying to tell me you're talking to it?"

  "In a crude way. The way a mother talks to an infant, that kind of thing. We can't call it sentient yet, it doesn't make independent decisions."

  Keel began to understand Panille's know-it-all look. How many generations had Islanders been on the sea without even coming close to such a development? What else did Islanders lack that Mermen had perfected?

  "Because it's crude we allow plenty of margin for error," Ale said.

  "Four kilometers . . . that's safe?" Keel asked.

  "Two kilometers," Panille said. "That's an acceptable distance now."

  "The kelp responds to a series of signal clusters," Ale said.

  Why this sudden candor with Vashon's highest Islander official? Keel wondered.

  "As you can see," Ale said, "we're training the kelp as we use it." She took his arm and stared at the widening channel through the kelp.

  Keel saw Panille glance at Ale's intimate grip and caught a brief hardening of the young man's mouth.

  Jealous? Keel wondered. The thought flickered like a candle in a breezy room. Perhaps a way to put Panille off-balance. Keel patted Ale's hand.

  "You see why I brought you in here?" Ale asked.

  Keel tried to clear his throat, finding it painfully restricted. Islanders would have to learn about this development, of course. He began to see Ale's problem -- the Merman problem. They had made a mistake in not sharing this development earlier. Or had they?

  "We have other things to see," Ale said. "I think the gymnasium next because it's closest. That's where we're training our astronauts."

  Keel had been turning slightly as she spoke, scanning the curve of screens across the room. His mind was only partly focused on Ale's words and he heard them almost as an afterthought. He lurched and stumbled into her, only her strong grip on his arm kept him steady.

  "I know you're going after the hyb tanks," he said.

  "Ship would not have left them in orbit if it was not intended for us to have them, Ward."

  So that's why you're building your barriers and recovering solid ground above the sea."

  "We can launch rockets from down here but that's not the best way," she said. "We need a solid base above the sea."

  "What will you do with the contents of the tanks?"

  "If the records are correct, and we've no reason to doubt them, then the riches of life in those tanks will put us back on a human path -- a human way."

  "What's a human way?" he asked.

  "Why, it's . . . Ward, the life forms in those tanks can . . ."

  "I've studied the records. What do you expect to gain on Pandora from, say, a rhesus monkey? Or a python? How will a mongoose benefit us?"

  "Ward . . . there are cows, pigs, chickens . . ."

  "And whales, how can they help us? Can they live compatibly with the kelp? You've pointed out the importance of the kelp . . ."

  "We won't know until we try it, will we?"

  "As Chief Justice on the Committee on Vital Forms, and that is who you're addressing now, Kareen Ale, I must remind you that I have considered such questions before."

  "Ship and our ancestors brought --"

  "Why this sudden religious streak, Kareen? Ship and our ancestors brought chaos to Pandora. They did not consider the consequences of their actions. Look at me, Kareen! I am one of those consequences. Clones . . . mutants . . . I ask you, was it not Ship's purpose to teach us a hard lesson?"

  "What lesson?"

  "That there are some changes that can destroy us. You speak so glibly of a human way of life! Have you defined what it is to be human?"

  "Ward . . . we're both human."

  "Like me, Kareen. That's how we judge. Human is 'like me.' In our guts, we say: It's human if it's 'like me.'"

  "Is that how you judge on the Committee?" Her tone was scornful, or hurt.

  "Indeed, it is. But I paint the likeness with a very broad brush. How broad is your brush? For that matter, this scornful young man seated here, could he look at me and say, 'like me'?"

  Panille did not look up but his neck turned red and he bent intently over his console.

  "Shadow and his people save Islander lives," she remarked.

  "Indeed," Keel said, "and I'm grateful. However, I would like to know whether he believes he is saving fellow humans or an interesting lower life form?

  "We live in different environments, Kareen. Those different environments require different customs. That's all. But I've begun to ask myself why we Islanders allow ourselves to be manipulated by your standards of beauty. Could you, for example, consider me as a mate?" He put up a hand to stop her reply and noticed that Panille was doing his best to ignore their conversation. "I don't seriously propose it," Keel said. "Think about everything involved in it. Think how sad it is that I have to bring it up."

  Choosing her words carefully, spacing them with definite pauses, Ale said, "You are the most difficult . . . human being . . . I have ever met."

  "Is that why you brought me here? If you can convince me, you can convince anyone?"

  "I don't think of Islanders as Mutes," she said. "You are humans whose lives are important and whose value to us all should be obvious."

  "But you said yourself that there are Mermen who don't agree," he said.

  "Most Mermen don't know the particular problems Islanders face. You must admit, Ward, that much of your work force is ineffective . . . through no fault of your own, of course."

  How subtle, he thought. Almost euphemistic.

  "Then what is our 'obvious value'?"

  "Ward, each of us has approached a common problem -- survival on this planet -- in somewhat different ways. Down here, we compost for methane and to gain soil for the time when we'll have to plant the land."

  "Diverting energy from the life cycle?"

  "Delaying," she insisted. "Land is far more stable when plants hold it down. We'll need fertile soil."

  "Methane," he muttered. He forgot what point he was going to make in the wake of the new illumination dawning on him. "You want our hydrogen facilities!"

  Her eyes went wide at the quickness of his mind.

  "We need the hydrogen to get into space," she said.

  "And we need it for cooking, heating and driving our few engines," he countered.

  "You have methane, too."

  "Not enough."

  "We separate hydrogen electroni
cally and --"

  "Not very efficient," he said. He tried to keep the pride out of his voice, but it leaked through all the same.

  "You use those beautiful separation membranes and the high pressure of deep water," she said.

  "Score one for organics."

  "But organics are not the best way to build a whole technology," she said. "Look how it's bogged you down. Your technology should support and protect you, help you to progress."

  "That was argued out generations ago," he said. "Islanders know what you think about organics."

  "That argument is not over," she insisted. "And with the hyb tanks . . ."

  "You're coming to us, now," he said, "because we have a way with tissues." He allowed himself a tight smile. "And I note that you also come to us for the most delicate surgery."

  "We understand that organics once represented the most convenient way for you to survive topside," she said. "But times are changing and we --"

  "You are changing them," he challenged. He backed off at the frustration visible in her clenched jaw, noting the flash of something bright in her blue eyes. "Times are always changing," he said, his voice softer. "The question remains: How do we best adapt to change?"

  "It requires all of your energies just to maintain yourselves and your organics," she snapped, not softening. "Islands starve sometimes. But we do not starve. And within a generation we will walk beneath open sky on dry land!"

  Keel shrugged. The shrug irritated the prosthetic supports for his large head. He could feel his neck muscles growing tired, snaking their whips of pain up the back of his neck, crowning his scalp.

  "What do you think of that old argument in light of this change?" she asked. It was voiced as a challenge.

  "You are creating sea barriers, new surflines that can sink Islands," he said. "You do this to further a Merman way of life. An Islander would be foolish not to ask whether you're doing this to sink the Islands and drown us Mutes."

  "Ward." She shook her head before continuing. "Ward, the end of Island life as you know it will come in our lifetime. That's not necessarily bad."

  Not in my lifetime, he thought.

  "Don't you understand that?" she demanded.

  "You want me to facilitate your kind of change," he said. "That makes me the Judas goat. You know about Judas, Kareen? And goats?"

  A shadow of unmistakable impatience crossed her face. "I'm trying to impress on you how soon Islanders must change. That is a fact and it must be dealt with, distasteful or not."

  "You're also trying to get our hydrogen facilities," he said.

  "I'm trying to keep you above our Merman political squabbles," she said.

  "Somehow, Kareen, I don't have confidence in you. I suspect that you don't have the approval of your own people."

  "I've had enough of this," Panille interrupted. "I warned you, Kareen, that an Islander --"

  "Let me handle this," she said, and quieted him with a lift of her hand. "If it's a mistake, it's my mistake." To Keel, she said, "Can you find confidence in retrieving the hyb tanks or settling the land? Can you see the value in restoring the kelp to consciousness?"

  It's an act, he thought. She's playing to me. Or to Shadow.

  "To what end and by what means?" he asked, stalling for more time.

  "To what end? We'll finally have some real stability. All of us. It's something that'll pull all of us together."

  She seems so cool, so smooth, he thought. But something's not quite right.

  "What're your priorities?" he asked. "The kelp, the land or the hyb tanks?"

  "My people want the hyb tanks."

  "Who are your people?"

  She looked at Panille, who said, "A majority, that's who her people are. That's how we operate down under."

  Keel looked down at him. "And what are your priorities, Shadow?"

  "Personally?" His eyes left the screen reluctantly. "The kelp. Without it this planet's an endless struggle for survival." He gestured to the screens, which, Keel reminded himself, somehow had Islander lives balancing on them. "You saw what it can do," Panille said. "Right now it's keeping Vashon in deep water. That's handy. It's survival."

  "You think that's a sure thing?"

  "I do. We have everything that was recovered from the old Redoubt after the inundation. We've a good idea what's in the hyb tanks. They can wait."

  Keel looked at Ale. "Sure, things worry me. I know what's supposed to be in those tanks. What do your records say?"

  "We have every reason to believe the hyb tanks contain earthside plant and animal life, everything Ship considered necessary for colonization. And there may be as many as thirty thousand human beings -- all preserved indefinitely."

  Keel snorted at the phrase "every reason to believe." They don't know after all, he thought. This is a blind shot. He looked up at the ceiling, thinking of those bits of plasteel and plaz and all that flesh swinging in a wide loop around Pandora, year after year.

  "There could be anything up there," Keel said. "Anything." He knew it was fear speaking. He looked accusingly at Ale. "You claim to represent a majority of Mermen, yet I sense a furtiveness in your activities."

  "There are political sensitivities --" She broke off. "Ward, our space project will continue whether I'm successful with you or not."

  "Successful? With me?" There seemed to be no end to her manipulative schemes.

  Ale exhaled, more of a hiss than a sigh. "If I fail, Ward, the chances for the Islanders look bad. We want to start a civilization, not a war. Don't you understand? We're offering the Islanders land for colonization."

  "Ahhhh, the bait!" he said.

  Keel thought about the impact such an offer might have on Islanders. Many would leap at it -- the poor Islanders, such as those of Guemes, the little drifters living from sea to mouth. Vashon might be another matter. But Merman riches were being exposed in this offer. Many Islanders harbored deep feelings of jealousy over those riches. It would worsen. The complexity of what Ale proposed began to lay itself out in his mind -- a problem to solve.

  "I need information," he said. "How close are you to going into space?"

  "Shadow," Ale said.

  Panille punched keys on his console. The screen in front of him displayed a pair of images with a dividing line down the middle. On the left was an underwater view of a tower,- its dimensions not clear to Keel until he realized that the tiny shapes around it were not fish, but Mermen workers. The view on the right showed the tower protruding from the sea and, with the proportions clear from the left screen, Keel realized that the thing must lift fifty meters above the surface.

  "There will be one space launch today or tomorrow, depending on the weather," Ale said. "A test, our first manned shot. It won't be long after that when we go up after the hyb tanks."

  "Why has no Island reported that thing?" Keel asked.

  "We steer you away from it," Panille said with a shrug.

  Keel shook his aching head.

  "This explains the sightings you've heard of, the Islander claims that Ship is returning," Ale said.

  "How amusing for you!" Keel blurted. "The simple Islanders with their primitive superstitions." He glared at her. "You know some of my people are claiming your rockets as a sign the world is ending. If you'd only brought the C/P into this . . ."

  "It was a bad decision," she said. "We admit it. That's why you're here. What do we do about it?"

  Keel scratched his head. His neck ached abominably against the prosthetic braces. He sensed things between the lines here . . . Panille coming in on cue. Ale saying mostly what she had planned to say. Keel was an old political in-fighter, though, aware that he could not tip his hand too soon. Ale wanted him to learn things -- things she had planned for him to learn. It was the concealed lesson that he was after.

  "How do we make Islanders comfortable with the truth?" Keel countered.

  "We don't have time for Islander philosophizing," she said.

  Keel bristled. "That's just another way of call
ing us lazy. Just staying alive occupies most of us full-time. You think we're not busy because we're not building rockets. We're the ones who don't have time. We don't have time for pretty phrases and planning --"

  "Stop it!" she snapped. "If the two of us can't get along, how can we expect better of our people?"

  Keel turned his head to look at her with one eye and then with the other. He suppressed a smile. Two things amused him. She had a point, and she could lose her composure. He lifted both hands and rubbed at his neck.

  Ale was instantly solicitous, aware of Keel's problem from their many encounters on the debate floor. "You're tired," she said. "Would you like to rest and have a cup of coffee or something more solid?"

  "A good cup of Vashon's best would suit me," he said. He tugged at the prosthetic on his right. "And this damned thing off my neck for a while. You wouldn't happen to have a chairdog, would you?"

  "Organics are rare down under," she said. "I'm afraid we can't provide Islander comforts for everything."

  "I just wanted a massage," he said. "Mermen are missing a bet by not having a few chairdogs."

  "I'm sure we can find you a massage," Kareen said.

  "We don't have the high incidence of health problems that you have topside," Panille interrupted. Again, his eyes were on the screen filled with numbers and he spoke almost out of another consciousness. Still, Keel couldn't let the remark pass.

  "Young man," he said, "I suspect you are brilliant in your work. Don't let the confidence of that accomplishment spill over into other areas. You have a great deal yet to learn."

  Turning to lean on Ale's arm, he allowed himself to be assisted out into the passageway, feeling the stares that followed them. He was glad to get out of that room. Something about it wriggled chills up and down his spine.

  "Have I convinced you?" Ale asked. He shuffled along beside her, his legs aching, his head filled with bits of information that he knew would soon inflict themselves upon his people.

  "You have convinced me that Mermen will do this thing," he said. "You have the wealth, the organization, the determination." He lurched and caught himself. "I'm not used to decks that don't roll," he explained. "Living on land is hard for an old-timer."