Children of Scarabaeus Page 9

  “And Theron’s a colonel,” Lachesis replied. He still seemed embarrassed by the whole thing.

  “I demand that you take this to CCU. We’ve been friends a long time, Jeremy.”

  Lachesis squirmed at the emotional blackmail and gave a painful shrug. “I need to get back to the bridge.”

  Natesa closed her eyes, taking a few deep breaths until Lachesis was gone. Then she turned a hard look on Edie. “The higher-ups at CCU headquarters will sort this out. Nothing comes before Project Ardra.”

  “Not even four childhoods?”

  “What? Ah, yes. Ming Yue told me you’d learned about the children. That’s why I wanted to see you.” As Edie drew breath to deliver her speech, Natesa held up a hand to silence her. “Spare me, Edie. I know what you’re thinking. But you don’t know what’s really going on. These are desperate times and we must use all available tools.”

  “The only desperation I see is you attempting to bolster your career. Is it really that important to have the best, fastest terraforming team in the Reach?”

  Natesa gave a weary sigh. “As I said, you don’t know everything. How did you find out about the children, anyway?”

  “Someone let it slip.” She didn’t want to get the boy into trouble.

  “Well, tomorrow afternoon we’ll visit the classroom and meet them. I want you to watch them work.”

  “Are they really as good as you say? Theron said Prisca was floundering.”

  “Nonsense. Teething problems. Prisca will be a glorious success, and it’s all because of my children.”

  CHAPTER 9

  “Edie!”

  Natesa’s sharp tone from the next room sent a stab of annoyance through Edie. Finn stopped what he was saying midsentence—he’d come into the bedroom to find out if she was ever getting up—and Natesa stepped into the doorway. Her glare fell on Finn and then, inexplicably, to the rumpled bed that Edie had just vacated. Edie didn’t care what Natesa thought, and the woman had no right to barge into her quarters. They always kept the hatch locked—she must have a master crew key.

  Before Natesa could launch into whatever she’d come to say, Finn made to leave.

  “I’ll meet you in the mess,” he told Edie. He strode across the room and angled his body to slip past Natesa in the doorway without touching or looking at her.

  Natesa turned to watch him with a smirk of distaste. Edie heard the hatch snap as he left.

  “You used to be an early riser,” Natesa said. “I couldn’t find you in the mess hall.”

  “So you barge in here without permission? Please don’t do that again.”

  Natesa raised her brows, surprised by the outburst but not at all offended. “My apologies. I have some good news that I wanted to share.” Her face stretched into a smile as fake as the crimson stain on her lips.

  Edie was dubious that anything Natesa had to tell her would ever be good. She sat on the edge of the bed and waited.

  “I’ve tracked down the infojack who created the leash. He was indeed incarcerated in a labor camp in the Rutger System, for kidnapping and high treason, among many other things. I’ve received permission to transfer him here temporarily, with orders to cut the leash.”

  Edie’s immediate reaction—a sense of dread—caught her by surprise. Cutting the leash had always been her number one priority. Now the real possibility was on the table—and she was terrified. Achaiah might kill Finn in the process.

  “Does he really think he can do it?” she asked.

  “I spoke to him at length. He has a few ideas on how it might be accomplished. I think it’s worth trying.”

  “Trying isn’t good enough. He can’t do it unless he’s absolutely certain it’s safe. You have to let me be there.”

  “I’ll see if I can arrange that. In the next few days you’ll be very busy getting your head around Project Ardra.”

  “I don’t care. I have to be there to make sure nothing goes wrong. For that matter, you’ll need Finn’s consent before you start messing with his head.”

  “I hardly think he’ll object.”

  “Why did you let him leave the room, anyway?” Edie asked. “This concerns him.”

  “I’m not responsible for his comings and goings.” Natesa picked an imaginary fleck off her lapel. “Speaking of which, I’m not happy with this arrangement.” She waved her hand around, her gaze again lingering on the bed. “He shouldn’t be in VIP quarters. I have important guests from Central arriving in a few days and I don’t want them seeing a meckie wandering around on this deck. Winnie Tanning will get him a new room on the lower decks. Your relationship with him is no doubt distracting you from the work you’re legally required to perform here.”

  Edie pressed her fingertips to her forehead, massaging the ache forming there. “This is so far from being any of your business, Natesa. No one has complained about my work. I’m doing everything you asked.”

  “I don’t like him,” Natesa enunciated. “The best thing for everyone is to cut this leash so I can throw him off the ship.”

  Edie didn’t like Natesa’s choice of words, but what she said made sense. This was a classified project that Finn wasn’t cleared for, as if a former Saeth and ex-con would ever be cleared for such work. He wasn’t supposed to be here.

  Her heart squeezed at the thought of him leaving. Leaving her behind. Would he come back for her? After all they’d been through together, he’d find a way—wouldn’t he?

  When Natesa was gone, Edie curled up her legs and hugged her knees as self-doubt crept in. With the leash cut, everything would change. Finn had spent the last few years just surviving, and now he’d have the chance to truly live. She couldn’t compete.

  Colors erupted like lava from the projector on the floor, forming a holosphere filled with tiny lights. The lights gathered together in a complex pattern and danced in formation. On closer inspection, Edie could see the pattern was divided into smaller clusters, and the lights in each cluster repeated the patterns of the larger formation. And within each cluster, again, tiny groups of lights repeated the same dance. The whole effect was that of a spinning, whirling fractal starscape pulsing to an unheard beat. A heartbeat. This was no computer simulation. Its rhythms were ever so slightly off—human, not machine.

  The entire structure was being controlled and choreographed by the three children sitting around the projector.

  Edie stood at the back of the classroom, amazed. Whatever she thought of Natesa’s school, she couldn’t deny that this display was beautiful. And that it took not only skill but coordination. Three minds working in harmony in the datastream, three young faces frozen in concentration as they stared up into their composition of light. Edie had never seen anything like it. Everyone knew cyphertecks worked alone.

  Edie glanced at Natesa at her side. The woman gave a smug smile, knowing that Edie was impressed by what she saw.

  The children’s teacher, a forty-something woman with short curly hair and a pinched face, walked slowly around the outside of the trio, alternating her attention between the light display and the children. Edie recognized Galeon, the boy she and Finn had met. With him were two girls of about the same age.

  As the lights cascaded in a waterfall of color and faded out, the teacher came up to Edie and Natesa.

  “This is Aila Vernet,” Natesa said. “Aila, this, of course, is Edie Sha’nim.”

  Aila regarded Edie with down-turned eyes that gave her a sad expression even when she smiled, as she did now. “It’s an honor to meet you. The children have been looking forward to this. They’ve studied your techniques rigorously as part of their training.”

  Three pairs of young eyes were now focused on Edie. She could tell Galeon was suppressing a grin, and was doing a pretty good job of it.

  “Is it normal for them to coordinate in a group like that?” Edie nodded at the projector.

  “Oh, yes,” Aila said. “They do their best work in teams. We could never manage the complexity of an ecosystem like Prisca�
�s without their efforts.”

  “Do they understand what they’re doing?”

  “Not exactly. They know nothing about biology and ecosystems. And this visual interface is only for show. They don’t appear to need visual cues once they’re jacked in together. We’ve developed an interface that allows them to assess and modify the datastream without understanding the specifics. They look at the alien eco-specs and nudge them toward the Terran ideal, but to them it’s just a datastream.”

  “You don’t trust the biocyph to do this by itself?” That was how it worked on normal terraforming projects.

  “In extensive sims, we tried it that way,” Natesa interjected. “With complex ecosystems like this, we find the biocyph is less able to learn from its mistakes. One mistake can take the terraforming down an irreversible path of evolution, and then the Terran ideal can never be reclaimed.”

  “That’s why we need constant monitoring.” Aila displayed a series of worksheets on the nearest holoviz. “In the lab we have Caleb Chessell collecting data from the planet to create error logs—evolution paths that deviate too far from the Terran ideal. Then the children work through each log to nudge the errors back on track before it’s too late.”

  “Fixing mistakes on the fly?”

  “Exactly.”

  It was an unusual approach. Biocyph usually worked best when left to fix its own errors. Human intervention was only required during the setup phase.

  Edie glanced around the sparse classroom. It seemed to her remarkably bare and lifeless for a children’s workspace. It was simply a lab stacked with consoles. Natesa worked in luxury while the children spent their days in this sterile cell.

  Natesa excused herself and Edie settled into a seat to learn more. As the children worked quietly, Edie had the chance to find out more about Aila. She was a Crib cypherteck with twenty years’ terraforming experience, and had been brought in from Crib Central to train the children at Natesa’s school when it first opened. She didn’t appear to have any real affinity for the children, but they didn’t seem to care. They wrapped themselves up in the biocyph. Their enthusiasm and concentration amazed Edie. She’d never particularly enjoyed her training—perhaps because it had been a lonely endeavor. For a while she’d attended a regular school where she had classmates, mostly the children of milits doing their tour in Halen Crai. But when cypherteck training intensified, the institute had isolated her.

  From then on, Edie’s companions had been her tutors and the datastream. She’d done what she was told—most of the time—because she hadn’t known there were options. Her sheltered life there had stripped away all the other pathways her life might have taken until only Natesa’s plan for her remained.

  Would these children come to view the Crib in the same way as she did? Or would they remain loyal citizens, devoted to Natesa’s cause, never questioning their so-called duty?

  The children broke for lunch, moving to an informal seating area in the corner of the classroom to eat from bento boxes delivered by the kitchenhand. As Aila engrossed herself in work at her console, Galeon sidled up to Edie and tugged on her sleeve.

  “Where’s your friend?”

  “Finn? He works on Deck G.”

  “That’s where they’re making the beanstalk.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I hope they let us visit Prisca. I want to ride that beanstalk.”

  “It’s rather dangerous. The planet, I mean.” With active BRAT seeds on the surface, constant shielding would be necessary to prevent the retroviruses from altering human DNA. Edie had to trust that the dirtside base was adequately protected, because there were already people stationed there. She didn’t share Galeon’s enthusiasm to go down to the surface.

  “She’s not dangerous,” Galeon retorted. “She’s not well.”

  “Who’s not well? The planet? What makes you say that?”

  “She sings the wrong tune. That’s what all these are for.” His arm swept across the room to encompass the consoles and holoviz displays from Prisca’s eco-specs. “Can’t you feel how sick she is? All out of balance.”

  This world had, of course, evolved in a perfectly normal manner before CCU arrived and planted biocyph all over it. Galeon’s description helped her understand the children a little better, however. They saw an ecosystem in flux as damaged, and the Terran ideal as the cure. It made sense that, to them, bringing the planet into balance meant creating a Terran environment.

  “Finn said he would play Pegasaw with me,” Galeon said suddenly. “You should bring him here.”

  “I don’t think that’s what he said, was it?”

  Galeon stared at her, his soft brow furrowed. “I’m the only boy. Did you notice? Everyone else here is a girl, even you. You should bring Finn up here so we can hang out.”

  Hanging out with Galeon was the last thing Natesa would allow Finn to do. Edie felt for the boy, though.

  “What about Caleb Chessell?”

  Galeon ducked his head, leaning toward her to whisper. “We don’t like him much. Prisca doesn’t, either.”

  “He’s very…” Edie searched for an appropriate word. “Clever.”

  Galeon wrinkled his nose. “Listen, you tell me where Finn’s room is and I’ll bring Pegasaw and we’ll have a match.”

  “We’re—His room is on Deck D at the moment. How will you sneak out?”

  “Which room on Deck D? How many doors from the main lift?”

  “Uh, you turn left out of the lift and then it’s the second on the right,” Edie said, curious to see if Galeon could actually make it to their quarters.

  “Tell him I’m a very good player, so he’d better practice.”

  Edie couldn’t help smiling. “I’ll tell him.”

  “Raena,” Aila called to one of the girls as the children put away their lunch boxes. “Why don’t you show Edie what you’ve been working on today?”

  The girl gave a shy smile and waited for Edie to join her.

  “Raena didn’t do a very good job of it,” Galeon declared.

  “Galeon! Please return to your own work,” Aila scolded.

  “Where’s Pris?” he demanded. “She was supposed to partner with Raena.”

  “Pris is still not well enough for school today.”

  “He’s right,” Raena said quietly. “I had to partner with Hanna and she makes the biocyph angry.”

  The other girl tossed a mop of straight black hair out of her eyes and scowled over her shoulder.

  “All right, everyone. Hush now,” Aila said. “Back to your exercises. Raena, go ahead.”

  “Hanna didn’t like this one much, and it didn’t like her,” Raena whispered to Edie as her console lit up. “But we finished it on time.”

  The holoviz that bloomed over the console no doubt made little sense to the girl. Edie recognized the representation as a subsection of an ecosystem’s physiology—the pathways of a few proteins and their interactions across every species in the ecosystem.

  Edie jacked in. The datastream flooded her splinter and she felt her senses cave inward as her concentration turned toward the music. Ignoring the visuals, she followed Raena riding the crest of the melody, dashing from one tier to another as if looking for something.

  “There it is,” Raena said. She snagged a tiny riff, a jagged sequence that was clearly out of place. It had leaked through from another tier. “Can you feel it?”

  Raena turned the riff around and shuffled it back into place with surprising agility—Edie couldn’t have done much better herself.

  “See? It feels much better now.”

  “Feels?” Edie repeated.

  “You don’t think so?” Raena shut down the holoviz abruptly and stared at her.

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “That’s how they talk about the biocyph,” Aila explained, looking at Raena proudly. “They always refer to its moods, its feelings. It’s quite remarkable. The other cyphertecks were as confounded as you, but it seems to work fo
r them. The biocyph is ‘happy’ when the team works well together, or ‘upset’ when they fail to fix a problem, that sort of thing.”

  So this was a game to them, and the biocyph was their playmate, complete with personality and moods.

  “I understand you experience the biocyph as music?” Aila said.

  “Yes. But most cyphertecks I’ve met describe it in visual terms. My trainer would talk about patterns and numbers—it meant nothing to me.”

  “I suppose emotional responses are as appropriate as any other interpretation. After all, human brains can’t deal with the raw data. It’s not surprising the Talasi experience it differently from other cyphertecks. The biocyph in their…your cells helps bind the wet-teck interface more intimately to the cerebral cortex.”

  Aila spoke so matter-of-factly about taking children from their home, grafting wet-teck to their brains, and training them to be dutiful workers for the Crib. Edie would never get used to that. And yet, looking around the classroom, the children didn’t appear to be unhappy.

  “How many children are in the training program?” she asked.

  “You mean at the school? Twenty-four, not including the four here on the Learo Dochais. We brought the most promising group with us. They miss Pris’s input right now. She’s the eldest girl.”

  Snippets of conversation flashed through Edie’s mind. Pris is sick…not well enough for school today…

  “What’s wrong with Pris?” She heard the tremble in her voice.

  “I’m not exactly sure.” Aila looked uncomfortable. “They won’t tell me.”

  Edie knew. Suddenly, she knew. Muttering an excuse, she stumbled out of the classroom and fell against the bulkhead outside, struggling for air. It hadn’t even crossed her mind that Theron would use a child to torture another human being. Now it made sense. He could have told the girl anything, made it into a game—she didn’t know what she was doing. And now she was lying in a coma.

  CHAPTER 10

  Edie found herself outside the infirmary before she’d consciously made the decision to start walking. Maybe she was mistaken. Maybe…