David Brin - The Heart of the Comet

“We…” The legless Uber leader thought. “Ah, you and the Herbert woman.”

“Another Ortho lover— “one of the others began, but a sharp look from Sergeov shut him up.

“There is one last thing,” Saul said as the Percells were turning to go. He reached into his belt pouch and pulled out a silvery tool.

“I want some blood and tissue samples for my new medical inventory, if you fellows don’t mind. The Survivors and the Plateau Three bands have already contributed, and I’m sure you’ll be; happy to cooperate.”

The Uber with the bad teeth snarled and reached for his knife. But one more time the Russian cut him off. Sergeov’s eyes seemed to glitter as he presented his arm to Saul. And a silent message seemed to say that he would expect a favor of his own, someday.

If I had not once worked with Simon Percell , Saul thought as he took samples from the other two, would Otis have even saved my life this afternoon?

On the Ubers’ chests the Sigil stood out starkly, red against blue, a tribute to a man long dead at his own hand, who might have seen some of what was to come, but could never have imagined how far it would all go.

He visited for some time with Virginia in her recuperation unit, checking her progress carefully and reassuring her that the slot pallor was fading nicely. He kissed her and gave her a mild sedative for her insomnia. Then Saul went down to his lab.

The samples from the Ubers went through the same preliminary analysis as he had performed on his other subjects. The first results seemed to be just the same.

Oh, there were different accumulations of microfauna in their blood and sputum. The Percells’ immune systems seemed slightly less damaged, not as overstressed as the colony’s remaining Ortho complement. That was no surprise. The expedition had started out less than one-quarter Percell. Now the ratio among those healthy enough to be awake was even or better in favor of the genetic augments.

But the story was still the same. We’re all dying, he thought. At last he found the courage to insert a sample just taken from Virginia.

Saul swallowed. She was fresher, but he could read the signs. Even in her case, right out of the slots, the inevitable was well under way.

“Well,” he whispered. “Maybe I can find some patterns be adjust the cyanutes some more.”

He did not hold out much hope for that approach though. That breakthrough had made it possible for people to live here. But Comet-Life was adapting. More and more forms avoided the special sugar coating that had enabled his little gene-crafted creatures to do their extra job so well.

The old question still raised itself, every day, nearly every hour he was awake. He must have slept with it over the long years in the slots.

How is it possible for Halley-Life to live in us? How is it Ingersoll and the other cave dwellers can eat the stuff and survive?

Why are we so much alike?

Oh, that simulation he and Virginia had worked out with JonVon, so long ago, had shown how basic similarity had come about. Science had long known that organic chemistry would come up with the same amino acids, the same purines and pyrimidines under a wide variety of circumstances. Life would generally start out the same anywhere.

But the similarities went far beyond that. It was almost as if men were not the first creatures from Earth to invade the comet. As if there had been earlier waves, and the present war was one among distant cousins.

Long ago, in the late twentieth century, a famous astronomer had even proposed that comets were a source of epidemics on Earth. His theory was that primeval viruses floated down into the atmosphere whenever the world passed through a big cometary tail. This, he thought, explained ancient myths calling objects like Halley apparitions of doom. Evil stars.

Saul had laughed on reading such baroque nonsense. But that was long ago. Now… well, he did not know what to think. Nothing, none of it, made any sense at all.

The computer winked a code at him, over and over.

More data wanted.

“Certainly.” He nodded amiably. “A most worthy request.”

Tomorrow he would go out and try to persuade Quiverian’s Arcists to cooperate.

Then he remembered. He hadn’t tested his own blood, yet.

One more datum for a baseline. He stepped over to the treatment table, drew and prepared the samples, and returned to run them through the fluorescent separator-analyzer. Numbers and graphs flickered in three dimensions and many colors. Depictions grew on all sides of him, programmed to highlight differences from the mean of the prior samples.

All around Saul, the displays were suddenly ablaze. Winking highlights, bright anomalies. He blinked. Nearly everything was different!

“Um,” he said concisely. Saul blinked at the figures.

There was the array of lymphocyte counts… all types: within normal range .

Nobody else’s sample said that. Only his.

Electrolyte balance… nominal.

His was the only one that said that!

Metabolic processes… nominal.

“Stupid machine,” Saul grumbled. He smacked the side of the unit, keyed on an autotest, then another. Only green lights winked from the control panel. The machine claimed it was working well.

“I’m aberrant because I’m normal ?” He stared at the columns of figures. They all insisted that he was anomalous. Strange. Unusual.

And nearly all of the differences were toward the Earthly human norm. Except for one.

Foreign infecting agents…

He looked at the estimate and whistled.

According to the bioassay, he should be dead.

Dead? Saul laughed. The damned machine seemed to think his blood was a froth of dangerous invaders. His bodily fluids were aswarm with horrible, nasty things, the smallest fraction of which should have killed him long ago!

And yet the other displays said: Nominal…

Nominal…

nominal…

nominal…

“Crazy damn machine,” he muttered.

But then Saul remembered… fighting the Uber in the hallway… the surprise on both of their faces when he—barely out of the slots—began twisting the other man’s arms back, back …

“Visual microscopic display,” he commanded. Time to get to the bottom of this. Something was wrong here, and the best way to find out what had broken down in his biocomputer would be to do an old-fashioned histological survey himself. “Screen One, subject blood sample magnification ninety.”

The holistank rippled and cleared, showing a straw-colored sea crowded with drifting globs of pink, white, yellow. A jostling of multishaded forms, whirling, jouncing, fluttering in the saline tide.

Saul shook his head, stared, shook his head again.

His mouth started working, without making a sound, in blank amazement and silent prayer.

Carl studied the main screen in disbelief. He had just finished another useless conversation with Major Clay, the marvelous wooden man who fielded all questions sent Earthside with a bland yet rock hard calm. Earth wasn’t sending advice, information, or even much sympathy—that was certain. Major Clay sidestepped every question. With each passing year, they papered over their fear by increasing the entertainment channels they sent in the weekly squirt. That left less time for real communication.

So Carl had thumbed off impatiently before the transmission time had elapsed. It was doubly irritating that he could never really hang up on Major Clay, because the delay from the speed of light was now five hours. Notconducive tosnappy comebacks, he had thought.