David Brin - The Heart of the Comet

Saul mumbled. She could not follow what he was doing with his hands, deep inside the holo, but whatever he discovered seemed to satisfy him. He sat back. “Display off;” he told the diagnostic computer.

“Well?” Virginia’s legs tensed nervously and she had to grip the carpeting with her toes to prevent being cast free of the floor. “Well? Tell me. I can take it.”

Saul took her hand and his blue eyes seemed to shine. She gasped as she read the answer in them. “He’s going to be all right!” She yipped, whirled around, and threw herself into his arms. “You fixed him!”

Oh, what an understanding man, she thought, to hold her close and laugh while her teary eyes perforce left trails on his cheek and she snuffled happily on his neck. Oh, how warm and strong and kind.

His hand stroked her hair, near the dressing on the back of her neck where his new medications had fought down her rash. A week ago anyone brushing her near there would have sent her quailing in pain. But it didn’t hurt anymore at all. The infection was nearly gone.

It was nice to be touched again.

“You must think I’m an idiot,” she said at last as she took his handkerchief and sat up on his lap to blow her nose.

“No, I don’t.”

“Well, that shows how much you know. I am one. Carrying on like this over a machine.”

He brushed her loose black hair back into place. “Then. I’m an idiot too. I was nervous as hell about this. So was Carl.”

Virginia sniffed. “Carl’s worried because JonVon’s far and away the best computer we have left. Carl can’t run the Nudge without him.”

“So? That’s plenty enough reason.”

“I suppose so. But still, he didn’t really care.” Virginia’s fists tightened. Actually, what made her mad at Carl was something else. She was still seething, a bit, over what he had said about Saul.

I’ve always like Carl, she thought. A lot. But he can be so damned pigheaded. It’s been weeks since Saul started sharing serums made from his own blood, and only now, after one incredible cure after another, is Carl finally admitting that a miracle has really happened.

Of course that was unfair. Carl had lived for so long with the eroding despair, with the assumption that all was lost, that hope would take some getting used to.

They would all have to do some adjusting.

Much had changed since the Arcist exodus. Now, thanks to Saul’s cures, more and more people were being pulled from the sleep slots, treated, and put to work building and testing the devices that would be needed when Halley’s Comet was to be turned from drifting iceball into spaceship.

Of course, Saul’s methods couldn’t repair impossible damage, or raise the irreversibly dead. But they hoped to bring the colony’s active population up to two hundred or so, more than half the number originally planned when the Edmund and four sail tugs were cast forth from Earth.

Already the moribund launcher sites down south were humming. The Arcists seemed to be working with Jeffers’s technicians— and even with Sergeov’s Uber Percells— in a new atmosphere of cooperation.

If only it can last, she wished. Somehow, though I want it to, I can’t believe it will.

“Let me see your arm,” she insisted. When Saul held it out she traced the tracks of numerous healing punctures. “Which one was from when you drew blood for JonVon’s serum?”

He laughed. “How should I know, Ginnie? I’ll tell you, though. I admit that this was my hardest case, so far. I never knew bio-organics processors were so complicated.” His expression turned thoughtful. “Actually, the infection agent was subtle, a prionlike, self-replicating molecule that somehow got inside JonVon’s cool-case during the years we were asleep. If it had been allowed to go on much longer…” He shrugged.

“But you caught it in time.” Virginia was still nervous enough that it came out as a question, in spite of her confidence in Saul.

He smiled. “Oh, our surrogate son will be fine. Using symbiosis methods, I turned the molecule into a variant JonVon can use in his self-correcting systems. It actually seems to make him a little faster. You’ll have to evaluate the effects yourself, of course.”

Virginia had blinked when Saul referred to JonVon as their “surrogate son.” Of course now Saul was just like her, unable to have any more children of his own. She realized a little guiltily that this made her feel even closer to him. They would comfort each other, now.

Oh, we’ll have our problems. As time passes, our relationship will never be perfect. That only happens in storybooks.

But a line of verse came to her, quite suddenly, as some of her poems had more and more often, lately. It was haiku.

Saul’s gaze was distant. “Actually, some of the techniques for working with colloidal organics seem applicable to biological cloning. Working on JonVon gave me some ideas.”

She laughed and tousled his hair, now turning astonishingly brown at the roots— though Saul had told her he wasn’t actually getting “younger,” only “perfect for a middle-aged man.”

“You’re always getting ideas. Come on, Saul. I want to talk to JonVon.”

She pushed off toward the webbing by her control station and gathered up her hair with one hand. She peeled back the dressing, uncovering her neural tap.

“Uh, you might want to wait.”

Her eyes flashed. “Is that an order, Doctor?”

He shrugged, smiling. “I guess you’d only do it the moment my back was turned, anyway.”

She grinned. “It’s been weeks. Much too long for an unrepentant dataline junkie like me.”

She lay back on the webbing. Her little assistant mech, Wendy, whirred up and presented the well-worn tapline, which locked into place with a soft snicking sound. She felt Saul slip alongside her as she settled back and closed her eves to the familiar throbbing along the direct line to her brain.

How are you, Johnny? she queried, shaping the subvocal words carefully, as one spoke to a child who has been ill.

HELLO, VIRGINIA. I HAVE SOME POETRY FOR YOU.

The words shimmered in space above their heads, as well as echoing along her acoustic nerve. She could tell, just from the clarity of the tones, that things were much, much better.

Not yet, Johnny. First I want to run a complete diagnostic on you.

ALL RIGHT, VIRGINIA. INITIATING “MR FIXIT” SUBPERSONA.

Saul had never seen this simulated personality before He laughed as a crystal-clear image formed, of a man in grimy overalls, wiping his hands on a cloth. Behind the workman scurried assistants, dashing about carrying stethoscopes and voltmeters and giant wrenches over a great scaffolding. Within, a huge, cumbersome machine clanked and throbbed. Steam hissed and a low humming permeated everything.

A clipboard appeared out of nowhere. The master mechanic smiled as he put on a pair of bifocals and scanned the list.

WE’RE CHECKIN’ IT OUT, MISS. PRELIMINARY RESULTS LOOK PRETTY GOOD.

OVER-ALL SYSTEMS STATUS HAS RETURNED TO NOMINAL. SELF-CORRECTION ROUTINES NOW OPERATING ON “TELL-ME-THRICE” BASIS, RELAXED FROM QUINTUPLE CHECKING REQUIRED DURING THE EMERGENCY. SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE REPORTS THAT PROGRAMS ARE RUNNING AT NORMAL OR BETTER EFFICIENCY.

WE SEEM TO HAVE SERIOUS PROBLEMS IN ONLY ONE AREA, NOW.

Well? What is it? she inquired.

Mr. Fixit looked at her over the rims of his glasses.

I HAVE SOME POETRY FOR YOU VIRGINIA