Нэнси Кресс - Tomorrow's Kin

“Someone you know.”

“Yes.”

“It doesn’t matter. We shall not look for them.”

The words didn’t process. “Not… not look for them?”

“No. It will not happen again. The Embassy has been sealed and the Terrans removed except for a handful of scientists directly involved in immunology, all of whom have chosen to stay, and all of whom we trust.”

“But—”

“And, of course, those of our clan members who wish to stay.”

Marianne stared at Smith through the glass, the impermeable barrier. Never had he seemed more alien. Why would this intelligent man believe that just because a handful of Terrans shared a mitochondrial haplotype with him, they could not be terrorists, too? Was it a cultural blind spot, similar to the Terran millennial-long belief in the divine right of kings? Was it some form of perception, the product of divergent evolution, that let his brain perceive things she could not? Or did he simply have in place such heavy surveillance and protective devices that people like Noah, sequestered in a different part of the Embassy, presented no threat?

Then the rest of what he had said struck her. “Immunologists?”

“Time is short, Dr. Jenner. The spore cloud will envelop Earth in merely a few months. We must perform intensive tests on you and the other infected people.”

“Other?”

“Dr. Ahmed Rafat and two lab technicians, Penelope Hodgson and Robert Chavez. They are, of course, all volunteers. They will be joining you soon in quarantine.”

Rage tore through her, all the rage held back, pent up, about Evan’s death, about Ryan’s deceit, about Noah’s defection. “Why not any of your own people? No, don’t tell me that you’re all too valuable—so are we! Why only Terrans? If we take this risk, why don’t you? And what the fuck happens when the cloud does hit? Do you take off two days before, keeping yourselves safe and leaving Earth to die? You know very well that there is no chance of developing a real vaccine in the time left, let alone manufacturing and distributing it! What then? How can you just—”

But Ambassador Smith was already moving away from her, behind the shatterproof glass. The ceiling said, without inflection or emotion, “I am sorry.”

S minus 3 months

Noah stood in the middle of the circle of Terrans. Fifty, sixty—they had all come aboard the Embassy in the last few days, as time shortened. Not all were L7s; some were families of clan brothers, and these too had been welcomed, since they’d had the defiance to ask for asylum when the directives said explicitly that only L7s would be taken in. There was something wrong with this system, Noah thought, but he did not think hard about what it might be.

The room, large and bare, was in neither the World quarters nor the now-sealed part of the Embassy where the Terran scientists worked. The few scientists left aboard, anyway. The room’s air, gravity, and light were all Terran, and Noah again wore an energy suit. He could see its faint shimmer along his arms as he raised them in welcome. He hadn’t realized how much he was going to hate having to don the suit again.

“I am Noah,” he said.

The people pressed against the walls of the bare room or huddled in small groups or sat as close to Noah as they could, cross-legged on the hard floor. They looked terrified or hopeful or defiant or already grieving for what might be lost. They all, even the ones who like Kayla and Isabelle had been here for a while, expected to die if they were left behind on Earth.

“I will be your leader and teacher. But first, I will explain the choice you must all make, now. You can choose to leave with the people of World, when we return to the home world. Or you can stay here, on Earth.”

“To die!” someone shouted. “Some choice!”

Noah found the shouter: a young man standing close behind him, fists clenched at his side. He wore ripped jeans, a pin through his eyebrow, and a scowl. Noah felt the shock of recognition that had thrilled through him before: with the nurse on the Upper West Side of New York; when he’d met Mee^hao¡. Not even Llaa^moh¡, who was a geneticist, could explain that shock, although she seemed to think it had to do with certain genetically determined pathways in Noah’s L7 brain coupled with the faint electromagnetic field surrounding every human skull. She was fascinated by it.

Lisa Guiterrez, Noah remembered, had also attributed it to neurological pathways, changed by his heavy use of sugarcane.

Noah said to the scowler, “What is your name?”

He said, “Why?”

“I’d like to know it. We are clan brothers.”

“I’m not your fucking brother. I’m here because it’s my only option to not die.”

A child on its mother’s lap started to cry. People murmured to each other, most not taking their eyes off Noah. Waiting, to see what Noah did about the young man. Answer him? Let it go? Have him put off the Embassy ?

Noah knew it would not take much to ignite these desperate people into attacking him, the alien-looking stand-in for the Worlders they had no way to reach.

He said gently to the young man, to all of them, to his absent and injured and courageous mother: “I’m going to explain your real choices. Please listen.”

Something was wrong.

One day passed, then another, then another. Marianne did not get sick. Nor did Ahmed Rafat and Penny Hodgson. Robbie Chavez did, but not very.

Harrison Rice stood with Ann Potter in front of Marianne’s glass quarantine cage, known as a “slammer.” He updated Marianne on the latest lab reports. In identical slammers, two across a narrow corridor and one beside her, Marianne could see the three other infected people. The rooms had been created, as if by alchemy, by a Deneb that Marianne had not seen before—presumably an engineer of some unknowable building methods. Ahmed stood close to his glass, listening. Penny was asleep. Robbie, his face filmed with sweat, lay in bed, listening.

Ann Potter said, “You’re not initially viremic but—”

“What does that mean?” Marianne interrupted.

Harrison answered. “It means lab tests show that as with Namechek and Lloyd, the spores were detectable in the first samples taken from your respiratory tract. So the virus should be present in your bloodstream and so have access to the rest of your body. However, we can’t find it. Well, that can happen. Viruses are elusive. But as far as we can tell, you aren’t developing antibodies against the virus, as the infected mice did. That may mean that we just haven’t isolated the antibodies yet. Or that your body doesn’t consider the virus a foreign invader, which seems unlikely. Or that in humans but not in mice, the virus has dived into an organ to multiply until its offspring burst out again. Malaria does that. Or that the virus samples in the lab, grown artificially, have mutated into harmlessness, differing from their wild cousins in the approaching cloud. Or it’s possible that none of us know what the hell we’re doing with this crazy pathogen.” He smiled at her, the most strained smile she had ever seen.

Marianne said, “What do the Denebs think?” Supposedly Harrison was co-lead with Deneb Scientist Jones.

“I have no idea what they think. None of us have seen any of them.”

“Not seen them?”

“No. We share all our data and samples, of course. Half of the samples go into an airlock for them, and the data over the LAN. But all we get in return is a thank-you onscreen. Maybe they’re not making progress, either, but at least they could tell us what they haven’t discovered.”