Charles Sheffield - Dark as Day

He addressed his question to a blue-uniformed man who was fine-tuning an image on a monitor.

“Done as we’re likely to get.” The man turned to Christa Matloff. “We’ve scanned, analyzed, recorded, and tagged. What now?”

“Did you perform the search?”

“Long ago. I can show you the structures, and I can assure you that there’s nothing like it in the data banks.”

“Did you search the full Seine?”

“No. We’d have to get special authorization, and I didn’t think I needed to.” The man turned to Sebastian. “You said you’ve never been off-Earth before?”

“Nah.”

“So it’s down on Earth, if it’s anywhere. And it’s definitely not in the Earth data banks. Do you want me to set up a full Seine search?”

“I don’t think so, not at the moment.” Christa Matloff stepped toward the monitor. “Let’s have another look at it.”

It! They kept saying “it,” but what was it?

Uninvited, Jan followed the other woman. Sebastian, uninhibited as ever, crowded forward and pushed his moon face close to the display.

“Something in the white cells,” the man said. “This is at one to a hundred thousand. See the little round structure, a tiny nodule in with the other organelles? There’s one or two of ’em in every couple of thousand white blood cells.”

The screen showed a single irregular oval. Within it, close to the cell wall, two dark spherical objects were clearly visible.

Christa Matloff stared in silence for a few seconds. “In other types of cells, too?”

“I haven’t found any.”

“Did you do DNA and RNA checks?”

“Sure. Not a sign of either one. We’re not dealing with anything bacterial or viral. There’s also no sign of interaction with the rest of the cell. They just sit there.”

“Chemical analysis?”

“Yes. That’s another reason I’m sure they’re not alive. An ultimate analysis showed eight elements present: hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, magnesium, silicon, potassium, manganese, and zinc. But no you-know-what.”

“No carbon?”

“Not a trace. They’re inorganic.”

“So what are they?” Christa Matloff addressed the question to everyone, but it was clear that she was not expecting an answer.

“Beats me.” The blue-uniformed man shrugged. “But we have plenty of samples, and we’ll go on looking. I can tell you one thing, nothing I’ve seen could possibly be interpreted as a carrier of disease. That’s my job, to make sure that we’re not sending dangerous pathogens to the Outer System. And of course, we had to confirm that Mr. Birch is in good health. He is. Remarkable health, considering his age is thirty-five and he says he never takes any exercise. Dr. Matloff, as far as I’m concerned he’s cleared to go.”

“I’m glad to hear that. Valnia Bloom would never have forgiven me if I’d said he couldn’t go. She’s itching to get at him. But I just hate to leave dangling mysteries.” She turned to Sebastian. “There’s something peculiar inside your white blood cells, and your brain functions and scans are also quite unusual — did you know you have variable neurotransmitter take-up rates?”

“Never knew I had them. Is that good?”

“Not good, not bad. Do you ever feel inexplicable fits of weariness, or rage?”

Jan laughed. “Sebastian never gets mad at anything, ever.”

“Then I wouldn’t worry about the neurotransmitter variations, because they’re not doing any harm. We’ll put all this into the official report, of course. Meanwhile, there’s nothing to stop you leaving.”

“Leaving the lab?”

“Leaving the Earth-Moon system.” Christa Matloff turned, to include Jan as well as Sebastian. “Congratulations, both of you. Pretty soon you’ll be on your way to Ganymede, then I gather you’ll be heading for Saturn.”

Five more minutes, and Alex must leave. He had to go, but he was so excited that he didn’t know if he could bear to. His feet, in their clumsy formal shoes, felt rooted to the floor of his office. He had been standing, fully dressed and motionless, for over two hours.

At last! At last his programs were able to employ the full power of the Seine, and the difference between this and all pre-Seine runs was awesome. If only he could stay until the end of the first run…

The racing clock already showed 2136 — three decades beyond the point where all earlier efforts had degenerated to meaningless overflow and massive exponents. On the displays he could now watch the outward wave, as humanity expanded faster and faster through the solar system. Total population had climbed steadily to almost ten billion. Outward Bound was busy with the major satellites of Uranus and had a firm toehold on Triton, Neptune’s giant moon. A manned expedition was on the way to the inner edge of the Oort Cloud. The seventh unmanned interstellar ship was on its way. A manned interstellar ship was on the drawing boards.

Alex could also zoom the model in to examine in more detail the prediction for any chosen location; detail enough, if he so chose, to examine the actions of an individual program element. That element was a person, or at least the Fax of a person. And the Fax could be selected as anything from a crude Level One to the most complex of the Level Fives.

The last digits of the clock were changing too fast to be more than a blur. Already the prediction had advanced to 2140. All parameters showed only orderly change, with no wild swings or uncontrolled growth. He had set the run for a full century ahead. Another hour — even another half-hour…

He became aware of Kate standing by his side. She had certainly not been there thirty seconds ago. He felt like turning, reaching his arms wide, and embracing her. Kate was the one who had coaxed and argued and finessed and finagled, until the complete Seine resources were made available to Alex’s computer models. This was her moment as much as his, it should be a shared pleasure and excitement.

Alex was smart enough not to offer Kate even his little finger. She’d probably bite it off. She was his boss, so they had no choice but to continue to work together ever since he told her that he had agreed to meet with Lucy-Maria Mobarak. It was necessary, he had explained, because of “family pressure.” Kate had nodded, but from that moment everything between them had been on a cool and strictly professional basis. He did not recall that their hands had touched once. As for the idea of sleeping together…

He could see from the corner of his eye that she was looking him up and down with disapproval. He agreed with her completely. It was not from choice that he wore clothing so outmoded and uncomfortable.

Prosper and Karolus Ligon had laid down the rules. “It is nowhere a written requirement, Alex, but it will be expected of you. We realize that there is no commitment at this moment, on our side or Mobarak’s. However, your meeting with Lucy-Maria Mobarak is the first encounter between potential heirs of two of the System’s wealthiest families. You must dress in accordance with tradition. We refer, of course, to Ligon tradition.”

Ligon tradition stretched back more than two centuries. Which was why Alex, who normally worked in a sloppy jumpsuit and more often than not went barefoot, now stood attired in a stiff and starchy suit of gleaming white, a canary-yellow shirt fronted with jeweled ruby studs that had taken half an hour to fasten, and ancient two-toned shoes of yellow and white. They were a size too small and cramped his toes. Forcing those objects onto his feet, he had wondered about Mobarak tradition. Since Cyrus Mobarak was by Ligon standards an “upstart” and a “charlatan,” was there any such thing? What would Lucy-Maria be wearing?