James Gardner - Gravity Wells (Short Stories Collection)

"Without," Julia told him. "Definitely without."

McCarthy's gaze was on her. He did not look like a man who had just received an absolute no. With an expression far too smug, he said, "Let me tell you a secret, Doctor. From our agents in the enemy camp. Even as we speak, the Papists are planning to contaminate our water supply with their damned SA enzyme. Poison us or make us like them…one way or the other. We need your drug to fight that pollution; to remove the enzyme from our blood before it can destroy us. What about that, Dr. Grant? Will your precious medical ethics let you work on a treatment to keep us safe from their damned Papist toxins?"

Julia grimaced. "You know nothing about the human metabolism. People couldn't 'catch' the SA factor from drinking water; the enzyme would just break down in your stomach acid. I suppose it might be possible to produce a methylated version that would eventually work its way into the bloodstream…" She stopped herself. "Anyway, I can't believe the Papists would be so insane as to—"

"Right now," McCarthy interrupted, "sitting in a committee room of some Papist hideaway, there are a group of men who are just as crazy as we are. Believe that, Doctor. Whatever we are willing to do to them, they are willing to do to us; the only question is who'll do it first." McCarthy settled back and cradled his hands on his stomach. "Snakes all 'round, Dr. Grant. You can make a difference in who gets bitten."

It was, perhaps, the only true thing McCarthy had said since he'd started speaking. Julia tried to doubt it, but couldn't. SA-positive or negative, you could still be a ruthless bastard.

She said nothing.

McCarthy stared at her a few moments more, then glanced at the men on both sides of him. "Let's consider this hearing adjourned, all right? Give Dr. Grant a little time to think things over." He turned to look straight at her. "A little time. We'll contact you in a few days…find out who scares you more, us or them."

He had the nerve to wink before he turned away.

The other senators filed from the room, almost bumping into each other in the hurry to leave. Complicitous men…weak men, for all their power. Julia remained in the uncomfortable "witness chair," giving them ample time to scurry away; she didn't want to lay eyes on them again when she finally went out into the corridor.

Using trisulphozymase on an SA-positive person…what would be the effect? Predictions were almost worthless in biochemistry—medical science was a vast ocean of ignorance dotted with researchers trying to stay afloat in makeshift canoes. The only prediction you could safely make was that a large enough dose of any drug would kill the patient.

On the other hand, better to inject trisulphozymase into SA-positive people than SA-negative. The chemical reactions that broke down the SA enzyme also broke down the trisulphozymase—mutual assured destruction. If you didn't have the SA enzyme in your blood, the trisulphozymase would build up to lethal levels much faster, simply because there was nothing to stop it. SA-positive people could certainly tolerate dosages that would kill a…

Julia felt a chill wash through her. She had created a drug that would poison SA-negatives but not SA-positives…that could selectively massacre the Redeemed while leaving the Papists standing. And her research was a matter of public record. How long would it take before someone on the Papist side made the connection? One of those men McCarthy had talked about, just as ruthless and crazy as the senator himself.

How long would it take before they used her drug to slaughter half the world?

There was only one way out: put all the snakes to sleep. If Julia could somehow wave her hands and make every SA-positive person SA-negative, then the playing field would be level again. No, not the playing field—the killing field.

Insanity…but what choice did she have? Sign up with McCarthy; get rid of the snakes before they began to bite; pray the side effects could be treated. Perhaps, if saner minds prevailed, the process would never be deployed. Perhaps the threat would be enough to force some kind of bilateral enzyme disarmament.

Feeling twenty years older, Dr. Julia Grant left the hearing room. The corridor was empty; through the great glass entryway at the front of the building, she could see late afternoon sunlight slanting across the marble steps. A single protester stood on the sidewalk, mutely holding a sign aloft—no doubt what McCarthy would call a Papist sympathizer, traitorously opposing a duly appointed congressional committee.

The protester's sign read: Why do you concern yourself with the sleeping creature before you, when you are blind to the serpents in your own heart?

Julia turned away, hoping the building had a back door.

[After school, 4:30 P.M.]

Nicholas: How 'bout the collision of two Dyson spheres?

Brendan: Bor-ring.

N: Two sentient Dyson spheres.

B: How can a Dyson sphere be sentient? It's just, like, a shell with a sun inside.

N: Both spheres are made of nanotech. You know? Little microscopic robots and they're all linked into big hive-minds.

B: So the spheres are big computers?

N: Hive-minds. Because each nanite is sentient on its own. Each one is way smarter than humans to begin with.

B: If they're so smart, why are the spheres colliding? They should just change course.

N: Because…because one sphere is made of matter and the other's antimatter! A big antimatter Dyson sphere, the size of a whole solar system, right? And it's getting pulled toward the normal-matter one because opposites attract.

B: You mean like you and Ashley McGregor?

N: I am not attracted to…the only reason I even talk to her is just she lives two houses down from me.

B: Suppose the Dyson spheres are getting together to make out.

N: What?

B: You're the one who said they're sentient. And they're, like, you know, billion-year-old virgins.

N: Yeah, right. Virgins!

B: Stupid old virgins.

N: Wait a second. If they're both spheres and they want to get it on, doesn't that make them gay?

B: One is matter and the other's antimatter.

N: Doesn't make a difference. They're both spheres!

B: Oh. Yeah. I see your point.

N: Now if one was a ringworld…

B: Right. Then, like, the sphere could go right through the ringworld. You know, kind of back and forth…

N: In and out.

B: Yeah. Except doesn't a ringworld have a sun?

N: Oh, right. Ringworlds have a sun in the middle.

B: So when the Dyson sphere tries to, you know, slide through the ring, it gets kind of scorched.

N: What can I say? Love hurts.

B: Is that what Ashley tells you?

N: Look, I just walk home with her sometimes, okay? We live so close together—

B: Suppose it's a ghost ringworld.

N: A what?

B: Like, it doesn't have a sun. It's all dark and cold and creepy.

N: And the Dyson sphere is just going through space, minding its own business, when it sees this thing floating out there.

B: So the sphere kind of drifts up slowly, and as it's sliding inside, it goes, "Hello? Hello? Anybody here?"

N: Oh, sure, like it can talk in vacuum!

B: It sends radio signals.

N: How 'bout it creates holographic words across its surface?

B: Or maybe Dyson spheres talk with pheromones.

N: That's cool.

B: Its atmosphere is filled with this kind of perfume called, "Hello? Hello? Anybody here?"

N: Which is basically what they should call all perfumes. "Hello? Hello? Is anyone paying attention to me?"

B: Like Janice Wozniak.