Timothy Zahn - Cascade Point

"I know," Halian said, waving her toward the seat she'd occupied earlier. "Sit down, Doctor."

She remained standing. "I mean genuinely straight answers. First Tomo was chosen, then he was conditioned, and now you've practically bitten your tongue off because he started talking about what humans can do. Now, either you give me the whole story or you schedule me a seat on the next shuttle back to Maigre."

Halian stared up at her in stony patience for a couple of heartbeats after she finished her speech, then once more indicated her chair. "Sit down, Doctor."

She hesitated, then obeyed, realizing with some chagrin that Halian was still in control of the situation. Psychological training, apparently, was no match for the experience gained in boardroom battles.

"You're right, of course," Halian said. "We should have told you everything right away. I suppose my only excuse is that you're an outsider, and that after a certain number of years keeping secrets away from outsiders becomes a very strong habit." He shifted his gaze to Ross. "Doctor? You know the details better than I do."

Ross pursed his lips briefly. "As I'm sure you know, Dr. Scharn, every human personality trait is a product of both heredity and environment, the genetic arrangement forming a sort of bedrock infrastructure of tendencies and aptitudes on which the individual personality is expressed." He paused. "What you may not know is that any of these genetic tendencies can be... enhanced, as it were, to a point where none of the subsequent environmental factors can really affect it. That's basically what's been done to Tomo."

She'd halfway been expecting this, but hadn't really wanted to believe it. "Are you saying," she said carefully, "that you've genetically engineered that entire corps of starship mainters to be afraid of people?"

"Not on purpose," Ross said. "The procedure was designed to make them able to tolerate—even enjoy—years of solitude at a time. Apparently the anthropophobia comes as an unavoidable part of the package."

"The package?" Scharn exploded. "My God—these are human beings you're talking about. People you've deliberately warped." She glared at Halian. "And it is most certainly illegal."

The director didn't flinch. "As a matter of fact, Parallax Industries has a special exemption from the general laws on genetic engineering. And if it helps any, I was just as outraged as you are when I first found out about this."

"You've done a good job of silencing your conscience, then," Scharn said coldly. "Does Parallax pay that much?"

"It's not a matter of personal bribery. It's the simple fact that the benefits of interstellar trade vastly outweigh the costs."

"Oh, of course," she retorted. "The costs are negligible—unless you happen to be one of those people out there."

"I'd advise against hypocrisy, Doctor," Halian said, a touch of irritation showing through his executive mask. "You benefit as much from the trade as anyone else, and I doubt you've ever given two seconds' thought to the people who provide you the goods."

"Don't shift the burden to as," Scharn bit out. "If people knew you were using genetic slavery they'd give up their precious furs and exotic foods like a shot."

"And their last fifteen years of life, too?" Ross asked quietly.

Scharn turned to him. "What?"

"Fifteen years is the extra life expectancy that outsystem medicines have provided us," he amplified.

The first hint of uncertainty began to play around the edges of her anger. "Medicines can be synthesized, though, once the molecular structure's known," she pointed out. "Intersystem lasers can transfer the knowledge at that point." "Usually," Ross nodded, "but not always. Have you ever heard of Willut's Chaser?"

Scharn frowned. "I think so. Isn't that that weird semiliving chemical that seeks out cancerous cells?"

"That's the one. Revolutionized the whole treatment procedure, made it possible for the first time to really root out an entire tumor without doing even a scrap of damage to the surrounding healthy tissue. And after sixty years we still can neither synthesize it nor successfully cultivate the Altairan nematoid strain that produces it."

There was a moment of silence. Scharn tried to whip up her righteous anger again, but her sister's face kept getting in the way. Maia, who had spent a couple of days in a hospital ten years ago for the routine treatment of brain cancer... "Why don't you build larger ships, then, so that you could use normal people running the ship as a group?" she asked. "Better yet, how about complete automation?"

"Because we'd need freighters the size of the original colony sleeper ships to give a normal crew the kind of room they'd need," Ross told her. "Anything smaller and you'd have violence and psychoses within the first five years, no matter how carefully you screened the crews." He hesitated. "Parallax tried that once; the records of those voyages aren't pretty."

"Then why not automate?" Scharn persisted. "Surely a powerstat TPL computer and its mobile units would be able to handle whatever maintenance a starship needs."

"The problem," Halian said, "is that a TPL, or any computer that powerful, requires an extremely high-density memory system, and high-density systems are notoriously vulnerable to radiation damage. On a powerstat that's not a problem because you can afford the weight of extra shielding and you have continuous error-weeding by ground-based systems. On a starship—well, the drive radiations aren't really dangerous to biological tissues, but your TPL would be out of commission in two years at the outside. Putting multiple units aboard would slow the process, but not enough."

"But..." Scharn raised a hand in a frustrated gesture, let it drop impotently to her chair arm. "It's still immoral to do that sort of thing to human beings."

Ross shrugged uncomfortably. "Would you rather we try putting normal people in what amounts to solitary confinement for ten years? Risk their going permanently insane or else drug them to their eyelids and never mind the physiological consequences? Don't forget, the mainters truly like what they're doing. They really are happy out there."

"All except Tomo," Scharn said.

Halian nodded grimly. "All except Tomo. He's an unknown, Dr. Scharn; and along with being worried I don't mind admitting I'm scared. What other supposedly impossible thoughts might he be having? Could he be going paranoid, too, or even homicidal?"

Scharn pursed her lips tightly. She still didn't like what had been done to Tomo... but her immediate responsibility was not for his past but for his present. And if he posed any danger to either himself or the station... "Do you have anything like a standard psych profile for the mainters as a group?" she asked.

Halian's response was to reach for his desk's control ball, fingering the classified-access section. "We've got both that and Tomo's own last profile."

"Good," Scharn said. "I'd also like any previous readings on Tomo that you might have."

Halians screen lit up with lines of print, and he swiveled it to face her. "I'll have the Goldenrod's computer send us up a complete dump. In the meantime, here's the general mainter profile."

Putting her feelings on standby, Scharn began to read.

—

It had been nearly an hour since the others had left him; long enough for Tomo's panic to have subsided into emotional fatigue and then resurface as restlessness. Scharn had said they would talk again later, a statement that could qualify as either a promise or a threat. Whichever, he wished they would hurry up and get on with it. Waiting like this was worse than docking—then, at least, Max could keep him informed as to what was happening. Here at the port, they were both in the dark.

Or were they? "Max?" he called impulsively, sliding into the desk chair.