Ivan Cat - The Burning Heart of Night

Fingers probed swollen glands under her jaw. "As I thought," the doctor pronounced. "Feeling giddy?"

"Maybe a little."

"Chills. Hot flashes?"

"Not yet," Jenette lied. Marsh glared and felt Jenette's forehead. "Well, some," Jenette admitted.

Marsh moved her fingers down Jenette's neck and, frowning, took a pulse.

Jenette gulped, suddenly fearful. "Second stage?"

Marsh nodded.

Jenette tried to hide her reaction, but her arms and head hung with the weight of the revelation. It was the Scourge. No more denying it now. The pathogen followed no exact timetable, instead it progressed through stages that could take months, weeks, or only days. The host's immune defenses and stress levels played a critical role in the progression. The opportunistic parasite was always alert to exploit weakness and escalate to its next growth cycle. Jenette's last few days had been particularly stressful; if that kept up, she worried how quickly she would progress through the remaining stages.

Unless, unless....

Jenette tore her eyes away from Crash's body bag.

"I shouldn't be getting sick. I'm not pregnant."

Marsh withdrew her hands, cold and sober. "You know very well that refusing Sacrament leaves you defenseless, you will get sick whether you are pregnant or not. Again I say, ask Dr. Bigelow." Marsh rolled over to get the scientist's attention, but found the large man already staring in their direction.

"It's all right with me," he said solemnly.

Jenette clenched her eyes. "But it's not all right with me."

"Why not?" Marsh asked.

"How can you ask that? Bronte's dead, Deena, dead. Don't you care?"

"I care. That is not relevant. All the combined knowledge of colonized space can't change dead. What is relevant is that you are alive and we want to keep you that way. Isn't that right, Dr. Bigelow?"

Bigelow nodded, eyes glistening.

Jenette gritted her teeth. She wanted to give in.

Marsh eased back on her bedroll. "Think of it as a transplant? like how we'll replace Crash's missing eye."

"That's not the same thing."

"Yes it is. In fact, since Bronte is already dead? since we are not killing her with Sacrament? it's no different than implanting biofactured cells into your eyes to cure myopia or inoculating your teeth against

dental caries bacteria, or any of a dozen other routine procedures that I have done for you in the past."

"Deena, stop, please."

A few seconds passed. Bigelow marshaled his grief. "Jenette," he said, "you got us into this. We believe in the cause, and we believe in you and that means you have to live, otherwise? " Bigelow waved an arm to encompass the wounded, Coffin Island, the body bags, "? otherwise all this was for nothing."

Marsh piped up again. "That's right. Don't get me wrong, we're all in this together? but you are the one with the vision." Marsh chose her next words carefully. "Some of us have seen the worms too many times, and it isn't nice. I don't know how Dr. Bigelow feels, but some of us don't want to end up that way

? we've vowed to never end up that way. We're not evil people. We'll do anything for the cause, except commit suicide. We're not as strong as you. So when it comes right down to it, we'll keep on going to Sacrament and domestics will keep on dying unless you find a solution."

Confession over, Marsh closed her eyes.

Jenette found herself staring down at Bronte's shrinktight cocoon. Somehow, she had moved over to it. The smell of immune venom was overwhelming. A few feet to the right, the incinerod had charred Mok's remains to ash.

"Who's going to carry the torch if not for Jenette Tesla?" Marsh asked, eyes still shut.

What should she do? What?

The fate of every human and domestic on New Ascension hinged on what Jenette chose. The options were horribly simple: compromise her principles and have a chance to find a solution to Scourge and Sacrament, or stand firm to those principles and die. This, she realized, must have been how the whole travesty of Sacrament started, with her father making a series of pragmatic decisions to stay alive, convinced that he was making the high moral choice every step of the way.

As Jenette agonized, the heavy lifter floated slowly closer, the heavy reactor skimming a few yards above the ground, then sinking as Arrou let the thrusters idle down. An uncomfortable flatulence sounded as the reactor compressed heaps of slime, forcing bubbles of trapped air through the grim goo. The lifter's robotic grappling arms disengaged and folded under the lifter's belly. Then the orbiter itself landed.

Jenette forced her hands off of the body bag.

Every fiber in her body protested, crying out with craving. Craving!

Jenette picked up the incinerod. Shook off the ash.

"There won't be a torch to carry if I give in," Jenette said, as much for herself as for Marsh and Bigelow.

Flip, flip, twist. She reset the burn cycle. Click.

Get up now. Steady. Don't look back.

The incinerod began its task yet again as Jenette turned and, stumbling, fled into the lurid landscape.

XXXIX

Pilot Academy transcript, 10.21.3530.

Subject: Lindal Karr, aged sixteen years.

Document status: CLASSIFIED.

(Vidun and Uttz march down a sterile looking corridor.)

Vidun: Why haven't you examined the surveillance recordings?

Dr. Uttz: I am no voyeur, sir. If you desire information, I suggest you examine them yourself.

Vidun: I suggest you attend to your duty, Doctor. Pilot candidates must procreate.

Dr. Uttz (annoyed): We are using all possible methods to breed candidate Karr. We have extracted every drop of semen that he's produced since becoming pubescent. We've artificially inseminated thousands of women. We've isolated DNA sequences, which we suspect code for fugue immunity, and spliced them into human zygotes. Nothing works. None of the resulting children exhibit fugue-immunity. Obviously, whatever makes Lindal Karr a Pilot is not reflected in his sperm cells.

Vidun: What about cloning? Why aren't we cloning him?

Dr. Uttz: We are, but I must warn you, it is a widely held misconception that clones are identical copies of the original individual. This is simply not the case. Whatever makes Lindal Karr a Pilot is not merely reflected in his sperm cells. Random factors effect both cloned and normal human zygotes, in utero and after birth. Exposure to chemical and biological influences as well as radiation may cause DNA mutations outside the germ cells. I believe that a whole series of unlikely cellular mutations have combined in Lindal Karr to produce fugue- immunity. The chance of recreating such random mutations in a clone is practically nil.

Vidun: I refuse to admit defeat, Doctor. The stakes are too high. It may be that there is something we don't know about old-fashioned intercourse that is part of the equation.

Dr. Uttz: Unlikely.

Vidun: Unlikely or not, we will try. We must push him harder.

Dr. Uttz: You push too hard. Some things cannot be pushed. They wither under too much pressure.

Vidun: Bullshit. Too much thinking: that's his problem. It's not good for a man to get locked up inside his own head. He gets to questioning every action. Fear takes over. Moral paralysis follows.

That is why we train to focus on action.

Dr. Uttz: We also train our candidates to avoid human contact. It is a measure of our very success that he has difficulty with intimate behavior.