Нэнси Кресс - Terran Tomorrow

One by one, Toni and her assistant opened the cages.

Jason watched the last of the sparrows flap off into the trees. Probably some would die, eaten by predators. But in the spring, most would mate. The males, all sterile, would fail to impregnate their wild brides. The females would also mate, producing sterile male offspring and females who would carry the drive into the next generation. As the sterility spread, helped by Toni Steffens’s other, diabolically clever gene tweaks, there would be fewer and fewer sparrows. A “selective sweep,” Toni called it. Sterile males would have to go farther afield to find mates. They could—because they had, once before—cover two continents and, eventually perhaps reach Asia from Alaska. It had happened before.

Fewer and fewer sparrows. Eventually, there would be none. And RSA would die with them.

How long? Toni Steffens had not known for sure: too many variables. What she had known for sure was that Jason’s decision to release the birds would change Earth’s ecology even more profoundly than had the temporary elimination of eight species of mice by the original spore cloud. Sparrows filled more ecological functions than mice. Jason even knew what they were, but in case his knowledge was incomplete, there were going to be outraged scientists eager to shout it at him.

This evening. Time was running out.

For now, he stood quietly, watching a genetically altered sparrow, unwitting time bomb to its own species, perch on the branch of a blue oak. Finally he said to Toni Steffens, “All right. Let’s tell them.” And into his implant, “J Squad—all troops back to the dome. Perimeter patrol—all troops inside. Repeat, all troops inside.”

“Sir?” said a startled voice. Perimeter patrol was always maintained, in case of messages from the signal station.

“All troops inside.”

He tongued off the implant. To Toni he said, just as if she had been one of his soldiers, “Game on.”

Above the trees, a quadcopter hummed. Lieutenant Li, Specialist DeFord, and Corporal Michaelson, all undoubtedly mystified. The signal station had never been left empty before. But Jason wanted everyone here, no exceptions.

He opened the hatch to the tunnel. The sparrow on the blue oak spread its small wings and flew off.

The armory was the only space large enough to hold everyone, and then only when the FiVees and Bradley were jammed into one corner with the quadcopters on top of them. No room for many chairs; except for the old, people stood or sat on the floor. Jason and Toni climbed onto the hood of a FiVee, where everyone could see them. Half of J Squad stood in a solid line against the ordnance lockers; the other half made a cordon in front of Jason’s FiVee dais.

While people were being escorted from Enclave Dome to Lab Dome, while everyone was being brought through the open internal airlock to the armory, Jason had talked to Hillson. It had not gone well. Hillson stood now by the front left wheel of the FiVee, scowling. Whenever Jason glanced at his master sergeant, his stomach tightened.

The only people not here were the five v-comas who had not yet awakened, a nurse to watch over them, the tranquilized Porter in his stockade cell, the three soldiers on the Return , and Elizabeth Duncan in the command post to maintain surveillance. Duncan already knew what Jason would say. The others would be told right after the meeting.

“You don’t have to introduce it this way,” Duncan had said. “You’re the commander.”

“Yes, I do,” Jason had said. “Otherwise, if I tell it piecemeal, rumors and exaggerations will get completely out of control.”

“True. But, sir… you’ll be inviting ugly debate.”

“They’re entitled to debate.”

“And then you’ll carry out the plan anyway.”

Jason hadn’t replied; they both knew he had no real choice about the overall strategy.

He scanned the crowd. Faces curious or apprehensive or hostile. Some of the hostile ones were his own troops. Some still resented his allowing the star-farers to infect everybody, resented his bringing the Settlers to the base, resented the war going on so long without much real action, resented their lives cooped up in two domes. Others of his soldiers waited blank-faced, reserving judgment.

The scientists stood together by the airlock, Dr. McKay next to his Awakened wife, holding their little girl. Dr. Ka^graa was with them, along with Jane, her cousin La^vor, and the giant teenager Belok^. Jane caught his eye and then looked away. In that moment, Jason understood that she knew what he was going to say. How? A little shiver ran down his spine.

Colin, in his powerchair, sat beside Jane, with Jason’s father seated on a folding chair, one hand on his cane and the other on Colin’s shoulder. Ryan looked very old. The Settlers clustered behind Colin. Jason looked for his grandmother, but couldn’t find her or Lindy in the press of bodies. He spotted Claire Patel, Dr. Holbrook, and one of the young teachers from Enclave Dome with Dr. Sugiyama’s two children clinging to her. Holbrook had told Jason that the teacher was the only one who could deal with their trauma, and they would not leave her. The little boy, trembling, had his face buried in the teacher’s neck.

Lieutenant Li, standing by the ordnance lockers, stared steadily at Jason. Did he guess? Maybe.

The rest of Jason’s officers, both line and staff. None of them among the Awakened.

The enlisted troops who were Awakened: McNally, Swinford, Ramstetter, Veatch, Larriva, Buckley.

Mason Kandiss, standing impassive with J Squad.

Beside Jason, Toni Steffens sat down on the roof of the FiVee’s cab. She must be exhausted. Her work on the gene drive had been unceasing. But, then, so had Jason’s work.

He braced himself. Everyone was here, 660 people. Time to begin.

“People of Monterey Base,” he said, knowing the term sounded both pompous and faintly comic but unable to think of anything better, “we are all here together because I have two announcements that you all need to hear. They affect everyone, military and civilian alike.”

Someone coughed. It was the only sound. Well, that wouldn’t be true for long.

“Neither announcement will, or can, be reversed, although I know you will have a lot to say about both. Here is the first: Dr. Steffens developed a gene drive to spread sterility among the sparrows that carry RSA. She and her team bred birds carrying that drive, and we have released them into the wild. In thirty to fifty years, by best estimate, the United States will be free of RSA. It will no longer exist here.”

Babble of voices: Done what? Released what? What does he mean? But at least half of the crowd knew enough. Colin shouted, “You can’t!”

Zack McKay started to say something, stopped, stared at Jason as if at a mirage. Voices rose. Jason raised his hand, but no one stopped talking. Over the din— as bad as the birds —Colin’s voice prevailed; he was, in his own way, as used to command as Jason. People quieted to listen.

“Are you insane? You’ve wrecked the entire ecology! Do you know what happened a hundred years ago when the Chinese tried to eradicate sparrows? Insects swarmed out of control because no birds were eating them, the insects ate the crops, twenty million people died of starvation! And now with the ecosystem already so fragile—”

“We haven’t got twenty million people,” Jason said. “There aren’t twenty million people left in the entire country. Look, I know this is a huge meddle with the—”

“It’s irresponsible! It’s criminal!”

All at once, Jason had an image of Colin as a small child during one of their brotherly fights: “Dad! He hitted me! It’s cwimial!” God, the betrayals of memory!