Charles Sheffield - The Web Between the Worlds

“The people who installed the new one said they didn’t expect me to shred my hand and use it as a screwdriver. And I didn’t know that Morel was going to melt part of the wall of Atlantis and shower me with drops of liquid metal.”

Rob was sitting up in the bed close to the broad window, supported on a pile of pillows. His face was emaciated but his color was good. Anson was pleased by the improvement.

“When will you get an explanation from them?” he said. “You once told me that those hands were foolproof.”

Rob smiled. “It depends how big a fool owns the hands. They never could tell me what happened, but this morning I finally figured it out for myself. I had stripped off the protective layer of skin, down to the metal skeleton. Then Morel splashed on a drop of liquid nickel, right next to the ulnar nerve terminal input and inside the hand. Then we added a few drops of sepia and water, from Caliban’s splashing about after Joseph Morel. The result was a nice little micro-battery. It couldn’t have been generating more than a millivolt — but it fed right into my sensory nerves.”

“I hope you got a design modification, so it won’t happen again.” Anson seemed unmoved by Rob’s grimaces at the memory.

“It won’t happen again. Not to me, at least. I’m headed for the quiet life — rigging the high steel, or painting the beanstalk to keep it from rusting.” Rob stared out of the window towards the distant base of the structure. “Are you really thinking of going up it? I thought you were dead set against space travel.”

“I was. But Senta keeps trying to talk me into it, and I finally have a good reason to go.” Anson had lost his smile, and seemed to be waiting for something. After a few moments he said, “Rob, we’re just making small talk, and there’s something we need to clear up before Senta and Corrie get here. It’s not really over with Atlantis, is it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t let’s play games with each other. We have one basic question that we’ve both been avoiding. It still needs an answer.”

Rob turned quickly from the window. “I think you’d be happier without the answer.”

“Never. You know my weakness. I need to know. And it’s not just curiosity. I have to make a decision of my own.”

Rob said nothing. For the next minute the two men watched the carriers with their loads of passengers and cargo, sweeping up the beanstalk. It was evening, and the cars disappeared from sight as they rose through the purple twilight, only coming into view again as they emerged from Earth’s shadow.

“It’s a simple question,” Anson went on last. “What was Joseph Morel really doing with the Goblins? He didn’t give a damn about their social structure. He had some other reason for his experiments. What was it?”

“All right.” Rob’s face was somber. “Senta found out, and it brought her a brain-wipe and taliza addiction. Let’s hope we do better than that. You’re quite right, Morel had no interest in the Goblins’ social structure. He only cared about biological and medical answers. So why the Goblins? Well, remember the first time that Senta talked to me about cancer crudelis and cancer pertinax ?”

“Come on, Rob. I’m the original memory man. Senta told you that Morel had found a treatment for crudelis , but not for pertinax . His cures worked for animals, but on humans they had deadly side effects that made them useless.”

“Right. The differences between animals and humans are small, chemically, but they are crucial. Now think about Morel. Regulo provided the security that he needed for all his experiments. If Regulo died, that security was gone. They had to find a cure for cancer pertinax , one that could be used on humans before it was too late for Regulo.”

“But didn’t you say that Morel’s treatments helped Regulo?”

“They sure did. Without them he’d have died many years ago. But he was getting steadily worse — I could see the change in him, even in the short time I knew him. And Morel was getting closer, but he didn’t have a cure. He had discovered something else, though: a way to induce progeria in humans. He could produce a race of Goblins, small, short-lived and controlled completely by him, out on Atlantis.”

There was a long silence. Anson looked sick.

“He bred the Goblins to study the disease ?” he said at last.

“Worse than that.” Rob’s face had no color in it. He was nursing his new left hand as though it again pained him. “Remember the name, Expies ? To him, they were no more than experimental animals. Morel could give Goblins the disease. When I saw them in the lab, some were healthy — the control group — and the rest suffered from cancer pertinax .”

“He used people as lab animals ?”

“What is the ideal lab animal if you want to learn the side effects of a treatment on a human being?”

Anson did not speak. After a few moments Rob went on, “The best lab animal in studying human diseases is another human. That’s why Morel was breeding the Goblins. That was the only reason for their existence. He could run through a complete generation of them in a few years.”

“And Regulo knew about it?” Anson was staring out of the window, avoiding Rob’s eyes.

“He did.”

“Then you were right, Rob. I would rather not have known that. It explains why you looked fifteen years older when you got back to Earth.”

“Make that fifty years. I only wish I felt about Regulo as I did about Morel. You know, I liked Regulo. I never knew my own father, and he seemed like the nearest thing to a father I ever had. I don’t know if he had anything to do with the deaths of my real mother and father, and I think that’s something I would rather never know. But I’m sure he knew what Morel was doing with the Goblins. His disease had driven him over the edge, too. Remember what Senta told us about his `lust for life’? Regulo didn’t want to die. He had reached the point where he would do anything to go on living. Anything at all.”

“But why would Morel do all this? He didn’t have Regulo’s disease, he didn’t have anything to gain from the experiments.”

“You didn’t know Morel. If there was one thing that he was willing to die for, it was Caliban. That was the important experiment to him. I don’t think he ever thought of the Goblins as more than experimental animals. Originally he may not have expected Regulo to go along with the idea, but once they started they both had to keep their secret.”

“Regulo didn’t suggest Goblins. He wouldn’t have had the medical knowledge.” Anson glanced quickly at Rob. “But agreeing to something like that is nearly as bad as suggesting it. Don’t you agree?”

“What is it, Howard?” Rob stared at Anson. “That’s not your style of question. What are you getting at?”

“I remember everything you ever told me about Atlantis. One thing won’t pass my own test of reasonableness, and we have to face a nasty possibility. Corrie lived on Atlantis for a long time. She was close to everything that happened there. Isn’t it possible that she knew about the experiments, too?”

Rob again fell silent, gazing out at the majestic column of the beanstalk rising against the dark blue of the late afternoon sky. At last he said, “I had that thought, too. When I came back from the lab, after Caliban had killed Morel, I found Corrie with Regulo. I had been left alone for more than four hours — and I couldn’t help wondering what Morel had been doing all that time. The only answer that made any sense was one I didn’t like to think about: Morel was talking the whole thing over with Regulo, wondering what to do with me. And where was Corrie while they were talking? She might have been there with them.”