Terraform (an Ell Donsaii story #15) Page 7

  “You said not to do it, ma’am,” he said, unable to restrain a grin.

  With an exasperated sigh, she slowly said, “No one else around here calls me ma’am.”

  “That’s because they’re intimidated… ma’am.”

  She crossed her arms and tapped her foot for a few seconds, then said, “In another moment, I’m just going to take my new inflatable port and leave.”

  His eyes widened as they saw she held a wad of grey material. “Sorry mm… Sorry Ell. Please don’t leave!” he said, staring at her hand. “Is that it?” he asked excitedly.

  “Yep,” she said with a grin. She mumbled to her AI and it quickly began inflating. In a few seconds, she was holding a thick grey hula hoop, a meter in diameter. She pointed to a wide stripe covering the inner surface of the ring, “These’re the buckyballs that’re supposed to form the port. You ready to see if it’ll work?”

  “Yeah!” he said enthusiastically. Then he drew back a moment, “Um, you aren’t going to power it up right here, are you?”

  “Sure,” she said, leaning it against a worktable and stepping back. The other end of the port’s over at Allosci, not on Venus. No toxic Venusian atmosphere’s going to come pouring out or anything.”

  “Still,” he said, stepping back with wide eyes, “isn’t it going to be drawing two to three-megawatts?! I’d rather not be next to it—in case it blows a circuit.”

  She grinned at him, “It’s good to see that you have some of the sense God gave a mule. Let’s take it to the testing room.” She picked it up and walked away. AJ hurried to catch up.

  ~~~

  Ell took the inflated graphene ring into the building’s chemical reaction safety room. She and Manuel Garcia, one of the machinists, clamped it into a fixture she’d obviously had Manuel build just for this. They all exited the room and took up station outside the thick viewing window. “Ready?” she asked.

  Manuel and AJ both nodded and Ell spoke to her high-powered AI. A moment later, right through the wall, AJ heard the kind of rising hum that came from big ports when they powered up. The center of the ring flashed; then smoke started pouring out into the testing room. “Damn!” he said in frustration.

  Ell glanced at him in some surprise, then said, “Oh. It’s the smoke, right? I had the people over at Allosci pressurize the room and turn on some smoke generators. That way we’d be able to tell if it was working.”

  “Oh,” AJ said, feeling relieved. Then he remembered that when the port first snapped on, it’d looked flat. He couldn’t see the surface now because of the smoke pouring out of it. “Um, it looked like the port was planar, rather than hemispherical?”

  “Yep. Let’s try making it hemispherical.” Ell mumbled to her AI.

  AJ still couldn’t see the surface of the port, but instead of the smoke pouring out as if it were shooting out the end of a large pipe, it suddenly looked like it was puffing out in every direction.

  Ell said, “That seems to be working. Let’s see if we can open up hemispherical ports on both sides.” She spoke to Allan again.

  A few seconds later and the room seemed to be filling with smoke. AJ could hardly see anything, but for an instant before it got too smoky, he thought he’d seen a large ball pouring smoke in every direction.

  “Awesome,” Ell said, studying numbers only she could see on her HUD. She turned excitedly to AJ and put her hand up for a high five, “We’ve got a one-meter, bi-hemispherical port with a flow rate four times what it had when it was a single-surface, planar-port.”

  “What about the graphene tube? Is it heating?” AJ asked concernedly.

  Ell’s eyes darted up to the side to look at numbers displayed on her contacts’ HUD, “It warmed up some. We’re easily controlling the heating by running cold nitrogen from Titan through it.” She looked at him, “But, it might be a problem for a bigger ring, running a lot more power. I’ll send you the numbers we’re getting from this test run and you can do some engineering on them.”

  “That’d be great,” AJ said, his mind already trying to think how he might try to correlate what these numbers would mean in a larger ring. “I’ll run the numbers, but we’ll still need empiric testing.” He looked at her hopefully, “Can we order a two-meter ring?”

  Ell’d obviously turned off the port. The smoke was clearing out of the test room and the ring was becoming more visible. She looked at him and said, “Why don’t you run a few numbers? Try to decide whether we need to increase the diameter of the tube of the hula hoop to let us run more nitrogen through it or not.” She grinned, “Not that I necessarily expect you to predict it correctly. I just don’t want to have those Allosci wimps complaining that we had them make something that was guaranteed to fail.”

  “Okay, okay,” AJ said. Shaking his head, he said in a low tone as if he didn’t want her to hear, “Hard to believe the way you mollycoddle your employees.”

  “Hey,” Ell said, giving him a gentle poke, “I’m mollycoddling you too, you know?”

  “Yes ma’am,” AJ said with a big smile. I appreciate it too!”

  Ell rolled her eyes…

  Chapter Three

  After a long day spent transferring mice, Mark poured them tea, then sat down and looked Lindy in the eye.

  It’d been sixteen weeks now since Mark and Lindy imported 300 six-week-old mice to Mars and put them in their special colony cages. Two groups of 50 stayed in the Martian tunnels, two groups went in the water shielded dome up on the surface, and two went in the unshielded dome. Quantum Biomed and NASA had kept two more groups back on Earth. One of each of the pairs of groups consisted of mice that had supposedly been genetically modified to resist radiation. After five weeks, when the mice were eleven weeks old—ten weeks being a generation for mice—there should’ve been about 300 mice in each group since mice typically had litters of 4 to 6 pups each. At that eleven-week time-point, they’d transferred all but fifty mice from each group back to Earth for examination. Again today—after a second 11-week generation period—all but fifty mice from each group had been sent back to Earth. The transfers were partly to keep the colony size in control, and partly to give the scientists back on Earth specimens to evaluate.

  Mark said, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “If you’re thinking that the supposed genetic modification for radiation resistance works pretty damn well; then yes, we’re thinking the same thing.”

  “Of course, we don’t have any of the DNA analysis, or the results of any of the rest of the evaluations they’re planning, but—”

  Lindy interrupted, “But, both times there were between 286 and 313 healthy looking mice in each of groups one through five. At five weeks there were only 202 mice in Group Six, from in the unshielded dome. At sixteen weeks there were only 147 mice in Group Six. Group Six hasn’t been reproducing well and there were quite a few dead mice in that cage. And I swear every mouse in Group Six looked feeble. Some of the live ones had obvious mutations. Some had tumors. They look… old, for lack of a better word.”

  “Yeah,” Mark said with a sigh. “Though until they break the code, we can’t be sure which group is which—”

  “Come on!” Lindy interrupted, “Group Six has to be the control mice for the unshielded dome. Group Five, their friends in that dome, looked fine. The Fives have to be the ones with the supposed radiation protection gene mod. If the gene mod made mice sick, they would’ve known about it back on Earth. Also, remember that none of the groups that weren’t subjected to a lot of radiation looked sick. The gene mod can’t be making Group Six sick; therefore, it has to be what’s keeping Group Five healthy.”

  Mark nodded acquiescence.

  Lindy shook her head, “Since I’m a control version human, now that I’ve seen what’s happening to Group Six, I plan to cut down the amount of time I spend out there on the surface… Cut it to the bare minimum I can achieve.”

  Mark didn’t say anything, just stared into space.

  She frowned, “Are you
thinking there’s some other explanation?”

  He blinked, then focused back on her, “No, no. I’m thinking I want that genetic modification for myself.”

  Lindy rolled her eyes, “You can bet that’s not gonna happen. Not without years of testing and endless legal wrangling. I’m going to tell the rest of the team about this though. I think, in view of what’s happening to those mice, they should have the right to decide for themselves how much time they want to spend on the surface.”

  Mark shrugged and got up, “You may be right about all the years of testing and legal crap, but I’m gonna volunteer to be the guinea pig anyway.”

  Lindy grinned up at him, “Volunteering to come to Mars wasn’t enough crazy volunteering for you?”

  He grinned back, “You don’t think one crazy volunteering can cancel out the bad effects of the other one? Like two wrongs making a right?”

  “In your dreams, baby, in your dreams…”

  He smiled, “You know, I think Group Four in the shielded dome and Group One in the tunnel both look a little healthier than their sister groups. I’ll bet they have the gene mod too.”

  Lindy frowned, “A gene mod that repairs radiation damage can’t make you healthier if you’re not being irradiated, can it?”

  Mark shrugged the shoulder that wasn’t holding a teacup, “I heard one of the Quantum Biomed guys call it an ‘error correction mod,’ instead of a radiation protection mod. Cumulative DNA errors from all kinds of sources are a big part of what makes us old.” He grinned, “Once I join the experimental group, I’m gonna start getting younger…”

  “In your dreams, baby, in your dreams…” Lindy said again.

  ***

  Jillian had spent hours hunting the Internet for signs of Ell Donsaii’s child without success.

  Sometimes, when the web fails you, you just have to go take a look for yourself, she thought, turning into the driveway at Donsaii’s little farm. She felt surprised. She’d been expecting massive walls and an automated gate, but there was only a paved driveway. The pavement looked new, leading her to wonder whether it’d actually been a dirt driveway recently.

  She drove her car right up to the farmhouse and parked. That was easier than I expected, she thought, though I’ll bet things’re going to get harder. As she walked up to the porch, she turned to survey the area. No swing sets or other playground equipment, she thought. Though I suppose the boy could have ponies in that little barn over there.

  Climbing the steps onto the porch, she crossed it and knocked on the door. “Hello, house AI?”

  “Yes, this is the house AI. How may I help you?”

  “Is Ms. Donsaii home?”

  “No, may I get your name so I can tell her who stopped by?”

  “Jane Doe.”

  The AI said, “Your face matches the image for the byline of a reporter named Jillian Pardo. Are you claiming to be someone else?”

  “Why’d you ask me who I was if you already knew?”

  “It’s considered the polite thing to do.”

  Polite? Damned insufferable AI’s. Jillian leaned back and peered in the windows, thinking that the house AI was pretty powerful if it could correlate her to images on the net that quickly. She didn’t see any toys on the floors inside. Or, anything else that suggested a child lived in the house.

  Once again, she wondered whether Barton had been pulling her chain. But why would he do it? she wondered. Could he have taken an immediate disliking to me and just wanted to send me on a wild goose chase?

  She wanted to walk around the house peering in all the windows, but that might be a bit much with an AI that was this sharp. She got back in her car and drove back out to park on the road where she’d be able to see the people in any cars that entered the driveway. Am I just wasting my time? she wondered.

  ~~~

  At 5:17, an old, blue Ford Focus turned into the driveway. Housekeeper, Jillian thought at first, based on the age of the vehicle.

  But then she recognized Donsaii in the vehicle.

  And no one else.

  Certainly no child.

  What’s she doing in that piece of junk? Jillian wondered

  She stayed there in front of Donsaii’s place until it got dark. Since it was summer, the sun didn’t go down until 8:30. That gave Jillian plenty of time to get hungry and irritable.

  And to wonder just what the hell she was doing there.

  ~~~

  Jillian watched the house two more evenings. Both nights she saw Donsaii’s Focus come home with Donsaii in it. No one left the house. No one brought in a child.

  And the only evidence Jillian had for Donsaii’s possible child was an offhand remark by a detective she didn’t like. A remark he’d almost certainly deny. Her recognition that there was a time period when Donsaii could’ve had a child only said it was possible. It didn’t constitute evidence that Donsaii actually did have a kid.

  A scoop of the rest of the journalistic world—to tell them that Ell Donsaii had a child they didn’t know about—that’d indeed be a triumph for Jillian Pardo. But, other than Barton’s rescinded remark, what else did she have? And, if she stayed out here stalking Donsaii for weeks or months, unsuccessfully trying to find some evidence to support a story that surely should’ve broken a long time ago if it were true… Hell, I need stories that’ll pay the bills now. I can’t afford to spend months out here stalking Donsaii in hopes of breaking a career worthy scoop.

  She decided, I’ve got to give up on this.

  ***

  Steve got off the high-speed tunnel scooter he’d taken from beneath his own house to the entrance under the house south of her farm where Ell actually lived. His AI’d already obtained permission for him to enter, so he opened the door and stepped into Ell’s changing room—the spot where she normally changed her disguise from Ell Donsaii to Raquel Kinrais and back. The door on the other side of the changing room let Steve into Ell’s huge basement lab. As Steve started to walk through, he saw Zage standing on a rolling kick stool beside one of the lab’s large computerized instruments. Zage was looking at him, so Steve started his direction. “Hey Zage, whatcha doing?” he asked cheerfully.

  Zage watched Steve approach as if he were wondering how to respond. He said, “I’m trying to modify a phage.”

  “A what?”

  “Phage. It’s a virus that attacks bacteria.”

  Steve blinked, not knowing what to make of this. “Why would you want to modify a virus that attacks bacteria? Or, for that matter, even care about a virus that attacks bacteria?”

  “They kill bacteria and bacteria kill us. It’s the old, ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ Phages have been used in Russia and a few other parts of the world to treat human infection since the nineteen forties. Now that a lot of bacteria are gaining resistance to antibiotics, phage therapy’s making a comeback.”

  Steve stared at Zage, not quite sure what to make of this. He knew Zage was interested in biology and presumably microbiology too, but modifying a virus? Can that actually be done? he wondered. Trying to make light of it, but also a little concerned, Steve said, “What if you modify one of these viruses so it attacks us?”

  Zage blinked as if he was surprised by the idea. “The kind of virus that attacks bacteria’s really different from the viruses that attack us.” He looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, “I suppose you could modify one so that it’d attack us, but it’d be really hard to do…” He paused a moment, then shook his head, “It certainly wouldn’t happen by accident.”

  Bemused, Steve said, “If these viruses already attack bacteria, why do you need to modify them?”

  “Two reasons,” Zage said blandly. “First, each phage only attacks very specific bacteria, so there’s no such thing as a ‘broad-spectrum’ phage that’ll kill a lot of different bacteria. In fact, they’re so specific that they might only attack certain strains of a particular bacteria. For instance, it might kill one strain of E. coli but do nothing to another.” He looked
up into the air with an unfocused gaze for a moment, then said musingly, “That could actually be good if you wanted to kill a toxin producing E. coli, but not kill all the rest of the E. coli that’re living peacefully in your intestine.”

  He blinked back onto Steve, “Second, if we give the phages through an IV like we deliver antibiotics, they’re recognized as foreign and elicit a response from the patient’s immune system. Then the patient starts fighting his own treatment.”

  “How… how’re you thinking you’ll be able to solve those problems?”

  “A phage attaches itself to a specific site on the surface of the bacterium. Those sites can vary from bacterium to bacterium, depending on the species and strain. I’m trying to figure out how to help them attach to sites that lots of bacteria have in common.”

  “And,” Steve said tentatively, “that’d make it more of a ‘broad-spectrum’ phage, right?”

  Zage nodded.

  “The other problem was giving them IV?”

  “Yeah. I’m hoping to modify the outer coat of the phage so it doesn’t have any antigens recognized by humans as foreign.” Zage winced, “That means, so our immune system can’t recognize them as foreign and attack them. They’d need to have common human proteins on their outer surface so our immune system would think they’re part of us.”

  Steve nodded sagely, as if he hadn’t needed that last sentence of explanation. “That sounds really cool. This’s what you’re learning over at Dr. Barnes’ lab?”

  Zage nodded again.

  “So this’s like homework?”

  “Um, I guess.”

  “Well, I’m here to talk to your mom,” Steve said, turning for the stairs up into the actual basement of the house, “so I’d better get to it. I’ll see you later.”

  ~~~

  When Steve reached the top of the stairs, Ell was there to meet him. She lifted an eyebrow inquisitively, “Took you a long time to get through the basement.”

  “Um, yeah. I stopped to talk to Zage.” He gave Ell an inquisitive look, “He says he’s working on some homework to do with phages?”