Scuzzworms (29 page)

She sighed.  Healthy.  She was the picture of health.  Exercise, rest, good food; one entire week’s worth.  A difficult decision loomed ahead. 

What was the ancient theory?  Malthusian limits?  A species would propagate itself until it became too numerous and overtaxed its environment.  At that time disease and starvation would combine to increase the death rate of the species until the rate of death equaled the rate of reproduction.

What was the Malthusian limit for humans on Iago?  No microbes to attack them, no natural enemies, no carnivores, just masses of communal cells that conspired to help each other.  Humans were the great destroyers on earth, highly efficient in changing landscapes, producing chemical contaminants, eradicating competitors.

No one really knew how many different species had met their end at the hands of mankind.  Here, on this benign, innocent planet, even isolated human cells were proving their competitive bent, taking advantage, disrupting, destroying.

Imelda reached her apartment barely realizing how she had gotten there.  Igor lay stretched out on the couch unmoving, not one twitch of a whisker acknowledging her presence.  The sight of her one real friend brought her back to sharp reality.  The apartment repelled her somehow.  She couldn’t escape to the womb anymore.  She had to get out.  Straiss was gone.  She need not worry about meeting him.

“Lazy slug.  Are you a cat or a pillow-weight?  Come on, I need some fresh air, and you could use some airing out.  Wake up Mr. Zee.”

Igor turned his head to face her at the rough handling.  “Rowrrr?” he questioned her.

“A walk.  We’re going for a walk in the woods.  On metal paths suspended on steel beams.  Trees in pots, aquafarmed grass, squirrels conceived in vitro.  A visit to natural Earth, your true beginnings.”

Igor didn’t look too convinced, a decidedly unpleasant expression wrinkling his face as she slipped his harness on.

Imelda tugged and guided him down the corridors to the observation dome.  She entered the garden area hesitantly and was relieved to find it almost deserted.

Detaching the leash as they reached a quiet corner, she sat down on a gaily-cushioned bench facing the wall where Iago IV floated.  Igor, released from his master, strolled over to a clump of carefully manicured grass and sniffed gingerly.  Settling down contentedly, he delicately bit off a piece and ate it.

Imelda smiled. “Call of the wild, huh?  Take you on a safari and you find something to eat that won’t fight back. You have true hunter instincts, Igor.”

Igor didn’t answer, busily chewing another bit of grass.  Imelda settled back to gaze solemnly through the observation dome.  Iago IV hung overhead like an exotic mural, delicate shades of green, blue and brown peeping out from beneath the white cloud cover.

The scene was breathtaking, glorious. Only space could transmit light images so faithfully, with no waver, no blurry edges.  The black behind the planet was so deep as to be almost palpable, pulling her into it to float aimlessly in space.

The quiet and the comfort combined with the spectacle to keep her there longer than she had intended.  Time slid away easily as her thoughts hummed.  What could she do to protect Iago IV?  She had an idea but not a thoroughly researched one.  If she pursued it, it would be at great cost to herself and might end up a blind alley after all.

The risk was high, but so were the stakes.  So many blows she had already absorbed.  Was she really suicidal?  Of course she was.  Why else the booze and the other things she did to hurt herself?   She was too chicken for outright self-mutilation, too craven to shoot a real bullet.

Lost in her thoughts, she was startled to hear Igor’s agitated mew. 

Sitting up, she looked around quickly.  There he was, perched on the edge of a planter, staring into it intently.

Beside Igor sat Post, dangling a trailing piece of grass just out of Igor’s reach.  Igor swatted at the tip of the grass inside the planter.  Post twitched it away, slowly angling it back to tease the cat again.

Imelda sat stiffly, wondering what to do.  Post was ignoring her, seemingly engrossed by his play with the cat.  Igor looked more animated than she had seen him in years.  Slowly she relaxed, sinking back into the plush cushions.

She had been civil enough with Post already, able to work with him closely despite their feud.  She wanted no overtures of actual niceness.  Igor, however, was blithely unaware of their battles and seemed to have made a friend.  Igor did not make friends easily. In fact, he had never so much as looked at anyone other than Imelda.  He deserved to make a friend if he wanted to. Except....

At the thought, Imelda’s forehead wrinkled in concern.  Igor was a traitor.  A mutineer.  Of all the people that he could have befriended, why had he picked Post?  What was Post doing here anyway?  Had she inadvertently stumbled into his private retreat?  Or had he followed her, spying again?   It didn’t matter.  She wouldn’t come back.

Still she lingered longer, watching the two play.  Post laughed at the stubborn cat as he stalked determinedly, bent on mangling the offending plant leaf.  Grudgingly she had to admit that Post seemed to understand the workings of Igor’s mind, causing him to play with the abandon of a kitten.

She neither spoke nor acknowledged Post’s presence.  Only when Igor lay down panting and Post stretched out tiredly on a neighboring bench did she stir.  Post’s bench was slightly hidden from hers by an intervening palm. She attached the leash to Igor’s harness without comment and led him away.

Igor followed her home more or less willingly, and resumed his position on the couch as soon as the door closed behind them.  Imelda stared at the cat, thinking.

“Okay.  I get it.  I’m boring.  No fun for a cat like you, huh?  Just an easy meal ticket.”   She sighed, sitting down beside the animal.  “Okay, you win.  You can play with him again sometime - next year, maybe.  But remember, I hate him.  He hates me.  Don’t interfere with our relationship, okay?  I want it to stay this way.”

Igor did not comment.  Imelda took that to be agreement.

#

Post stared at the screen absently.  Imelda remained a thorn in his side.  She had barely left her workstation in days.  He was doing as she asked, reviewing reports, writing comments on some and taking others to her for advice.  Despite his misgivings she was an easy person to work with, if you ignored the prickles.

Fish called him in frequently, telling him to report any suspicious moves.  Damn it, he hated being Fish’s messenger boy.  Fish was a nervous twit.

Imelda, if anything, seemed to have taken a turn for the better.  She ordered decent food for her meals, no longer reeked of cigarettes and stale wine, and her cheeks had lost some of their pallor.  She left long enough to get some decent sleep.  Jamison told him of Imelda’s brief visits to her apartment, solo walks with Igor, and her new regularity in her hours.

Imelda still hated him.  He couldn’t get her to speak to him at all.  If he said her name, she would glance up briefly, stare through him until he finished talking, and grunt a gruff answer before turning back to her work.

Camille was torn between sympathy for Imelda and outright rage at her rudeness.  “If she wants my help, she’ll have to ask for it.  I speak to people in sentences and I expect to be spoken to in the same way.”

Imelda moved about the station like a quiet ghost.  She went
to staff meetings in person now and listened carefully as the data on lifecycles poured out.  She spoke only to ask penetrating questions, the questions themselves often provoking a flurry of quick note-taking on the part of the attendees.  She rarely took part in the discussions and her input was sorely missed.  Beyond her initial instructions to him and occasional sessions at her desk, she expected him to do much of Caldwell’s job now.

Damn her.  Damn Fish.  Damn Iago. He was going to transfer out at the first opportunity, to a place that didn’t have worms.

#

Imelda beamed triumphantly.  Everything matched.  The virus looked like the perfect ticket.  

Enveloped viruses entered cells by attaching their envelopes to the cell membrane of a compatible cell.  Each virus was limited in its choice of cell to enter, being capable of binding only with certain species and cell types.  Iago IV had evolved completely alien structures for its cell membranes.  Most earth viruses were not able to enter Iagan cells at all.

This virus reduced the odds even further by being able to penetrate only human cell membranes.  It wasn’t limited to just a few human cell types, such as liver or skin.  It could enter any human cell, a prerequisite if it were to totally eradicate human cells from Iago.  Only mean, highly virulent viruses did that.  This one was mean.   

Still, just in case the virus did somehow manage to enter an alien cell, she wanted to be sure it couldn’t reproduce.  So far everything she could see told her not to worry.    The cytoplasm of the Iagan cells contained even stronger DNA-ases than human cells.  She supposed that this was one way the cells maintained their integrity, reducing the likelihood of any foreign DNA transferring to their nuclei.  An RNA virus might survive in the cytoplasm of an Iagan cell, but not a DNA virus.  A DNA virus would be destroyed as soon as its core was exposed to Iagan cytoplasm.  Since the envelope was breached on entry into a cell, a DNA virus stood little chance of survival.

Her virus was DNA.

If she had built the simulation correctly, her virus didn’t stand a chance at survival on Iago IV except inside a human cell.

If the model was correct.

Experimentation was the obvious next step, experimentation on Iagan cells.

#

Imelda sat in front of her medic-aide screen.  It was strange to be able to breathe without wheezing.  She hadn’t felt this good in years.  At the exercise center she had even felt like jogging, a totally unnatural experience.

She took a deep breath.  Time to find out if she really were healthy again.

The medic-aide screen was complementary.  “Great job!” it crowed.  Utterly deficient programming, she scowled, no imagination at all.  She should at least get balloons and a light show.  Fireworks!  Real ones!  This nagbox had been criticizing her for years.

Oops, that’s right, she had disabled the psychological encouragement circuits.  A pity.

At the next few sentences she typed, the screen went crazy.  “What do you mean, no further medication?  You were doing so well!”

It went on and on, ad nauseam.  Sounded a lot like Fish, really.  There were hosts of safety
measures built into the machine and it repeatedly warned her of the dangerous risks she took.  She held firm.  Finally, the idiot machine accepted her request.  After all, she was of legal age and had received the full benefit of counseling. 

A CHA warning flashed.  She
had expected this.  CHA had lots of rules intended to protect society when an individual decided not to obey doctor’s orders.  She read through the legalese, worried that this would be why her plan couldn’t work.  Okay, so she couldn’t go completely drug free.  She viewed the list of requirements anxiously.  It was all palliative, to keep her crewmates safe from her druglessness.  She sat back, relieved.  She could do this.  A small door was open.  If only she could know what was on the other side.

She needed a radioactive tag for this experiment.  She wanted to follow the virus in its journey through the small borgette and a tracer offered the easiest way.  She didn’t want to do this experiment more than once, so she’d better get it right the first time.

Turning to the computer, she thumbed through the catalogue of radioactive tagging chemicals until she found one that fit her criteria.   She logged her request to Central, putting a high priority on it. Inside, she steeled herself for battle.  She never knew what to expect from Central supply.

When she had requested cleaning fluid for her biological station, they sent her a barrel of it, enough to last a hundred cleansings. But when she had requested sterile cell culture medium, they insisted she accept established human cell cultures, denying the medium until she coerced Pederson into overriding the computer.  Bacterial culture medium was okay.  Six cases were okay.    

She awaited the answer glumly.  To her amazement, her request was granted, along with a supply of purified viruses to tag.

Imelda declined the virus supply but accepted the tagging chemical.  It arrived via dumbwaiter promptly.  Kellogg, from his station, squinted at her as she left her privacy sphere to remove the shielded vials from a delivery bin.    

“You didn’t just order that, did you?”

Imelda glanced up guardedly.  “Sure.”

Kellogg’s face flushed. “Blast it!  Who the devil do you know in Central?  I’ve been waiting a week for my supply of tagger!  They said they’re out; that they need to make some more.  You just pop in a request and out it comes!  Does
Caldwell know that you are sleeping with someone over there too?”

Imelda was silent, regarding Kellogg contemplatively.  She felt tired, very, very tired.  She did not want to fight with Kellogg, or argue, or explain.  She didn’t need him as an enemy, didn’t expect him to be a friend.  There was too much work to do.  Her jaw muscle tightened.

“CenCom controls Central Supply, not people.  I can’t get the machine to behave sensibly at all.  I figured Trefarbe hexed my name.”

Kellogg almost shouted. “Hexed your name?  How?  She has no control over CenCom!  Imelda, you’re full of it!  Everybody knows you were handed the keys to the kingdom over on Syned!  Just because you know when to say yes!”

Imelda grunted, unfazed.  “ The computer accepts only certain types of commands from me, which pertain purely to biological overview.  My research must comply with the same regulations and requisition formats that yours do; that has not been changed.”

“Then how did you get radioisotope?  All of us have been trying to set up metabolic studies with no luck at all!  You can’t tell me that you don’t have a special deal!  Imelda, you’re lying!”

Imelda was puzzled.  “I don’t have a priority code for routine supplies.  CenCom has been acting squirrelly with my account ever since the first day I got here.  Half the peripheral systems act as though I don’t exist.  Radioisotope I get by punching a few buttons.  Everything else takes fifteen affidavits.  Kellogg, I don’t have time to figure this out.  If you’re so concerned, look into it yourself.  I’ve got work to do.”

Imelda turned to leave.  Kellogg remained stonily in her path.  Post sat in his workstation listening, his face strange, almost stricken.  She strode past them to her workstation.  She tried to insert the canister into the receptacle.  It didn’t fit.  She froze, staring at the receptacle uncomprehendingly for a long minute.

“What the #%*&!” she erupted.  “Is this a joke?  What kind of idiot would send me a nonstandard vial of radioisotope!  We’ve already had one major accident on this project!  I’ll be idswitched if I’ll allow any more!  What in blazes is going on?”

Camille and Post looked at each other and came to stand beside her as she howled.  Camille picked up the canister and examined it.

“For infection control investigations only?  Why would they send you this?”

“If I knew that I wouldn’t be screaming!  It’s not what I ordered!  I haven’t been able to get one thing done without major hassles since I got here!  Special treatment? I’ll say!  Prepackaged puppy poop!  That’s all I get special.”

Camille leaned forward to look at Imelda’s order on the console. “That’s funny.  All of our order numbers have sixes at the beginning.  Yours has a nine.  I wonder why?”

Post also frowned.  “Six is the code for the research department, I think.  But nine?”  He hit the voice pad.  “Request name of department nine.”

Imelda stared at them uncomprehendingly.  “Different department?  It must be a subdivision of biology.  I’ve been coded nine on all of my payment accounts since I was first hired.”

The answer quickly returned.  “Department nine, maintenance.”

“Maintenance? You’re listed with maintenance?” Post asked. 

Imelda’s eyes widened in thought, and then lit with fire. “The clever $%*&!  I should have known! I never noticed that little detail!”

Camille stared at Imelda, disbelieving.  “What are you trying to pull, Imelda?  You aren’t trying to tell us that you’ve been employed by the maintenance department all of this time?”

Kellogg guffawed, causing Imelda to glare at him mercilessly.  “The maintenance department!  Ye gods, what an ideal employment category.  What finer way of paying homage to your talents could be found?  You made your career from scavenging the work of others.  Why not put you where you belong?”

Imelda turned her head away, not listening.  She already knew what Kellogg thought of her.  She turned back at the sound of a scuffle and quickly reached to stop Post’s arm as it drew back in a fist.   

“Hold on, stop it.  Let go of his neck, Post, it isn’t worth it.  Kellogg is entitled to his opinion.  I encourage free thinking.”

The three turned to stare at Imelda.   

“Look, I don’t have time to discuss this.  Thanks for your help.  I’ll handle the problem from here.”

She turned back to her workstation and picked up the intercom, punching a few numbers.  “Ferrin?  Yes, hi. Listen, I just made an interesting discovery.  No, not about the borgettes…or the babies.  About myself, or rather... no, I’m not undergoing any new therapy.  Would you shut up and listen?  No, I’m not mad at you.  I can’t be.  You’re my boss.  My boss.  B, O, S, S.  Yes, you heard me.  Look at your employee roster.  I know you never look at things like that.  Just look at it, okay?  Yes, down near the bottom.  Level 16, class 12.  Yep, that’s me.  I know I’m listed as a maintenance worker.  I just found out.  A few minutes ago.  If I knew that, I’d have proof of who needs extermination.  Do some work for me, okay?  Find out if that was why Pleister was assigned to my groundbase crew.  Yes, suspicious, isn’t it?”

Post’s eyes widened as he listened, as did Camille’s and Kellogg’s.  Kellogg started to speak but Camille shushed him.

“No, it didn’t make sense to me, either.  I figured that Trefarbe had found a way to miscue the assignment computer.  Well, now we know.  But how did I.... who is responsible for those assignments, anyway?  CenCom is?  Someone has to feed it data.  How can we find out?  What do you mean it can’t be changed?  That’s crazy!  Doesn’t it interface with people at all?  Just Admin?  Which Admin? From home base!  Oh, come on!”

Imelda’s expression was changing from irritation to disbelief.

“Well what am I supposed to do in the meantime?  That means that I’ll have to get all of my supplies approved special by Central supply!  For....”  The conversation degenerated into a series of highly unscientific oaths.

“What?  Okay.  No, I don’t know what to do about your budget.  I realize that my pay has been coming out of your budget.  Look, it’s not my fault.  So bill Biology, okay?  How should I know what to invoice it under?  Do you have a special account labeled ‘Stupidity’?  No, I’m not being smart; I’m being mean!  I can’t approve it?  Because it’s my salary?  Call Kreiss, then.  It’s his job, isn’t it?  Yes, I’ll wait while you call him.  I’m sure he’ll cooperate; we’re already over budget anyway.  Sure.”

Imelda leaned back, muttering to herself.  Camille’s eyes narrowed.  “He can’t change it back?”

“He says not.  I don’t know why he’s griping about my salary, though.  I didn’t negotiate when I accepted this job; I just took whatever they offered.  It can’t be killing his budget that much.  I’m listed as only a base wages employee in his department.  I doubt if anyone makes much less.”

“Base wages?  Didn’t you notice the difference in your salary?”

“I haven’t looked at my credit account in years.  I don’t spend much money except for cat food.”

“You eat cat food?” asked Kellogg.   

Imelda started not to answer but noted that Kellogg was serious.  “I have a cat, Kellogg.  A real one.”

Camille was surprised.  “Your psychiatrist allowed you to have a cat?”

Imelda glanced at her curiously.  “Why wouldn’t he?”

Camille’s face reddened.  “Well, uh, everyone says you are kind of unstable, have attacks of rages or something...you know…” her voice trailed off embarrassedly.

“Only when dealing with idiots.  Cats are not idiots.”

Post turned back to his workstation and Imelda noticed that he was hiding a grin.  A red light signaled that Ferrin was back on the line.

“Yes.  He thinks he can?  Did he say he thinks so, or that he knows so?  Take my word for it, there’s a big difference when you’re dealing with Kreiss.  So, he thinks so, huh?  That means that he’ll take six months to think about it. 
Caldwell and Jinks will be back before then.  He will give tentative approval in the meantime?  Good.  What?  What?  I’ll have to pay back how much?  But I was classified as a base rate under you!  I’m supposed to be intermediate level under Biology!  I should be the one getting refunded!  I did what?”

She listened a while, then hung up.  She sat quietly for a moment, contemplative, and then began typing at her workstation, manipulating a small vial under the shield.

Camille broke first.  “For crying out loud, Imelda!  Are you going to tell us what he said or are we going to have to strangle you?”

Imelda shrugged.  “I wouldn’t try that.  I have uncontrollable rages, remember.”

Camille impatiently waited for her to say more and then slammed her chair back.  “Imelda, I’m sorry that I listen to rumors, but I find out more about you from listening to them than I do from listening to you.  If someone screwed up and misassigned you, we would appreciate knowing about it.  It is possible that there have been a few other mistakes made too, you know.  Bill over in processing was complaining the other day about how the mainframe has been acting.  He says it doesn’t notify him when he’s due more supplies.  He’s pretty upset about it. He had to ditch an entire batch.”

Imelda glanced up curiously.  “Are you sure he didn’t simply override the computer and forget?”

“Not five times.”

“Five?  Is he the only one?”

Kellogg spoke up.  “Carson said her specs didn’t match but she is a little flighty sometimes.”

Camille disagreed.  “Only when she’s around you, Kellogg.  She has the hots for you, in case you didn’t notice.  She’s pretty careful with her work.  I doubt if anyone else would have noticed that sort of discrepancy.”

Imelda nodded slowly.  “So there have been other complaints?”

Camille nodded.  “Mostly little stuff but some of it was time expensive to correct.  Everyone has been talking about it.”

Imelda frowned.  “Not to me.”

Kellogg snorted.  “That’s because no one talks to you.”

Imelda sat back, thinking.  “Ferren said that because of my maintenance level of security, I inadvertently initiated a massive corrective action routine my first day here when I tried to report a systems communication problem.  It was resource consumptive but apparently effective.  At the time I thought the errors were due to human incompetence, but given what Ferrin and you are telling me, sabotage is a possibility. 

“There is a CHA procedure for this situation.  It’s not supposed to be used except in exceptional circumstances but lately every circumstance has been pretty exceptional. 

“Cencom.  Priority 820.”  Her hands quickly typed a codeword.

A panel lit up on the workstation. 

“Please solicit and run a report of all staff complaints regarding potential computer malfunction and submit to Ferrin.   Discontinue supplemental programming and revert to base.  Reroute all security through CHA checkpoints and include all inconsistencies in your report.  Copy to Calliope.”  She looked up at them.  “Ferrin said that one of his workers noted that the computer’s main panel looked as if it may have been damaged when it was unloaded.  Tampering is the other possibility.  He’s looking into it.  Let me know if you hear any other complaints.”

Kellogg was unbelieving.  “Sabotage?  Who would sabotage us?  There was a good chance that we were going to lose a bundle of money for Biotech anyway.  Biotech has tried to back out of the contract almost from the beginning from what I hear.  You’re just making things up.”

“Reputation is the game, Kellogg.  Biotech took the contract for the prestige angle.  They get pretty videos and lots of commercials out of this.  That’s why they’ve been trying so hard to cut their losses.  Their competitors would love to besmirch our image.”