The Godwhale (S.F. Masterworks) (10 page)

Drum sat down slowly – arthritic. His commuter priority had been lost with his job, confining him to cubicle whenever density rose above two point zero Citizens per square yard along the Hive’s arteries. Shrugging off his disgust, he called Ode on the screen. ‘Got time for a game?’ he queried, unrolling his board.

Ode’s image flickered and jumped – an older but harder Citizen – higher colour index in his bald scalp, steady clear eyes. He did not comment on Drum’s brusque manner, for he understood retirement traumas.

‘Pawn to king-four,’ said Ode.

Drum studied the board quietly, still irritated. The pawn in front of the right king had moved two squares. He replied by moving his own worn pawn into the Sicilian Defence. As the dragon took shape, Ode tightened the Marcozy bind with his queen-bishop pawn and queen-knight controlling his queen-five square. Drum had to break out by exchanging knights. He moved woodenly until the mid-game tension washed away his depression. He rode into battle on his remaining knight. Rooks clashed magnificently and a pawn fork took the survivor. A nervous king fidgeted in his castled position until his reign was ended by a pair of bishops. For the moment, the game took on a meaning bigger than life itself.

On the following morning Drum awoke a bit more philosophical. He was ready to accept his new status for what it really was, but Dispenser had other plans.

‘Give me a view of the jammed tubeway.’ Drum smiled. ‘I want to appreciate the quiet of my cubicle.’

Screen stayed blank: standby.

Drum’s smile slipped.

‘What is the density today – three? – four??’

A dry female appeared on the screen. Drum didn’t like her air of efficiency. Thin lips clashed with gaudy smock. ‘Recertification time,’ she said with her pasted-on smile.

Drum’s mouth opened and closed – wordless.

‘Earth Society has run a little short of calories,’ she continued. ‘Water table dropped and the harvest reflected it. We must cut back on the warm – the consuming population – for the duration. Please vote for those Citizens with whom you want to share next year. Hurry, now. Your friends need your vote to avoid being put into Temporary Suspension – TS. Remember, however, that you must not vote for yourself or your clone litter-mates. No blood prejudice allowed.’

Drum smiled nervously. He had done this before when he had his job vote to protect him. In the past his votes went to his favourite conductor and various Venus attendants who pleased him; but now he was more concerned with his cubicle’s vitals: air and plumbing.

‘My votes go to the Tinker who keeps my refresher, the Pipe caste member who services this wing of the city – and Grandmaster Ode.’

The screen played a geometric dance as tallies ran up. The thin-lipped female reappeared long enough to announce: ‘You failed to receive the necessary three votes, so it is TS for you.’

Drum stared as his Temporary Suspension order was printed out.

‘But I’m retired,’ he objected. ‘My CQB is paid up for life.’

Screen remained blank. Dispenser’s mechanical voice answered his pleas. ‘Recertification has nothing to do with wealth. In Right to Life, only criterion is Love. Only Love can give Life.’

‘My funds . . .’

‘Your retirement CQB remains in your name while you are in TS. When harvests improve, you will be rewarmed and can continue consuming where you were interrupted. Hurry. You are to report to Clinics immediately.
The air you are breathing belongs to somebody else
.’

The sign read: ‘Voluntary Suspension to the Left, Temporary Suspension to the right.’ Drum lined up with the TS – unloved, healthy, mixed ages. On his left was the line of VS candidates – elderly, sick Citizens hoping to survive their Voluntary Suspension long enough to awaken in the Golden Age when their infirmities could be cured. Drum shuddered as he realized how hopeless the VS statistics were.

Grandmaster Ode joined him in line.

‘Couldn’t gather enough votes either?’ asked Ode.

Drum shook his head bitterly. ‘I wish they would just lower the birth-rate during these pinches. It would be much less traumatic.’

Ode shook his head. ‘Job requisitions protect all term embryos. If no Tinkers were born today the Hive would feel it ten years from now when there would be no trainees. Of course, if job quotas drop, the embryos lose their protection like anyone.’

A job hawker walked between the lines, shouting: ‘Get your job vote here. Work outside your caste. Many rewarding positions available. Apply now.’

Drum sneered: ‘Work beneath your caste is what he really means.’

Ode shrugged. ‘At least we’d be warm.’

‘But we’ve fulfilled our life-work quotas,’ argued Drum. ‘TS isn’t so bad. Just like going to sleep: not much real danger of tissue damage. When things get better, we can wake up and continue our retirement.’

‘. . . And if things don’t get better?’ asked Ode letting the words hang.

The two old Citizens eyed each other for a moment, then Ode dragged Drum out of line and waved at the job hawker: ‘Two volunteers right here.’

A ceiling optic recorded the issuance of work vouchers – Sewer Service – dark, wet work. Their status was recorded in the warm census and the CO – the class-one computer that balanced Earth Society’s books – confirmed their unfrozen assets.

‘Sewer Service,’ groaned Drum. ‘There goes my skin.’

Job orientation was brief for retreads – a short tour. ‘Sewage is a valuable by-product of living,’ droned the guide. ‘Sludge is fermentable, a source of bacterial substrate and raw material for Synthe. Effluent is basically water. Different degrees of decon makes it suitable for irrigation or drinking.’

They stood on a catwalk beside a Separator Plant. The words were drowned out by a steamy waterfall. Warm clots of yellow foam drifted up in the mists. Following a maze of colour-coded pipes, they entered a quiet, windowed booth filled with dials and control valves.

‘Here is where we shunt nutrients up to our Plankton Towers in the Gardens. Only – we have no more plankton. Genetic fatigue wiped out our cultures.’

Ode peered into the transparent tube. A thin white ribbon occupied its fluid-filled lumen. ‘What is in there?’

The guide smiled proudly. ‘That is our Syncytial Planimal, genetically engineered to give us both plant and animal proteins. When light strikes it, chloroplasts are activated. It also has primitive muscle cells and germ cells to give us iron and fats. When it matures into a fat green ribbon it segments into convenient, bite-sized morsels that can be dried, fried, or eaten fresh with hot sauce.’

Ode smiled. ‘A genetically engineered perfect food! It feeds on sewage, and we feed on it. There must be some brilliant personnel down in the Bio Labs – working with Gene Spinners.’

The guide frowned. ‘It wasn’t such a hard job. They just took a bunch of tapeworm nuclei and added the DNA condons for chloroplasts. Some developed into the Syncytial Planimal. Others just remained tapeworms.’

‘Tapeworms!’ exclaimed Drum.

‘Sure,’ said Ode, with a artificial grin. ‘Tapeworms already flourish in faeces. The step to sewage was a small one. As for eating them – well, we must keep the nitrogen cycle as small as possible.’

Drum just grumbled. ‘But we’re parasites on a parasite!’

‘No sense of humour,’ said Ode.

The tour continued through sweaty pipes. The two tired old Citizens stopped frequently for rest and water. ‘Here is where sludge is digested down to methane, carbon dioxide, and water. The residue is pelletized and sent to recycle. You go on duty in fifteen minutes. Follow those arrows!’

‘Welcome, trainees,’ greeted Sewermeck as they entered the damp control room. Wall images pulsed – a flow diagram reflecting flow rates, silt/water levels, and gate status.

Drum searched for a chair and began to sit down slowly. ‘What jobs are open? I’m experienced in music. Ode is Grandmaster . . .’

‘Wet Crew,’ snapped Sewermeck. ‘You are late already. Your boots and shovels are through that hatch – out on the landing. Take the smaller ones stamped “Citizen retreads”. Your shift ends at twenty-one-hundred hours.’

‘But our backgrounds don’t—’ objected Drum.

Ode touched his arm. ‘We’ll take it. We need the vote.’

‘Wear my telemetry – the wired belts and helmets – so I can keep an eye on you in the Pipes,’ instructed the meck.

Furlong’s red dinghy cut a neat line through the stagnant sludge as he approached the landing. His sandpapered face puckered into a scowl as he shouted, ‘Retreads! Swing those shovels! I want this water moving. Get the level down by at least a foot or it will never be “shift-end” for you. Move!’

Ode and Drum shovelled briskly, throwing more water than silt. The activity warmed up their muscles, loosening tight joints. Being retreads they lacked the larger, heavier bones of the regular SS worker, who was genetically selected for the work. They worked with a smaller shovel, but put in more hours.

Furlong returned to the control room to study the flow rates. Sluggish. Without the dredge the silt accumulated at an alarming rate in spite of vigorous manual efforts. The Hive’s outflow tract was in danger of blockage. Furlong was even more concerned now that his job requisitions were being filled with retreads rather than regulars.

‘How are the new ones doing?’ asked Furlong.

‘Slowed predictably after you left. Their bodies are still weak and soft. Not much silt moving. Let’s hope that their edible-gathering will pay for their CQB while they’re here. We can’t fill our roster with nonproducers.’

‘They’ll do their share. Ill see to that,’ said Furlong.

Ode and Drum splashed through the thirty-foot-diameter pipe, guided by eerie bioluminescence of
Panus stepticus
mycelia growing in damp sludge high on the walls. Sewermeck directed pencils of light from their Belts.

‘There’s a weir. Dig!’ commanded Drum’s Belt.

They paused and shovelled at the silt dam. A light beam focused on a horned slug the size of Ode’s foot.

‘Pick it up,’ said his Belt.

Ode nudged the slug cautiously with his shovel.

‘What is it?’

‘Sewer slug – a gastropod. Flavours.’

‘Edible!?’

‘Good perishable flavours,’ explained his Belt. ‘Fringe benefits of the Wet Crew. Put it in your Belt pail.’

As they worked their way down the tube, their Belts pointed out other delicacies: shaggy fungus balls, slime pods, worms, and snap larvae. The air took on a brackish odour when they neared the tidal sump. Marine photo-bacteria glowed blue-green in their footprints.

‘Don’t walk out on the delta,’ warned the Belts. ‘It is too soft and drops off rapidly. Your tour of duty ends here. The outhatch is back by that wall on your left – under the orange light.’

Two tired old Citizen retreads climbed the service ladder into the barracks – into bright lights and warm, dry, air. Drum pulled off his boots, spilling water and silt in a brown gush. His feet were white and badly wrinkled. He hunched over, studying his cold, numb toes intently.

Ode sorted through the pails of edibles. A snap larvae swam on oar bristles.

‘What’s the tithe?’

‘Fifty percent,’ said his Belt. ‘Drop half down the flavour chute to Synthe. Divide fluids and grit also.’

He paid their tithes and sat back while several of the regular Wet Crew showed how a handful of live creatures added an entirely new dimension to the pseudoconsommé.

‘I call this my sewer bouillabaisse,’ said the Nebish with the spoon. ‘You must stir it carefully. Don’t fragment the little creatures. Keep them intact so you know exactly what you are eating.’

Drum grunted and struck the floor with his boot.

‘What is it?’

‘A hitchhiker. That bug was between my toes. It bit me.’

Ode walked over and looked under the boot. A yellow-red, nondescript splotch remained on the floor while a tangle of legs came up with the boot heel.

‘That’s my blood in that stain,’ complained Drum.

‘Your toe doesn’t look too good,’ said Ode. ‘It’s swollen – dark. Do you know what kind of a bug it was before you smashed it?’

‘Lots of legs.’ Drum shrugged. ‘Why?’

‘Looks like a nymph, from the way it exploded – very little body chitin. Some of them can be dangerous: toxic venom, vectors, retained mouth parts. You’d better take it down to Bio for speciation. Stop at a Medimeck on the way back to see if the bite needs any treatment.’

Ode wrapped the crushed bug in a wet towel and handed it to him as he limped out of the refresher and started to dress. Drum grumbled all the way out the door.

‘We’ll keep your portion of the bouillabaisse warm,’ he called.

The once-spacious Bio Labs were now shrunken and crowded. Drum walked through rooms of endless clutter: sagging storage cartons, heaps of broken instruments, and derelict mecks – obsolete and irreparable as the Hive lost the skills of salvage.

‘Hello,’ he called.

‘Back here,’ answered a female voice.

Wandee, the unpolarized, was bent over her bubbling tanks. Drum limped up and watched over her shoulder. She moved her optic probe through the scummy green waters and threw images up on a screen – amorphous blobs.

‘Algae?’ he ventured.

‘No.’ She smiled. ‘A flagellate – only it has no flagella. My Gene Spinner finally identified the flagellar condons and built this creature’s DNA without it.’

‘Synthetic genes – marvellous!’

‘Not really,’ said Wandee, straightening up and wiping her hands. ‘We had a living flagellate to learn from. We’ve been mapping DNA of fresh-water diatoms and algae in an attempt to rebuild marine biota. If we could re-establish the ocean food chain, it would greatly improve the Hive’s standard of living.’

Drum nodded, forgetting the ache in his toe. ‘How close are you? Have you put anything back into salt water?’

She waved towards her workboard – a paste-up of gene charts and photomicrographs. ‘We did find the eye spot – and now the flagella. I have one synthetic creature that will live in seawater, but it must return to fresh water to reproduce.’

Drum’s eyes glowed with excitement. ‘No more TS!’

‘Not just yet.’ Wandee frowned thoughtfully. ‘Spinner has offered numerous “what ifs” and “random associations” – all good theories – but I’d need more personnel and floor space to follow them up. We’re just time-sharing now. I try a couple of likely maps each week, but I know I’m just scratching the surface. There are millions of possible DNA sequences. It would be simple if I had one marine protozoan to map and decode. The big problem is the membrane pumps in the cell wall. Evolution has prepared the freshwater creatures to like their hypotonic environment, and getting them to go back to the sea will take an entirely different set of cell wall genes. That is why we stress classification of sewer biota in the sump region – where waters are a little salty. If you could bring us just one marine—’