Dark as Day (11 page)

“Not good, not bad. Do you ever feel inexplicable fits of weariness, or rage?”

Jan laughed. “Sebastian never gets mad at
anything
, ever.”

“Then I wouldn’t worry about the neurotransmitter variations, because they’re not doing any harm. We’ll put all this into the official report, of course. Meanwhile, there’s nothing to stop you leaving.”

“Leaving the lab?”

“Leaving the Earth-Moon system.” Christa Matloff turned, to include Jan as well as Sebastian. “Congratulations, both of you. Pretty soon you’ll be on your way to Ganymede, then I gather you’ll be heading for Saturn.”

8

Five more minutes, and Alex must leave. He had to go, but he was so excited that he didn’t know if he could bear to. His feet, in their clumsy formal shoes, felt rooted to the floor of his office. He had been standing, fully dressed and motionless, for over two hours.

At last! At last his programs were able to employ the full power of the Seine, and the difference between this and all pre-Seine runs was awesome. If only he could stay until the end of the first run …

The racing clock already showed 2136—three decades beyond the point where all earlier efforts had degenerated to meaningless overflow and massive exponents. On the displays he could now
watch
the outward wave, as humanity expanded faster and faster through the solar system. Total population had climbed steadily to almost ten billion. Outward Bound was busy with the major satellites of Uranus and had a firm toehold on Triton, Neptune’s giant moon. A manned expedition was on the way to the inner edge of the Oort Cloud. The seventh unmanned interstellar ship was on its way. A
manned
interstellar ship was on the drawing boards.

Alex could also zoom the model in to examine in more detail the prediction for any chosen location; detail enough, if he so chose, to examine the actions of an individual program element. That element was a person, or at least the Fax of a person. And the Fax could be selected as anything from a crude Level One to the most complex of the Level Fives.

The last digits of the clock were changing too fast to be more than a blur. Already the prediction had advanced to 2140. All parameters showed only orderly change, with no wild swings or uncontrolled growth. He had set the run for a full century ahead. Another hour—even another half-hour …

He became aware of Kate standing by his side. She had certainly not been there thirty seconds ago. He felt like turning, reaching his arms wide, and embracing her. Kate was the one who had coaxed and argued and finessed and finagled, until the complete Seine resources were made available to Alex’s computer models. This was her moment as much as his, it should be a shared pleasure and excitement.

Alex was smart enough not to offer Kate even his little finger. She’d probably bite it off. She was his boss, so they had no choice but to continue to work together ever since he told her that he had agreed to meet with Lucy-Maria Mobarak. It was necessary, he had explained, because of “family pressure.” Kate had nodded, but from that moment everything between them had been on a cool and strictly professional basis. He did not recall that their hands had touched once. As for the idea of sleeping together …

He could see from the corner of his eye that she was looking him up and down with disapproval. He agreed with her completely. It was not from choice that he wore clothing so outmoded and uncomfortable.

Prosper and Karolus Ligon had laid down the rules. “It is nowhere a written requirement, Alex, but it will be expected of you. We realize that there is no commitment at this moment, on our side or Mobarak’s. However, your meeting with Lucy-Maria Mobarak is the first encounter between potential heirs of two of the System’s wealthiest families. You must dress in accordance with tradition. We refer, of course, to
Ligon
tradition.”

Ligon tradition stretched back more than two centuries. Which was why Alex, who normally worked in a sloppy jumpsuit and more often than not went barefoot, now stood attired in a stiff and starchy suit of gleaming white, a canary-yellow shirt fronted with jeweled ruby studs that had taken half an hour to fasten, and ancient two-toned shoes of yellow and white. They were a size too small and cramped his toes. Forcing those objects onto his feet, he had wondered about
Mobarak
tradition. Since Cyrus Mobarak was by Ligon standards an “upstart” and a “charlatan,” was there any such thing? What would Lucy-Maria be wearing?

Kate’s disgusted glance at Alex’s clothing said everything. Her only comment, however, was, “Your mother is outside. I don’t think you should keep her waiting.”

The model’s internal clock had reached 2143. Soon they would be at the half-century projection mark. “Will you keep an eye on this run?”

“I’ve been watching it closely since the moment it started. Don’t worry, Alex. It will not lack my attention.”

No enthusiasm in Kate’s tone, no suggestion that this could be an historic event in the field of predictive modeling. Alex nodded, swiveled on his heel, and squeaked out.

Lena Ligon was indeed waiting, with an expression more of curiosity than impatience. “So you actually
work
here. In an office.”

“Yes, Mother. Is there anything wrong with that?”

“Oh, no. If that is what amuses you.” Her glance took in and rejected the metal walls, harsh lighting, and worn floor tiles. “And that was the famous Kate Lonaker. She is taller and better-looking in person than her video would suggest. Interesting, if it is all-natural and without modifications.”

It was not an actual question. Alex remained silent. He allowed his mother to lead the way, through the labyrinthine inner tunnels of Ganymede, then onto an elevator that ascended rapidly more than four hundred kilometers. By the time they reached their destination level, the effective gravity had increased appreciably.

Alex assumed that his mother had dropped the subject of Kate, as beneath consideration. But Lena said suddenly, “She does not talk about you in a typical supervisor-employee way.”

“Oh?”

“No. I sensed that she was angry with you about something. She has airs above her station.”

“I had to leave for this meeting, right when I was in the middle of making computer runs of my prediction models.”

“This meeting is important. Anyway, not that sort of anger. Something more personal.” His mother flashed a glance at Alex from clear gray eyes, their whites almost luminous with health. “Are you two doing what these days is known as co-orbiting, but in my simpler youth was known as fucking each other?”

“No.” That was currently a true statement. Fortunately Lena did not go on to more detailed questioning.

“Good,” she said. “Keep it that way. One of your problems, Alex, is that you do not appreciate the vast gulf between you and the Kate Lonakers of the world. Ever since the time of your late great-uncle Sanford, we Ligons have followed a strict selection procedure for child-bearing. The genetic material brought into the mating from outside the family comes not from a single individual, but is a carefully-chosen chromosomal synthesis from several donors. Kate Lonaker is, I feel sure, the product of some indiscriminate, one-Y, single-father breeding. To her and to women like her—females with no family, pedigree, property, or prospects—you represent a catch of almost unimaginable value. It would not be necessary for her to extort promises from you. She could merely beguile you into ignoring all precautions, allowing her to become pregnant with your child with or without your knowledge … I assume that you remain on long-term prophylaxis? There is, after all, such a thing as loyalty to family tradition.”

Alex felt a brief uneasiness. He had asked Kate at the outset if she was fertile, and she had replied that at the moment she preferred not to be. He had believed her implicitly, and still did; but he had not asked her recently.

His stronger emotion, however, was disgust at his mother’s hypocrisy. How dare she lecture
him
about family tradition, when her own decision to become a Commensal, like that of Great-aunt Agatha and Cousin Juliana, had been made without regard to family needs? Commensality conferred, along with health and protection from almost every disease, an irreversible sterility. Alex, walking a pace behind his mother, surveyed her slender form. She had made the choice and now had the appearance and energy of a twenty year old, combined with a formidable libido. Her features and figure were perfection.

Lena Ligon was also, in specific ways that made Alex nervous but apparently worried Lena not a bit, no longer quite human.

It made Alex’s own skin crawl to think what lay underneath his mother’s epidermis. A hundred tailored organisms shared space in the interior of a Commensal. The one that Alex found most disgusting was the giant schistosome, a mature and genetically-enhanced worm that lay alongside and within Lena Ligon’s liver. The original parasite had been the source of weakness and debility for hundreds of millions of people. This one now guarded its terrain, the lower intestines, against all infestations. A lung fluke did the same for the chest and upper body cavity, a third genemod parasite inhabited one of the larger
sulci
of the brain and warded off tumor growth, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s. These were just the three big ones, many centimeters long. Scores of other body-dwellers in a Commensal ranged in size from a millimeter or two down to a handful of specialized cells. Put them all together, with their own needs and priorities, and it was no longer clear who or what controlled the agenda of Lena Ligon’s life.

It was not even clear that the changes to Lena were safe. The technology in its present form had been applied for less than three years. If the methods had been developed in a Ganymede or Mars medical research center, that would have been some reassurance; but the Commensals were leftover Great War technology, discovered in the drifting remains of a Belt weapons shop. Reputable rejuvenators hesitated to use it. Who knew the original objectives? Who knew the undocumented long-term side effects? But Lena Ligon’s feelings were fairly typical. “My dear, long-term effects are who-cares effects. We want to look good and feel good
now
.”

The worst thing of all, from Alex’s point of view, was Lena’s new smell. It was not exactly unpleasant, rather the opposite. His mother’s body and breath exuded a subtle, musky perfume of modified pheromones. But the odor was
different
. A kiss on the cheek from Lena Ligon was now a creepy experience for Alex, to be avoided whenever possible.

“Remember,” his mother said, as though reading Alex’s thoughts, “even if you find the sight, sound, and smell of this young woman rather strange, you must behave properly. If she smiles at you, smile back. If she offers you her hand, kiss it. If a subject seems distasteful to her, drop it at once. We can discuss any problems later, within the family. During the meeting, take your cues from me.”

Was his mother suggesting that Lucy-Maria Mobarak might also have become a Commensal?

It was a bit late to discuss the point. They were there. They had risen and risen, to a level of Ganymede higher than Alex had ever been except on obligatory school trips to see the stars at first-hand. This was the very highest level, with the actual surface no more than twenty meters above their heads. Alex’s first thought, that Cyrus Mobarak must have odd tastes to live in such a place, changed after a moment’s thought. The principal business of Mobarak Enterprises was fusion plants, and in the Outer System the fastest-growing use of fusion plants lay in transportation. While the number of colonized worlds grew linearly, transportation needs grew quadratically. The production of the Mobies had to be at the surface, or out in space itself.

As they stepped out onto the final level, the light changed. Alex instinctively looked up. Above his head, no more than ten meters away, stood a window with a glittering starscape beyond. His first thought—
this is dangerous!
—lasted only a split second. He realized that whatever the material of that window, it would be designed to withstand anything that hit it. The new Mobarak synthetics could supposedly tolerate a direct whack from a meteorite traveling at thirty kilometers a second. They could also dissipate impact energy so fast that only the top few centimeters of material were vaporized, while at the same time they photo-darkened so rapidly that the flash of light was no more than startling even from as close as ten meters.

The double doors in front of Lena and Alex were a fair copy of the ones that fronted the corporate offices of Ligon Industries. The metal plate with the sign, MOBARAK ENTERPRISES, was just as discreet. Imitation is one of the more reliable forms of flattery. Alex had secretly questioned Prosper Ligon’s assertion that Cyrus Mobarak yearned to join the Inner Circle of old money and influence. Now he was not so sure.

He was also beginning to wonder what he would find on the other side of those great double doors. Somehow, his agreement to have a simple meeting with Mobarak’s daughter had escalated. He had imagined maybe a drink together, or a quiet meal in an informal setting. Instead it had become an official family affair, with parents as chaperons. Alex was not sure he liked the idea of Cyrus Mobarak as a chaperon. The man’s reputation made anything said about Uncle Karolus or Great-aunt Agatha seem tame by comparison.

Meanwhile, the Fax who served as automatic doorkeeper had apparently satisfied itself as to their identity. The doors quietly swung open. Alex followed his mother into a huge room whose whole ceiling was a continuous window, with the naked heavens beyond. Again, Lena took no notice. Alex wondered if she knew what Nature was doing, less than twenty meters above their heads. He did, and didn’t like the thought.

It was not the mixture of rock and water-ice that made up most of Ganymede’s surface, that was no danger. The problem lay a little higher. Jupiter loomed in the sky, a million kilometers away. It gathered from the solar wind an endless supply of high-energy protons, accelerated them with its monstrous magnetic field, and delivered them as a murderous hail onto Ganymede’s frozen surface. A human in an ordinary spacesuit would cook and die within hours. The only safe way to wander the surface was in suits bearing in-woven threads of high-temperature superconductors. Charged particles followed the magnetic field lines, harmlessly around and past the suit’s surface. The human inside remained safe and snug.