He Without Sin (21 page)

I found the deep sea shots Lester mentioned. Now
that’s interesting! Really fantastic—the variety and
shapes and colors of the creatures down there. There are seafloor and seamount shots too but the
really good shots are of the products of evolution. Now, I have to admit that these could be shots
from deep sea back home. When you are looking at
life in an alien environment like deep under an
ocean, you are bound to find incredible things no
matter what planet you are on.

Back to a more unpleasant subject: It occurs to me
that Brachus (and possibly others in his cadre) may
be responsible for hybrid offspring—I’m sure my
meaning here is clear. If the children are fertile,
then the gene pool here has been really been
stirred up, so to speak. And not just Brachus, but
you’ve got the giants and the other so-called
rejects out there; others that Dylan told me are breeding for sure. That’s going to dilute and distort
the gene pool even more.

I’m going to use this aspect in my approach to
David. If he can understand that things have gotten
out of hand, and that his desire for “our” line to
flourish is jeopardized, it may jolt him out of the
doldrums to take action.

Whistle Blower

“Mark, I’ve got to go to David and I’m not looking forward to it. I hope he’s in a good mood. Have you seen him?”

“You have no chance.” Mark says this using a humorous voice; he is sometimes self-amused, I think.

“Really? You’ve talked to him?”

“No, not lately but I don’t have to talk to him to see he’s in a black mood.”

“That bad? You never know though; he changes from minute to minute, or used to.”

“Not any more. What name does Bevan call him now? Sad Sack or something? He’s right, although I hate to ever admit that he’s right,” says Mark as he putters at his worktable. More seriously now, he says, “You’re going to talk to our Commander? I’ve got a couple things I should tell him too.”

“You can’t come with me; it’d be too much at once.”

“It can wait. He’s wrapped up in his own thoughts lately. Mine can wait; I can handle it. I just have to keep pushing straight ahead and I’ll be alright. One thing at a time.”

“Let me guess…”

“Nope, don’t to it. Don’t say it. I’ll handle it,” he says again, looking at me with an ‘I mean business’ look.

“Ok, ok. Let me know if I can help you. If I survive this meeting.”

I
would
like some moral support to meet with David but it’s just not right. I don’t want to drag Mark or anyone else into it.

I was hoping to meet Carol out on the rock ledge but now she can’t make it. I think of sitting alone to plan a strategy but realize that approach doesn’t work for me. I have to go into the meeting cold and let the facts speak. There is always the danger of over-thinking the problem. I have found that things rarely go as expected in any discussion after the first sentence is uttered, so detailed planning of a conversation is a waste of time. You can never plan for all possibilities.

______

“What are you getting at?” David says after I start showing what I found.

“What am I…? I am getting at the fact these pictures show improper behavior. Probable betting and instigating of fights for amusement; using of slaves for who knows what.”

He looks at a select few of the found images. “These don’t show anything. Natives fight, have fought, will fight. We have cams, they caught the action. I don’t want to look at it, but some people do. Slaves? What slaves?”

I am struggling to quickly think: have I made a terrible mistake? Is this all a misunderstanding? But no, it can’t be. “David, there are reports…”

“From who? Please be clear. If you’re making an accusation, make it!”

Instead, as an alternative to speaking, I present the next photos. Photos of Brachus being attended by native women.

“Wait, hold it. Back up. What’s this? Where did you get these?”

“Not the point; you can see…”

“Jason. Hold it. Back up. Tell me. Where did you find these?”

“They are part of the Resource team’s locally archived data,” I say rather abruptly, annoyed that he’s asking the wrong questions. I know that I have to keep cool. It is David’s habit to sometimes shoot the messenger and I know it. “I stumbled on these in various folders while performing routine maintenance,” I lie. I don’t want to bring Tracy or anyone else into the picture right now unless I have to. Let the evidence speak.

David looks at several of the pictures again. I can see he is paying attention to the time and location stamps. His mouth habit working, I can see him thinking now, really thinking. He is soundlessly mouthing the coordinates of one of the pictures. “Where was this taken?” I give him the common name of the site. “Shit, I’ve been there. I didn’t see anything like this.” For some time, David says nothing, and I decline to break his concentration. “Well,” he says, looking away from the pictures and back at me at last, “what did you come here for? What do you expect me to do?”

______

“So, what did you say?” Carol asks, later in the day, when we are alone.

“I didn’t really answer that question. I couldn’t. I told him that I didn’t come to him to give direction, only information. And what happens from there is up to him. Things like that.”

“Good. And? Go on.”

“And then I dropped the idea that the gene pool may be irreversibly tainted. I don’t think he fully believes that the so-called ‘sterile’ natives are mixing back in; I advised him that Dylan’s certain of it. And then about the potential, shall we say, contamination from Brachus.”

“According to our source, it’s not potential, it’s actual. What she doesn’t know is how long it’s been going on…”

“But here’s the good news. He gets it. He’s sees the potential fallout. David got the business about the pool getting cloudy. He knows that anybody checking into the native genome later, say on the next visit, assuming there will be a next visit, will see something fishy. He believes they will be able to detect one or both key things: that someone, namely him, was fooling around outside the guidelines trying to do something to bolster his own reputation and also that at least one of his crew, namely you know who, has been fooling around sexually with the natives for his own pleasure. Neither one will look good on David’s record, and that’s important to him.”

“Do you think he really believes those things are happening? And that it’ll be noticed?”

“I don’t know. I have to say that, as commander, he cannot believe it just yet. He has to take it slowly, deliberately. But he knows Brachus; he must at some level believe that this is at least possible. And he trusts Dylan; so he won’t easily dismiss that either. He’ll look at the files; it’s there. He’ll come around.”

“I see. So you think he will take action now on his own.”

“I think he will. I do. In fact, I went to Mark right after talking to David and guess what? He’d already called and commandeered the first available flyer.”

“That’s something. At least he’s moving again.” Carol adds, “Jason?”

“Yes dear?”

“I’m proud of you.”

______

“I don’t know what you are doing but cut it out,” says Gleshert the next day during a routine visit. He is finished checking me over and I am trying to figure out why his data upload to the Hobbe is not working.

“What…?”

“I’ve got enough to do,” he says.

“Doc, I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Can it. David tells me this is all part of a pet project of yours. And I’m paying the price for it.”

“No. Nope. I don’t have any projects, pet or otherwise. What’s the problem?” I get the stare and glare, but it melts back to normal quickly. “What does he have you doing?”

“The only part I can tell you is that samples are coming in fast and furious from the latest generation of natives. And there are lots; it’s like rabbits out there. He’s having the results sorted a whole number of ways from Sunday and…” He sees that I am listening intently and halts in mid-sentence. “And that’s it for today. Finish up what you need to do and scram. Do not tell me about what you find with the equipment unless it’s something I actually need to know and even then…”

“Say Doc, one thing. That cup over there with what looks like ‘burnin’ fire’—is that yours?”

“Beat it.”

I pass Vanessa on the way out.

“You’re not a fast learner,” she says, “are you?” And she’s not asking a question, but making a statement. “Do you deliberately try to trigger him?”

“Van, what do you mean? I…”

“Nevermind. Scoot,” she says

David’s on a mission all right. I try to stay out of his
way. But at least he’s moving, as Carol said. It’s
refreshing.

Brachus was in camp again—base camp. It was a
sight to see at first. He had been talked to by
David, you could tell that right away. His whole
demeanor has changed to sheepish. He greets me
like he’s a normal person, just one of the guys. Pretty disgusting, now that I know that he would
never think of greeting me at all if he was left on
his own. He pretends to be interested in protocol
along with other details he never showed much
interest in before. I say disgusting, Carol says
amusing. Mark says scary.

I am able to get into the Resource team’s data
storage
and
can now access any of their sensors. Interestingly, none of the cams show a hint of
anything untoward. All cleaned up. I made a copy
earlier of the key graphics and data and put it in my private storage. I have a feeling those are going
to disappear from the original location.

The stream of field DNA samples continues as far
as I can tell—but I can’t get Doc or Vanessa to open
up about it. All quiet. I think it’s because nobody
wants to get chewed on by David if they say the
wrong thing at the wrong moment.

I don’t hear much talk around the camp about
misconduct. You would think it would spread like
juicy gossip normally does. I’ve only talked about it
with Carol, privately, and David officially. I hinted
at it to Mark and he seemed to hint back that he
knows—hard to say with him. I thought Tracy
might be a talker, but apparently not.

Correction

“She did what? Military?”

“Exactly what we are doing now,” I reply.

“Really. I’ve heard her name of course. Lillian. Lily. I like it. And I know about her later exploits but didn’t realize she had something like this under her belt. I say I know… Really I just know from the ‘incident’ at central government.”

“That’s what gets played up, but she had a whole career before that. I finally took the time to research her. I read a little about her way back, when they announced our ship. Lillian Hobbe, explorer, pioneer, and so on. I think I told you. Right?”

From her look, I sense that there is more on her mind than history and so I hold back any more comments.

“So…” begins Carol, waiting until she has my full attention and eye contact, “About the shenanigans—David is really pissed at Wes? You didn’t mention it when we talked about it before.” I think I see a slight smile on her face.

“Looks that way. But what makes you think that?”

“People talk; you hear things.”

“He didn’t get outwardly upset when we talked. I think he was shaken, but hid it well.. But seems he’s over it already to me. And I am guessing he’s made some conclusion about the effect it all has had on the mission. That’s what the meeting is going to be about. Damage control.”

“I’m not invited.”

“I am and I hope not to get an assignment out of it.”

A small group shuffles past our corner table in the mess hall as we take a couple of bites. We talk of it sometimes as ‘our’ table. I don’t know why really. The tables are all the same. It has to be location and familiarity. It’s a corner, it’s more or less private, usually, and we don’t have to check out the surroundings; they are always the same. That’s where the feeling comes from. It’s ‘ours.’

“Mark says he is on schedule for his work; we are about half way through now, assuming no surprises. I’m going to miss this place when we leave. When are we going back to the bluffs?”

“Half way or not, it’s a long time yet before you will have to miss it. The bluffs? I don’t know when,” I say. “You ready? I’m in. Let’s do it.”

______

The meeting is a small one: just myself, David and Brachus, and that’s why I’m uncomfortable. Here we sit, each knowing what has happened but no one acknowledging any of it directly. David has yet to come out with any public statement. I do know one thing: I’d never run things like this.

“There is a problem that needs to be handled right away,” is David’s opening remark. That’s encouraging—sounds like a leader. “The course of the last few, well, more than a few, generations of the natives we’ve been monitoring have shown a significant drift away from the ideal genetic configuration.” He pauses and looks us over; Brachus is not making eye contact with me and has not done so since we first sat down.

David continues, “Let me restate that in a different way. We have a directive, part of our mission, to assess the situation on this planet. To see if things, specifically the human… yes, the human natives are progressing along the path expected and desired. To test that progress, we have a template function based on time and other variables that allows us to make a quantitative determination of their current state relative to the expected and desired one. Beyond that, we have the ability to predict the likely future evolution of the correspondence of empirical data to theoretical. You both have heard this before. Any questions you have, answer them on your own time. It’s all documented.”