Heritage of Flight (19 page)

A bump, a muffled exclamation, and a clatter of rolling plastic made Pauli whirl around to see Pryor mopping at spilled soup, her motions surprisingly awkward.

"Want to tell me, Alicia?” For once, Pauli's voice obeyed her and came out gentle and persuasive.

The other woman looked up. Beneath chagrin at her clumsiness, Pauli read grief and an appalled conviction.

I've got to help her get it out
, Pauli thought. Still in that new, gentle voice, she went on, “Did Lohr give you any fresh ideas?"

"You learn fast,” Pryor scowled at her. “Yes, he did.” She rose from her knees, wadded up the sopping cloth, and threw it at a box. Nothing was discarded anymore. “Remember what we discussed a few days ago—and whom?"

Pauli managed to stop before she blurted out the word she suspected would break the other woman, the name of her old lover.

"You know, it was possible applications of Halgerd's research on cloning that we objected to at Santayana. You've read studies on twins ... no,
you
probably wouldn't have had to. Well, the basic research on that's very old: started back on Earth. They tracked twins separated at birth. They tended to live very, very similar lives. Some people—and these were the crackpots—even hypothesized that twins could sense things about one another. I don't have to tell you that no one took this seriously. Even prespace, they had some research standards.

"But imagine if you didn't have a twin, but a live, functioning clone. Whom you knew. Whom you worked with. Loved, probably. It would be very efficient, a team made up of clones. Practically telepathic. For all intents and purposes, they'd be the same person. You could train them—tapes, drugs, conditioning. Hell, for all we know, maybe they actually would read one another's minds. And if they couldn't, cybernetic or biotic implants would be easy enough to develop. That's what Halgerd thought.

"He'd worked out the theory—organic fiber cybernetic implants. He'd even suggested deriving the organic fibers from the individual's own cells to avoid rejection by the body. Essentially, Halgerd planned to turn people into human multiplex communications systems. He thought it would be easiest with clones. Of course, on basic humanitarian grounds, we couldn't let him test it."

Pauli blinked at the physician. Granted, she had heard crazy rumors, pilots’ talk about the Secess', but no one would really do that to a pilot, or anyone else—

"Think about it. It's hard enough to watch someone die. I ought to know. So should you. It's harder knowing—feeling, as some people would say—when a family member dies ... especially a twin.

"Just think, though, if you lost a clone. Long before the Earth blockade, some people hypothesized that in a functional clone group, injury to one of the team would probably be felt by the rest. But what if that group were physically linked by the implants? They actually would feel it if one of the other clones died. What's worse, the death agony could be magnified by the perceptions of each clone who experienced it.

"You can see why some people thought that given such a group, the death of one clone could easily kill the others. Even without organic MUX implants. They called it Kroeber's Trauma. Halgerd, of course, called it damned nonsense."

"But you don't think of Kroeber's Trauma as damned nonsense, do you?"

"No.” Alicia Pryor sank into a chair. Her long, worn fingers rubbed her temples, and for a moment, her face betrayed her true age. “I think that in his own exhausted, inarticulate way, Lohr has described a case of Kroeber's Trauma."

"What makes you so sure?"

Pryor rubbed her temples again. “Once, when it looked like we might ... never mind that. In any case, Halgerd took me to Freki once. Those names Lohr quoted aren't really names, Pauli. They're runes, the ancient symbols that the oligarchs revived, runes with names like Wyn, Feoh, Hagl, and Kaon. The man they're bringing in isn't really
named
Thorn. He's a clone. They've tagged him Thorn the way we tag lab animals A, B, C, or D."

"And this Thorn only ‘died’ four times,” Pauli mused. “Assuming the standard five pilots in a squad, and another on board their home ship—"

One of the Halgerd-clones was probably alive, then. And with Pauli's usual luck, he'd be looking for his brother.

If only Rafe and the others would hurry bringing in this Thorn ... this clone of one of the most brilliant offspring of a fighting world. God help them all. Freki had cloned its best and brightest; she saw no reason why other worlds like Tokugawa wouldn't follow suit. And no reason why they should stop at a clone of six, or restrain themselves from modifying the clones for speed and strength.

That thought bred worse horrors. Since it was now possible to create a fleet of aces, disposable and replaceable pilots, against whom ordinary pilots (let alone the young ones that the Alliance had to release for assignment these days) had no chance, Alliance would have to follow suit.

How hard would it be to duplicate Halgerd's research? Granted, Pryor had fled Santayana rather than participate in it, but in wartime, how many scientists would share—would be permitted to share—her scruples? Pauli used to think she was an ethical being. But that was before Federal Security had grounded her with the refugees here, before the need to protect what might be the last of humankind had forced her...

Her child-to-be kicked. She laid a hand on her belly to comfort the child who might never have time now to be born.

"They're coming in!” Lohr overflew the base camp shouting the news, then touched down. “They're all safe and they're carrying him in!” he yelled and overbalanced, his wings scrabbling in the dirt, his legs imitating an overturned stobor.

"Nice landing,” Pauli commented as he gathered up his wings, strut by strut. “How far away?"

"Not far ... half a klick or so."

"Good,” Pauli said. “Tell Dr. Pryor to meet me here Did you check on how they're doing with the hydro tanks up at the caves?"

Lohr looked chagrined, then sullen. “Go do it. You're the only one we've got who can fly that far now—”
and you're damned right, I don't want you around when the bring him in.

Idly Pauli burnished the pilot's wings she had decided to wear for the first time in months. The sun felt good on her shoulders, and she was glad simply to sit and to plan. A Secess’ pilot ... her opposite number ...
but an improved model
...

"There,” Pauli pointed.

"I'll take your word for it,” Pryor said.

Pauli rose as they came nearer. The prisoner was a tall, fair-haired man, paler than most spacers who lay under UV lamps for prescribed intervals. He lay covered, restraints making odd bumps at wrists, ankles, waist, and chest.

Pryor shook her head and murmured something deep in her throat, before she knelt beside the Secess'. Her hand smoothed back the unconscious man's limp hair, and she watched its motion as if it went on separate from the rest of her, as if the caress belonged to someone else. Then she shrugged and raised an ironic eyebrow. “Despite the bruising, he's as much like Halgerd as a twin,” she said sadly. “Only forty years younger. He's concussed from the rough landing. Maybe the implant is broken. In that case, it'll probably be dissolved by now, but I'll scan for it anyway. Bring him inside.” Pryor led the way to her improvised clinic, talking to herself of “full-body scan, genetic assay, comparison analysis ... I probably don't want to add any other drugs to what you've given him. Dosage is well beyond normal tolerance—"

But then
, Pauli thought,
we're sure we're not dealing with a normal human being.

When doubt was no longer possible, and before anyone could protest, Pryor unfastened the last of the prisoner's restraints.

She started to say something, then shook her head. “Wrong name.” Her voice was husky. “Thorn?"

His eyes opened slowly. “
Hwert emk? Thykkjask thik kenna?"

"Still groggy,” Pryor said. “That's Frekan he's speaking. I'll have to bring him back into the real world."

"You're here,” she murmured. “I'll explain. And no, you don't know me.” She looked down at his blank face and translated. “
Mik eigi manthu
. You haven't known me for years. Can you talk?” she asked, and helped him to sit up.

How carefully she kept her back turned on Rafe and Pauli.

Pauli studied the man now propped against the wall. They'd dressed him in one of the settlement's all-purpose gray work suits. He was tall, and the way he had unconsciously arranged himself when Dr. Pryor sat him up gave the drab garment a took of elegance. Pale features and fair hair made it look surprisingly formal.

Her eyes flashed from their prisoner to Dr. Pryor. She looked more like
him
than like them, and she had known the original Halgerd. She shuddered, and forced herself not to rub her flight insignia as if they were a talisman.

"Our C.O., Pauli Yeager,” Pryor announced neutrally. Pauli had expected that the prisoner would speak a language other than the obscure Frekan dialect to which he had reverted when he was injured.

Thorn Halgerd started to rise, then froze in his place, staring appalled at Pauli's obvious pregnancy. “What kind of people are you?” he demanded, leaning forward, his voice chill. “You use people capable of giving life as pilots?"

Pryor handed Pauli a printout of the tests she had run.
Sterile.

"I'll ask the questions around here, mister."

He turned to Pryor. “How can you waste ... and she's weathered too. Don't you have tanks?"

"Which tanks do you mean?” Pryor asked.

"Stass tanks,” he said impatiently. “Everyone knows that the distractions of ship's routine between engagements only lower a piloting group's effectiveness.” He looked Pauli over again, then nodded. “Maybe there's some twisted logic to it, though. Breeding's cheaper than cloning, though then the child has to be allowed to mature normally—"

Pauli shot Pryor a horrified look.

"So they keep you in stass between missions,” Pauli said. She felt the beginnings of nausea curdle in her stomach. Genetically modified, sterile pilots, cloned, carefully kept from any stimuli except those their commanders chose for them. No wonder they fought so hard. It was the only time they were alive. Given what this Thorn betrayed, fighting was the only reason they lived at all.

"We don't do things like that here,” she declared. “Our pilots are humans, not killing machines. I was
born
and grew up normally. As will my child. Now, I believe we've humored you long enough—"

"I have no answers for you. And I won't speak to ... you people aren't even human!” Revulsion as keen as Pauli's thickened his voice, and he turned away.

"The original was even haughtier,” Rafe murmured in Pauli's ear.

"Alicia, if he's that used to stass, he can probably take more medication. Put him out."

Pryor hesitated, clearly thinking of the four pseudo-deaths Rafe had already averted.

"Need I remind you, Doctor, this isn't the original Halgerd. He's an enemy pilot who's probably responsible for more deaths than you'd want to count.” When Pryor still didn't move, Pauli brought out her last weapon.

"You said you left Santayana because you'd lost your objectivity. Just how badly compromised
is
it now?"

Pryor glared, then readied an injection feed, slapping the patch on Halgerd's neck before he could protest.

As he sagged down again, she checked vital signs. “I don't like using neoscopalamine after what he's been through. He's fighting it too. Should have expected that.” She sighed and increased the dosage. “His eyes will be sensitive. Dim the lights in here."

Rafe brought out her kit.

"Ready to record,” she announced.

Pryor took out a tiny light mounted on a stylus and peeled back one eyelid. “Let me start the questions, will you? I know what to ask."

She flashed the light across Thorn Halgerd's face. “Wake up, pilot. Wake up!"

The light eyes opened, filling with eagerness.

"Name!"

"Thorn, of Halgerd series 6AA-prime. Decanted..."

Only twenty years real age. He'd been accelerated to full growth. And how much of that twenty years had he spent in the tanks?

"Orders?” he asked. Even under the powerful drugs, his body quivered, eager for action.

"First you report, pilot. Think back to your last wakeshots..."

Rafe closed in with the recorder.

Air struck his face. The light about him, tempered to reddish twilight, was beautiful to his eyes. Someone was rumpling his hair ... Aesc, his group's Number One. Aesc was ship-liaison the way he and his brothers were pilots, so he was always the first one out of the tanks. Around him were mumblings as his brothers stirred and stretched. The linkage among them pulsed with comfort and welcome.

As usual, he sat up too quickly, but Aesc was ready with the strong shoulder and warm grin that made him Thorn's favorite.

"A fight?” he asked.

Aesc looked troubled. Beneath the hunger any time in the tanks invariably left him with, Thorn felt Aesc's worries and, worse yet, felt his anxieties spread and resonate through the link. As communications core of the Halgerd group, Aesc was most skilled at sending or filtering communications from the outside to his brothers. His implant was equipped with an override, and he had the deep conditioning for stability, to keep the brothers strong until the Republic needed their lives. “You were created from our best and our strongest to protect the life of the Republic,” their tapes said. “You have no other, and no better, immortality."