Koban (61 page)

“Strength! That was a common request from clone customers, and
it is easily implemented as well. However, as I told you before, there is a limit
to what human muscle tissue will tolerate because we were not born as gorillas.
Don’t mess with a Krall no matter how powerful you feel.” A third finger was raised.

“Endurance! An equally common request for clones, but there is
a trade off with strength because there is only so much muscle mass we can give
you, even with exercise, and it will be shared between fast twitch and slow twitch
cells.

“If we inject for both traits, you would eventually be stronger,
and last longer, but neither trait is as great as if you received one modification
alone. The consensus was, three hundred years ago, that you should do both if the
clone was general purpose, and just one if it had need for only one advantage. I
think both would be needed in our general circumstances.” A fourth finger was raised.

“Epidermis and Skin! We have some mods to toughen our skin against
chafing and scratches, to promote wound healing and automatically reduce bleeding.
However, we have to study what impact it has on the heat modification that also
includes some skin changes. Not ready.

“Vascular system and lungs! Possible to improve, but this is
much more complex, and it takes longer to do. Not Ready.

“Rather than list more that we can do but are not ready to even
test, let’s examine what we have ready, and how long they take to see improvements.

“The first four: metabolism, heat, strength, and endurance can
be implemented reasonably quickly.”

“The Metabolism mod should produce beneficial effects in one
or two days with some diet and supplement help.

“The same two days for the heat tolerance mod and the two diets
can be combined, and some of the supplements are the same.

“Strength or endurance, will start to implement in a day or two,
but it takes time to build the muscle mass and new cells. You need diet and exercise
and the same supplements we take now, but we would make better use of those supplements
with this mod and shorten the time for muscle growth. But it could be weeks to a
month for devoted exercise to make a significant difference.”

Mirikami asked, “What happens if you implement all four at once?”

“What’s the rush? We have four week at least.”

Looking around the table in warning to the others, Mirikami told
her. “For the sake of discussion shall we say, if we wanted results in a test subject
that are usable in three days from
right now
, can any or all of these be
started simultaneously for good results?”

Aldry caught his look at the others, and instantly knew he wanted
them to keep quiet. That meant this was no hypothetical question. She had heard
this morning of the announced Testing Day in three or four days, so clearly the
Captain’s question was connected to that in some way. Her answer potentially had
life or death implications for some or all of those sixteen selected, she assumed.

“Tet,” she started cautiously. “I believe there were tests on
clones that did apply multiple enhancements at once, to see what would happen. There
were mixed results, and some complex changes, which we aren’t prepared to inject
anyway, resulted in clone death.

“Of the four mods we have ready, and I’ll have to get Jake to
comb the records, I think they could all be started at one time, but the two longer
developing mods for strength and endurance would progress considerably slower. I’m
sure they would divert much of the body’s resources from the metabolism and heat
mods, slowing those improvements.

“Plus there are potentially debilitating side effects to consider.
These come about because our viruses are all infectious agents, and we have to use
immune system repression to prevent the body from opposing their introduction, at
least initially. There will be fever for the first day or two, and for muscle growth
there will be a lot of aches and pains. You also have to be wary of outside infections
with your immune system repressed.

“Fortunately, one of the existing general population modifications
you didn’t list is our improved immune systems, which accounts for a lot of disease
reduction, and the disappearance of many infections from the population due to lack
of hosts.

“The population of Koban Prime has stayed pretty healthy without
a doctor or pharmacy because of this, and like most alien planets, the majority
of infectious agents here did not evolve to attack us, nor ours to attack them.
The old ‘germs’ from outer space fears proved overblown in hind sight.

“Even with a lowered immune system, there probably are only
a few things we can catch; the previously called ‘common cold’ is still one, but
it will only last twenty four to thirty six hours anyway. After about a day our
little ‘super viruses’ will have entered the targeted cells and be out of sight
of the immune system, inserting their changes, so we can stop suppressing.”

Now she lowered two of her four fingers.

“But I think we can only employ the first two on short notice,
for metabolism and heat, with a chance for success in the time limit you mentioned.”
Now she looked around the table, a stern look in her eyes.

“Who are the test subjects? The sixteen people selected? I
will
not
inject them with anything we made without full disclosure of what we are
doing.”

“Not to worry Aldry. I’m only considering one person. Myself.”

“What?” She almost recoiled from him.

There’s that same damned reaction, he thought.

Then Dillon made his own case for the injections, pointing out
that since he was also going on the mission, it was as reasonable to test the enhancements
on him, and that he was definitely well informed as to the risks.

In one hour, Mirikami and Dillon were rubbing their sore arms,
calves, shoulders, and buttocks from the massive aerosol injections they had just
received. This was despite equally massive objections from Aldry and her three teams
of still learning “experts.”

The trip to the pharmacy was short, because they stored most
of the required supplements in the labs for safekeeping.

The pharmacy items Mirikami had wanted to check on were more
of the kind that go “bang” than the kind you swallow. They were starting to produce
plastic explosives in the compartments around the now missing main engines. However,
the triggering devices needed small amounts of more sensitive chemicals that could
be mixed by the automated pharmacy equipment, using programming instructions Jake
had located in old records.

Satisfied that the machine shop would have the material to assemble
what he had asked for later, he went to eat. His sense of satisfaction wasn’t long
lasting.

The pile of food, some of which he didn’t like, and large hard
to swallow uncoated vile tasting supplement pills was daunting to Mirikami’s palate.
He normally ate moderately, and much less red meat. He and Dillon were receiving
an unfair share of the dwindling meat stores he thought.

He sighed, under the watchful eyes of both Noreen and Maggi,
who had practically sworn an oath to Aldry to make them stay with the regimen she
had printed out and handed to the two men.

Dillon always ate hearty, but because of his larger body mass,
he also had a proportionately larger amount of food to consume. After the genetic
changes were inserted in the cells and switched on, via the “messenger” signals
that were also part of the injections, their bodies would soon be “demanding” materials
to work with, and it had better already be in their blood streams before then.

Thad had been provided with a wired ship com Link in his quarters,
which was tied into Jake’s growing communications net in the dome. He managed to
connect to Mirikami by dialing some random numbers, being forwarded by a crewmember
when he didn’t find the Captain on the Bridge or in his quarters, the only numbers
he knew.

The Koban Committee had been discussing the possibility of making
Thad the first person outside of the Flight of Fancy’s complement to receive one
of the few remaining transceivers. He wasn’t “officially” aware of Jake’s existence,
but he knew about their embedded communication devices, having deduced their existence
on the first day he met with them.

“Tet, I expected you back over here by now, for the scouting
mission you wanted to make. Did something come up that you need to reschedule, or
did the Ladies I saw you arguing with as you walked to the ship talk you out of
your lunacy?”

Regretting having put the com set on speaker, Mirikami forced
a mouthful of food down with a quick gulp of mineral laden liquid. It made him grimace
with the taste.

Before he could speak, Maggi took her opportunity. “Thad, he’s
chewing his lunch at the moment, but no he did not let us talk him out of his insanity.
In fact, he’s crazier that we thought, and made a second rash decision right after
that. That’s why he’s late…. Oh, quit waving me to be quiet Tet.” She said off to
the side.

Clearing his oversized mouthful, Mirikami finally could speak.
“Thad, I’m sorry, we will be making that trip as soon as I finish eating. I have
a rather large meal being forced on me, which I will explain to you when we meet.
I’d like you to come over here however, because I plan to use one of our own shuttles
to make the scouting go faster and to let us cover more territory.”

“That beats a bumpy truck ride, and I’ve not seen the compound
from the air. We weren’t allowed in the Krall cockpit on hunts, and they don’t consider
passenger windows essential to a nice flight. Are we getting out? I’ll still wear
my armor if so.”

“I hadn’t thought about armor, I only tried a set on just the
one time, but I’d like to look around, even if I’ll be going back out again later
today or tomorrow.”

“Tell me what your size was and I can check a set out, and bring
it over.”

Dillon told him, “I need a set as well, can you bring two?”

When he answered in the affirmative, they told him their sizes,
and he switched off, after saying he’d be there in thirty minutes.

Maggi asked, “How can he carry two of those suits and all the
guns he wears too?”

“He can manage. The suits are ultra-light, only about fifteen
pounds each even here. We thought they were more like human made light armor, which
are at least forty pounds in one g. The Krall use either a material that the Olt’kitapi
invented or one of the races the Krall enslaved did. The guns are partly made of
a variation of that strong lightweight stuff I think.”

“Why don’t the Krall warriors wear armor?” Noreen wondered.

“They do have some. One of our people asked them that on the
ship. They don’t like to be encumbered any more than we do, but heavy weapons,
tanks, and artillery on a battlefield will convince them. I’m counting heavily on
their thinking it isn’t needed against the guns they give us.”

Tet stabbed a forkful of meat. “Now you two stop talking to us
so we can eat this whole horse and cardboard box you gave us.”

“Fine!” Maggi said. “You don’t need to respond you know, but
we can still talk; you don’t even have to listen. That’s something you both have
proven adept at doing.”

Satisfied to have gotten in the last word, she and Noreen were
content to let them eat in peace.

When Greeves arrived, Mirikami called Ms. Jorl’sn to have her
ready shuttle one for a local flight. He asked Noreen to escort the Colonel there
to stow the suits, and to help Roni with the preflight.

Feeling overfull, Mirikami went to the Bridge to make use of
the Krall transceiver. Maggi and Dillon asked if they could come, so all three went
to see what Telour might have to say about the scouting flight, and the two additions
to the Training Day team.

It took a few minutes for Telour to answer the call when the
transmit button was pressed. They were not sure if he was actually some place away
from his own unit, or because it was always sending, faked it by waiting.

“Clan leader, I am not surprised you contact me. I know of the
search for the two human cowards that have hidden themselves from selection. Do
you claim immunity for any of the humans selected?”

“I do not Telour. Instead I want to inform you that two additional
humans will join that team, and that I will soon fly one of my small clan shuttles
to examine the areas where they might fight.”

“Two more will join this group? Are the two humans that are hiding
to be sent? I did not think they had been found, or do you ask that we use our Katusha’s
to help you search?”

“The two additional fighters are not those two. I don’t believe
any human would want those cowards standing with them in a fight. The two additional
fighters come from my crew. They will test some of the new weapons to see if they
offer us any advantage.”

“The warrior novices will not know of the two additional enemy
and they will face unexpected weapons. I approve your test of my plan clan leader.”

“Thank you. I will work particularly hard to demonstrate your
plan will work. But you offered to assist us in finding the humans we seek, was
that with the tool you use to apply tattoo marks?”

It sounded like a chance learn something about them.

“Yes. If close, they can see the material in the ring of the
tattoo. Your older captives have used them, and they know how to search. Are you
requesting some of these to locate where the cowards hide? The dome is large.” He
pointed out.

“Yes I would ask that we be given as many as you permit us to
have, and allow my crew mates to train on their use. Could we keep some for use
in this training?” It was worth a shot.

“None to keep, but I have one hand of them for you to use for
one hand of days only. Our slave races cannot make new Katusha’s, and one day all
will be gone. Before we received the Katusha’s from the Olt’kitapi we made status
marks with small sharp…,” he paused. “The word sounds most like noodles, but that
is a food. What is the word in Standard I seek?” He asked.