The Ninth Circle (55 page)
Authors: R. M. Meluch
“Yes, I think I made the suggestion,” said Dr. Minyas. “I think I suggested baboon though.”
“I dated some of those in college,” Glenn offered.
“I am not touching the recreational
mating
question,” said Peter Szaszy. “But
insemination
requires more than a DNA genome in common. Procreation is species specific. The genetic design of a species is complex beyond measure. Not even Sandy Minyas can say duplication of a species is inevitable.”
mating
question,” said Peter Szaszy. “But
insemination
requires more than a DNA genome in common. Procreation is species specific. The genetic design of a species is complex beyond measure. Not even Sandy Minyas can say duplication of a species is inevitable.”
“She won’t,” said Sandy Minyas.
“Forms of life will vary as much as they can,” said Wynans. “There is a level of complexity above which the probability of duplication is beyond the threshold of chaos.”
Glenn said, “What’s the threshold of chaos?”
“The threshold of chaos divides the inevitable and the impossible,” said Wynans. “Things that will happen and things that happen once.”
Peter Szaszy said, “You can’t find an Earth species duplicated here. And you won’t. You can find something analogous to a bird, but there are no birds per se, let alone a species of bird. Life on Zoe is all similar to life on Earth but not the same. The way dinosaurs were similar to mammals and birds. Dinosaurs seem alien, but they were actually DNA-BASED creatures. They were chordates. Dinosaurs had lungs and hearts and heads and spines and four appendages, a head and brain, eyes, noses, and ears. Skin. All standard construction of the chordate model out of a deoxyribonucleic template.”
Patrick asked, “So who got DNA first? Earth or Zoe?”
“We did,” said Cecil. “Earth.”
“Then this is the Second Creation,” Patrick said.
“Who cares which is first?” Cecil said.
“Scientifically, it doesn’t mean spit,” Patrick said. “Theologically, it could disturb some folks—who came first, Man or foxes. The Biblical Creator has a track record of being disappointed with His heirs and starting over.”
Nox turned to Jose Maria de Cordillera, whom he knew to be a devout Old Catholic. “What does this do to your Creation story?”
Jose Maria answered serenely, “Creation just gets more and more miraculous.”
“What’s happening here doesn’t bother you? A separate Creation?”
“One cannot argue with Creation,” said Jose Maria. “One can only marvel.”
In the morning, the pirate Faunus swaggered out to the fire pit where the xenos sat at breakfast. Faunus waggled a long strip of tape from one stout finger.
“Who is going to die for this? Don’t gawp at me. You look like fish. Tell me who it’s going to be.”
Sandy Minyas squinted at the strand hanging from Faunus’ finger. “What is that?”
“Tape,” several people murmured.
Szaszy whispered to Sandy, “Someone broke into one of the spaceships.”
Faunus boomed, “Who did this?”
Nox quickly rounded on Jose Maria de Cordillera, who appeared about to confess, “NOT you!”
Faunus scanned all the other horrified faces. “Pick someone else.”
“No,” said Director Izrael Benet.
“Yes,” Faunus said back. “Give me someone or you all die. Come on, people, I need someone to die for this.” He gave the tape another shake. It coiled and stuck to itself.
“Her!” Tom Cryscoch cried out, shrill. “She did it!”
His outthrust finger pointed at Glenn.
Glenn inhaled a gasp. Didn’t exhale.
Faunus moved in on Glenn. He bent down to push his face right into hers. “Is this your work?” Wild hairs of his beard grazed her chin. He smelled of last night’s liquor. “Did you do this? Verily?”
Glenn choked, “Yes.”
“Well, then.” Faunus took a step back.
“No!” Dr. Cecil cried.
The machete swung.
With an edge honed nano-fine and a mighty arm behind it, Faunus severed the neck clean through with one stroke. The head rolled.
And came to a rest at Glenn’s feet. Glenn shut her eyes and shuddered.
She opened her eyes. Looked down.
Tom Cryscoch’s head rested against the toes of her boots. His body was doing a fish twitch, pulsing brightest red from its stalk.
Faunus picked up the head by its hair. Talked into its slack face. “Oh, come on. You were just not paying attention.” He tossed the head to Nox, who tossed it to Orissus. Cryscoch’s head made the bouncing rounds of The Ninth Circle until Nicanor threw it into the fire pit. Nicanor told the xenos in a lordly voice, “We control your lives. We control your deaths. Do not make us remind you again.”
Glenn felt fizzy, her nerves dancing. Wondered what she’d ever done to Tom Cryscoch. She didn’t even
know
him. And maybe that was why he’d picked her to give up for slaughter. He didn’t know her.
know
him. And maybe that was why he’d picked her to give up for slaughter. He didn’t know her.
Even as she was thinking it, Nox seized Glenn by the arm, snarled at her softly, “And you. You really need to figure out who is worth defending to the death.” He threw her arm back at her. His bloody handprint on her sleeve slithered off the slick fabric.
Nox moved back to Faunus. “Problem, O Best Beloved.”
“What problem?” Faunus grunted.
“I don’t think that’s our culprit.” Nox nodded at the head in the fire.
“I’m sure it’s not,” Faunus said. “I don’t give a rat’s ass as long as someone is dead and it’s not Ilsa. Or the smart guy. Or the winemaker. Or your girlfriend. Or the goat. Or the dog.”
The pirates seized food from the xenos’ plates and moved away to breakfast by themselves. Orissus spoke back over his shoulder to the xenos, “Clean that up.”
The expedition members converged to care for the dead man. They retrieved the head from the fire and cleaned the body as best they could and held a hasty, somber little funeral.
Glenn felt a buzzing inside. Thought she might vomit. She murmured to Dr. Cecil, “Thank you for speaking up for me.”
“Wasn’t for you,” Cecil said. “I just don’t participate in human sacrifice.”
Patrick, who seemed to be trying hard not to scream at her, asked Glenn, “What in name of sanity made you admit to a fucking lie?” His lips were rimmed in white.
“I’m a soldier among civilians. It’s my duty to stand between them and enemies.” She swallowed down bile. Confessed, “Just between you and me, I’m glad I’m not dead. I didn’t want to die for Tom Cryscoch.”
Glenn got up in the middle of the night. Got dressed.
Patrick’s voice sounded from the bed. “Babe? Where are you going?”
“Just act like you think I’m having an affair.”
Patrick sat up. Whispered, “Can you get a signal up to
Merrimack
?”
Merrimack
?”
“I won’t even try. If I go near a com, I’m afraid Nox will kill someone.”
“Nox wouldn’t kill you,” said Patrick.
“I wasn’t talking about me.”
Glenn and Nox lay side by side on a blanket outside the energy dome to stargaze. They had to stay up very late to do it.
Glenn hugged herself, waiting for the starrise.
“You’re upset,” said Nox.
“Yes.”
She was lying face up, staring at the black.
Nox was resting on his side, facing her.
“Don’t waste yourself on the dead guy. That was natural selection.”
“I just don’t know what whoever really did it is thinking.”
“I wouldn’t worry about him,” said Nox.
Glenn turned her head toward him. “You know who it is?”
“I’m pretty sure it was Faunus.”
She stared at Nox in the dark. Couldn’t really see him.
She felt his shrug. He said, “Y’all were getting too comfortable.”
They fell silent. She dozed.
Nox nudged her awake. “Glenn. Stars.”
She opened her eyes. “Oh, my God.”
In the hours before dawn, half of the cloudless sky was brilliant with stars, the other half a black bottomless pit.
They talked about John Farragut. The other John Farragut. Nox brought it up. She wouldn’t.
“Your John Farragut never did anything bad to me,” said Nox. He was on his back. Eyes fixed heavenward. “I only saw him a few times. He never called me John John. Senior avoided the house when big John visited. And I avoided him too. I was snotty to him. He was funny, made everyone laugh. He was larger than life. I hated him for my father’s sake. Then I hated him because I was his replacement.
“Then I hated him because I wasn’t his replacement. I was just a shot across big John’s bow.” Nox suddenly rolled over sideways, propped up on his elbow, facing her. “You’re thinking something. Tell me. And don’t lie. I’ll know.”
Glenn confessed exactly what she’d been thinking. “It just sounds so very
Farragut
.”
Farragut
.”
“What does?”
“Why light a candle when you can set off a nuke?”
“You can’t be saying we’re alike.”
“No and yes.”
This nut fell from the same tree. John Alexander was born in sunlight. The shadows were much deeper where John Junior fell.
She could see the familial resemblance under the scars, the tattoos, the feathers and bones. But underneath even that, Nox reminded her more of Augustus—a really big gun pointing in an uncertain direction.
“You’re not safe here,” said Glenn, a tremor in her voice.
Nox said, “You must know nothing scares me anymore.”
Glenn exhaled an unsteady breath.
Oh, you are too easy
.
Oh, you are too easy
.
She had learned in judo, if you want an opponent to step away from you, you pull him. If you want him to step toward you, push him away.
She pushed.
Glenn was not good at deception. But the hell of it was, she could deceive with perfect honesty. “I’m afraid for you.”
A puff of air passed between his lips, dismissive. “Don’t be.”
Nox was not leaving her now.
And Glenn was dead certain Captain Carmel had Marines on the ground. She just didn’t know how long it would take them to get here.
Senior xenozoologist Peter Szaszy said at dinner, “We are a greater threat to this world than the clokes.”
Sandy Minyas looked at him sideways. “Where did you get that idea?”
“The clokes are respectful of the ecosystem.”
“If you don’t count murder,” said Aaron Rose.
“Murder?” said Peter Szaszy.
“Yes, murder. Remember Helmut? Our late colleague?”
“That was a mistake. The aliens misunderstood Roodoverhemd’s intentions.”
“We saw the clokes carry off a baby mammoth and raid a monkey squirrel’s nest,” said Glenn.
Dr. Szaszy rolled his eyes as if Glenn had said something incredibly tired and naïve. “Scientists collect specimens. The visitors haven’t upset the balance. They don’t pollute.”
“They even bury their shit,” said Dr. Maarstan.
“They bury . . . ?” Patrick started in alarm.
Glenn asked cautiously, “You mean they dig latrines?” The Latin word for latrine was
cloaca
.
cloaca
.
“Not exactly bury,” Maarstan revised. “They insert their cloaca into the mud and excrete. But I suppose you imagine they’re humping the ground.”
“You
boon!”
Glenn cried.
boon!”
Glenn cried.
Maarstan opened his hands, looked blank. “What?”
Patrick breathed, “Holy Mother of Mercy.”
Sandy Minyas said, “Monotremes are egg layers.”
“They’re breeding,” said Patrick.
“Where are they doing this?” Glenn demanded.
“Go down to the river,” said Sandy Minyas. “The banks are pocked with insertion holes.”
“No one is going down to the river,” said Orissus.
Dr. Szaszy told Glenn, “It’s not as if the visitors are polluting the river. The ground is soft on the riverbanks.”
“Joy joy for them,” said Glenn.
“They’re breeding like roaches,” said Patrick.
“There aren’t that many,” said Maarstan. “We would have seen them on one of the surveys.”
“They’re hiding,” said Glenn.
“Of course they are,” said Dr. Szaszy as if humoring a mad woman.
And apparently the clokes were still taking specimens.
When the clokes came out very late into the night, several xenos gathered at the camp perimeter to watch from behind a wall of polymer shields. The xenos shone spotlights on them through red gels. The red light didn’t seem to bother either the native wildlife or the clokes.
A spindly procession of clokes lurched through the forest like oversized mangled ants carrying a bigger load. Perhaps they were headed down to the river where their eggs were laid.
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