Dangerous Evolution (5 page)

There was one, three story, rectangular building in the center of
the large clearing, and other smaller structures scattered throughout the area.
They were all brilliant white in color, with light blue trim around all of the
rounded doors and windows. I noticed that one of the larger structures had an exterior
airlock; an emergency shelter of some type?

I walked up to what was obviously the main building, and as I
reached for the buzzer to announce my arrival, the door opened and a woman
stood there to greet me—an
old
woman.

“Commander Malik, I presume?”

“Yes,” I said, doing everything in my power not to stare. “And you
are…”

“I’m Lesa, Breth’s daughter. Please, come in.” She moved aside and
motioned for me to enter. Sensing my poorly concealed surprise, she smiled.
“Certainly you’ve seen someone aged before, Commander.”

“Of course, forgive me. It’s just so rare.”

She responded tersely, “Not everyone wants to live forever you
know. Some of us follow God’s Plan.”

Ah.
Well that explained that. She was a member of the religious sect
that so fervently disapproved of her aunt’s Permalife treatment. They were a
small but vocal minority in the galaxy, and their stance against life extension
ensured that their ranks were constantly dwindling.

“Please come in,” she said. “My mother is waiting in the dining
hall.”

The exterior entryway opened into a large foyer—the space filled
by a double staircase that wound up to the second level before branching off
into two landings. The walls and ceilings were all standard plasti-board, but
the stairs and flooring were all constructed out of wood.
Real wood
.

“Impressive,” I said

“Grown right here in the dome,” Lesa explained, beaming with
pride. “The house started out pretty standard for a dome dwelling, but my
mother and Aunt Val have been adding personal touches over the years.”

She pointed to a wood framed door to the left of the foyer. “Right
this way, Commander.”  I followed her into the room where I found Breth already
seated at the head of a large table. When she saw me enter, she excitedly directed
her two attendants to start serving food.

She’d changed clothes since our first meeting in the hangar, and
was now wearing a low cut, black dress with an expensive array of diamond
jewelry around her neck. Matching pieces adorned her ears and wrists—the
diamonds sparkling in the light from an impressive chandelier overhead.

The interplay between the stark blackness of the dress, the bright
red color of her hair, and the smooth white skin was very distracting.

In a good way.

“There you are,” she smiled. “Please, have a seat.” She gestured
to the chair on her right while Lesa took a seat at the far end of the table.

“Thank you,” I said. “Captain Stinson will be here in a few
minutes.”

“Of course,” she said, leaning forward. “Have you had any luck
with the ship?”

“Some. We’ve found evidence pointing to Harrakan Station as a possible
source of further information. We will be leaving shortly to investigate.”

She made a disgusted face. “Do you really think my sister is
there?” She frowned before continuing, “I suppose it’s possible. It wouldn’t be
hard to believe someone from that cesspool was involved in a kidnapping.”

“At this point, I honestly don’t know what happened, but it’s a promising
lead and will hopefully get us closer to finding her.” I looked her in the eyes,
and with that outfit it was difficult, “I need to examine her lab and personal
console—with your permission of course. I’d like to see who she’s been dealing
with lately, and what she’s been working on.”

Breth fell back into her seat. “That’s easy. For the last six
months she has been on whatever secret project the Sentients have set her on.
She’s refused any and all other offers of work.” She looked pensive. “Even her
humanitarian efforts, Commander.”

“I take it that would be unusual for her?”

“Oh yes,” she said. “I have never known her to neglect her charity
work.”

 “Are you privy to the details of her
arrangement
with
Sentients?”

Before she could answer, Stinson entered from the foyer and the
servants returned through an opposite door, carrying trays of food.

“Miss Evans, Commander.” Stinson gave us each a small bow.

“Please do sit down, Captain.” Breth motioned for the servants to
hurry up and deposit their burdens and leave.

Taking the proffered seat opposite my own, he stated,
“Everything’s ready to go, Commander. I’ve detailed some of my officers to
begin interviewing the staff in our absence.”

“Excellent, Captain. Now where were we…ah yes, the Sentients.”

“There isn’t much to tell I’m afraid. They contacted Val about six
months ago to arrange a meeting.”

“And she didn’t think to inform Sector Security?” I said
incredulously.

She bristled, as if personally insulted. “Absolutely not! They
made that a prerequisite for any meeting.” She lowered her voice. “You have to
understand, Commander; my sister is the preeminent geneticist in the galaxy,
and the Sentients are
the
genetic mystery left unsolved. She couldn’t
say no.”

I shook my head, they were a mystery alright—a deadly one. “Then
what happened?”

“She met them. Right here in the dome! I don’t mind telling you
that when their ship entered orbit I wasn’t happy. I was terrified in fact. But
Val just kept telling me how terribly important it was to help them.”

“Help them? Help them what?” I asked.

“I can’t say. She wouldn’t tell anyone. She locked herself in her lab—just
the three of them. It was strange to say the least. I
can
tell you that every
one of our fifty odd staff were terrified. Some even considered leaving.”

“I bet,” I said, picking at my food. I noticed that Stinson was
devouring his share, but paying close attention to the exchange.

“They know how we feel about them,” Breth said. “They came in a
very small ship, and keep their distance from everyone. They have done
everything Val has asked them to do without question. We’ve managed to adapt to
their presence, Commander, but to say we are comfortable might be an
overstatement.”

“Do you think their work together has anything to do with your
sister’s disappearance?”

“Possibly, but how can we find out.” She paused and looked at me
somberly. “Do you think she is still alive, Commander?”

“Undoubtedly. If they wanted to kill her, she would have been left
in the ship with the pilot.”

“That makes sense I suppose. You will find her won’t you?” Stinson
looked over at me, wondering at my response, curious to see just how much I
would promise.

“We will do our best,” I assured her.

We ate in silence for a few minutes, then Lesa asked, “Is that a
wedding ring on your finger, Commander Malik?”

Breth looked up from her plate. “It is,” I answered, “my wife was
killed at El Ferras.”

Stinson looked at my face in awe, but Breth spoke first. “You were
at El Ferras?”

“I’m
from
El Ferras.”

“I’m…I’m sorry, Commander. I didn’t know that. Um, just how old
are
you?” she asked.

“As old as you and your sister I imagine. Ferran Commandos were
some of the first recipients of Permalife. At the time, of course, we were taking
it for its healing abilities; none of us expected to survive to thirty, much
less live forever.”

“You were a Ferran Commando…and survived the siege? Amazing,”
Stinson said.

“Barely survived is more like it, but here I am nonetheless.”

“But you still wear the ring,” Lesa said, bringing the
conversation back around to her initial question.

“Yes,” I said

“Ever since my aunt developed Permalife, marriage has become
viewed as a quaint old custom. ‘Till death do us part’ has taken on a new
meaning now that people don’t die. Marriage as an institution is practically dead,
Commander. Why still wear the ring?”

I looked down at the simple gold band on my finger, remembering my
wife—the life we had, and the children we never would. “I just do,” I replied.

As if privy to my thoughts, Lesa asked, “Do you have any
children?”

“No. At that time, we didn’t know the treatment caused sterility.
In fact, I’m not even sure Miss Evans had finished her testing yet. Things were
pretty desperate back then.”

Speaking of which
. “Miss Evans, how is it
that you have a daughter when you and I are both from the same era?”

 “Ah,” she smiled. “I can thank my sister for Lesa. Val harvested
some of my eggs for her incessant experimentation, and when I decided I wanted
a child, she surprised me with Lesa. That was eighty six years ago. Now its
standard practice for a woman to preserve her eggs before undergoing the anti-aging
treatment, but in those days, no one thought to do it. Val gave me a second
chance.”

It was a chance Natasha and I never got… Enough reliving the past;
there’s no time I’d like to forget more than that damned war.

“We should be on our way,” I said, sliding my chair back from the
table. “Where is Val’s laboratory?”

“Oh it’s right outside,” Breth replied. “It’s the building with
the airlock. She keeps everything of importance in there, including her
personal console. We searched it immediately, as soon as we heard about…well
it’s still unlocked.”

“Her personal console is in the lab? Not in her office or bedroom?”
I asked.

“Commander, my sister has banished all electronics from her wing
of the house. When she is here, she is….offline as it were. Besides her
incessant gardening, she says it’s the only way she can relax.”

“She is responsible for the flowers?”

“Oh it’s almost as big an obsession as her work, Commander.
Anything she can do by herself and avoid people I suppose. In all though, the
garden is very beautiful.” 

“It is indeed.” I held out my palm, and Breath rose from her chair,
producing her own. “Thank you for your hospitality, Miss Evans.”

“Please, call me Breth,” she said.

“Breth,” I conceded. “We’re going to the lab to check Val’s
communications logs, and anything else we might find, then we’ll be leaving for
Harrakan.”

Stinson stood as well. “Thank you for dinner, Miss Evans.”

“Breth, please, and do contact me as soon as you find out anything.”

“We will,” I promised.

“Thank you, Commander. Lesa, please show them to the lab.”

“Yes, mother.”

*****

 “Marriage isn’t all that’s suffered,” Lesa said, walking across
the grass to the lab’s entrance. “People are killing themselves as well, Commander.”

Unfortunately, she was right—suicide had been on the rise for the
past forty years. Some people simply had enough of life and didn’t want to live
forever; others adopted various religions, most offering different versions of
eternal life—but all of them universal in requiring a person to die
first
.

“I know,” I replied. “I’ve had to investigate a few high profile
deaths to make sure they weren’t homicides.”

“My aunt was working on an antigen to Permalife. Did you know
that?” she asked.

“No. I didn’t. Why?”

“She saw the suffering, Commander; she wanted to give people a
choice—the ability to start aging again if they wished. She was even trying to fix
the sterility.”

“That
is
interesting. How far along was she?”

“As far as I could tell, she was almost done—with the aging
problem anyway. The infertility issue was much more difficult to fix I
gathered.” Her face brightened. “Imagine it, Commander, death would give
meaning back to life; marriage, children, death,
then
eternal life—just
as god intended.”

Her faith was almost palpable. “But my aunt isn’t religious; she doesn’t
care about any of that; she just wants to keep people from killing themselves,
to give them some control back over their lives.”

We arrived at the entrance and Lesa pulled out an electronic key
to unlock the door. “No one would ever come in here without permission, but
Aunt Val is always worried about someone messing with her experiments.” The
door swung open and the three of us walked in, descending a set of stairs that
led to a wide open area stuffed with equipment.    

The lab was exactly what I had envisioned; large electronic displays
with formulae and calculations I didn’t recognize, small machines for housing,
sifting, and manipulating biological samples, and unexpectedly, potted plants
interspersed throughout the space—each with its own makeshift light above it. 

I found Val’s terminal, still unlocked just as described. I
downloaded everything into my pad while Stinson and Lesa looked around the room.
When the sync was complete, I promptly sent a copy off to Sector Security via
broadlink.
Let some much smarter people than me analyze it
, I thought. I
would look at it all en route to Harrakan, but there was certain to be things
in those files far beyond my understanding.