Koban: The Mark of Koban (55 page)

He sat down with a sour grin on his face,
shaking his head in dismay. “God, it’s going to be hell trying to rein in
reckless teenaged super humans.”

Dillon came to the defense of those teenagers.
“Tet, the risks and threats of this planet made most of the kids more cautious
and well behaved when they were younger. Those lessons will carry through with
them now.” 

Mirikami thought,
he surely means the
other
people’s kids.

Quick to demonstrate the fallacy in Dillon’s
argument, Tet aimed directly at the two notable exceptions he and Thad would
find it hard to ignore. Their oldest sons.

Mirikami ticked off the list of questionable
and risky things those two boys had tried or actually accomplished. “Carson and
Ethan live tested saddles to ride rhinolo, in a stampede that they deliberately
caused. They tried pulling plows behind wild
moosetodon for farming the
savanna
. Teased a whiteraptor from the walls, just to pluck the
forearm feathers when they tried to climb up, giving the feathers to girls. Went
out of the compound and caught a desert panther in a hand net so they could
check its frill. Went backpacking to the foothills to the north, a hundred ten
miles away for three weeks after school ended this past summer, completely
unapproved. Without Kobalt along, they’d probably be dead. Do you recall the
wolfbat capture when they were only eight or nine? These are just some of the dangerous
things that we
know
they’ve done, with their
current
physical capabilities.
Do you think making them stronger and faster will curtail that sort of risk
taking?”

Maggi offered her opinion. “They were going to
do those things anyway, Tet. Hell, they
did
do them. Being faster and
stronger would have made their chances of success, or at least of survival,
that much greater each time.”

It was Mirikami’s turn to snicker. “How fast
and strong do you have to be, to not get trampled in a rhinolo stampede when your
poorly designed saddles slide down a rhinolo’s humped sloping back and on the
ends of their butts? It must have been like steering an avalanche, with those
useless ropes on the side nose horns. Without Kobalt and Kit there to save them
by splitting up the herd and cutting their rides out of the crowd, they probably
would have been trampled into mushy red mud at age fifteen. To what purpose?
Who
the hell
wants or needs to ride a rhinolo? I say those seventeen year old
boys are still too immature, and there will be admiring sixteen year olds
joining them, following the bad examples.”

Dillon started to speak in his son’s defense.
“I think it would be thrilling to ride a…” he was rudely interrupted by a whack
on the head from Maggi.

Crap!
He thought.
Sides sure change fast around here.

“You aren’t helping their case you childish
twit,” Maggi told him. “You
presumably
have the maturity Tet expects
them to display before they receive the next Kobani mods. Bad example,
knucklehead.”

Mirikami, normally entertained by the
bickering between Maggi and Dillon, was worried about not just his two godsons,
but for all of the Second Generation kids. “Let’s get the Circle together and
go talk to Rafe.” He Linked with the AI.

“Jake, locate the rest of the Inner Circle
members and invite them to meet with me at Rafe’s lab, and tell Rafe we will be
visiting him in about a half hour.”

“Yes Sir.”

He was referring to the former Koban Committee
members, which had evolved into calling themselves the Inner Circle, which had
formulated the early tactics for surviving on Koban. First against the Krall,
and later against the hostile native environment. Both challenges had been
partly met with genetic technology out of Aldry and Rafe’s labs.

He saw both Maggi and Dillon roll their eyes,
thinking at first they were in disagreement with him to meet, until he listened
to their replies. He heard an exasperated Maggi say, “Jake, Dillon and I were
standing right next to him when he made the invitation. You can see us all
right there on that camera.” She pointed at the lens in irritation.

Dillon merely sighed and said, “OK Jake, I’ll
be there.” Mirikami
had
asked the literal AI to invite the
rest
of the members.

After seventeen years, the same basic group of
people made most of the decisions about what direction the gene modifications
would take, and which Koban mods would, or would not be used. Rafe’s department
decided when they could be used, and to be integrated in what order.

 With time, and general acceptance of
some
gene
mods, the number of people considered part of the “Circle” had grown only slightly,
but secrecy about mods was no longer an issue.

There was SG children and modified humans
living in Hub City, as well as Prime City. Not all SG kids had Koban nerve genes,
because many conservative Hub City parents would not accept the legal risks of
accepting alien genes for themselves, to pass to their children. That was an
odd and meaningless legal position to take in some respects. Under Hub law, the
clone derived modifications that made their survival here easier, and bearing
children possible, already placed all of them at risk of the death penalty back
home. Koban genes wouldn’t earn you a “more serious” death penalty.

****

Rafe was well aware of Tet’s concerns, and of
his general opposition to implementing the next round of Koban genes with youngsters.
The appointed “Commander,” after seventeen years of universal acceptance, had finally
insisted on shifting the city to elected civilian leadership, and he had urged
Maggi to run for mayor.

Tet hadn’t realized how strongly five of the eight
Inner Circle members had been in favor of making the next steps in gene mods
available so soon. Maggi won election, and had promptly circulated a petition
to see if there was support for a city law to give sixteen year olds a say in
their genetic future. She smartly had the kids pass it around, ensuring full
coverage and maximum lobbying at home. It was close to a 50-50 split on the polling,
so she put the measure to a vote.

Tet, Noreen, and Marlyn were the only members
of the Inner Circle that had campaigned to wait until the kids were legal
adults, at age twenty-one. Slightly
less
than a majority of the dome’s
adult population had agreed with them. The slight majority of those over
twenty-one voters, 51%, had said that the teenagers destined to receive the new
mods should have some say in
when they got them
,
not
merely
if
they wanted them
. Sixteen was old enough most said, since they had carried
guns (jazzers first) from the age of six.

The geneticists in two different labs had reported
on the research and testing of the various Koban mods on livestock. The mods were
thoroughly studied, and every problem they had identified had been corrected.
The work had resulted in a number of “super” goats and pigs that could compete
with the native fauna (inside the compound). With wolfbats and rippers now in
partnerships with humans, they were no longer the greatest threat. The modified
animals had proven adept at surviving outside on the native grasses and shrubs
(and human scraps). Their speed, alertness, and reaction times could handle
skeeters and small predators just fine. Not even the SG kids could catch them
easily, and they did make a game of that.

However, one facet of the animal gene work had
revealed that integration of the Koban mods worked faster, and better, the earlier
in the subject’s life they were introduced. When there still was some natural tissue
and bone growth ahead for the gene recipient. Otherwise, the changes would
cause considerable discomfort for a much longer period if introduced after
maturity. Human growth hormones could prolong the rate of growth, to assist the
process, but it had its limits when applied to an adult’s body. The expert’s
recommendations? An informed decision, made in the teen years, was the optimum
time morally, physically, and mentally, for a person to decide.

With the known opposition in mind, Rafe
mentally formulated his planned discussion around Tet’s and the two concerned
mother’s objections, even though he didn’t want to appear to direct it to them
specifically.

“OK, here we are again. It’s been years since
we last went over a list of new attributes available for various gene mods,
deciding what we can use right now, and in which particular order they should
be applied.” Aldry had made the previous presentation, back when it was only
human derived modifications under consideration. Rafe had become the Koban gene
expert.

Looking around the room at Marlyn, Thad,
Noreen, and finally Tet, he decided to start with basics that the four
nonscientists would better grasp. No matter had they heard some, or even most
of it previously. “Before I start, are there items or areas you particularly
want me to cover or focus on?”

Marlyn spoke up first. “I’ll have questions
about possible side effects on my son, but that can wait until you’ve finished.
However…,” she paused as she glanced to her side, “do you have use for waste
organics or useless body parts? I’ll be dismantling my dear husband shortly, if
he keeps smirking over his side’s ‘victory’ on today’s vote.” She shot Thad a
dark threatening look that wiped a smile off the burly military man’s face in
an instant.

Noreen echoed that look at Dillon, who had
been more careful to keep the elation out of his expression. Years of ‘playful’
whacks had taught him to use a poker face when the chips were down, and if he was
within arm’s reach. Maggi’s influence on his wife’s behavior was disturbing to
him. She had never conked him before they were married. It didn’t occur to him
that he
invited
that reaction by his sassy boy’s demeanor around women.

“Ladies, and Gentle Men,” Rafe said laughing,
“please settle your differences in the parking lot, after the presentation.”

Certain that salient points had been made by
the mothers, Rafe continued.

“As with one of the original human clone mods,
we have a Koban derived muscle improvement, where sheet-like filaments of carbon
fiber muscle tissue will infiltrate virtually every existing muscle in the
body, down to the eyelids, goose bumps, and butt cheeks. Initially we were
expecting to use genes from whiteraptors for this purpose, simply because
that’s where we first identified that tissue structure and the genes for them.
However, it turned out for a couple of reasons, that ripper genes are a better
match for our purpose. Rippers use the same carbon fibers in muscles, and pound
for pound, the muscles are just as strong. However, they also offer superior neural
interface compatibility with the eventual contact telepathy, night vision, and
scent mods we will also copy from our ripper friends.

“The new organic superconducting
neuroreceptor
s and
motor axons, which are presently lacking in those born with the parallel Koban
nervous system, will grow and link with the existing Koban nervous system in
their brains, and also with the new Koban muscle tissue. That will happen as
they all grow simultaneously.

“Conscious control of the new muscles with the
faster nervous system will gradually take place. The sense of
Déjà vu that
we
all experienced, when our new
super-fast nervous systems grew in, will be rather reversed for the SG
children. They never felt that “happened-before” sense, because they were born
with the superconducting nerves, and learned from birth what we adults
struggled with for months to learn. Ignore the first fast signal that tells our
brain we need to swat at a bug, and focus on the slower impulses that actually
controls our human muscles.

“The SGs
will be able, with focus and practice, to react to the faster signals and then
command those stronger muscles to move sooner, harder, and faster, to obey the
swifter processing of their brain. They will think faster and react faster than
we can.

“Animal
tests suggested that the ‘echo effect,’ the inverse feeling of Déjà vu, will
have them thinking ‘I already did that’ when the older human nervous system
finally sends a message to the brain, and it returns back to the old human nerve
receptors in their muscles. That will be at least five to ten times to slower,
I might add. In later generations, we might switch off growth of the older
slower nervous system, depending on the effects on interbreeding with Controls.
We will not abandon the principle that our children and grandchildren must be
able to marry and bear children with Normals. Not only
enhanced Normals
as defined on Koban. With Earth Normals.”

 “Next, coupled with Koban muscle strength,
are the whiteraptor carbon nano tubes that reinforce raptor bones. Rippers
don’t have this feature, nor need it for their smaller size and weight, but we
wanted it for ourselves anyway. It makes the weaker thinner human bones far
stronger without increasing bone thickness, and much less likely to snap if the
new muscles overexert. An interface with the nervous system is less vital here,
so raptor genes are OK for bones.”

Rafe looked around. “Questions so far? We have
talked about this for the last few years.”