Koban: The Mark of Koban (56 page)

Tet had a technical question. “Rafe I know
what an SG is, I’ve heard mention of an SG1 and an SG.5 bandied about in
conversations, which I’ve overheard between you ‘brain trust’ scientists types.
Yesterday, Aldry said something to Maggi about TGs and used some numbers. What
are you folks talking about?”

Rafe nodded. “OK, a simple chart, and I hope a
fast explanation.” He paused a moment to order his thoughts, and turned to an
electronic drawing board, and wrote with a finger, which a computer turned into
print.

SG

SG.5

SG1

TG

TG.5

TG1

STG

TTG

“Second Generation you know, but I bet you
haven’t thought about graduations within that group. We commonly call all of
the initial clone mod generation, ourselves included, SG’s, but there is a
difference between, say Ethan and Carson, and most of the SG kids born over in
Hub City.”

Mirikami nodded. “Since you divided them that
way, it’s obvious. Almost none of the Hub City kids have the redundant Koban
nervous system. They were born only with the old clone mods, which are entirely
derived from human genes. Nearly all of our kids have the Koban superconductor
nerves. Is that the reason for the numbers?”

“Yes, for the SG numbers. The Hub City kids
are SGs, ours are really SG1’s, and if the two groups intermarry and have
children, their offspring will be SG.5s. Exhibiting some combination of genes
from both their parents, meaning about half will inherit Koban nerve genes,
half will not.

TG is Third Generation, which isn’t as
straight forward as we envisioned originally. We anticipated we would not see a
TG until two SG1’s married and reproduced, and we then incorporated the first
of the functional Koban genes in them. That’s the very muscle and bone
enhancements that we are discussing today, to give to our SG1’s.

We are skipping ahead to
create
TGs
earlier, because more years of research and testing have proved we can safely give
an SG1 additional Koban genetics. Intermarriage between TGs and SGs or SG1s creates
some other numbers.

A child of an SG1 and TG1 is an STG, Second
and Third Gen mixed. A child born as a Third Gen, not simply enhanced from a
SG1, is a TG1. A TTG will be a True Third Generation Kobani. One born with
every enhancement we envision, and both parents were TG1s.”

Rafe shrugged. “I said fast explanation, and I
lied. Sue me. But the chart’s simple.”

Mirikami laughed and quipped. “You’ll hear
from my lawyer.”

“Humph. I thought the nasty Krall had all
left.”

“A lawyer joke? Rafe, I thought a serious
scientist was above that.”

Maggi spoke up as Rafe opened his mouth for a
comeback. “Next genetic step, please. You two are like listening to Dillon and
Thad.” A satisfying four at once putdown.

“Oh…, right you are Maggi.” Rafe re-gathered
his thoughts.

“I’ll list the additional four Koban derived
enhancements we expect to see in TTGs from birth, or perhaps added to TGs, if
we have more animal tests to prove we can enhance them again safely. We may add
even more Koban genes to our SG1’s that we turning into TGs. I know that this sounds
like incest, but we won’t always have to wait for our kids to grow up, marry,
and have kids to move along to some intermediate steps. We simply don’t want to
take too many steps at once.

“These next Koban mods I’ll describe are all
sensory system genes, with complex brain connections. We aren’t willing to try
them with the initial Koban mods, at least not yet. These will give us ripper night
vision, their sense of smell, and most importantly the contact telepathy sense.
Ripper night vision isn’t full Infrared, as the Krall have, but it seems
superior overall. We will also include ultrasonic hearing from the wolfbats,
placing the tiny bones of the additional ear ossicles behind the eardrum, out
of sight within the middle ear, and they connect to a new superconducting
auditory nerve.”

He looked around. “So…, that’s our list so far.”

Thad, speaking finally, said, “I think I got
everything, except for the icicles in the ears.” He grinned.

Rafe, at first puzzled, suddenly made the
connection. “Oh..., you mean ossicles. Those are tiny bones that…” Marlyn, with
a jab in Thad’s ribs, interrupted. “Excuse him Rafe. My smart assed husband
knows exactly what you said. It’s his lame sense of humor.”

“Ah, Yes. I see the joke now.” Rafe gave a
perfunctory chuckle.

Not to be left out, Dillon added, “We have all
the elements for a build-your-own super human kit.”

“I like our son just as
we
made him!”
Noreen retorted, still upset.

Aldry, sensitive to Noreen and Marlyn’s
objections, felt compelled to offer an observation. “Dear Ladies, we are
unlikely to ever see the mothers that bore each of us again. However, think
back. Would our
own
mothers have wanted us to undergo the gene changes
we needed simply to survive here? Yet our mothers would surely have wanted us
to live. Would your mothers feel different, if they knew that you experienced the
joys of having your own children here, made possible only by those changes?

“I’m positive you want your sons to survive,
to marry, and to have your grandchildren. They are now capable of basic
survival on Koban, but thriving, expanding, and long term survival is our goal.

“We know, eventually, the Krall are coming
back here. If a solitary Clanship returned in our lifetimes, would any of us
survive that meeting as are now? Your two teenaged sons are stronger than most
of the adult men in Prime City, but still physically helpless before our
greatest enemy. Do you not feel an obligation to see that our descendants are
prepared for that inevitable meeting?”

Noreen looked at her friend. “Aldry, I
accepted that Carson would choose the enhancements someday. I bore all three of
my children with that knowledge, even expectation. I didn’t want it while they were
so young. I know Carson wants this so bad he can taste it, and he has the legal
right to do it now. Even if Tet’s alternative age of eighteen were in place, Carson
just turned seventeen. I have to let him become a full Kobani man, and it may
as well come while he’s young enough for it to go more smoothly.” She sighed,
and Dillon put his arm around her.

Mirikami shrugged, yielding to the inevitable.
“What’s the plan Rafe? Staged implementation of the two mods they can have now,
bones and muscles separately, or do both together?”

“Well, the new law says they can decide, to
select which mod and when, or to skip them. My team recommends both together,
to use as much of their young growth potential now, and get the physically
uncomfortable phase over all at once. That will take about two months, and
require a reduction in their normal level of near hyperactivity.” He laughed at
the truth of that last remark. All the SG1s stayed quite active.

Thad spoke up again. “We should have built
that brig I suggested years ago. Then we’d have some place to lock them down.”

Marlyn looped her arm through one of Thad’s.
“You know the kid spy network spotted us coming to the lab, right? That means
they know what we are discussing, and what the law says we have to allow them
to decide. Lover, how about you and I talk to Ethan together, right now, and
tell him we both support whatever he decides.”

She pulled his head down and kissed him, and
said, “It will go hard on you tonight if I see the slightest sign of you
gloating over winning this small battle. The war could turn ugly at bedtime
pal. I’m willing to negotiate a vigorous peace treaty, but remember that Kit
doesn’t like company sleeping in her own den if the peace is broken.”

The tough former Colonel merely smiled and
said “Yes Mam.”

****

Carson was rubbing at the injection spots that
still itched after leaving the gene lab. Ethan was digging at a couple of spots
as well. It had been embarrassing to have both their mothers there to observe,
since they had to get naked. They made their Moms turn around when they had to
drop towels and get into the boxes. It was ridiculous that they both told them
that they were their “mothers, and had changed their diapers.” So what? That
was before they were men!

On the way past the end of the lab, they nonchalantly
waved at their friends sitting outside, waiting for their own turns at the
upgrades. It was as if this was no big deal for the two of them. Just another
run-of-the-mill adventure, like many others they were famous for at school.
Their heart rates had given the lie to their pretended casualness when they
entered the box. Not that they knew that, of course.

Ethan’s younger brother Bradley, only fifteen
and too young for the process, ran up to ask them how it went. Did it hurt, was
it scary, a rain of other questions followed.

“Hold off, bat brain. I’ll tell you about it.
We were told to head straight to the Great Hall for some yucky food,
supplemented with Koban minerals. You can come if you want.”

“I already ate. What was it like?”

Carson, deciding to make it a real story, told
him “They put you naked in this box, full of long thick needles, and close the
lid on you, leaving you in the cold darkness. Then they lie to you and say
relax, it won’t hurt. They do a countdown, but before the end of the count,
they surprise you when over a
hundred
needles plunge into your body, all
over. It injects the carrier virus that inserts the new genes into your DNA.
They stick even your eyeballs, and into your private parts. You know what I
mean? It’s like fiery agony.” He rubbed at his groin, pretending pain, and thinking,
that should worry him.
He was wrong.

“Glitzy! Let me go tell the ones still outside
waiting.” He ran off to spread the tale of gruesome horror, and to no doubt
embellish the partial fabrication even more. He knew his big brother and Carson
too well to believe their stories at face value. His Dad had told him there was
a box, and it did inject you, but with aerosol injectors, after you received an
anesthetic. He said it didn’t hurt, but did itch a bit afterwards. He was
really going to frighten the girls. They had seen him talk to Ethan and Carson,
the first two to have the procedure. They’d believe him.

Ethan looked at Carson. “That was mean…, I
wish I’d thought of it.” They shared a good laugh at the kid brother’s expense.

“That was a nice touch, Carson. ‘Fiery agony’ in
your privates. You are an evil genius.”

****

It was fiery agony! He felt so stupid. Carson
was
really
sorry that he had manipulated that particular ‘muscle’ of his
anatomy. He was bored, horny, and wanted to see how strong his muscles were
getting. It was the third week of this restricted activity crap. Why couldn’t
they have had the vote back when school was in session? He could at least be
avoiding homework and not fun. It took him hours to get to sleep.

His mother intruded on his mood of self-pity the
next morning. “Get cleaned up, you look and smell bad. Aunt Aldry is coming by
to check on your progress, and she’s bringing a portable brain scanner. Let’s
hope she finds
something
inside that lumpy unkempt hairy mess you call
your head.”

“You have a real talent for comedy Mom. Ha,
Ha! See how entertained I am?” Sour mood aside, a hot shower not only did
not
make the burning worse, he felt much better afterwards. Who knew? The parental badgering
to keep clean and get dressed each day, trying to make him get out of bed and
pajamas, might actually work to improve his mood. He’d hate to let them know if
it actually worked. Couldn’t set a precedent he’d have to live with later.

Aunt Aldry showed up as promised, a suitcase
sized box on roller wheels in tow.

“Noreen, it’s good to see you.” They exchanged
hugs.

“Dillon tells us that you have been stuck here
at home, with some sort of dirty troglodyte?” Smiling, she glanced across the
living quarters and spotted Carson, sitting in front of a Tri-Vid set, watching
some ancient flat image movie. “I see yon trog, and he appears to have cleaned
himself off a bit. How go’s it today Carson?”

In a permitted concession to his changing
muscles, he wasn’t expected to get up, so he waved. “I took a shower and
shaved, just for you, Aunt Aldry.” He returned his attention to the old western
he was watching. Aunt Maggi had gotten him hooked on some of them, if they were
in color.

At the mention of his shaving, Aldry looked
quietly at Noreen, and pantomimed feeling whiskers and shaving, the raised
eyebrows making the silent question obvious.

Noreen smiled and shook her head no, and shrugged.
Carson had started a weekly shaving ritual a couple of months before he
received the gene mods. He had only the usual adolescent fuzz, and unless a man
wanted treatments to grow a beard, centuries old gene mods had virtually
eliminated unwanted beards four hundred years in the past. However, the rough
and tough men in the old movies he watched sometimes shaved, and so he thought
he should. The inevitable nicks and cuts were his badge of manhood, which he
seemed to show off mainly to girls as proof of his maturity. To the adults, it
proved exactly the opposite.