Koban: The Mark of Koban (9 page)

He told Aldry what he knew. “Rafe and his team are
convinced, as I am after working with them, that the new parallel nervous
systems functioned, transmitting and receiving nerve impulses as rapidly and
strongly as we see in Koban’s native animals.”

He continued, determined to prove to her he was making an
informed decision, “The Earth evolved animals continued to function normally,
in most respects, and grew and thrived until their unfortunate, for them
anyway, demise for the necropsies, and the subsequent dinner table functions
held in their honor.”

“There is the catch,” she pounced. “I heard you acknowledge
it. You said functioned normally
in most respects!
I’m aware of those
particular ‘respects’ Dillon, and we don’t know how the faster than normal nerve
signal delivery affected the way they think.”

“What does a cow, pig, or sheep think, anyway? We can’t know
that.”

“We know that they exhibited higher levels of stress
hormones in the beginning, and also based on observing reactions to startling
events we manufactured to test them. We found that when they did finally react
via the original slower nervous system, they overreacted, much more than the
same fear induced event caused in control animals.”

Rafe, the scientist that headed the so-called Koban Gene
Initiative, interjected his own comment now. “Aldry, Dillon and I are convinced
that the initial stress levels, which diminished after a few days I remind you,
were caused by the rapid delivery of fight or flight related impulses. The
organic superconducting nerves send signals that their brains could not process
in time to transmit useful impulses to respond to the threatening stimuli.

“Both Margret and Jason in my lab hypothesized that the test
animals recognized a need to react before they could make it happen in reality.
Even sending a signal more rapidly back from a slow reacting brain
can not
make a slow reacting muscle system twitch significantly faster. That has to be
a source of stress,” he suggested.

“It’s probably something like a short term premonition that
can’t be acted upon as soon as you wish you could.”

He explained with an analogy. “Let’s say you spotted a
deadly
poisonous
spider on your arm, and it took you five seconds to brush it away after you saw
the danger, but you wanted to do it in the first second. Would you feel
stressed about that extra four seconds? A roughly five times faster return
signal reaches the muscles via the superconducting nervous system, but they
can’t
react because they are not properly connected. The normal functional impulse to
activate
the muscle to twitch arrives via the old nervous system, five
time later than they wanted to act.

“If the brain had been able to process the inbound
information faster, we believe the fast outbound signal back to a muscle connected
to the new nerves would be generated significantly sooner, thus improving on the
factor of five speed increase.” However, he wasn’t finished yet.

“As you know, the next generation Kobani will be
born
with this parallel nervous system in place by inheritance. In addition, those
children will be able to accept a modification to the neural network tissue that
can actually respond to the faster signals to and from the brain. The enhanced
musculature they will inherit from the parents will respond faster, but with no
more strength than we already gave to poor old slow Thad and Dillon here.”

“Thanks. I
think
. I hope you meant physically slow.”

“I did Thad,” Rafe replied, grinning. “The dual passing of
‘ghost’ signals, as we are calling the slower old nerve impulses, will be
present in the SG kids, but they will be able to react faster using the
superconducting nerves. Instead of a premonition, they should experience a
sense of
déjà vu when the
slower signal arrives and they have already finished the action
.”

Aldry was swayed somewhat, but still had a question
concerning mental stability for a human subject. “You don’t think that Thad or
Dillon, being aware that far ahead of the action needed and unable to execute
the action, won’t be driven a bit nuts? If you don’t mind a nonscientific
description of a condition I have no training to analyze.”

“That’s something we can pose to the one
psychologist and two
psychiatrists
at Hub City,” Rafe proposed.

“Rafe,” Aldry answered, “they went there
because they are opposed to our project. Do you really think you can convince
them to become part of helping us be more successful?”

“It doesn’t matter Aldry,” Dillon interjected.
“We have to try this, or else our whole survival plan for humans on Koban is
out the window. Despite a wisecrack that I know Maggi would deliver in
rebuttal, Thad and I are aware of what’s happening. Unlike the ignorant animals
were.”

He raised a warning eyebrow at Aldry as she
appeared about to fill-in for the absent feisty Maggi Fisher. She smiled and
held her tongue.

“Thad and I survived our last hunt by dumb
luck and fast thinking. We will never match a whiteraptor in strength, but greater
speed and strength would allow our grandchildren to react fast enough to use
the weapons and defenses we already have. If I’d had five times as much mental
preparation available to consider my first shot at that beast, as it climbed
the rocks, and the physical ability to hold my aim steadier, it would never
have reached us.”

“Does Noreen know you plan to do this?” Aldry
asked. “Maggi informs me the two of you have discussed, as she quaintly put it,
‘tying the knot’ soon.”

Puzzled and blank looks from Thad and Rafe
made Aldry laugh. “That means the same thing as ‘signing the line’ means today,
Gentle Men. Maggi likes using archaic terms when she has a chance to put those
dumbfounded expressions on anyone’s face.”

Dillon had taken the unusual and normally
brazen step for a male, of
offering
to sign a marriage-with-children
contract with Noreen. Gentle Men traditionally
accepted
such offers from
Ladies.

In this case, he had needed to know her personal
position on the genetic modifications he was planning to accept. If she weren’t
interested in a contract for children after he had ‘gone Koban,’ as it was
described, then he would not volunteer for this next step. He loved her more
than long-term survival meant to him.

However, she had enthusiastically agreed, followed
by another of their exhausting marathon love fests. It was Jungle boy versus
Queen of the Jungle fantasy time.

Noreen had wanted to volunteer with him, but
Dillon insisted that the contract signing and her own modification had to await
the results of his and Thad’s first Koban gene mods. She would return from Hub City before implementation of the new program.

Aldry relented, since she had no more
arguments to present, and there were certainly no better-informed volunteers. Thad
had agreed at every step, and so they now had the first two human subjects
ready to “go Koban.”

****

The shuttle deposited the sling load of fresh
meat near the north entrance of the Hub City dome, with a number of eager
residents ready to unhook the provisions.

Looking at the dome, it struck Mirikami by how
uniform the Krall were in all of their structures. On reflection, there was
sameness in Clanships, shuttlecraft, trucks, weapons, in fact everything he had
seen of their artless society.

The closest he had encountered to literature
for the Krall were histories of their conquests, instruction and operating manuals,
and inventories of equipment and supplies. The histories themselves might
contain a bit of art, since he’d observed a tendency to interlace facts with exaggerated
details to enhance a warrior’s accomplishments, or a clan’s greatness.

Krall technology all seemed manufactured from
standard designs, apparently produced by slave labor unless there was a class
of Krall humans had not seen.

These unfeeling creatures didn’t name the
places they lived or their ships, since they were merely objects to use.
Similarly, a human had no personalized name for a hairbrush, shoe, or a Tri-Vid
hologram system. The Krall used words that described these things, that told where
they were located, or which clan used them, but didn’t assign names to them.
Conversely, the Krall did use the human names for things and places when they
spoke Standard.

The dome for Hub City was simply a scaled up
version of the one at Prime City. It had the same fusion plants and furnishings
(few of the latter), wheeled and tracked ground transports, and a ringed outer
wall and electric fence. The outer compound here extended out to a roughly
forty-two mile radius, except for a cut-out where it met the sea. This provided
almost three times the original walled area that Prime City had.

The Krall had not blasted their gates open here
when they left, or destroyed their fusion plants as they had at the human
compound. To make the dome habitable, they had needed only one of the human
fusion bottles to provide the startup current to reinitiate fusion reactions in
the three Krall power systems.

Clearly, the Krall never expected humans to
make it away from the opened up and exposed compound where they left them to
die. In their version of efficiency, they saw no reason to destroy another
compound that might be useful to them at some unspecified future date.

“Tet, look at her,” Noreen indicated through
the cockpit windscreen as Jorl’sn set them down on the tarmac. “Cahill is
waiting at that tiny grandstand for you, wearing blue robes, of all things. You
should have worn your Smart Fabric formal uniform.”

Before Mirikami could respond, Maggi shot that
notion down. “No, your casual civilian attire is fine, Tet. She has dressed
herself almost exactly like a Presidential appointed Governor of a New Colony
world. That little dais deliberately has room only for her and the three
cronies with her. They are people she appointed to ceremonial positions,
present just to kiss her ass and make her look important. Expect a handpicked
spontaneous
crowd to be ready to trot out to listen to her. ” Maggi snorted her distain.

“Tetsuo Mirikami,” she spoke to him firmly, “you
will
for once, accept my political advice. I
strongly
urge you to
wave politely to her as you walk directly past her and into the dome. March straight
to their Great Auditorium, climb up on one of the tables that you shipped here,
and address the people that you came to feed. You are not her uniformed delivery
boy answering her summons, to stand obediently at her feet.”

Now Mirikami knew why the shrewd little woman
had talked him out of wearing a utility uniform today when he insisted on
making the trip.

“I assure you, for our future good relations
with these people, you must make them identify you, and Prime City, as their actual benefactors, and not Cahill the politician. She’ll look ridiculous as she
gathers her flowing robes and scurries down to hurry after you with her
groupies in trail. When she arrives, you’ll be standing on a table already
speaking to the people, and looking down at
her
. The three of us will be
standing on the bench seats, and slightly lower. Cahill will not be able to
clamber up to try to dominate the moment. Your casual informality will be
warmly received, more so than her puffed up obvious display of self-importance.
Don’t you dare call her Governor?”  She looked him right in the eyes, to see if
he had received her message.

“OK, Maggi.” Tet agreed with a nod.  “I’ll
follow your suggestion, because it’s good advice. Besides, I forgot to borrow a
cup from Dillon and I don’t want to get whacked in the groin.”

The three Ladies laughed delightedly at the
remark. Maggi was known for her physical retaliations on her younger scientific
protégé. The two frequently sparred verbally, but the diminutive little old
woman often resorted to thumping Dillon on his prominently and fashionably
displayed groin. Dillon had taken to wearing an athletic cup.

Socially, men had become somewhat peacock-like
in society, a custom deriving from a male population more-than-decimated by the
Gene War, which nearly ended the human race less than three generations ago.
Fashion trends had led to many men wearing flamboyantly colored clothing, which
displayed their physiques if they were well proportioned, and placed brightly
colored accent patches over their manhood. This advertised their reproductive value
to the Ladies in the social market place.

Dillon possessed brilliant scientific
credentials, which unfortunately qualified him as a geek in any age. Therefore,
the young full professor had overcompensated by wearing the fashionable
clothing of an available stud advertising his “wares.” A former Ladies man, he
was now a one-Lady-man with Noreen Renaldo, the First Officer on the Flight of
Fancy.

However, absent a clothing store or tailor on
Koban, his larger than average frame was stuck with the wardrobe he’d brought
with him when the Krall captured the Flight of Fancy. Maggi treated Dillon’s
accent patches as her bull’s eye, for rebuttals that abruptly ended discussions.

No sooner than the shuttle hatch raised and
its four occupants stepped onto the pavement, fifteen or twenty people exited
from under the overhang of the dome entrance, right on cue.