Scuzzworms (19 page)

“Blow-dry?”

“Yeah.  Clear out the defunct vegetation.  It won’t rot with no fungi or bacteria.  It’s mechanically dried and blown out.  The frequency of clearing depends on the species mix you are using.  I was wondering if this was the same mix they used in the station on Felost.”

Post shrugged.  “Search me.  Whatever mix it is, the fruit is superb.  I thought we might pick a few grapes or a melon to take with us for dessert.”

Imelda nodded slowly, memories flooding back.  When she had been a teenager, she too had often visited the local arboretum to pick a few special items for lunch.  It had been there that her friends had gathered, to chatter over which variety had the best flavor or made the most delicious sauce.  She had been the clown, the goof with flowers stuck in her hair pretending to be... it didn’t matter.

“Suit yourself,” she answered.

Several minutes later they headed down the hall to the dining area, Post clutching a small cluster of kiwi.  Imelda left the observation tower reluctantly. She dared not return alone.  While the observatory was never crowded, she could not interact with anyone casually.   Business.  Only business.  That was what she must tend to.

Only,
what in Poseidon was she doing with Post?  She considered invoking Caldwell, but decided against it.  There was no reason to be alarmed, she reassured herself.  Fish had probably told Post to go with her anyway.  Fish did try to look out for her emotional health.  The dimwit.

The dining area was only one quarter full.  Not seeing Camille, they took a table near a corner, sitting down uneasily across from each other.

Camille buzzed them over the intercom at the table.  “Post, what did you order for me?  You know the most fabulous recipes!”

Post frowned.  “A mélange from Cordova.  Only the best...I make good on my promises.  Where are you?  We’re ready to eat.”

“I’m kind of busy.  We decided to eat here.  Would you mind very much sending our food to my room?  You two eat without us.  I trust you whatever you ordered.” 

“I thought this was supposed to be a foursome,” Post argued.

“Sorry,” Camille answered.  Can you send it?”

Post glanced at Imelda, whose heart was racing.  A setup.  She should have known. “Okay, I’ll send it over.  But you’ll pay for this.”  Camille and an unknown male voice were giggling as they hung up. 

Post busied himself with the foodbin briefly, inputting their orders, then sat back casually, examining her.  He had carried his container of beer throughout the walk, and upended it to finish it off, ordering another.

“Looks like it’s just the two of us.” he allowed.

Imelda grunted.  “Looks like,” she said.

“So tell me, what’s with
Caldwell?  Why does he keep shooting back to headquarters?  Is there some problem with the company?”

Imelda contemplated her syrupy container of soda.  Her entire body yearned for a good slug of vodka.  Even claret would have done nicely.

“I don’t know.  I stay out of his business.”

Post grunted.  “Since when?” he asked.

Imelda shot him a look.  “I stay out of everyone’s business.  It is everyone else who seems interested in mine.”

Post nodded.  “You seem to have a knack for doing business that is interesting,” he rebounded.  “You’re doing a good job on the scuzzhogs.  Why won’t you take full credit?”

Imelda shrugged.  “Look, Post, I said I’d eat dinner with you guys.  It is apparent that you intend to use this as a spying mission. I’ve already answered my quota of questions.  More than that is more than I will do.  Compute?”

Post nodded, strangely unruffled by her accusation.  Imelda was unable to understand his seeming tolerance of her.

She turned back to her food, toying with it, uncertain.

Post smiled at her.  God, he had a wonderful smile. “So, we’ll talk about the weather then.  Nice day we’re having, isn’t it?”

Imelda smiled at the ancient joke in spite of herself.  “Yup, the climate control is in control,” she gave the traditional response.  The food was delicious, and Post appeared to have decided to be civil and remain at arms length.  Imelda relaxed a little. Maybe this wouldn’t be so awful after all. The conversation wilted as they continued to eat, but for whatever irrational reasons, the smiles didn’t.

#

Caldwell sat unmoving in front of the computer terminal in his office.  Imelda waited patiently for him to finish scrolling through the letter in front of him.

“Damn Jinks!  He told Admin that we would be finished with the basic biology by last month and would be starting on the behavioral phase by now!  I don’t know where he came up with an idea like that, but it sure as hell wasn’t from me!”

Imelda frowned.  Jinks had apparently decided to tell Admin what they wanted to hear.  A nice delaying tactic, but destined to get them all in hot water.

“I’ve got to go back and straighten out this mess, Imelda.  You’ve got to push everyone to get the basics completed.  I can’t tell the board what even a simple life cycle is down there.  They are going to think we’re idiots.”

“What about my study?  I’m going to be busy watching bogs for the next few months.  How am I going to have time to do that and keep an eye on everyone else?”

He glanced at her.  “Imelda, I don’t know how but you’ve got to.  We’ve got to confirm that this ecology is unique and soon.  Get Jamison to help you.  Take a team and go down to the surface for specimens.  We can’t trust a machine to get specimens of your Borg creature; it needs to be a manned exploration.  We can’t risk a transmission delay when trying to catch an animal that big.   What is it you’re calling them now, anyway?”

“Borgettes.  Since Borg laid the eggs I’ve arbitrarily redesignated he as a she.  For lack of a better term, I’m calling them all borgettes.  I’ll give them a proper scientific name when and if I get a look at their anatomy.”

“I’m not sure your colleagues will allow the more descriptive terminology to die.  You must pursue the bogs and their borgettes.  I have left orders giving you permission to develop a ground team.  You’d better work fast.  We need tissue confirmation of your theory to show to the board.”

Imelda frowned and hesitated a little before answering.  “I understand your whys, but I’m not so sure about this.  The borgettes have all the signs of being a crucial part of the local ecology.  I would rather do more extensive noninvasive study before trying to biopsy a live one.  Usually on most planets we try to get tissue from naturally killed specimens rather than live specimens, so as to avoid influencing the natural death rate.  Too many ecologies are extremely fragile and respond adversely to any physical intervention.”

“I don’t think the worms are going to allow you a chance at any naturally killed specimens.  They prefer to collect the tissue themselves.  The only tissue specimens that we have received thus far have been from smaller species that we’ve been able to trap and biopsy.”

“Still, I would rather know a little more about the borgettes before sinking a needle into one.”

Caldwell
stood up and paced restlessly.  “What else are we going to learn without tissue, Imelda?”

“Lots of things.  How often they lay eggs, the variety of species each borgette produces, the interaction between the species produced and the borgette.  It would be nice to get comparative genomes from several of the species around each individual bog to see if any sequences are shared in common.”

“All of which will take time.  I can tell you right now, Biotech is not going to give us that time.  They will say we are incompetent and wasting their money.  We will be withdrawn and they will send a robotic unit to finish up.”

Imelda’s eyes widened irately.  “A robotic unit!  They would have to be crazy to do that!”

“Robotic units are a lot cheaper than biologists.  If CHA weren’t so strict about first-in research requirements, they would never hire biologists at all.  Just send in an automated unit to sample the terrain and trap a few specimens.  They could leave it down there for several years before returning to collect the results.  Very cheap.”

“And very dangerous to an unknown biosphere!”  She blurted.  She hesitated a little before saying her next words. “I am still not sure that there aren’t any intelligent species down there.”

Caldwell turned to stare at her in surprise.  “What? What do you mean?  I thought that we had pretty well established the lack of technology down there.”

She sighed.  “I guess I should have told you, but I decided to keep it under my hat for a while.  You know the number of unique individuals that we have discovered?”

“Yes?”

“Think about how we define intelligence.  An intelligence test designed for humans has little or no bearing on an alien culture.  Our tests look at human values and accomplishments only.

“When we look at an alien culture, we primarily look for evidences of advanced social structures.   We look for cooperative efforts in forming constructions.  We look for evidence of communications between individuals that result in coordinated activities of the social unit.  But based on that criterion alone, ants and bees are quite intelligent.

“So the individual intelligence of each member of a species has to play a role in our assessment.  Tool use has proven to be an unreliable means of assessing intelligence since some tool use has been genetically programmed into certain species.  So what do we look at?  Neobehavior. Nonstereotypical dwelling places.  Rapid adaptability in both social structure and mechanical/tool use.

“In other words, we look for concrete evidence of inductive and deductive reasoning ability.”

Caldwell
was unsure of what she was getting at.  “And?”

“Concrete evidence is difficult for a solitary individual to generate.  An infant human cannot survive alone.  A young untrained human is worse off than a chimpanzee.  A large percentage of our instinctive knowledge gets written over by learned knowledge as we grow and develop.”

She sighed.  “The human mind is a marvelous thing.  A child can so easily learn in a few years things that took thousands of years for mankind to discover.  Books are our collective society’s memory banks.  Any individual can know only a tiny part of the whole, a tiny percentage of what our intelligent society has learned.”

“You’re digressing, Imelda.”

“A solitary intelligence is little more than an animal, regardless of actual level of intellect.  Einstein would have been a savage in a savage society.  He would have become little more that a good berry picker had he been isolated from the society that influenced him.

“I worry about all those solitary individuals down there.  I worry about leaving any machinery around that they could learn from.  All that we have documented thus far is that there are no advanced social structures.  We have not ruled out a native intelligence.”

Caldwell stared at her, the muscles in his jaw working.  He stood up restlessly and walked over to stand in front of the large monitor screen that dominated one wall in his office.

His voice, when he spoke, was low, almost a whisper. “Advanced technology is magic, you know, magic to a primitive society.  When you haven’t discovered electricity, circuit diagrams appear meaningless.  There are some things that an intelligent individual could learn from us, I suppose. Maybe only religion.  But the concept you just mentioned, it’s, well, terrifying.  Singleton intelligence?  Arising in isolation and dying in isolation?  I don’t know, I still can’t see how it COULD happen.  But if it has....”

He turned to face her.  “Imelda, this puts an additional urgency on your work.  Biotech will never believe this idea.  We MUST have tissue evidence of this life cycle.  I must go immediately to Syned, to explain to them what we have.  Move in all of our observation points to watch the bogs.  As soon as you have enough evidence to prove that your original bog is not unique, go down for tissue and anatomical confirmation.  Pick the best for your team and supervise the operation personally.  Collect your specimens at a small bog, if you are worried about ecological effects.  Let’s move on it, the sooner the better.”

Imelda shook her head.  “Damn the corporate bottom line,” she muttered.

The spacesuit was too close, too tight.  She hated the blasted things.  Yet the chance to actually be on planet was, well, almost worth the inconvenience.  As she inhaled she could feel the air rushing past her cheeks to scurry into her nostrils.  Each exhalation brought an amplified swoosh to her ears and a warm sensation on her upper lip.  She waited stoically for her nervous system to accustom itself to the claustrophobia of the suit, thankful for the phenomenon of neuronal receptor adaptation.

She was vaguely apprehensive about her inability to verify each and every tiny detail of this foray.  Caldwell’s work had been absorbing, and it seemed that the universal hobby of her coworkers these days was to call for her advice.  She had been forced to rely on Post for much of the planning for this attempt and Post didn’t know about Trefarbe. 

She told herself again that it didn’t matter.  Trefarbe had been leaving her alone lately.  No confrontations, no threats, and all of her requests had been granted with a minimum of fuss.  Imelda was a little suspicious of Trefarbe’s sudden bent toward cooperation, but she didn’t have time to worry about it.

The pilot was an experienced one by the name of Lunders.  She had worked with him before on groundbase and trusted him. 

She had had a deucedly hard time convincing anyone besides Post to come with her on this expedition.   None of the other biologists expressed even the slightest desire to see a real live borgette slurping worms up close.  Only with Post’s urging had Grady finally agreed to help them with tissue collection, and Camille had reluctantly volunteered to collect the serologic specimens.

Pleister, the field tech who was to accompany them, she didn’t know.  That was not too surprising since she had successfully avoided meeting most of the non-biologists on the station.  Still, she didn’t like the number of unknowns on this trip.

She entered the docking bay area stiffly, unused to the unnatural rigidity of the suit material.  She checked the field kit installed in the hold of the ship carefully, making sure that all of the equipment was ready.  The dose of anesthetic for the darts had been calculated already, and she carefully loaded them in the gun, hoping she wouldn’t have to use one.

Another ship had stocked the stationary unit with aerosol a week previously.  Kellogg, who had agreed to help only if he could remain behind, would control that part of the operation.  He was already monitoring the bog from his workstation and had instructions to release the gas as soon as the waiting animals appeared aware of their ship’s arrival.

She was almost finished with her final checks when the other members of the team arrived.  They were jovial as they tossed their gear into the ship.

“Ready to go hunting worm guzzlers?” Lunders called out from the cockpit.

A collective spacesuited groan answered him.  Grady was the most vocal in his response.  He hadn’t been pre-immunized by watching scuzzhogs over Imelda’s shoulder.  “Chrysler no!  I’ve been dreading this all month.  I’m supposed to be a supervisor, for chrissake.  Iago may be a biological treasure trove, but it has some of the ugliest muck munchers I’ve ever seen.  I have no desire whatsoever to slop around in the goo with one.”  Grady’s sour expression was just visible through the reflecting faceplate.

Camille groaned agreement.  “We’ll be lucky if we get a specimen that isn’t fifty percent mud and fifty percent slime.  If anyone but Post had asked me, I would have told them to submit to a digital probe by an orangutan.”

Grady grunted sarc
astically,  “I think I’d rather if I had a choice.  Iago, pfft. ‘Iucko’ is more like it.”

Camille brightened.  “Iucko!  Iucko and the Scuzzhogs!  We should make a vidseries!  Think we’d get star billing?”

“Yes,” Grady rebounded.  “For being prize idiots.”  He glanced at Imelda wryly.  “Are you absolutely sure that the aerosol is going to work?”

Post, who had been listening in silent amusement, answered for her.  “It worked in the groundbase lab. Kept the buggers out for two hours.  We
can pour more on if we need to and the antidote will wake everyone up if something weird happens.  All contingencies accounted for.”

Imelda grimaced to herself at that comment.  She had never known all contingencies to be accounted for. Definitely a statement to bring bad luck.

Lunders was shaking his head.  “Beats me why you want to catch a scuzzhog, anyway.  Let ‘em suck mud, if you ask me.  What’s the point in seeing one in the open?  They can gag a special effects technician.”

The loading was c
ompleted with a minimum of fuss and the researchers piled in together.  Imelda, as she sat down, noticed that Pleister was quietly keeping to himself, an odd expression on his face.  She opened her mouth to say something to him but the roar of the take-off made her shut it again.

As the engine noise died down the others were soon chattering again.  Pleister took no part in the verbal ricochets.  Imelda shifted a little closer to him. “You okay?” she asked in a low voice, peering at his face.

“Yes,” he answered curtly.

She stared at him.  He didn’t look okay.

“Well, something’s wrong.  Trouble back at the station?”

“Nah.”

Imelda paused in frustration.  Normally she preferred to leave everyone to his or her own business, but this guy looked madder than a hornet.  If he was going to assist her on a delicate operation, she wanted to know what was going on before it became a problem.

She changed her tactic.  “Been on many of these operations before?”

The response was almost a snarl.  “Not like this.”

Her brow furrowed.  “Well, the specimen is a little ugly, for sure, but your procedure should be fairly routine.  We requested an experienced field tech for this go.  I thought you had ten years practical?”

“In maintenance operations, sure.  I can do spot checks on an entire planetoid if I need to, or track down a pinhole leak in an over-loaded colony ship.  I’ve never gone trapping animals before.”

“What!” Imelda almost roared.  “You’ve never handled specimens from a field operation before?”

The others turned to look at first Imelda, then Pleister, their expressions slack.

Pleister was incensed. “You’re damn right I haven’t!  I told that... oh, what’s her name, Treephart, that I hadn’t, and she said I had to go anyway.  She said it was just a routine specimen collection
and all I have to do is label and decontaminate.  I told her that she was crazy but she wouldn’t listen.  I logged a protest with my boss Ferrin, but he said that admin had approved it and there was nothing he could do!”

Imelda leapt up, bumping her head in the cramped quarters.  “What the devil did that she
-witch have in mind?  I’ll have her head in a Mash chamber!  Cancel, Lunders!  Ride us back up!  Trefarbe has infarcted her frontal lobes!”

Lunders
was staring at the verbal cacophony.  “Sorry Doctor Imelda, I can’t.  We’re committed to orbital decay now.  I’ll have to wait until we’re down before I can start us back up again.”

Post interrupted.  “Wait a minute, I checked your record, Pleister!  The computer suggested your name!  You’re fully certified in specimen procedures!”

“Sure.  I do surveillance collections on the station all the time, mostly microbiological.  I haven’t done any fieldwork like this.  Ain’t my specialty.  The damn computer had an error in my files!”

The computer!  Again!  Imelda turned to Post worriedly.  “Post, you know how difficult this run may turn out to be.  We don’t kno
w how effective the gas will be and we don’t know how the worms will react, especially since the gas won’t reach them in their burrows.  If the blasted things start acting up we won’t have time to double check Pleister’s work.  It’ll be execute fast and get out. I say let’s cancel.”

Post was uncertain.  “I don’t know, Imelda.  It was tough to get this time slot.  All of us are busy with our own projects.  It may be a month before we get another chance when we’re all free.”

“So let’s wait a month.  If Pleister isn’t happy with this then I’m not either.  The borgettes aren’t going anywhere.  I plan to tangle with them only once.”

Grady chimed in. “He’s not going to be collecting any specimens, Imelda.  He’s only going to be putting them into containers.  I can supervise him if it’ll make you feel better.  Half the flipping project is waiting to see what we find out.  They’ll be madder’n a high
-debit CEO if we come back empty-handed.”

“I don’t care.  It’s too risky.  Cancel, Lunders.”

Grady was now getting angry.  “Imelda, wait a minute. We can’t cancel without permission.  I’m going to call Operations to see what they say.”

Imelda turned on him, furious.  “Operations got us into this mess!  I will not take responsibility for attempting to complete a dangerous field exercise with improper staffing!  You know what Operations will say, Grady.  They’ll say ‘too late, please execute.’  They won’t admit they made a bad decision.  We don’t need to ask them.  Let’s just cancel now and go back home.  I’ll take the heat for it.  My performance record will never notice a few more black marks!”

A scowl of disapproval on his face, Grady whirled around to yell at Lunders.  “Call them! Let’s do it by the book!”

“You’re making a big mistake,” Imelda warned.  A survey of the faces around her told her she was not going to be listened to.  She cursed under her breath.  Time was running short.  Kellogg would release the gas that was to anesthetize the bog creatures any minute.  How much authority did she really have?  Time to pull rank.

A few minutes of irate conversation got them through to Trefarbe.  Trefarbe was at her most pleasant best on the monitor. 

“I simply don’t see what the problem is.  The computer itself approved the choice of personnel.  I cannot allow a cancellation on such a flimsy basis.  Don’t you realize how much fuel it takes to fly you down to the planet surface? Our supplies are much too limited to waste even one flight.  Pleister is perfectly qualified, Doctor Imelda.  You will proceed as planned.”

“The computer is fouled up!” Imelda snapped back.  “No dice, Trefarbe.  We cancel.”

A kindly look of strained patience darted across Trefarbe’s too
-perfect features.  “The decision is made, Doctor Imelda.  Dr. Kellogg has just requested permission to release the aerosol and I granted it.  You will execute as planned.  Goodbye.”

“What do you mean you told him to release the gas!”  Post barked in outrage as Trefarbe’s image faded.  “You have no authority...!”  His voice trailed off as he realized that the connection had been broken.

Imelda sat with her mouth open, incredulous.  Trefarbe had no right to intercept Kellogg’s message.  She listened with a sick sensation as Post called Kellogg and confirmed that the gas had been released.  Now they had no choice but to go on.

There was always a risk of a small percentage of deaths among the animals anesthetized in an operation like this, if only from falling off a tree limb.  Regardless of how she felt about Pleister, she could not call the operation off now, not when it would mean that those animals had died for nothing.

The others sat in stunned silence.  “Sorry, Pleister,” she said in a low voice.  “Whatever happens, this is my responsibility.  I should have reviewed the roster more carefully before take-off.”

“But I did review it...”, began Post. “The computer said...”

“Stow it, Post.  I knew Trefarbe was after me.  She doesn’t care about Pleister’s qualifications.”

Camille leaned forward to reassure her. “Nothing will go wrong, Imelda. You’re too paranoid.  Trefarbe checked the roster and Pleister was approved.  She must have realized that the gas had to be released right away.  I’m sure she didn’t do anything maliciously.”

Imelda didn’t answer.  The planet beneath them was no longer visible as a large azure and white ball but had expanded into continents surrounded by water, the hints of green and brown enlarging to become mountains and forests.     It was amazing how earth-like the place was.  Life required a narrow threshold of climate in which to flourish, just the right amount of water, minerals, heat, humidity.  The process of evolution is at once random and orderly, predictable only as survival of the fittest yet to be produced, flora and fauna subject to change when a more fit species appeared.

Iago IV, incredibly, did not appear to follow that rule.  Many species there did not seem fit for much of anything, malformed, unable to eat or reproduce, dying almost as soon as they hatched.  The borgettes played some as yet undefined role in that schema.  She ached to get the answer, to finally understand, to know.  The others in the shuttle with her did not understand how much she wanted to know, how her work was the only thing that mattered in her life, the only thing that ever could matter.    Yet, as much as she wanted to know, she could not tolerate going about it in the wrong way.

After an uncomfortable pause, Grady led the others in hurriedly reviewing with Pleister how he was to store the specimens, making sure he understood the special symbols and procedures used in field collections.

Imelda assisted in the process unhappily, at times almost stopping to call the mission off again, but she knew that the others would resist.  Her last conversation with
Caldwell returned to haunt her.  This could be their last chance before they were ordered home.  Trefarbe would do all she could to make sure that it was their last chance.  As they neared their landing area, she gave one final order.