Scuzzworms (24 page)

Kellogg had an expression of utter disgust on his face.  “Sure, we’ll go eat.  I have a special dish I’d like to serve you.  Amanita in a bed of rhus.  What in paraspace did you mean by sabotaging the project?”

Imelda headed out the door
with the others trailing behind.   She led the way to the observatory quickly, finding Post waiting for them.

“What the hell happened, Post?” she exploded.  “I told you to keep an eye on things!  I gave you an access permit!  Why didn’t you...?”

Post lit into her before she could scorch further. “It didn’t work!  Kreiss voided it!  Dammit, I don’t know how, but the computer has blocked me out!  It blanks out half the screen if one of my worms swims anywhere CLOSE to a scuzzhog!”  Post paused, his eyes smoldering.  “At first I figured that it wouldn’t matter because you had said that you would be back on the next ship, but then you didn’t come back.  I sent you a message.”

“What message?  I didn’t receive any messages!  When did you send it?”

“I didn’t want anyone else to intercept so I sent you a personal letter about five months ago.  You should have received it.”

Another curse word rolled out.  Imelda closed her eyes. “I never read personal letters!  I told the postal service to hold those on Syned!  I picked them up on the way here and I haven’t opened the bag!  Don’t EVER send me a personal letter!”

“Well, how in blazes was I SUPPOSED to contact you?”

“Priority message, of course!  You know, the usual!”

“Kreiss wouldn’t let us send any of those.  He said they were too expensive and said he had to review the contents to justify using them.  I didn’t know what else to do.”

“You could have paid for it yourself!”

“With what?  Biotech doesn’t pay us enough to buy a REGULAR postage stamp. I don’t have that kind of money.”

Camille, who was listening with widening eyes, interjected, “Why didn’t you tell us what was going on?  All of us would have chipped in!  My god, Post, you mean Kreiss was sabotaging the project?”

Imelda answered before Post could.  “No, he wasn’t. He cares too much about the project.”  She stopped before saying more.  She was reasonably certain that Trefarbe had engineered this, but for the life of her she couldn’t figure out why.

“Then who is?” Kellogg asked.  “The Iagans?  Weird things have been happening ever since we got here.  Are you sure they can’t exercise mind control or something?  This makes no sense at all.”

Post snorted.  “Not unless Iagans are suicidal.  Regardless of who is behind the computer lock, what can we do about it?  The project has been delayed by months. All of us have nothing but meaningless data right now.  Even the genetic info about the scuzzhogs was locked.  We haven’t been able to do any DNA matching between the larger species and the scuzzhog.”

“What about the smaller borgettes.  Have any of them given birth?”

“No, not that we know of.  We’re locked out of that data too so we’ve all been manning the observation windows.   They’ve been sort of hibernating since the scuzzworms quit cooperating.”

Imelda frowned.  “What about that, Post?  Why won’t they eat the worms?”

Post shrugged.  “I don’t know.  I put as many worms as I could spare into the biospheres with the scuzzhogs initially and we haven’t gathered any more since the accident because we’re afraid to disturb the biosphere any further.  They ate the big worms fairly readily but they won’t touch the thin ones that are left, and the thin worms won’t go near them.”

“Have the worms reproduced?”

Post looked peculiar at that question.  “Uh, well, we did find a lot of eggs in the soil samples to begin with. All of those eggs have hatched and we haven’t found any more.”

“You don’t know where the eggs came from?”

Post shrugged.  “Nope.  Not a clue.  Maybe the scuzzhog lays worm eggs too.  Or maybe some of the worms survive inside the gut of the scuzzhog and lay eggs.  I don’t know.  There’s a lot that I don’t know.  Goddammit, Imelda, I need to see the inside of a scuzzhog.”

At that moment the intercom chirped a name.  “Imelda!  Where have you been?”

Imelda glanced up disorientedly then hit the com button.  “Jamison.  Catch me in thirty minutes.  Undusting underway.”

They stared at her as she cut the connection. “Jamison wants you?  Do you think there’s something wrong with her cultures?” Camille asked in growing alarm.

Imelda shook her head hastily.  “She’s my next door neighbor.  Hates a messy room.  Have any of you here been trained in designing correlation programs?”

Camille and Kellogg stared at her blankly.  Camille shook her head.  Post cleared his throat.     “Um, yes,” he answered. 

She stared at him in surprise. “You’re supervisor grade?” she asked.

He shifted uncomfortably.  “I was.  Punched somebody. Got demoted for being unprofessional.”

Post?  Meek, mild-mannered Post punched somebody? Gads, you couldn’t trust anyone.

“Well, if you can keep your fists under control around me long enough, I need your help on something.”  She turned to the others.  “Guys, I’m going to be busy at my workstation for a while.  I’ll be feeding you everything that I can, but try to discuss the data among yourselves before interrupting me.  I’m going to run a videoed announcement from
Caldwell in about an hour,” she added, fingering a disk.  “Watch it.  I will go on line afterwards to answer questions, then I’m history.  Can you perimeter me in my workstation?  Chase the crowds away?”

They nodded uncertainly.  She stood up.  “Post, let’s get going.  I don’t have a lot of time to waste with you.  I’ll see you two later.”

As they rushed down the hallway, she glanced at him curiously.  “Supervisor grade, huh?  If I’d known that I would have let you lead the surface expedition alone.  You don’t know how lucky you are.”

“What’s all this about...?”  She hushed him until they reached her office.  Calliope was fortunately at her desk.  

“Calliope, meet my new secret lover.”

Post’s face turned bright red.

“If he comes back, just let him in. You don’t need to check with me.”

Calliope examined him suspiciously.  “Even when you’re not here?” she asked.

“Let him in then too.  He’s working on a special project for me.”

Calliope shrugged and nodded.  “Where have you been, anyway?”

“On my honeymoon, according to rumor.”

Calliope cackled as Imelda led Post into her office.

He looked around curiously. “Whose office is this?” he asked.

“Mine,” she answered, sitting down at the desk.

“You have an office?  Why didn’t you tell me?  So this is where you’ve been hiding out.”

She input her security code and waited for the machine to process it.  “So I’m a pariah, huh?  Detested by the masses?”

Post shrugged.  “Hardly.  Half of everyone says that you really run things and the other half says that you sleep with the ones who do.  Me, I stay out of it and do my job.”

Imelda smiled.  “Which includes spying on me?  That was pretty low what you did with Fish.  I guess you got your jollies out of it.”

“And you got me back by not letting me have any input into the report on the cell cultures.  You know how to jerk people around, Imelda.”

She grunted impatiently.   “I don’t jerk people around, Post.  I made some assumptions about you, that’s all.  You are too quiet, too laid back.  Research is a competitive field.  I figured you must be happy being a background player.  I can change that right now if you’d like.”

He studied her a moment, trying to figure out her angle.  “What’s the payback?” he asked.

She groaned.  “Post, I want you to get one thing straight about me.  I never expect paybacks.  Other people expect paybacks and waste a lot of my time whining about it.  I’m running a background check on you to see if your qualifications are adequate for the job I need you to do.  I am not doing you a favor.  I am giving you part of my headache because I need help and the project may be in trouble.  You can stuff the ‘payback’ crap right now.”

He stared at her suspiciously then nodded.  “So what is it that you want me to do?  Supervise the project while you process your study’s database?”

She nodded.  “Very good, Post. That is exactly what I want you to do.  Kreiss has been outmaneuvered by Trefarbe. Trefarbe is a nobody with power.  Whatever she tells you, look dumb and don’t do it until you check with me.  I’m not telling Kreiss about you just yet.  He’s pretty dense around Trefarbe.  I doubt that he could keep you secret and you don’t need to worry with her just yet.  If anyone asks why you’re here, just tell them that you came over to complain about my cat.”

Post stared at her narrowly.  “How do you have the authority to do this?  Is what they are saying about you and Caldwell true?”

She shrugged.  “I don’t know what they are saying but just take my word on this.  Here, let me show you the access protocol.”

“Does Fish know?  About Caldwell, I mean?”

“Fish hasn’t had a clue about me since the very beginning.  He left a message for me but I haven’t had a chance to read it.  He probably wants me to come see him for a tune-up.  Can you cover for me?”

Post frowned, then smiled crookedly.  “I will tell him that you are functioning adequately and showing up for work on time.  Will that do?”

She laughed.  “Sure, that’s all he cares about, that Biotech isn’t wasting any salary on me.  Now, will you please look at this with me?  I have places to be.”

He leaned forward accommodatingly.

#

Jamison was quiet, worried.  Her look at Imelda was partly suspicious, partly pleading.  Her separation from Caldwell had been made even more painful for her by the continuous whispers about Imelda’s relationship with him.

Imelda wondered what it was like to be in love with someone and actually have a relationship with them.  What was it like to miss someone who missed you?  Most people were glad to see her go.  Especially Post.   Igor might miss her but he only spoke body language.  It must be nice to talk freely with someone who understood words.

“How is he?  The letter you brought back, it, well, it didn’t say much.  Are things really that bad?”

Imelda looked away.  She hated to see real hurt in someone’s face.  Videos were much easier.  You could cry and no one else would see.

“The board is a little more reasonable now.  The media interest helped.  Caldwell is showing real talent on camera.  He told me to ask you if you wanted to join him. I’m sure we could come up with some sort of pretense.”

Jamison turned pale.  “Oh, no, I couldn’t.  It would be too...  No, I’m too busy here.  We’ve all been swamped with specimens to analyze and I haven’t been able to do anything but process.”

She paused, her face becoming more guarded, business-like.  “It looks like we were extremely fortunate.  Only a low count of standard skin flora was recovered from Pleister.  No active virus or infection.  Cultures of the contamination site have all been negative.  I doubt that the organisms he carried can survive down there anyway.  The Iagan cellular forms won’t support their metabolism.  You should see some of the enzymatic systems that we’ve uncovered.  They have enormous commercial potential – bactericidal, fungicidal, and impenetrable to RNA or DNA invaders.  Even so, we keep looking.”

Imelda nodded.  “That’s hopeful news.  Why didn’t you file a report?”

Jamison’s eyes widened in surprise.  “I did.  Trefarbe told me months ago that the report would be sent on the next flight, that all Kreiss had to do was approve it.”

Imelda grimaced.   “Then there’s the problem.  Kreiss never got the report.”

Jamison looked as though she were near tears.  “Blast Trefarbe!  I tried to do what you told me, watch out for Kreiss, but ...I have been so busy.  All of the responsibility for monitoring the cultures of the contamination site was mine.  I couldn’t oversee all of the other groups.”

“I already know about that.  Look, I’ll call you when I need you.  Just keep an ear to the ground, okay?  How’s Grady?”

“His therapy is going okay but he is going to be transferring out soon.  He hasn’t been the same since it happened, just mopes.  He’s on a leave of absence at the CHA outpost.  I think Hiebass has him on something.”

“Fish likes drugs, it makes his work easier.  You don’t have to face anything if you’re too zoned out to think about it.  I should know.  It’s my favorite method of coping.”

Jamison’s eyes strayed to the wine rack in the corner of Imelda’s apartment. 

Imelda stood up.  “Look, I’ve got to get back to my workstation.  Can you help me watch after Igor for a little while?  I’m going to pull some long shifts to catch up.”

Jamison nodded mutely.  Imelda hadn’t answered the question that Jamison had really wanted to ask, and she suspected that Jamison wouldn’t believe the answer anyway.  When Jamison walked over to stroke Igor there were tears in her eyes. Imelda left hurriedly.

#

Finally.  Hard data.  She scanned the statistical info first.  The larger borgettes gave birth approximately every one to two standard months.  The tiniest borgettes laid eggs as often as every few hours for the insect-like species.  The intervals varied with food supply, the richer the nutrients, the more frequent the egg laying.   The slabs of meat from the killed borgette had been thoroughly analyzed.  She reviewed the computer simulation of the anatomy and physiology and then excitedly called Post, Camille, and Kellogg.