The Godwhale (S.F. Masterworks) (18 page)

‘We’ll cut off half of these long arms at the secondary construction – a good landmark. Remove those little satellites, and take off the short arms from this chromosome. Careful of that centromere. There, now – plenty of room for adding the synthetic chromatides from Spinner’s bath.’

The bath (a soup of purines and pyrimidines) contained the enzyme reverse transcriptase – the RNA-dependent DNA polymerase. (RNA molecules act as templates for the replications of DNA genes.) Spinner assembled the RNA template. When added to the soup, a DNA gene replicated; each grouping of three bases formed one codon (or letter) in the genetic message.

‘This appears to be an excessive amount of the Grube-Hill gene,’ suggested Drum. He had been studying Spinner’s screen where the molecular activity was being simulated. The normals were indicated in the grid.

‘A triple dose of gristle.’ Wandee smiled. ‘Our ARNOLDs will be real mechanised armour bucks with triple calcium, collagen, phospathase, and growth hormone.’

‘But what is this sequence?’ Drum frowned. ‘It does not translate.’

‘That is the Hive safety factor – a nonsense sequence where the gene locus for an amino-acid synthesis should be. Those bases have been scrambled to UAA, UAG and UGA, which do not translate at all. The ARNOLDs will be unable to synthesize six of the amino acids that other humans can manufacture from the inorganic constituents in their food. You or I have the molecular machinery to assemble them. For the ARNOLDs they will be “essential” – that is, required in the diet. In addition to the nine amino acids we all need in our diet, the ARNOLDs will need alanine, aspartate, glutamate, glycine, serine, and tyrosine. They will be dependent on a fifteen-amino-acid diet. Without it their entire protein metabolism will stop. The absence of just one “essential” amino acid will cause them to sicken and die.’

Drum was silent. He felt uneasy about this new Leo assignment – building a synthetic human who would lay down his life for the Hive, and, at the same time, shackling him with this molecular time-bomb that would kill him if his loyalty strayed. Drum felt himself to be more of an enemy to ARNOLD than the Benthic beast.

A codon GAG was scrambled to CAC, substituting the histidine letter for a glutamine – another nonsense sequence closing the transaminase ‘back door’ to one of the amino acids: ARNOLD would not be able to get his amino acids from his Kreb’s cycle by adding an amino group to an organic acid.

Playing with the Watson-Crick structures was tedious work, but soon Wandee had several clones working on the prototype ARNOLD DNA.

‘We can sort the cells out of culture on the heals of their Grube-Hill content. Those with the most phosphatase will fluoresce the brightest with this labelled substrate. We’ll embryonate about a thousand of the triple-GH’s on the first go-round.’

‘A thousand’ mumbled Drum, thinking of the list of traits on her clipboard. ‘That should put the Hive in a pretty strong position – for a change.’

Benthics crowded around the funeral raft. Tangled girders and crusted plates were the tapestries for Listener’s eulogy. They were gathered in the far bubble of a torn tubeway overlooking the yawning blackness of the abyss. The weighted body drifted for a long moment. Then it began to sink slowly, accompanied by a halo of zooplankton fighting over its nitrogen treasures.

‘The Leviathan is not a whale?’ asked Listener.

Clam shook his head. ‘It is a ship. I was all over her insides and saw no sign of organs or muscles – just machinery and rooms.’

Larry tried to clear up the confusion.

‘Trilobite thinks this ship is his deity,
Rorqual
, but he has been unable to talk to her since the Hive has taken her over.’

Listener bowed his head reverently. ‘When a god comes to Earth it is a pure spirit. It may inhabit the body of a man or an animal – or a ship. It is written.’

Larry opened his mouth to object to this primitive display of superstition, but Big Har interrupted him.

‘The deity brought life to the sea. Let us offer homage to
Rorqual
.’

Silence followed. Larry hesitated to break it. Listener continued to question Clam: ‘This ship – it showed signs of life after you disabled the crew?’

‘Yes. It opened doors for me and followed me with little eyes in the walls. I heard and felt things I did not understand, but I’m certain it knew I was there.’

‘And it didn’t try to harm you—’ Listener smiled. ‘Wonderful! That proves that
Rorqual
– or Leviathan – is a friendly god.’

‘But it killed my friend Limpet,’ objected Clam. ‘We were gathering shellfish at fifteen fathoms when the nets caught him and pulled him up. He died of the pops.’

‘Perhaps that was an accident,’ suggested Listener. ‘Surface-dwellers, even gods, might not know of the pops. That is a secret of the Deep Cult. I think we should try to contact this god and pay her homage. Perhaps we can learn to talk to her.’

Opal nodded. ‘She might be able to protect us from the Hive.’

Even Larry agreed with that suggestion. Trilobite’s deity could only increase the Benthics’ chances for survival – if her Hive loyalty wasn’t too strong.

The Benthics passed the word along the shelf. ‘Worship the Leviathan.’

But the Hive crews avoided Benthic zones. Manual overrides took the plankton Harvester wide of the rich shelf fields. Harvests were scanty, but the ship was safe – safe and deaf and dumb as well, for Nebishes toggled her long ear. Benthics enjoyed years of peace and plenty.

Bio entered a plush period of increased floor space and personnel. Wandee hovered over the foaming nutrients and plated the placental matrix with the first hundred cells that showed chrionic tendencies (villi and gonadotophins). Soon the embryos were visible under the magnifier.

Wandee seemed pleased. ‘Size and length of tail are good indexes of vigour at this stage. But I like to rely on the Organ of Zuckerkandl – the pigmented nerve tissue near the inferior mesenteric artery. It is a good index of the genetic neurohomoral axis: autonomic zone, size of sex organs, adrenal-medullary function, and psychosexual profile.’

Drum nodded. ‘The O of Z is probably important but how many toes?’

‘Oh, they’ll all be five-toed, of course.’

Twenty thick-necked, hairy infants survived Wandee’s critical culling. These were tested repeatedly and the six most vigorous were assigned to the Hive Mullah for conditioning. The rest went to Shipyard nurseries with the Lesser Arnolds.

Baby ARNOLD recognised the Security Squad when they boxed him in and marched him off to the Committee ante-room. He smiled, blinked, and tried to chat; but they were dull-witted and obedient guards. They stood at the exits and awaited further orders.

The scene at the conference table was more heated than usual.

‘I say we must return him to the protein pool. He has come across sensitive information. Hive security is at stake.’ The voice was the routine drone of a Security Captain demanding that all possible problems be eliminated as quickly and as cheaply as possible.

Drum stood up and objected strongly: ‘This is a Greater Arnold you are talking about – the product of months of embryonating and years of tutoring. He is nearly five years old. We can’t afford to junk him now.’

‘It is always a pleasure to hear from you, Drum,’ said the Chairman. ‘Your words about cost and time investments are right to the point. Anyone else?’

‘We have two dozen ARNOLDS,’ muttered Security.

‘Twenty,’ corrected Drum, ‘but only six are in my conditioning programme.’

The Chairman smiled at the off-the-record exchange. He glanced around at the circle of blank faces. Few of the members were interested.

‘Well, then, let’s call the first witness.’

‘Syntheteck Stewart!’

The hesitant male, puberty-plus-three, did not know why he had been called. He stayed close to the door, wringing his hands.

‘Come on in, lad.’ The chairman smiled. ‘We aren’t going to hurt you. Sit down. See that face on the screen? Have you ever seen him before?’

Silence.

‘Relax. Watch this sequence taken at the stacks. The time is three months ago. You were studying for your new job, moving up-caste. Remember?’

Stewart’s face showed recognition, then fear. ‘I didn’t know about the fifteen-amino-acid bread, really I didn’t,’ he pleaded. ‘I was just trying to memorize their various motilities in a charged field when one of the other students came up and looked over my shoulder. He showed me how to remember it – a mnemonic – a memory tool.’

‘Motilities?’ asked the Chairman.

‘The fifteen amino acids. They each move at a different speed when an electric charge is placed on a mixed solution. Each molecule has a characteristic speed in relation to the other molecules. That is how we separate them from the fifteen-amino-acid bread.’

Chairman nodded. ‘And you showed this chart of relative speeds to an ARNOLD?’

Drum felt drained. If the ARNOLD could manufacture his own bread . . . The thought frightened him.

‘No!’ blurted Stewart. ‘I mean, I didn’t know he was an ARNOLD. He just glanced at the list for a moment and made up two sentences that helped me memorize the sequences. That’s all.’

‘You didn’t discuss the significance of the list?’

‘No! I wasn’t even sure myself. It was my first day in the bakery section. They didn’t tell me what was classified.’

The Committee members mumbled among themselves.

‘Dismissed.’

After Stewart left, Drum stood up for one last plea. ‘I know it looks bad, but why don’t we ask ARNOLD what he remembers about the episode? I know he is bright, but I doubt that he even knows of fifteen-amino-acid bread. It isn’t labelled, you know. We can use the T-probe. He can’t hide anything from us.’

The Chairman smiled vacantly.

‘Consider the cost,’ repeated Drum. ‘We have too much invested in those muscles. I hope we didn’t raise him for his food value. He would dress out at about fifty pounds – very lean. Arnoldburgers would be the most expensive protein the Hive ever produced.’

The chairman nodded. ‘Focus the T-probe on that chair and invite him in for questioning.’

Baby ARNOLD sat on the edge of his chair smiling openly at the circle of bland faces. He watched a replay of optic records taken in the stacks.

‘Remember Stewart?’

‘Oh, sure,’ said ARNOLD. ‘He was having a study problem – memory block. He was pushing too hard. I guess he hasn’t learned to relax yet.’

‘You can relax?’

The child nodded rapidly.

Drum pointed to the probe. It remained in the T-zone. He was telling the truth.

‘What do you remember? Which subject was Stewart having trouble with?’

ARNOLD just shrugged. The screen displayed a series of letters: H L G A V I S . . . LTMGPTAT . . . ARNOLD’s lips moved silently. A thought frown puckered his forehead. ‘Yes – now I remember!’

Drum exhaled noisily.

ARNOLD recited: ‘Hive leptosouls give virgins instant sex. Leptosoul trips make going pubertal tiring and trying.’

The screen picked up his voice and printed out the first letter of each word – H L G A V I S . . . LTMGPTAT. A red ‘emergency light’ blinked after the last letter, indicating that the series was classified.

‘What does it mean?’ asked the Chairman sternly.

ARNOLD shrugged. ‘I’d have to see the original list of words again. All I looked at were the first letters. That’s all you need for a memory crutch. I like making up mnemonics. If you want to know what the words were, you could ask Stew. He probably remembers. It was a subject I have not studied, I’m afraid.’

‘T-zone,’ said Drum encouragingly. ‘Can he be excused?’

Chairman nodded. ‘No sense going into it any more deeply while he is here. Dismissed!’

‘He has the classified sequence in his brain. It is only a matter of time before—’

Drum interrupted. ‘But we’re talking about a baby! He can’t just set up a clandestine Bio Lab—’

‘He’s an ARNOLD, and he’s almost five years old,’ said Security. ‘Look at the screen. He has the motility sequences of the fifteen amino acids. All he needs are the services of a Bioteck and some basic electrophoretic and chromatography gear.’

Drum stood silently while the screen filled in the blanks after the letters:

HLGAVIS/LTMGPTAT: HISTIDINE, LYSINE, CLYCINE, ALANINE, VALINE, ISOLEUCINE, SERINE, LEUCINE, THRENINE, METHIONINE, GLUTAMATE, PHENYLANINE, TYRONSINE, ASPARTATE, TRYPTOPHANE

‘Note how the two “T” amino acids “tyrosine” and “tryptophane” were sound-coded as “tiring” and “trying” so they’d be easier to remember,’ said Security.

‘But he told the truth,’ said Drum. ‘He doesn’t know the significance.’

‘Yet . . .’ added Security ominously.

‘Lets take a vote,’ interrupted the Chairman. ‘All in favour of chucking him? . . . All opposed? Looks like a tie vote. I’ll have to break it.’ He glanced around the table. ‘In view of the cost of an ARNOLD I can’t return him to the protein pool – just yet. But to protect the Hive, he must wear chains while he is inside a city. Chains! Neck, waist, ankles, wrists.’

Big Har and Opal took their family on a mussel hunt. Using a sight line given by the Deep Cult, Clam swam out ahead, toward the island landmark on the horizon. Har peered down: distant blackness – open ocean.

‘Might as well be bottomless. I can’t see a thing.’

Opal checked the sun angle. ‘We haven’t been swimming long enough yet. We should sight a broken tubeway first.’

Young Cod and sister White Belly trailed behind, frolicking. Both showed the pigmentation of the new generation of Benthics – back freckles from more surface exposure time during the day. White Belly’s two-toned skin gave her her name.

‘There it is!’ shouted Clam.

The tubeway was scummy and opaque. All they saw was clouds of tiny shrimp and shiners. There was no evidence that the sessile food chain had re-established itself.

‘The reefs begin about five minutes from here,’ said Opal. Cod and White Belly raced to catch Clam. They splashed a quarter of a mile and dived. Opal joined them while Har struggled with the string of gourd floats. The anchor rope tangled several times, but he finally let out ten fathoms. It snagged bottom. He dived, pulling himself down the rope about thirty feet. His family passed him on their way to the surface. He bobbed up and helped them tie their belt sacks to the floats. The catch of bivalves threatened to sink the gourds.