interpret some of their facial expressions. As long as I had good words for America,
I was all right.
"Yes, Captain Kane Kanea, we and our ancestors have been here from the beginning."
"Doesn't it get a little cramped?"
"Not for American soldiers, Captain. For the right to life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness we would sacrifice anything. " I didn't ask how much liberty
and happiness-pursuing were possible in a hole in the rock. Our hero went on: "We
fight on that millions may live, free, able to breathe the clean air of America
unoppressed by the lashes of Communism."
And then they broke into a few choice hymns about purple mountains and yellow
waves with a rousing chorus of God blessing America. It all ended with a mighty
shout: "Better dead than red." When it was over we asked them if we could sleep,
since according to our ship's time it was well past bedding-down hour.
They put us in a rather small room with three cots in it that were far too short
for us. Didn't matter. We couldn't possibly be comfortable in our monkeysuits
anyway.
Harold wanted to talk in lingua deporto as soon as we were alone, but I managed to
convince him without even using my monkeysuit's discipliner button that we didn't
want them to think we were trying to keep any secrets. We all took it for granted
that they were monitoring us.
And so our conversation was the sort of conversation that one doesn't mind having
overheard by a bunch of crazy patriots.
Amauri: "I am amazed at their great love for America, persisting so many
centuries." Translation: "What the hell got these guys so nuts about something as
dead as the ancient U.S. empire?"
Me: "Perhaps it is due to such unwavering loyalty to the flag, God, country, and
liberty" (I admit I was laying it on thick, but better to be safe, etc.) "that they
have been able to survive so long." Translation: "Maybe being crazy fanatics is all
that's kept them alive in this hole."
Harold: "I wonder how long we can stay in this bastion of democracy before we must
reluctantly go back to our colony of the glorious American dream." Translation:
"What are the odds they don't let us go? After all, they're so loony they might
think we're spies or something."
Vladimir: "I only hope we can learn from them. Their science is infinitely beyond
anything we have hitherto developed with our poor resources." Translation: "We're
not going anywhere until I have a chance to do my job and check out the local flora
and fauna. Eight hundred years of recombining DNA has got to have something we can
take back home to N£ncamais."
And so the conversation went until we were sick of the flowers and perfume that
kept dropping out of our mouths. Then we went to sleep.
The next day was guided tour day, Russian attack day, and damn near good-bye to
the crew of the good ship Pollywog.
The guided tour kept us up hill and down dale for most of the morning. Vladimir
was running the tricking computer from his monkeysuit. Mine was too busy analyzing
the implications of all their comments while Amauri was absorbing the science and
Harold was trying to figure out how to pick his nose with mittens on. Harold was
along for the ride-- a weapons expert, just in case. Thank God.
We began to be able to tell one little person from another. George Washington
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Steiner was our usual guide. The big boss, who had talked to us through most of the
history lesson the day before, was Andrew Jackson Wallichinsky. And the guy who led
the singing was Richard Nixon Dixon. The computer told us those were names of
beloved American presidents, with surnames added.
And my monkeysuit's analysis also told us that the music leader was the real big
boss, while Andy Jack Wallichinsky was merely the director of scientific research.
Seems that the politicians ran the brains, instead of vice versa.
Our guide, G.W. Steiner, was very proud of his assignment. He showed us
everything. I mean, even with the monkeysuit keeping three-fourths of the gravity
away from me, my feet were sore by lunchtime (a quick sip of recycled xixi and
coc¢). And it was impressive. Again, I give it unto you in abbreviated form:
Even though the installation was technically airtight, in fact the enemy viruses
century the Russians had stopped making any kind of radio broadcasts. (I know, that
sounds like a non sequitur. Patience, patience.) At first the Americans in 004 had
thought they had won. And then, suddenly, a new onslaught of another disease. At
this time the 004 researchers had never been personally hit by any diseases-- the
airtight system was working fine. But their commander at that time, Rodney Fletcher,
had been very suspicious.
"He thought it was a commie trick," said George Washington Steiner. I began to see
the roots of superpatriotism in 004's history.
So Rodney Fletcher set the scientists to working on strengthening the base
personnel's antibody system. They plugged away at it for two weeks and came up with
three new strains of bacteria that selectively devoured practically anything that
wasn't supposed to be in the human body, just in time, too, because then that new
disease hit. It wasn't stopped by the airtight system, because instead of being a
virus, it was just two little amino acids and a molecule of lactose, put together
just so. It fit right through the filters. It sailed right through the antibiotics.
It entered right into the lungs of every man, woman, and child in 004. And if Rodney
Fletcher hadn't been a paranoid, they all would have died. As it was, only about
half lived.
Those two amino acids and the lactose molecule had the ability to fit right into
that spot on a human DNA and then make the DNA replicate that way. Just one little
change-- and pretty soon nerves just stopped working.
Those two amino acids and the lactose molecule system worked just well enough to
slow down the disease's progress until a plug could be found that fit even better
into that spot on the DNA, keeping the Russians' little devices out. (Can they be
called viruses? Can they be called alive? I'll leave it to the godcallers and the
philosophers to decide that.)
Trouble was, the plugs also caused all the soldiers' babies to grow up to be very
short with a propensity for having their teeth fall out and their eyes go blind at
the age of thirty. G.W. Steiner was very proud of the fact that they had managed to
correct for the eyes after four generations. He smiled and for the first time we
really noticed that his teeth weren't like ours.
"We make them out of certain bacteria that gets very hard when a particular virus
is exposed to it. My own great-great-grandmother invented it," Steiner said. "We're
always coming up with new and useful tools."
I asked to see how they did this trick, which brings us full circle to what we saw
on the guided tour that day. We saw the laboratories where eleven researchers were
playing clever little games with DNA. I didn't understand any of it, but my
mo
nkeysuit assured me that the computer was getting it all.
We also saw the weapons delivery system. It was very clever. It consisted of
setting a culture dish full of a particular nasty weapon in a little box, closing
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the door to the box, and then pressing a button that opened another door to the box
that led outside.
"We let the wind take it from there," said Steiner. "We figure it takes about a
year for a new weapon to reach Russia. But by then it's grown to a point that it's
irresistible."
I asked him what the bacteria lived on. He laughed. "Anything," he said. It turns
out that their basic breeding stock is a bacterium that can photosynthesize and
dissolve any form of iron, both at the same time. "Whatever else we change about a
particular weapon, we don't change that," Steiner said. "Our weapons can travel
anywhere without hosts. Quarantines don't do any good."
Harold had an idea. I was proud of him. "If these little germs can dissolve steel,
George, why the heU aren't they in here dissolving this whole installation? "
Steiner looked like he had just been hoping we'd ask that question.
"When we developed our basic breeder stock, we also developed a mold that inhibits
the bacteria from reproducing and eating. The mold only grows on metal and the
spores die if they're away from both mold and metal for more than
one-seventy-seventh of a second. That means that the mold grows all the way around
this installation-- and nowhere else. My fourteenth great-uncle William Westmoreland
Hannamaker developed the mold."
"Why," I asked, "do you keep mentioning your blood relationship to these
inventors? Surely after eight hundred years here everybody's related?"
I thought I was asking a simple question. But G.W. Steiner looked at me coldly and
turned away, leading us to the next room.
We found bacteria that processed other bacteria that processed still other
bacteria that turned human excrement into very tasty, nutritious food. We took their
word for the tasty. I know, we were still eating recycled us through the tubes in
our suit. But at least we knew where ours had been.
They had bacteria that without benefit of sunlight processed carbon dioxide and
water back into oxygen and starch. So much for photosynthesis.
And we got a list of what shelf after shelf of weapons could do to an unprepared
human body. If somebody ever broke all those jars on N£ncamais or Pennsylvania or
Kiev, everybody would simply disappear, completely devoured and incorporated into
the life-systems of bacteria and viruses and trained amino-acid sets.
No sooner did I think of that, than I said it. Only I didn't get any farther than
the word Kiev.
"Kiev? One of the colonies is named Kiev?"
I shrugged. "There are only three planets colonized. Kiev, Pennsylvania, and
N£ncamais."
"Russian ancestry?"
Oops, I thought. Oops is an all-purpose word standing for every bit of profanity,
blasphemy, and pornographic and scatological exculpation I could think of.
The guided tour ended right then.
Back in our bedroom, we became aware that we had somehow dissolved our
hospitality. After a while, Harold realized that it was my fault.
"Captain, by damn, if you hadn't told them about Kiev we wouldn't be locked in
here like this."
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I agreed, hoping to pacify him, but he didn't calm down until I used the
discipliner button in my monkeysuit.
Then we consulted the computers.
Mine reported that in all we had been told, two areas had been completely left
out: While it was obvious that in the past the little people had done extensive work
on human DNA, there had been no hint of any work going on in that field today. And
though we had been told of all kinds of weapons that had been flung among the
Russians on the other side of the world, there had been no hint of any kind of
limited effect antipersonnel weapon here.
"Oh," Harold said. "There's nothing to stop us from walking out of here anytime we
can knock the door down. And I can knock the door down anytime I want to," he said,
playing with the buttons on his monkeysuit. I urged him to wait until all the
reports were done.
Amauri informed us that he had gleaned enough information from their talk and his
monkeyeyes that we could go home with the entire science of DNA recombination hidden
away in our computer.
And then Vladimir's suit played out a holomap of Post 004.
The bright green, infinitesimally thin lines marked walls, doors, passages. We
immediately recognized the corridors we had walked in throughout the morning,
located the laboratories, found where we were imprisoned. And then we noticed a
rather larger area in the middle of the holomap that seemed empty.
"Did you see a room like that? " I asked. The others shook their heads. Vladimir
asked the holomap if we had been in it. The suit answered in its whispery
monkeyvoice: "No. I have only delineated the unpenetrated perimeter and noted
apertures that perhaps give entry."
"So they didn't let us in there, " Harold said. "I knew the bastards were hiding
something."
"And let's make a guess," I said. "That room either has something to do with
antipersonnel weapons, or it has something to do with human DNA research."
We sat and pondered the revelations we had just had, and realized they didn't add
up to much. Finally Vladimir spoke up. Trust a half-bunny to come up with the idea
where three browns couldn't. just goes to show you that a racial theory is a bunch
of waggywoggle.
"Antipersonnel hell," Vladimir said. "They don't need antipersonnel. All they have
to do is open a little hole in our suits and let the germs come through."
"Our suits close immediately," Amauri said, but then corrected himself. "I guess
it doesn't take long for a virus to get through, does it?"
Harold didn't get it. "Let one of those bunnies try to lay a knife on me, and I'll
split him from ass to armpit."
We ignored him.
"What makes you think there are germs in here? Our suits don't measure that," I
pointed out.
Vladimir had already thought of that. "Remember what they said. About the Russians
getting those little amino-acid monsters in here."
Amauri snorted. "Russians."
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"Yeah, right," Vladimir said, "but keep the voice down, viado."
Amauri turned red, started to say, "Quem ‚ que cˆ chama de viado!" --but I pushed
the discipliner button. No time for any of that crap.
"Watch your language, Vladimir. We got enough problems."
"Sorry, Amauri, Captain," Vladimir said. "I'm a little wispy, you know?"
"So's everybody."
Vladimir took a breath and went on. "Once those bugs got in here, 004 must have
been pretty thoroughly permeable. The, uh, Russians must've kept pumping more
variations on the same into Post 004."
"So why aren't they all dead?"
"What I think is that a lot of these people have been k
illed-- but the survivors
are ones whose bodies took readily to those plugs they came up with. The plugs are
regular parts of their body chemistry now. They'd have to be, wouldn't they? They
told us they were passed on in the DNA transmitted to the next generation."
I got it. So did Amauri, who said, "So they've had seven or eight centuries to
select for adaptability."
"Why not?" Vladimir asked. "Didn't you notice? Eleven researchers on developing
new weapons. And only two on developing new defenses. They can't be too worried."
Amauri shook his head. "Oh, Mother Earth. Whatever got into you?"
"Just caught a cold," Vladimir said, and then laughed. "A virus. Called humanity."
We sat around looking at the holomap for a while. I found four different routes
from where we were to the secret area-- if we wanted to get there. I also found
three routes to the exit. I pointed them out to the others.
"Yeah," Harold said. "Trouble is, who knows if those doors really lead into that
unknown area? I mean, what the hell, three of the four doors might lead to the broom
closets or service station."
A good point.
We just sat there, wondering whether we should head for the Pollywog or try to
find out what was in the hidden area, when the Russian attack made up our minds for
us. There was a tremendous bang. The floor shook, as if some immense dog had just
picked up Post 004 and given it a good shaking. When it stopped the lights flickered
and went out.
"Golden opportunity," I said into the monkeymouth. The others agreed. So we
flashed on the lights from our suits and pointed them at the door. Harold suddenly
felt very important. He went to the door and ran his magic flipper finger all the
way around the door. Then he stepped back and flicked a lever on his suit.
"Better turn your backs," he said. "This can flash pretty bright."
Even looking at the back wall the explosion blinded me for a few seconds. The
world looked a little green when I turned around. The door was in shreds on the
floor, and the doorjamb didn't look too healthy.
"Nice job, Harold," I said.
"Gra€as a deus," he answered, and I had to laugh. Odd how little religious phrases
refused to die, even with an irreverent filho de punta like Harold.
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