Echoes of an Alien Sky (21 page)

"Which
they're
going to try and put right as soon as they get the chance," Yorim said.

"So it would be best to make sure they're not around to try. . . ." Kyal's voice trailed away for a second. "There, you've got it. 'Survival of the fittest.' Their theory of biology captured it exactly. Or maybe it was the way they were that shaped the theory. But whatever, there was some fundamental difference between us and them psychologically. Lorili thinks it might be genetic." He shook his head. "I don't know any more than that, Yorim."

The pyramid had escaped notice until methodical scrutinizing of orbital pictures covering the environs of Triagon revealed it as an artificial form in a remote area of overlapping crater ridges and humps. The analysts who carried out the first cursory checks had been looking for engineering constructions like those found Triagon itself. Then it was found that something down there was highly reflective to high-resolution ground surveillance radar.

The service flyer landed close to the craft that had brought Brysek and a reconnoitering party ahead some hours earlier. Brysek and a couple of other suited figures appeared from among the boulders and mounds at the base of the pyramid as Kyal and Yorim climbed out.

"It's even more interesting close-up," he greeted as they joined him.

"Not just another Terran tomb, then—for a king that liked solitude?" Kyal quipped.

"Burns and discharge scars. It seems you were right-on."

"Let's take a look."

Brysek and his two companions turned, and the group made their way to the pyramid's base. In size it was nothing like the one Yorim had climbed back on Earth, but the side facing them was catching the sun full-on, making it a mountain of whiteness above them, dominating the surroundings and dazzling against the black sky.

With no wind to carry eroding dust, and micrometeorite infall not worth talking about, its laminated structure and vertical lines of conductive ribbing were still clearly defined. The whole form was tantalizingly suggestive of the discharge attractors that Kyal had conceived in speculative theoretical studies he had produced for heavy lift, long-range transportation systems. The charge accumulated by electrically energized vessels on extended journeys would need to be dissipated before landing on a surface or docking with any sizeable body possessing a significantly different potential—which would generally be the case with a spacecraft arriving from a distant electrical environment. The pyramid's dimensions suggested that it could have been intended for quite large craft.

"Now where did you see something like that before?" Kyal asked as they stopped and looked up to take stock of it. He meant his own tentative design sketches, which Yorim was familiar with.

"I wonder," Yorim replied.

In his mind, Kyal ran through the findings they had amassed so far. References to Terminus implying a secret survival shelter for a large number of people; disappearances of leading scientists and other key figures; an all-too-convenient assassination of a journalist who knew too much and was getting too close. The deeper parts of the Triagon Lower Complex, adjoining the Rear Annexe with its own entrance from the surface, had revealed animal pens and cages, and some kind of hydroponic botanical facility. And now, here was evidence for a development program involving heavy, long-range transportation. Was Triagon
just
a survival shelter? he was beginning to wonder. Or had it been part of a more grandiose undertaking? Evacuation to somewhere else, maybe?

Yorim seemed to be having the same thoughts. He swung from side to side to take in the base of the pyramid, then gazed back up at summit, Finally, he turned and scanned the surroundings, as if they might furnish more clues. His voice came over Kyal's radio. "I don't know what to make of it. "What kind of weapons did they have that would make them come all the way here? Even Terrans couldn't blow a whole planet up."

"I know," Kyal agreed.

"So are we talking about just a survival center? Or was it an operation to get them away? That could be one reason why they'd hide it out here."

"You tell me."

"Maybe Terminus meant the
other
end of the line. The beginning, not the place where it ended."

"That's just what I was wondering too."

"A staging base for shipping one to somewhere else."

"Yes. It fits."

"But where?" Yorim turned back toward Kyal and spread his arms.

"There isn't anywhere else in the Solar System they could have gone for any length of time." Brysek came in, tuned to the same channel.

"Not now, anyway, that's true," Yorim agreed. "But the Solar System isn't a constant place. It changes. Maybe there was somewhere else that was suitable then."

"Their records don't say anything about anywhere like that," Brysek pointed out.

"Not any that we know of. But they weren't supposed to have electric propulsion either."

Kyal had to agree with Yorim. "Perhaps things were different then," he said.

Garki Nostreny settled back behind his desk to listen as Lorili got to the point that she had come to his office to discuss. He was the section head of Biochemistry, genial in a fatherly kind of way, with a long, creased face that looked as if it no longer quite fitted a head that had shrunk a little, and wispy, graying hair. Lorili had found him consistently open, receptive, and easy to work with since her arrival at Rhombus.

"They're unprecedented," she said. She was referring to the Terran remains found out on the lunar surface at Triagon, and then later, the unmarked bodies in the Lower Annexe. Tissue samples had been taken to
Explorer 6
for analysis and yielded more information on Terran biochemistry than anything available before. "Iwon thinks we might be able to reconstruct the cell metabolism in detail. This could be the break I was looking for to establish just how close we are genetically."

"You're still looking for a common ancestral link?" Nostreny said. He didn't mean directly, but in terms of some remote space-borne seeding that might have originated both races, as Lorili had elaborated on earlier occasions.

"It's a something that should be followed up," she answered.

Nostreny smiled. "You still like that idea, don't you?"

Lorili had long learned that trying to hide anything would be futile. The clear, gray eyes, ever-mobile behind his metal-rimmed spectacles, seemed to see into heads and read brain patterns. "Yes, " she admitted. "The Terrans seemed to combine a fascinating combination of conflicting qualities. Having a better idea of how close we are to them might tell us things about ourselves."

"But I thought we went through all that with Iwon. The time scale on Venus has been too short to have gotten from some primordial ancestor to us and the other quadribasics by any mechanism of the kind the Terrans postulated—even with your environmentally cued mutations to speed things up. And even if you did somehow telescope the process into Venus's life span, you've still got the morphological similarities to explain. Skeletally it's practically impossible to tell the difference between us and Terrans. And so far, the soft-tissue specimens from Luna are telling us the same thing." Nostreny spread his hands. "Two independent sequences, both resulting in virtually identical end-products? . . . It's too much to accept as a coincidence, surely."

"That's what I wanted to talk about," Lorili said. "Maybe the cued mutation idea in the form I've been stating it might be too weak. I think there's a stronger form that could explain it. These latest Terran finds could be our chance to test it. But it would need a full bio-lab investigation."

Nostreny, grinned and shook his head. You just don't give up, do you?"

"Maybe it comes from studying Terrans. As I said, it's important to me."

"A stronger form of the theory."

"Yes. It occurred to me when I was thinking about undifferentiated cells in a growing embryo"

Nostreny interlaced his fingers and sat back in his chair. "Okay, go on. let's hear it."

"Their plasticity is an astounding example of how sensitive biological systems are to environmental cues. Any one can become bone, muscle, nerve, or any other kind of tissue. The potential to be all of them is inherent in the common genetic program that they all carry. The cues merely determine which parts of the program are switched on." She knew she was hardly telling Nostreny anything that he wasn't aware of. It was more to set her direction.

"Okay," he agreed, opening his fingers briefly.

"Mightn't the same principle operate at a higher level? We still only know a tiny fraction of what genomes do. Perhaps the reason they're so huge is that they carry the potential to become anything over a far wider range than has been supposed."

Nostreny inclined himself forward, evidently taking the point. "You mean more than just the potential to differentiate into different kinds of cell?"

"Yes, exactly. The potential to be totally different organisms. Not just to produce different beak shapes and body sizes. But all of it already in there, contained in a common program. So the forms they come to actualize and express could be determined not by the kind of selection that the Terrans talked about, but by
selective activation
of already existing genetic potential." Nostreny nodded that he was following. Lorili warmed to her theme. "On that basis, the first life to appear on a hot, recently formed planet would be of a primitive form not because it represents an early stage of evolving information, but because it's
appropriate
in terms of what a primitive environment can support. A young planetary surface cues the appearance of microbes because nothing else could live there. Microbes initiate processes that transform the environment. The transformed environment provides new cues that switch the genetic programs to producing new types of organism. And there you have it."

Nostreny looked intrigued, to be sure. But that was just his way. It didn't meant that he bought it. His willingness to consider new things on their merit was one of the things that made him easy to work with. It mirrored Lorili's own inclinations. "So as soon as the conditions are right, you can have complex organisms that ar appropriate to it appearing right away," he summarized. "Without involving enormous time scales."

"That's right. One of the things that baffled Terran evolutionists was the sudden appearance of complex life forms in their fossil record, already fully differentiated and specialized. They never could explain it to their satisfaction. But this might."

"Of course, if it's all part of some bigger scheme in the way we've been taught, then there's probably nothing that needs explaining anyway," He wrinkled his nose and rubbed the end with a knuckle. "To be honest, it's the kind of answer I'd be more inclined toward. But then at my age, I'm not going to change now, I suppose."

"What I'm saying is that maybe we have a unique opportunity to find out," Lorili replied. "Who knows? It could even lead to some kind of reconciliation between the traditional and evolutionary views. Fast, preprogrammed repopulation to new conditions, but originating from a Vizek-like common source. The philosophical implications alone could be enormous."

"Hm." Nostreny stared at her in silence without really seeing her as he turned it over in his mind. Lorili waited. She had said what she had to say. Anything more would have been repetition. If Nostreny needed clarifying on any point, he would say so. "And this is what you want a full lab setup to look into more deeply," he said.

"Right."

"What are you proposing, more specifically? Can you give me more of an outline?"

Lorili had come prepared. "A biochemistry group from
Explorer 6
is moving out to Triagon," she replied. "That means there will be some lab space freed up in
Explorer 6
with the kind of equipment and support that I'd need. What I'd like to do is have a few of the best-preserved Terran corpses, say half a dozen, shipped to
E6
for detailed sequencing studies of some of the frozen inner cells."

"You'd be carrying this out yourself? So are you saying you want to transfer from Rhombus to
Explorer 6
," Nostreny checked.

Lorili nodded. "For the duration of the project anyway. It would be a lot simpler that way."

Hm. . . . What about Mirine?" Nostreny asked. Mirine Strass was Loril's assistant. They had come from Venus together.

"If she decided she wanted to come too, she could take care selecting and shipping the specimens from Triagon while was getting things set up on
Explorer
." Lorili said.

"Have you mentioned this to her yet?"

"No. I thought it best to run it by you first. But I don't think there'll be much doubt about it. She's as interested in this as I am. And we've always worked well together."

Nostreny was looking favorably impressed. He nodded absently, at the same time studying her curiously. Lorili had the feeling of the pale gray eyes reading through her skull again. "What's your real reason?" he asked finally, in a light tone. "Purely to test the theory? To simplify the logistics?" He paused pointedly. "Or could it be something more personal?"

Even with her experience of him, Lorili was taken aback. A news item had recently broken on the Earth-local net concerning Gaster Lornod, Jenyn's principal rival for the Progressive nomination. Allegedly, the real Lornod was a very different person from the restrained and respectable public image that had been getting attention, with a secret life that involved bar girls, use of stimulants to excess, and certain kinds of parties. A general rule of Venusian politics was that if one chose a life as a public figure, setting an acceptable tone in personal standards was part of the job. Public figures were expected to be models of the principle of internal restraint that the society based itself on. In short, this could be ruinous. An intuition told Lorili that Jenyn's hand was behind it. He was already dragging her into his machinations. And it was going to get worse. She didn't want to be around.

"Why should you think that?" she asked Nostreny guardedly.