Earth Song: Etude to War (22 page)

“Rather like your university, we operate on the generosity of patrons and the government. I do not approve of wasting their credits on frivolous adornments or self-aggrandizing furniture.” He gestured to a trio of comfortable chairs around a small table instead of his desk and visitor’s chairs. A much more intimate meeting area. She found herself liking the man.

There was a small tray on the table holding a pitcher of ice water and a selection of fruit and vegetables. He continued to display his talent as a host by pouring her a glass of water himself and holding the tray while she selected a few carrot sticks to munch on before helping himself.

“I expected alcohol for bad news,” she said after a drink and a stick.

He shrugged and took a drink. “I can arrange that, but I know you aren't much of a social drinker.”

“You know me well then. It doesn't become a Chosen to be a public drunk.”

“The current First doesn't really share that conviction,” he said.

Minu's eyes narrowed. She'd heard rumors to that extent, but not direct corroboration. There weren't many Chosen crazy enough to try and call out the First among the Chosen. Jacob had been caught with his pants down once, by none other than Minu, but she'd never heard of him being drunk in public.

“That is none of my concern,” she said, and he merely shrugged. “I'd like to hear what you discovered.”

“Certainly,” he said and picked up a tablet. The tablet had a holographic display built in and soon a trio of displays were hovering between them. “First let me apologize for taking so long to get back to you.” Minu shook her head and made a dismissive gesture and he continued. “No, really. We've been a bit hampered because our genetic research team is forced to straddle three different computer systems. We've been trying to modernize our records by migrating them to Concordia made systems, but the progress is understandably slow because of compatibility.”

“I completely understand. It was a constant challenge for us as well when I worked in the science branch of the Chosen.”

He nodded and continued. “With your genetic code in place, we began to search for matches. But we were unable to match you.”

“Even if Sharon and Chriso aren't my birth parents, every child born in most of the tribes have been genetically coded for going on a century now.” He nodded his head patiently. “And even those in rural areas have been added to the database as technology expanded.” Minu remembered her friend Cherise telling her that their little village of Naobi was visited in her grandmother’s time and all the villagers were scanned.

“Yes, that is correct.”

“Then I don't understand.”

“Unless your mother was one of the few thousand people on this planet not in the database, we could not positively identify who that was.” He paused for a moment so she could digest that. “And since those few people we are talking about are mostly small tribes of Rusk on the steppes, or remote Peninsula tribe villages, we were forced to admit failure.”

“So you don't know who my mother is?”

“I didn't say that,” he said and touched the screen. Genetic details with names began to appear starting with her father, Chriso, and going backwards in time.

Father
, Minu thought.
Yes, he's still my father.
“It was a young researcher on our staff who only joined a few months ago that made the breakthrough. He decided to go back to the original colonists and start there. By going to the beginning we could narrow down who your original ancestors were.”

“Even you said it was Mindy Harper.”

“Yes, it is. But he was just being thorough. Turns out his idea was more fruitful than he thought it would be. He isolated your mother almost immediately.”

“I thought you said he started at the beginning-” She looked at the display. The genetic information was just a long chain of letters being scrolled against others. Lines and lines of GGGAAACCC repeating over and over. Certain key strains were isolated, represented markers and mitochondrial DNA. The strings being compared matched perfectly for a parental comparison. She looked at the name and face floating above the data. “Mindy Harper, founder.”

Minu laughed and looked at Director Porter. He stared back at her without a hint of amusement. “You must be kidding.”

“I really don't joke about some things, Mrs. Groves.” He gestured at the screen floating before them. “To me, history is sacred, and genetic codes holy writ. We are faced with a combination of evidence and scientific proof.”

He touched a control; the genetic details slid to a side screen and images came up on the main screen. She recognized a half dozen of her ancestors. Her father, his father and mother, their mother, and onward. Each face was placed next to hers, overlaid with hers, then it would dissolve away.

As the images got older, the resemblance quickly became more pronounced. Finally there was Mindy Harper. When their images merged, they were nearly a perfect match. Minu's face was narrower, and her nose a little more pronounced. Billy Harper's image came into the mix. Narrower face, more evident nose.

“Oh my,” she said. Words from her long gone mother drifted into her mind. She was showing Minu the sapphire necklace she now wore around her neck. “This belonged to the person you owe the most to, Mindy Harper. Yes sweetheart, her! You look so much like her, it’s amazing.”

“How?” was all she could say, her vision growing blurry as tears began to form. Father, what did you do?

“That,” Porter said as he looked at the frozen images of Minu and Mindy side by side, “is something we would dearly like to find out.”

Chapter 19

April 5th, 534 AE

Plateau Historical Society Offices, Tranquility, Bellatrix

Minu left without much fanfare. After getting a copy of the data on chip, she thanked the director for his hard work. He tried to get her to commit to returning sometime soon for further tests, she told him to contact her assistant and retreated out the door. He watched her go with a sad shake of his head. “I'm sorry. If there is anything I can do, please contact me.”

“I don't need your fucking pity,” she growled under her breath once she was out of earshot.

Another cab ride back to the university and she picked up her car. There were several hours left in the workday, but she had other plans now. The car lifted off and she nosed it up and towards the east. In a minute they were traveling faster than the speed of sound.

While the autopilot handled the flight, she called Aaron and explained the meeting. “That can't be right.”

“I know,” she agreed.

“Could it be some sort of elaborate hoax?”

“I considered it,” she admitted, “which is why I got a copy of the data and I'm going to see Ted.” She had other reasons, however having the genetic data reviewed was at least one of them. “There is one possibility that came to mind.”

“What is that?”

“I could be a clone.”

“A clone? Is that even possible?”

“With Concordian technology, I'm sure it is.”

“But then wouldn't you be an exact genetic copy of Mindy? That director guy said you were just her daughter.”

“Maybe father used her genetic material and mixed it with mother’s?”

Aaron looked at her through the video connection in the dashboard of her aerocar. His expression was full of concern, but also skepticism. She admitted to herself that it sounded weak. “You want me to hop over there too?”

“No, you have to finish up those delivery schedules by tonight. If anything else weird happens, I'll call.”

“Define weird.”

“Weirder than normal?” He chuckled and signed off.

Minu stared at the blank screen and thought, then took out her personal tablet, the crystalline one from the Kaatan. From a pocket she removed a small armored data chip case. The chip was unmarked, but the read-only tab was broken.

She inserted it into the tablet and accessed the files. Her father’s extensive notes and mission logs were at her fingertips. By the time the autopilot chirped to warn her of the approaching destination, she had her answer. For two weeks around her birthdate Chriso had been offworld. The logs detailed a series of missions deep into the frontier. Nothing at all unusual or out of the ordinary.

She released the autopilot and began to descend. The Steven’s Pass complex appeared through the cloud deck. Steven’s Pass was far enough north that even in April there were still spots of snow here and there at the high altitude of the complex. Still she donned her floppy hat as she climbed from the aerocar on the roof of the parking lot.

A pair of male Chosen smiled as she went by, not recognizing her. There were a lot more female Chosen then in the day when she first came on board. Her red hair was usually enough though. She surmised by their age that they hadn't met her yet. That and she was wearing civilian clothes that day, light blue pants and a matching sleeveless top with ever-present hat to guard against the powerful sun. The cool breeze across the parking lot roof felt good.

Down inside the main building she cut across one of the connecting bridges and into the science wing. She found Ted Hurt in his lab. Like her, he split his time between the Chosen and the University of Plateau. Unlike Minu though, he was retired and only did specifically requested projects for the Chosen. She knew he'd be at Steven’s Pass that week because she'd help set up the research gig he was working on; a weapons project for the Rangers.

At almost seventy he was in pretty good shape. A slight paunch on his thin frame spoke of too many hours in the lab and too few in the gym. What had been a halo of gray hair had given out entirely over the last few years. He shaved what little remained now.

He looked up with bright sparkling blue eyes at her entrance, surveying her figure as always. She'd long ago given into the fact that Ted was an unapologetic horndog.

“Minu my dear!” he said and got up from the stool he'd been perched on. He didn't quite hop up like he used to. A dozen technicians in the lab looked up. Some nodded recognition to her, others looked on with open curiosity. There was a nearly even mixture of Chosen and civilians represented.

“Hi Ted,” she said as he came over, deftly turned her head to dodge his full on kiss, making it into a peck on the cheek. The hug she gave him was not reduced in intensity though. Maybe even a little needy.

“Are you okay?” he said, holding her by the upper arms and backing her away slightly. He knew her well enough to sense her feelings.

“Do you have an hour or so?”

“Of course, but come to my office. We're working with live ordinance here.” She glanced at the bench and saw a stack of C-7 explosives, an advanced polymer compound binary material they'd synthesized just last year. It started life as a primary form for molding moliplas. Nearby was a mockup of what it would be going in. They'd made more progress than she expected. She might be a college dean, but blowing things up still held a special place in her heart.

“Thanks,” Minu said and let him lead her down the hall. It took her a minute to realize that his office was none other than her old one. He caught the look on her face and smiled. “Yes, rather apropos, wouldn't you say?”

“Fitting is what I was thinking, considering I came up with the shock rifles here.”

He nodded and settled in his chair before fixing her with an intent stare. “What can I do for you?”

Minu took out the chip she'd gotten from Director Porter and handed it to Ted, then told the story.

After he’d absorbed all the details he spoke. “I don't honestly think Chriso would have cloned Mindy Harper,” he said.

“How do you know?”

“Because I knew him as well as I know you.”

“I thought I knew him too,” she pointed out.

His lips compressed into a tight line and he sighed. “Minu.”

“I'm not here for excuses. I need your help.”

“Okay,” he agreed and plugged in the chip. “I'm not a geneticist, of course.”

“I know that, but you don't expect me to just go to some random specialist with this do you.”

“No, I can't imagine you would want to do that.”

The computer was an advanced model with holographic displays so Minu was able to follow along. He accessed the genetic information used as the baseline, then logged onto the Chosen network. Using his high security clearance as a senior researcher, he obtained Minu's master genetic file and compared them. They were a perfect match.

Minu didn't say anything about what he'd did. Ted was a consummate scientist, and he was merely following basic scientific method. “Now that's out of the way,” he mumbled and began to look at the comparative data. “I have to assume the data on Mindy Harper is accurate.”

“There is no reason to believe it is not.”

“That is true.” More data appeared and the holographic display began to get crowded. With a gesture he swept some of it aside. The data windows hovered over and stuck on the walls. Ted had upgraded the office with active displays on all the walls. Very handy.

Helping himself to research files from the genetics department of their university, Ted began to scan for certain key indicators between her DNA and that of Mindy Harper. Again accessing the Chosen database, he obtained Chriso's data as well. In a minute he had another pronouncement. “Okay, you're not a clone in any way.”

“You're sure?”

“Yes,” he said and pointed to a file. “When you create a clone you get exact DNA matches. If the reproduction is natural, there are slight differences. They can be almost perfect, but not quite.”

Another data string came up, this one from the tribal records. It went by too fast for her to see the name. He continued his comparisons.

“They were thorough. You are definitely not Chriso's child, so he didn't somehow travel back in time and impregnate his ancestor.”

“Now you're being simultaneously ludicrous and crass.”

“Crass maybe, but not ludicrous.” She cocked her head and he continued. “This is a genetic record of the only surviving daughter of Mindy Harper.”

“Michelle,” Minu spoke from memory.

“Yes.” The woman's image came up and Minu was looking at an older version of herself, identical in almost every way. “This is a few years before her death in 049 AE.” More genetic data appeared on the screen and a comparison was run. “Okay, you're not a clone of her either. That was the real possibility. However, if you look at your genes, you'll see you two are nearly twins. As I said, this Director Porter did his homework. If you aren't Mindy Harper's child, it is a one in a trillion shot.”

“His people did comparative analysis against all the tribal records. There is no-one else I could be related to.”

“Okay, I guess then all I can do is confirm what he already did.”

“You can help me understand what the fuck is going on?”

“I dearly wish I knew.” Minu scowled at his unintentional mimicking of what Director Porter said.

She caught herself rubbing the sapphire through her shirt and suddenly stopped. She reached around behind her neck and carefully released the dualloy clasp. Sliding it out from the neck opening of her shirt she regarded the deep blue gem.

Nearly a full carat, it was a flawless sapphire. The rarest gem on the planet, even more so than diamonds. A long time ago she'd done a little research. There was no record of a sapphire being mined on the planet of a carat or larger. “My father said this belonged to Mindy.”

Ted reached out and took it, quickly noticing the advanced dualloy links and findings. “Those I added,” she laughed. “It was originally gold. Even twelve carat gold isn't up to Chosen field standards. I didn't want to lose it on some distant world.”

“With dualloy the chain could just as easily decapitate you,” he mumbled.

“The clasp is a safety release. I thought the same thing shortly after making it.”

He nodded and examined the gem before setting it on a compact material scanner built into the computer. Another nice addition from the days when she ran the lab. In moments it obtained a detailed scan of the gem. “Your ancestor Mindy was resourceful.”

“Why? What do you mean?”

“This gem is synthetic.”

“So did they bring it from Earth?”

“No, not possible. This is an industrial grade gem of point zero, zero, zero, zero, two tolerance. Better than what is made in the Concordia today.” As Minu thought about that he leaned forward and his eyes narrowed at the screen. “And there is something more.” With a hand motion, the gem appeared to fill most of the holographic display. The computer enhanced an area near the center of the gem and expanded it. There she saw an unmistakable encrypted locking hologram of the kind her brain easily decoded. “This is the kind of stuff you had uploaded into your brain by the Weavers, right?”

“Yes,” she said simply. “And I've been walking around for more than a decade with it hanging around my neck.”

“What does it mean? Can you tell?”

Minu stared at it for a moment. But with a lot of that sort of information, it didn't simply give her an answer. She knew it meant
something.
She also knew it served a purpose. She just didn't know what it was.

“Nothing comes directly to mind,” she admitted. “My brain recognizes the code, it feels right.” She gave a frustrated shrug, “only I have no idea what it is for.”

“I used to be really frustrated that the floating extra dimensional crabs chose you to give a brain upload. Over the years I've become less enamored with the idea.”

“It's somewhat overrated,” she admitted. She'd also wondered more than once what else the enigmatic beings might have done to her brain. Lilith assured her the Medical Intelligence found nothing out of the ordinary.

Of course, the program also insisted that what the Weavers did was not possible. It also refused to admit they even existed. Minu knew better, of course. They were out there, running the Portal networks throughout the galaxy. At least for now. One of Pip's ongoing projects was to negotiate with them. The Weavers insisted that a new contract needed to be worked out. Pip had yet to even understand what that meant.

Minu used her tablet to call up a program she'd begun to use in recording some of the more common holographic codes encountered. This was going to be anything but common, but she wanted to enter it anyway. Considering it took a microscope to even see the code that was laser etched into an interior facet of the gem, it would be unreadable if she ever needed it on the fly.

It took her almost fifteen minutes to enter all the permutations of the code. As she worked, she tried to make sense out of all the elements of this growing mystery. Her mother and father were related to her, but only through genetic heritage. If it came right down to it, she was actually her own father’s great, great, great, great, great aunt. Her mind rebelled against the idea. How could she be Mindy's child? Then a thought occurred to her.