In the box was a whole lot of SeaSheet material. They’d gotten orders from people wanting to play with mech-birds and -dolphins, and could sell power to the bio-lab, hotel and restaurant. Even as he unfolded a panel of the stuff it was creating a trickle of charge for its built-in battery.
So they donned wetsuits, he bandaged his leg, he loaned them some knives, and they went to start paneling the ocean. The dark material looked translucent, absorbing sun and waves. Garrett made himself pay attention to the crew instead of calculating the added wattage.
Doctor Jenner was first among equals in the research group. A couple of them were grad students, used to living cheaply; or young, ambitious researchers. They were all American or Canadian. A decent bunch, picking up quickly on how to duck beneath floating rods or slip over them. Soon they were handling the sheets, unfurling them for the growing power array.
Jenner said, “I understand your station is already involved with some biotech research.”
“You’re swimming with it. The plant and animal selective breeding is an ongoing project.” If only Alexis were around to appreciate how far her work had come, how they’d expanded the farm to something that justified a farming crew! He should name something after her, meaningless as the gesture would be.
Jenner said, “And the MMI studies? We’ve been put in charge of the rats you ordered.”
Garrett bobbed in the water, wondering what the connection was to cybernetic interfaces. “Rats?”
One of the grad students piped up. “I didn’t know anyone but DARPA was working on bioshells these days.”
Oh. Martin’s latest attempt to go behind my back. Zephyr was the only one around that Garrett could trust these days. Well, there was also Noah, and maybe Leda and the Pierponts. Maybe he wasn’t too alone after all. Garrett said, “I wasn’t fully informed. Sorry. I’m trying to get a better hold on things, but there’s a lot to think about. Remind me: what exactly will you be doing?”
“Everything!” said a young grad, a Wilbur Chen from Tennessee. He steadied himself on a floating walkway and said, “We’re free here to do all the experiments you’re not allowed to do back home!”
Garrett had been keeping quiet about the Jenner group’s role. Eaton had made vague promises of a prestigious tenant that Garrett need not worry about. This time Garrett wasn’t that oblivious. Instead he wondered if Martin or even Eaton knew the scientists’ specific research plans. He said, “How unethical do you think you’ll get?”
They all fell quiet.
“I get the idea,” Garrett said. “Why else come here, and how would you get funding for your business, unless you were planning to push some stateside legal boundaries? You said as much.”
Jenner stammered, “I — I thought you were all in favor of individual rights.”
“I’m on your side. I love cool techie projects. But I do have to pay attention to other things, and I’ve got people to protect. If you guys abuse the legal environment here to do sloppy or blatantly evil work, I’ll be first against the wall. And you, second.”
Jenner, Chen and the others stumbled over themselves trying to answer. Jenner managed to say, “Captain, we’ll earn your trust. I don’t know where you stand on human embryos—”
“I say that no working brain means it’s not a person, but some of my colleagues disagree and will call you Nazis.”
“Damn it, no!” said Chen. “We eventually want to try certain experiments on brainless balls of cells or willing, informed patients, but we’re trying to help people, not kill them!” The others murmured assent.
Garrett looked them over. “I didn’t say you were.”
Chen said, “You called us unethical.”
“No, I asked if you were.”
Jenner got between them. “Let me finish. Yes, we know all about the bio-ethical problems we face. We’ve been lectured at great and angry length about how it’s evil to invent better crops or gengineer diseases out of human embryos or do frivolous things like changing people’s hair color. Each of us gave up jobs elsewhere because we believe we can do important, worthwhile and profitable work and put some ethical standards in place while we’re doing it. If we’re not the ones ‘playing God’, I assure you that certain other people will do it first, and you won’t like their idea of how it’s used. If America hadn’t researched nuclear physics, who would’ve had it first?”
Garrett appraised the gang swimming with him. They’d been willing to come down to the water and try something outside of lab work, to be part of this place and participate in its ongoing balance of interests and needs. He trusted this group more than he would a giant government lab a thousand miles away. He said, “So you understand you’ll be facing criticism, and you’re prepared to deal with it?”
“We’re used to it,” said Jenner. “We know that screwing this opportunity up with irresponsible behavior could hamstring the kind of research we want to do, for everyone.”
He nodded. “I’ll be keeping tabs on what you’re doing. Partly out of sheer curiosity.”
“Of course. If you’ll sign a non-disclosure form.”
The researchers and Garrett looked each other over warily. Garrett shook their hands and said, “Show me what you’ve got.”
“Hey, what’s this?” Garrett was hobbling along the west walkway to check out the hotel construction site when he noticed a piece of artificial land that hadn’t been there before. A couple of cheap catamarans had anchored out here as they’d announced, bringing people to gamble and get laid. But now people were working in the water between them, dumping trash — no, it was building materials. There was wood and plastic, and a huge mesh bag of soda bottles bobbing on the waves. Dirt-cheap flotation. Some guys were climbing on the mess with tools.
He pulled out his headset. “Zephyr, check this out.”
“Low-tech,” thought Zephyr. “Refugees?”
Garrett made for the rafters’ site. “Let Security know.” Aloud he called out to the people working there. One man hopped down and approached him on the walkway. In the distance a set of silver windvanes turned, part of the hotel site. “Ay, Captain! Good to see ya!”
Garrett shook hands, puzzled. “What are you working on?”
“We scrounged some materials and we’re setting us up a house.”
“You didn’t tell us you were planning that. You’ve got, what, coke bottles and wood there?”
The builder beamed. “Old tricks. A couple of us once sailed from Cuba to Florida on a styrofoam raft.”
“Marsh Arabs?” said Zephyr. “There’s some kind of swamp-dwelling Free Iraqi group looking to come here, says the Net. Hmm, it’s not these guys though.”
“You can’t do that,” said Garrett, winging it. “We’re happy to consider applications from people who want to live here, but you just showed up.” A mech-gull wheeled overhead and perched on a nearby mast to watch them.
“So?” said the builder.
“So! I mean, you didn’t ask permission.”
The man crossed his arms. “Okay then, how much of the ocean do you own? I can park a ways out.”
“Security here,” said a Pilgrim man over the radio.
“Come to my position.” Garrett wasn’t sure whether he or Zephyr had said it. “I don’t own the ocean, but I do own this station.”