“Don’t hate me,” Ash said.
“I don’t.”
“Von, you couldn’t fake how you feel if your life was on the line. Don’t ever play cards. That’s my advice. I know you’re cross with me, but you have to believe me when I say I want to be on your side.”
“You did what seemed best to you. You shouldn’t feel bad.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Let me watch Dawson’s files.”
“I don’t feel bad,” Ash said, still protesting.
“I need a few minutes.”
“Fine.” Ash left the jeep and stalked toward the lander, radiating a puzzled hurt with her tight, brisk, scissor steps.
Vonnie smiled sadly, feeling branded by her own guilt. She’d definitely found the Achilles’ heel in Ash’s toughness. Friendship might be new to a girl trained almost from birth to rely solely on her mother, then an agency handler. Vonnie would have bet her teeth that Ash’s boss was a woman. Her personal history was too ripe. Her boss would use her dependencies as a goad and a leash.
I want to be her sister, not her mom, Vonnie thought. She needs positive influences, not another commander. She’d reject me if I tried. But I think I’m getting through. Otherwise we wouldn’t have felt so stung by each other.
Nearby, Ash walked up the lander’s steps and touched the air lock controls. The exterior door opened. She bolted inside.
Vonnie looked at the sky again, wishing they didn’t need to spend so much energy manipulating each other. She plugged the data pad into a jack in her wrist. Her visor brought up a short menu of sims. The time stamps ranged from six days ago to yesterday.
She opened the first file, which had been recorded from Dawson’s view of a group feed with fifteen people on Earth. Vonnie didn’t recognize them. The sim didn’t include a company patch, but Ash had filtched their identities by using voice keys and recognition software. She’d superimposed names, titles, and bio links.
Ten of the strangers were mid-level executives with LifeNova, a prominent Dutch health services corporation. The rest were gene smiths. Got you, Vonnie thought, contemplating their faces with cool malice.
Dawson was making a presentation. Two of the boxes in the group feed flickered with datastreams as he lectured. At the same time, the execs and gene smiths on Earth posted questions in an ongoing scroll. Their comments were out of sync with Dawson’s speech due to the lag in radio transmissions, but they’d uploaded an AI to his side to manage their remarks.
As the sim began, the AI said, “Why would that be true?”
“The sunfish appear more closely related to their primordial ancestors than we are to our predecessors on Earth,” Dawson said. “Bacteria like thermophiles and lithotrophs — heat lovers and rock eaters — were the earliest lifeforms on both worlds, but life on Europa appears to have made the leap from single-cell organisms to higher lifeforms in a shorter span. That’s how the sunfish maintained the ability to use iron to survive. Iron is one of their most prevalent catalysts.”
The AI highlighted a manager’s comments. “Less technical, please,” it said.
“Hydrothermal vents were probably the first environments to generate life on Europa,” Dawson said, “and volcanic eruptions release dissolved iron onto the ocean floor. Higher lifeforms like the sunfish retained that affinity for iron, but they can’t have more hemoglobin than us. That would turn their blood into sludge. They’d be too likely to die of strokes and heart attacks. So they use a mutated hemoglobin. It has extra iron atoms and additional twists compared to ours, which allows it to bond with a greater concentration of oxygen molecules.”
“Again, less technical,” the AI said.
Dawson was triumphant. “If we can fashion the same hyper intense hemoglobin in human beings, it would mean increased stamina and acuity, especially in combination with a second aspect of sunfish physiology. You’ll need both to reach the fullest potential.”
“We’ve arranged to negotiate your contract,” the AI said.
“I want royalties in addition to a secured position with your laboratories,” Dawson said. “In two years, every police force and military in the West will be using this gene tech. In five, it will be in construction and sports. I want a percentage.”
“We will pay a flat fee.”
“Nonsense.”
“We will absorb the legal costs. We will absorb the research, development, manufacturing, and marketing costs. Your compensation is a flat fee in addition to a salaried five-year contract with option to renew.”
“I’m the one skirting federal law.”
“We recognize the risk inherent in your position and will reward it,” the AI said.
“Perhaps you’d name an amount.”
The AI superimposed two lines of text on the group feed, numbers that must have been predecided on Earth: €1,000,000.00 bonus, €325,000.00 annual sa.
Dawson’s composure slipped. His eyes widened and his nostrils flared. Then he reverted to his normal mannerisms as a gentleman. “We can discuss this further without the AI,” he said smoothly. “I guarantee you’ll be impressed with my work.”
“Explain the second half of your proposal,” the AI said.
“Indeed.” Dawson opened a new datastream. “Sunfish are able to maintain body temperatures above that of the surrounding water or atmosphere due to a complicated heat exchange system between their muscles, digestive system, and blood vessels. They conserve and store heat like batteries. In duress, they release it. By raising their internal temperatures, they create spikes in reaction time. The heat also allows an increase in the absorption of nutrients. Combined with their mutated hemoglobin, these factors provide them with ’burst speed’ like tigers or sharks, except that the sunfish are able to sustain these bursts far, far longer than any Earth equivalent.”
“You’re in possession of intact sunfish for our labs?”
“I will be,” Dawson said.
Vonnie shut off the sim. She’d seen enough. She tucked the data pad into a leg pocket and left the jeep, retracing Ash’s path to the lander.
The sim couldn’t have been more damning. Dawson’s attitude toward the sunfish was based on raw arrogance.
How did he intend to get past the government’s claim on Europa? Was that what the LifeNova executive meant by ’legal costs’? The ESA wasn’t equipped to design biotech on par with treatments developed by private corporations. Berlin could profit handsomely by licensing the rights to sunfish DNA, gaining much-needed cash which could be fed back to select companies in exchange for cutting edge, clandestine military applications. One hand washed the other. That was how society functioned.
Vonnie climbed onto the lander’s deck and whacked her fist against the control panel for the air lock, opening the exterior door. She stepped in, then cycled the lock.
I’ll give Dawson one chance to back off, she thought. Not for his sake. For the sunfish. It doesn’t sound like Koebsch or our top management will stop him. Swearing to cause a public uproar is the best shot I have left.
What if they call my bluff?
The inner door opened. Vonnie stepped inside the ready room and removed her pressure suit. Metzler ducked through the hatch as she stowed it in its locker. “Hey,” he said.
Vonnie took his hand and squeezed. “Ben, you’re who I think you are, aren’t you?”
He tried to joke. “Am I?”
“Do you work for anyone besides the ESA?”
His bulldog face turned serious. “I’m with you,” he said.
Vonnie squeezed his hand again. “We have one more thing to do that’ll get us in trouble,” she said.