Operation: Minerva
Analysis was on‑going.
The creatures were proving to be very
difficult to define. If they had been consistent in any aspect, it had been in
their collective ability to either exceed or fail utterly to meet every
parameter that previous data analyses had established for them.
They existed in three dimensional space
and linear time; their perceptions were therefore limited. This had been taken
into account. Constructed from simple elements organised in a highly complex
manner, the individual units operated on energy provided by an equally complex
variety of closely regulated chemical reactions. Much of this was understood ‑
human physical substance was complex, but comprehensible.
The human cognitive process, however,
was another matter, and the study of such continued. Human thinking was rooted
in the same chemical processes, but it was constantly influenced by other,
external, factors. Human behaviour was modified in response to those factors,
often in random and unpredictable ways. Modified response varied and depended,
it was theorised, on the way that the individual units were organised in
relation to their environment, to one another, and to the Whole. This too, was
not clearly understood.
Nor was the Whole's ultimate purpose, though its own survival was apparently of
the highest priority. The individual units routinely engaged in the destruction
of the others, a sometimes random, sometimes deliberate behaviour that the
Whole recognised as aberrant but nonetheless accepted. The Whole designated
significant portions of itself to self‑regulatory functions that included
monitoring the destructively aberrant units. Often it was ineffective but as
the creatures were continually self‑replicating, it obviously didn't
matter a great deal. The Whole went on, pursuing its own non‑understood
purposes, as it also continued to react to the consequence of one particular
individual unit's recent past actions in the linear time‑line...
It was theorised that the unit the
collective had designated Captain Black had malfunctioned. The unit, by all
indications, had been a key and trusted one. The Whole had not anticipated that
the creature would begin a war, though the Whole had understood, accepted and
undertaken defensive measures appropriate to seeing to its own continued
survival throughout such a war. It was a concept that still required deeper
study. Straightforward on the surface,
war was in fact a complex and convoluted activity, and involved another often
self‑contradictory human concept: morality. More data were needed in this
area; morals were as full of diametrically opposed notions and functions
as was the Black unit's mind, a thing
that ran on several levels, most of which were autonomic and from which factual
raw data could be extracted readily. Motor function was also largely autonomic
and the creature's physical being had been mastered early on. But control of
the creature's conscious cognitive functions remained elusive. The Black unit's
mind resisted yet...
As it resisted now... another Construct had become necessary to continue the war; the Black unit's mind balked at the destruction of one of its fellow individual units as usually it did, despite the fact that the Black unit's physical substance had been deliberately and finely honed to perform such destructive acts with a high degree of precision. It was another unresolved conundrum. The study would continue.
Analysis was on‑going...
Tourist stuff.
Todd Carey was becoming bored. The tour had
been long and hot and the air on the bus had been almost as stifling as the air
in the overcrowded dining lounge. The food was spicy and foreign, and he
mistrusted it as much as he mistrusted the water... Shelley's last adventure
tour had left him in some considerable discomfort after a week of supposedly
purified and bottled water...
That had been South America and the wilds
of the upper Amazon. This time it was Africa, and Shelley had ‑ to give
his long‑suffering wife some credit ‑ stuck strictly by the travel
agent's recommendations and booked them into good hotels and arranged for well‑known
and reputable attractions. Not a single tour bus had broken down. It had been a
tame holiday, all things considered. And so he was bored, halfway around the
globe and a hemisphere from home, pretending to be interested in the sights he
could have gotten at any number of exotic game farms back in Canada at
considerably less expense and inconvenience. The seasonal and often bitter cold
of the Rockies back home had made the trip to southern climes seem an
attractive and good idea at the time, but right now he'd have given a lot for a
waft of cold Arctic air to blow through. He was sweating; his shirt was stuck
to his back and itching abominably. Time for a breath of fresh air...
Shelley was deeply engrossed in
conversation with a couple from New Zealand and was monopolizing that conversation; he would hardly be
missed. He rose to his feet, excused himself politely with a kiss behind
Shelley's ear and nodded good night. He would see her back at the room. She
dismissed him with an absent nod, scarcely missing a beat as she launched into
an explanation of what he was doing as he bolted out of doors... “Todd's such a
hermit, really, and the place he works is right out in the boonies ‑
lovely spot, spectacular scenery with the mountains and all ‑ but it's so
isolated. Just what he needs of course, he's working on a doctoral thesis,
though I don't suppose it will ever be finished at the rate he's moving...”
He knew the whole thing by heart. Shelley
always sounded as if she was complaining, but she was in truth usually bragging
and quite proud of him. And so he tolerated the abuses of travel, because it
was true that his work kept him, and therefore Shelley, isolated from most of
society for those other 44 weeks of the year that they weren't vacationing.
The Biotech industry was like that... One
semi‑serious accident early on in the century had led to the imposition
of choking regulations on gene‑science in general, regulations that had
effectively banished all gene‑research industries to unpopulated
backwater locations... It had been an expensive industry‑wide adjustment,
and it had driven a good many smaller firms right out of the business. Those
that had survived, however, had flourished. Most scientists, it seemed, just
didn't mind isolation. It cleared their brains and made them very productive.
Todd Carey had to admit that he was one of
them. He was the Director of Demeter Research and Development, a first class,
indeed world class laboratory of global renown and a facility whose researches
had produced more than its fair share of cutting‑edge breakthroughs in
fields that varied widely from agriculture to computer bio‑chips. It was
a lucrative post, and he felt privileged to hold it. It was challenging,
interesting work that paid very well and it furthermore allowed him to meet a
vast array of the most fascinating people.
In short, it allowed him to pursue a
passion he'd had for years. He had degrees in General Science and Business
Administration. But his life's interest and his hobby was psychology and he was
still working towards a doctorate in the field. He was coming closer ‑
and he was, as Shelley was so quick to point out, often working on the thesis
that would bring him to that goal. He was preparing a paper on the Psychology
of Genius; genius ‑ true genius, that was ‑ was a rare thing, difficult
to find let alone study, and his post at Demeter R&D brought him into close
contact with several people who happened to fit the bill...
It had become habit that he did a good deal
of mental composition whenever he stepped out for a breath of fresh air. He
couldn't ever fool Shelley.
The night was dark there on the edge of the
savannah, and the lights from the small tourist compound were the only ones for
miles and miles around. It was so as not to disturb the animals any more than
necessary ‑ it was supposed to be a wilderness adventure, after all. Few
of the other tourists were out and about. It had been a long tiring drive in
the heat. Only one other guest was in evidence, a tall, dark‑haired but
rather pale looking man in khaki was leaning up against one of the veranda
posts, staring off into the night. He looked like he might have been a game
warden, or one of the Park Rangers. There was a rifle leaning up against the
railing beside him.
The man glanced once in Todd's direction;
he nodded a mute greeting and stepped down off the porch, not wanting to
involve himself in another conversation. Besides that, the man, who'd joined
the tour only a day before, didn't look particularly well – a victim to the
water, perhaps. And he knew the sort of mood that put one in. He gave attention to his own business, and
wandered off into the night, steps rustling in the long, dry grass and didn't
look back even once.
So Todd Carey never did notice when the
tall, pale man slung the rifle over his shoulder and followed him into the
African darkness...
OTHER STORIES BY SIOBBHAN ZETTLER
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