“You coming?” Rev asked.
“I think I’ll stay here. I don’t care about no trees.”
Rev kept the smile on his face, but he inwardly winced. Randigold looked awful as she sprawled on her couch, a holovid playing over the table. Even without a position, Rev was trying to keep her involved, but she rarely came out of her small apartment in the center of Haventown.
“Willie and Aspen were hoping to see you,” he said. “Right, girls?”
Willow said yes, but Aspen seemed more interested in the apartment itself.
“You two can come by later. Maybe we can watch Chipmunk Circus.
Both girls perked up at that.
“Can we stay, Daddy?” Aspen asked.
“No, Auntie Eth needs her rest.”
“Bull . . . no, I’m fine. They can stay here with me,” Randigold said.
“You sure?” Rev asked. “They can be a handful.”
“The day I can’t handle two little girls is the day you need to pull the plug on me, Rev.”
Randigold had been making more and more morbid comments, but Rev knew that was just her way of coping, whereas Rev tried to ignore the steady marching of his own rot.
“Please, Daddy?” Willow asked.
Rev knew he should say no, but he didn’t know how much longer Randigold would be here, so he relented.
“Just be good. And do whatever Auntie Eth says.”
“OK!” both girls shouted as they ran to Randigold and climbed on the couch.
Rev left the three and headed to the makeshift greenhouse. Tomiko, Kelly, and Tiwari were waiting for him at the entrance.
“Where’re the girls?” Tomiko asked. “And I thought you were getting Eth.”
“They’re with Eth. And she didn’t feel up to coming.”
“So, you left them with her?”
“She insisted. So did they. They’re watching Chipmunk Circus.”
“I’ve seen that a hundred times. I can recite every line.” Tiwari said. “We’ve got thousands of kid’s movies, na? So why do they watch the same thing?”
“Just show them something else,” Kelly said.
Rev, Tomiko, and Tiwari all rolled their eyes.
“You’ll see, Kel,” Tomiko said.
Kelly was the latest pregnancy. Rev didn’t know who the partner was. Kelly said she wasn’t in and didn’t need a relationship to be a mother. Rev was tempted to ask Rima, but he knew she wouldn’t reveal who the donor was.
He and Tomiko had spent hours trying to guess who it might be, but neither of them really had a clue. They’d just have to wait until and if their friend let them know who he was.
“We ready?” Kelly asked.
“Let’s go see this miracle,” Rev said, and they all trooped into the greenhouse.
Punch, Pika, and another Po nicknamed Goat were in the middle of a discussion. They looked up at the Marines’ entrance, but Rev’s attention was laser-focused on the dirt-filled table that dominated the center of the structure—a table covered with several rows of tiny seedlings.
“Is that them?” he asked.
“Sequoia sempervirens. Coastal Redwood,” Punch said.
Rev moved forward, then bent at the waist to get a better look. These tiny seedlings were a far cry from his favorites at Tall Trees Provincial Park back on Safe Harbor. But he could see from the needles that they were the same.
When the Po were told about the Genesian gene bank, they’d become excited. Making food that tasted like Earth foods had been merely an exercise in biochemistry. But growing viable plants and animals from DNA samples made them excited. This is what they did.
When they asked permission to “play,” was the translated word they used, with Earth DNA, there’d been some pushback, but that was overruled. If they could bring to life crops, then they wouldn’t have to crack the code on the Genesian cultivators.
The first test subject was going to be liverwort, a hardy but evolutionarily primitive plant. But when Rev was looking at the list of what was in the bank, he stumbled on the redwood samples, and his imagination ran away with him. He could picture tall trees bordering the creek, and even though they wouldn’t reach the heights of mature trees in his lifetime, maybe they would for his great-great-great-grandchildren.
He'd requested that they try redwoods, and the Po agreed.
“So, these are redwoods,” he said in awe.
He knew it wasn’t that miraculous, really. Century ships carried thousands upon thousands of fertilized seeds and embryos that were then decanted and raised once they reached their destination, and humanity had long ago cracked the cloning code. But the expedition was never intended to create settlements, so it had none of the equipment nor expertise for the process.
The Genesians had gone another route, eschewing the seeds and embryos for DNA samples. That took much less room on a ship but required far more technical know-how. From the looks of the neat lines of the seedlings, the Po had that expertise.
Kelly squatted at the end of the table and aligned her eyes to the rows as if inspecting Marines in formation.
“A redwood clone army, ready for their orders,” she said.
“They are no clones,” Goat told her.
“Sure they are,” Rev said. “They’re all coming from the same DNA sample.”
“There are mutations.”
Rev knew that the environment would introduce tiny mutations. Willow and Aspen’s DNA, for example, started to diverge while they were in the womb, and it had diverged even more as a result of their environment, sicknesses, what they ate, etc. They might be close to identical, but they were no longer a perfect match.
And these trees, after they were planted, wouldn’t grow to be carbon copies of each other. Variations in water, wind, nutrients in the soil, etc., would cause each to look different from each other.
“Well, yes,” Rev said. “There will be small changes over time, but they are clones, coming from the same sample. The girls’ gerbil, Blue, is a clone of Lord Squeak.”
Lord Squeak was Moses’s gerbil.
“No. You don’t have understand. I injected mutations,” Goat said.
When the humans looked confused, he said something to Pika in Po.
“What Goat is saying is that during the process, certain mutations were introduced. Some were to enable the trees to grow in a warmer climate than the one described by Punch as their native environment. But more were random mutations, different for each seedling. Cloned organisms are not a healthy option for the long term, so we create a variety of individuals.”
Tiwari nodded, but Tomiko asked, “You created mutants? How do we know those are still redwoods, then? What if things go crazy?”
Pika looked to Goat, who said something back.
Rev was still confused by the whole mutations thing, but this was also the first time he realized that for all their seeming abilities, not all Po had mastered Standard to the same level. The Po were individuals, too, and Goat’s skills apparently didn’t extend to the human language.
“These mutations were not arbitrary. When we analyzed your human DNA, we noted the genetic drift—”
“Wait! You analyzed our DNA?” Rev interrupted.
Pika seemed confused by Rev’s concern.
“Of course, we did. What you term DNA are the building blocks for the human physical being.”
Rev switched from Pika to Goat and back to Pika. He didn’t like this at all. To know that the Po were taking their DNA and analyzing it raised all sorts of red flags.
The big question was why they would do that. Or maybe the bigger question was what they planned to do with it.
Rev wasn’t the only one. Only Punch remained calm. The humans had tensed up, ready for . . . well, ready for something.
“When did you do that?” Rev asked in a calm and measured voice.
“It was after the battle with the Zfthu. You asked us to treat the injured. So, we did,” Pika said as if explaining to a child why it’s dark at night.
“But DNA?”
“We not understand human body then, so we should analyze the DNA more so we can heal you,” Goat said.
“You were a surprise, Rev,” Pika said. “It took a long time to determine that your physical structure was at odds with your DNA. Finally, we realized that you had artificial implements added to your body.”
Rev thought back to the battle’s aftermath. It had seemed to him that the Po medics had started treating him immediately after they scanned him with the cylindrical thing. If that was a “long time,” then their tech must be far more amazing than he’d realized.
What Pika and Goat said made sense, but that didn’t mean Rev had to like it. He had to brief Hyung, and maybe they could figure out something.
Probably not, though. The horses were already out of the barn.
He shook his head and got the explanation back on track for now. “OK, you introduced mutations. How do you know which ones?”
“Once we had a range of genetic drift in humans, we estimated what might be normal in the trees. Other than optimizing for the environmental conditions here, which were fairly obvious, we had to make what you like to call educated guesses.”
“And you guessed right?”
“Certainly not,” Pika said. “We created over two thousand trees. Most were culled. What you see here are what we forecast as the best specimens. Some of them will necessarily be culled as well, but we are confident that we’ll have a viable and self-sustaining population.”
A thought crept into Rev’s head, one he wanted to push away, but it was too late. One of the concerns with the settlement was that at Haven, the population was smaller than what was considered viable. On the plus side, they came from across human space, so the diversity was good. But small numbers were still small numbers.
The question that was popping up in his mind was if the Po could use their technique with human reproduction. Artificially expand the diversity. It was a scary and even nauseating thought, and it wasn’t something that should be attempted on a whim, but this was another thing that Hyung needed to know.
He had to change the subject before he fell down that rabbit hole.
“So, in three hundred years, we’ll have a mature redwood?” he asked.
“We assumed you would like to see them sooner, so we decided to speed up the process.”
Of course, you did. What was I thinking?
“Another mutation?” Tomiko asked.
“No. We prefer to limit them. The acceleration process consists of external stimuli. We won’t know for sure how long it will take until we see how these seedlings respond.”
This had been a lot for Rev to take in. It was easier to just look at the redwoods. He bent at the waist over the table, reached out, and took a small clump of needles between his fingers and rolled them.
A familiar scent tickled his nose, and if he closed his eyes, he could fly back in time to where the ten-year-old Rev and the six-year-old Grover—a pang hit him as he thought of his murdered brother—lay on their backs in the loam at Tall Trees Provincial Park.
They might be mutant trees, but they smelled like the real thing.
The four humans hung around for another five minutes while Punch discussed with Goat what should be next. Rev’s battle buddy was slowly becoming the primary link between human and Po.
It was a good match. Punch was a walking library of helpful facts, such as letting the Po know about the environmental conditions of the redwood’s home range.
Rev was still surprised at how readily everyone had accepted who Punch was. Maybe not everyone did, but Rev didn’t think anyone wanted to mess with the sailors, who’d made Punch an honorary chief petty officer.
“I’d better go rescue Eth,” Tomiko said.
“I’m going to stay here for a few more minutes.”
“See you for dinner?”
“Sure.”
She got up on tiptoes and gave him a kiss on his cheek.
“The redwoods were for you. Everyone wanted to thank you.”
“Thank me?”
“For everything, Rev. Without you, there’s a chance none of us would still be around.”
Her eyes started to glisten, but before a tear could fall, she spun around and said, “Come on. Let’s get going.”
Rev watched them go. Everyone wanted a legacy. They wanted their lives to matter. He knew he had one. He’d been the Nexus of Chaos, present for some pivotal moments in history. He had his part in keeping Earth from being destroyed. He’d been instrumental in the war with the Naxli—although that was more by design than chance. He’d been present when the Genesians made their reappearance.
But if this settlement could be his legacy, where his girls could grow up in peace, then that would be the most important one of all. And he could die in peace.
He started to leave when Pika moved to cut him off.
“I respect your privacy, Rev. And I do not presume to interfere with another being’s decisions, but I am curious, and I wish to understand so that I can better help your people.”
“What do you want to know?”
“May I ask you a personal question? I hesitate to even bring it up. If I have overstepped my bounds, then I apologize.”
Rev really wanted to go for a walk right now, maybe down to the swimming hole, but Pika was a friend, and she seemed troubled.
“You can ask.”
“I’m not intruding?”
I won’t know until you ask me.
“Just ask, Pika.”
“It’s not just me. Most of us don’t understand, either. But we don’t want to—”
“Intrude, I know. Just ask.”
“When we treated you for your injuries, we noticed some obvious prosthetics that the others didn’t have, such as artificial structural supports.”
“To make me more durable and able to handle the weight of my IBHU. The sailors don’t need those.”
“Yes, those were understandable. We also found snippets of alien DNA.”
Rev startled for a moment until he realized Pika didn’t mean alien as in from another planet, only something not human.
“Wooly rhino and bar-headed goose.”
Pika waited for more details.
“The rhino was to help develop a stronger bone structure. The goose was to allow us to navigate.”
“Interesting concept. You spliced in parts of alien DNA instead of just developing your own. I guess it would work, but it seems such a primitive and roundabout way to achieve the desired result. And it could have unintended consequences.”
Yeah. Eth and I already know those.
He thought it was somewhat funny, though, that the Po considered what was cutting-edge technology for humanity was “primitive and roundabout.” He knew the Po were far more advanced than humans were. They’d uplifted at least two and probably more species. Who knew what techniques they had at their disposal?
“That does clear up some of our questions, but there is one more thing. If I am treading on a religious or spiritual area that you would rather we remain ignorant, please tell me, and I will back off.”
Religious? What the hell is she talking about?
“There is one more condition we detected in you, and it doesn’t seem to have a positive purpose. From what we can tell, it is harmful.”
Rev wasn’t sure what she was driving at until she added, “I’d have to confer with those more knowledgeable, but it might be related to the modifications made to you. This wasn’t noticed in the sailors we treated.”
“The rot. Weislen’s Syndrome. Yes, I have it.”
It wasn’t surprising that if the Po could somehow read their DNA and tell that there was wooly rhino and goose in the mix, they could detect the rot.
“Is there a benefit to this rot? The word means a decay of the cellular structure, as I understand it, but you humans use slang that is not always obvious to us.”
Rev let out a wry chuckle. “No, Pika. There is no benefit to it. It will kill me before another year passes.”
Pika went silent, and Rev started to leave when the Po asked, “Is there a religious significance to the rot?”
“Religious? By the Mother, no. It’s just . . . it just is. It’s the price we pay to become better Marines.”
“Then why do you allow it to deteriorate your body? This is what we don’t understand.”
“It’s incurable, Pika. It’s as simple as that. We have treatments that could retard the progress, but the rot always wins in the end.”
“So, you do not wish to have this.”
Rev laughed again. “No, you could say that. And I wish I didn’t have to get old, and I wish we hadn’t been exiled. I wish for a lot of things.”
“Then why did you tell us not to remove it?”
The smile disappeared from Rev’s face, and it felt like his heart had stopped. The world around him faded away, leaving only Pika’s face.
“You can remove the rot?” he asked.
“We should be able to. It would take some analysis, but Goat seems confident that unless there are some significant surprises, it should be fairly routine.”
“You can cure the rot?” Rev asked again as his mind seemed unable to grasp the possibility.
“Yes, I just told you that we think so. We saw the rot, but we never examined it in terms of a cure.”
“Why not? Why didn’t you tell me you could cure it?” Rev asked, his voice rising several decibels louder.
Punch turned away from Goat and toward him at the outburst.
If Pika looked uncomfortable before, she was positively distressed now.
“You told us not to. We did not want to force our personal judgment when you were so adamantly against it.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Pika? Of course, if I’m sick and you can cure me, I’d want it.”
“When we asked to treat you, you made us promise that we would only treat the current injuries and nothing more. We didn’t understand the limitation, but we adhere to the concept of bodily autonomy and agreed to that.”
“I don’t . . . when did I . . .”
Rev paused and thought back. He remembered that he hadn’t quite trusted the Po at the time, and he’d been afraid that they’d do something to them under the guise of treatment.
Did I really tell them to only treat the injuries? Did I sentence us to death because I didn’t trust the dragons?
Rev shook his head. The past was the past. What matters now was that there was a flicker of hope.
“You think you can cure us?”
“Yes.”
“What would that entail?”
“To make sure that the cure didn’t harm you in the process, Goat and his team would want to analyze the rot better. If, as he suspects, your condition is an analog to one we treated with the Siau long ago, then we’d adjust that. If the process is the same, then the treatment would be slow, given over time, and it might be uncomfortable. But we would expect success.”
Rev glanced at Punch, who started walking over to him. This was almost too much to take in. Five minutes ago, he was whistling past the graveyard, laughing about the rot. And now he had hope, which, perversely, he almost wished he didn’t have.
He’d come to accept dying, and he didn’t want to have that hope only to have it dashed by reality.
Pika started apologizing for misunderstanding Rev, but he tuned the Po out. His mind was racing.
He needed to talk to Punch. Tomiko, too. And Rima, of course. She had to give him the OK. And—
What the hell? I don’t need them! I’m dying, by the Mother, and that’s what’s going to happen if I do nothing. I don’t care if this hurts like the Devil’s own iron maiden, I’ve got nothing to lose.
“When can you start?” he said, cutting off Pika’s apologies.
The Po stopped, then asked, “You will let us treat you?”
“Damn right, I will. So, when can you start?”
“Now? Goat will want to gather his team and start, so if you can wait—”
“Not me.”
“You don’t want to be cured? I thought you just said you did?”
“I do want to be cured. But there’s someone worse off than me. Get Goat and his team, and meet me at Eth Randigold’s apartment. Punch, you can take them there?”
“Yes, I will. Am I to understand that your Weislen’s Syndrome might be treatable?”
“That’s what this big, beautiful dragon just told me,” he said as he couldn’t hold back any longer, and he grabbed Pika around the neck and hugged her.
“That’s the best news I’ve had in a long time,” Punch said.
“You and me both, buddy. You and me both.”
Rev broke the hug, shouted, “I’ll meet you at Eth’s,” and ran for the door.
He had to tell Tomiko before anything else happened.
Rev didn’t know if the Po could really cure him and Randigold, but there was a possibility, and where there was a possibility, there was hope.