Organic Future - Sparrowhawk Part 2

The meeting was scheduled for ten. That gave Emily barely enough time to sort through the rest of her mail and pull her notes together. The company would want a formal, written report eventually. Right now, it wanted whatever she could give, in whatever form she could manage.

When she and Alan walked into the conference room, the research head, Sean Gelarean, was already there, marking the air with a touch of lime aftershave.

Come to the States with the last gurgle of the British Brain Drain, he had found that his Mediterranean coloring could, for a change, make life easier.

He told the story often: In England, he had been just another wog, his Palestinian ancestry weighing more than three generations of loyalty to the Crown. Here, he had blended in among hybridized Italians, Greeks, Spanish, Portuguese, Afghanis, Lebanese, and more. The old Italian-American family, the Campanas, into which he had, in time, married had barely noticed that he was not one of their particular group. Rumor had it that he had never converted to their Catholicism, that, in fact, he kept a prayer rug in his office closet and unrolled it five times a day to pray to Mecca in the east.

With the Campana money, he had become one of Neoform's founders. Not long after that, though still long before Emily's tenure with the company had begun, he had been the gengineer behind the Hawks that cop had appreciated so much. If further rumor were right, the fact that the Campana money had gone into making police vehicles might make him feel even better. Most of their investments leaned toward the other side of the fence.

Also present were Frank Janifer and two aides from marketing, an anonymous VP from financial, and two of the firm's other gengineers, Ralph Chowdhury and Wilma Atkinson. A sharp edge of sweat overlaid the lime, Frank's tobacco, Wilma's floral perfume, and all the other less-distinctive scents. Emily supposed the sweat belonged to Ralph, for that odor seemed to accompany him everywhere. He was dark of both hue and temperament, a half Indian whoseparents had escaped from South Africa after it went black. He wore flat-lensed spectacles that reflected the room's lights and hid his eyes.

Wilma was an asthenic blonde who specialized in decorative plant-animal hybrids. One of her products occupied a pot on a pedestal near the conference room's one window. Its form was as natural, yet as abstract, as branching coral, it swayed gracefully, and from time to time it emitted a soft, tuneful moan. Her work provided Neoform with one of its most successful and profitable product lines.

Everyone waited quietly while Emily straightened her notes to one side of the small keyboard and flat screen set flush in the table before her. She stalled a moment longer to plug her graphics disk into the drive slot next to the screen. When she was done at last, and her hands were folded atop her papers, Sean said, "I wish you had called last night, Emily. I wanted to know immediately."

Emily shrugged and opened her mouth. But before she could say anything, Frank interrupted: "I don't believe she was thinking of anything to do with work, Sean. She was on the expressway when..."

"Ah." The other nodded his graying head. The beginnings of the bulldog jowls he would wear not much later in his life wobbled. He hadn't known, he said, though he did not look surprised. He turned back to Emily. "But that's over and done with. You're safe, and we're glad of it." When the others had murmured their agreement, he added, "It would have been difficult, finding someone to take over your Bioblimp project." He sighed. "I probably would have had to do it myself."

Emily thought that he did not look displeased at the thought. She knew that he had accepted such ch.o.r.es in the past, and somehow, his name had always wound up the only one on the project.

"Do you feel up to giving us a report?" he said.

"Of course." She looked down at her papers, though she had little need to refresh her memory again. Then she told them what had gone on in Was.h.i.+ngton, adding some detail to what she had told her husband. The patent examiners had agreed that the Bioblimp indeed seemed original and patentable. But then had come the reason why the patent had not simply been issued, and a hearing had been called instead. A Pentagon general had appeared to claim that the Defense Department had already produced similar carriers for troops and cargo. To support the claim, he displayed a single sketch. Then he said that his office wished to cla.s.sify both the patent application and Neoform's Bioblimp.

Wilma's artwork softly echoed the audience's groan. "Fortunately," she went on, "the Hearing Board shot that down. They pointed out that the application had already been published, and besides, the press was present.

And then we--I and our lawyers--pointed out that according to the general's sketch..." She paused to touch the keyboard, and a screen at the end of the room lit up with a lifelike diagram. "According to the general's sketch, the rootstock was a very different species of cnidarian and the result lacked our cargo-handling tentacles. It had only a rudimentary fringe." A split-screen diagram emphasized the comparison. She shrugged as if to say that she had done her best. "The Board took everything 'under advis.e.m.e.nt,' and we'll know their decision in a few days."

"Tell them about Mayflower," said Alan Bryant. Ralph Chowdhury scowled, as if offended by the temerity of a mere technician--or a black--who dared to speak, but he said nothing. Emily looked at her boss, Sean, and activated her third computer graphic.

"Alan is referring to a conversation I had with the Vice President for Purchasing of Mayflower Van Lines. He was at the hearing, and he thought the Bioblimps, especially with their tentacles, might make good moving vans. If we can equip them with cargo holds. He didn't want strap-ons, he said, because the straps might break." Someone snorted. "I know," she added. "The airlines have no trouble. But we've already begun to look into marsupial genes." Frank muttered to one of his aides, who produced a disk, inserted it in the drive before her, and copied the graphic.

Sean held a single piece of paper in front of his bifocals. "I understand the Bioform Regulatory Administration posed an obstacle?"

"BRA just wants a more extensive Environmental Impact Statement. But we can't prepare it until we know who our customers will be."

"Hah!" Chowdhury was scowling at her now. "You won't have any! Not if I know the military!" He didn't, Emily thought. But he had never let the truth keep him from attacking everyone within reach, as if he hated them all. His colleagues put up with him because they sympathized with his history, and because, for all his abrasiveness, he was a more than competent gengineer. He was, in fact, one of the best in the industry. Even Emily had to admit that he could do things with a genome that she could never attempt.

"If the decision goes against us," Emily replied, "I think we'll be able to get a military procurement contract. I have a feeling the general thought our design rather better than the one he had. The built-in cargo holds should only help."

Wilma changed the subject. "Have you heard the news, Emily?" When Emily shook her head, she went on, "They didn't find any terrorists at all on that Sparrow. It just stopped responding to its controls."

Frank began to look worried. "Do you think there's a defect in the gengineering? That could hurt sales."

"The station said the PLO, the Free Venezuelans, and the Boer Front have all called to claim the credit."

Frank laughed. So did Emily. The same thing happened every time there was a disaster that might have been caused by terrorists. Some of the more extreme groups had even been known to claim credit for earthquakes and tornadoes.

The research head rapped a pencil on the table. When he had their attention, he said, "I don't think that is our problem."

"But, Sean..."

"Wait until they say there's a defect. Or that the terrorists sabotaged the Sparrow in some way, which I think is more likely. Now we have a report from Dr. Chowdhury."

Chowdhury's motions, as he shoved a disk into his own drive slot with a loud click, were aggressive. He glared at everyone impartially, though his gaze seemed to avoid Sean and to linger just a little on Emily and Alan. "Such problems," he finally said, "certainly won't affect the Bioblimp. That is a dead end. The true future of this company must lie with the armadillo-based vehicles I have been working on." He gestured, and the screen showed his own first diagram.

"The problem is the wheels," said Chowdhury. "When General Bodies designedtheir Roachster, they had an immense advantage. An arthropod's sh.e.l.l is laid down by an underlying membrane and is periodically replaced or molted. Once they had gengineered their hybrid to grow b.u.mps in suitable places, beneath the legs..." Most of them knew what he was talking about with the speech and the diagram he displayed, but review was an essential part of the ritual of presentation. In most people's hands, it was also a comforting rite; in his, it grated.

He continued: "Then they could have the membrane secrete a second layer of sh.e.l.l inside those b.u.mps, just within the first. It does this anyway at molting time. The difference comes in the shaping of the layers where the b.u.mps neck down to join the body, so that the end result is a wheel mounted on a central hub. The genimal's legs run backward on top of the wheels." Another diagram. "And when the wheel wears out, a molt replaces it.

"Unfortunately..." A photo replaced the computer graphic. It showed Chowdhury standing beside an armadillo whose back bulged well above his head.

Emily thought that the world had seen nothing like it since the South American glyptodont had died out millennia before, if then. The size was comparable.

The glyptodont had even had a tail, as did armadillos. But the glyptodont's sh.e.l.l had not swelled out beneath its legs in four rounded bosses that looked exactly like the wheels of a Roachster. He went on, "An armadillo's sh.e.l.l is really a system of bony plates embedded in the skin. The plates are covered with h.o.r.n.y scales, but the bone is what gives the sh.e.l.l its strength. That's a more internal tissue, and it is never molted. It was therefore difficult, but I did succeed in producing an armadillo with wheels. However, once those wheels wear out, replacing them is a much more time-consuming process. We may have to fit them with rubber tires."

"Why bother?" asked Frank. "With their Roachster, General Bodies has a lock on the wheeled genimal market."

"Sure," said Emily. "Why can't your 'Dillo Dillies' run on legs, like a Tortoise?"

Chowdhury, his voice taut with anger, said, "I prefer to call them..." but the group's laughter drowned him out.

In a moment, when quiet reigned once more, Emily said, "But seriously, have you considered the main drawback to using armadillos as your rootstock?"

Chowdhury's voice grew tight, and Emily thought she could detect a change in the odor of his sweat. "There are no problems with my armadillos!"

Emily showed her teeth in an apparent smile. It was hard to keep her mouth from s.h.i.+fting the little bit that would make the expression an unabashed snarl. "I've lived in Texas, Ralph, where the roads are splattered with dead armadillos. The reason is simple: When they are startled, they leap straight upward, just to b.u.mper height. It's a reflex, as such it's wired into their nervous systems, and into their genes, and it would be just wonderful for the reputation of your Dillies if the same reflex showed up under a highway overpa.s.s. Have you done anything about it?"

There was a moment's silence. Chowdhury scribbled quickly on one of the papers before him. Then he said smugly, "That is not necessary." He tapped his keyboard, and the room's screen wrote an equation beneath the photo.

"Square-cube scaling turns the wild armadillo's leap into the merest of hops for my 'Armadons.'"

Frank raised a hand, one finger jutting toward the screen: "How can it even hop, with the legs on top of the wheels like that? Wouldn't it tear itswheels off?"

Alan laughed out loud. Emily was delighted. Chowdhury was far less so. His face darkened, and his fingers mashed his keyboard murderously. The screen blinked out. He said, "That is not a problem. I will be ready to demonstrate my prototype soon, and then you will see. I hope that you will even applaud."

No one had a chance to say anything more. A discreet beep sounded from their chief's, Sean Gelarean's, place. He leaned over his screen to read some message, and then he said, "Emily? Miss Carol says there's a police officer in the entry. She wants to interview you about the incident yesterday." He grinned, and the flesh around his eyes wrinkled. "She says she's disappointed that you didn't say anything this morning."

Emily snorted and rose from her seat. "I was in a rush." As she backed away from the table, she glimpsed Gelarean's feet--almost as small as her own--in the shadows beneath. He had kicked off one shoe so he could use the toes to scratch the other ankle.

Chapter Four.

BERNIE FISCHER'S PERSONAL vehicle was nothing so satisfying as a Hawk.

That was an official police vehicle that must, at the end of each day, be put to bed in the official police Aerie. Despite its name, that structure was on ground level, a huge barn, a stable for all the department genimals. There official police handlers fed the Hawks and Roachsters and flicked their dormancy toggles to put them to bed for the night.

Bernie didn't even own a genimal. He had no Tortoise, no Roachster, no Hopper. And the reason was not expense. He could afford one, and there were public stables where he could keep it. But he didn't need it, for his small apartment was not far from police headquarters. It was so close that sometimes he actually walked to work. Other times, he rode a bicycle and parked it in the Aerie's broad yard. He chained it only elsewhere in the city; where he worked, it was safe.

Despite a gray sky and the promise of rain to combat the summer heat, today was a bicycle day. He hadn't, as he had expected, slept very well. He craved peace, and quiet, and the soft, floating sensation of a Hawk on the wing. The bicycle, when the streets were smooth, as they were by spells, and the litterbugs had been doing their duty, as they generally had, came as close, he was sure, as he would get today. There would be paperwork on both the rape-mutilation and the terrorist attack on the expressway. There might be some legwork to do. He would probably not need the Hawk's speed or weaponry.

They would instead delight some other member of the force.

He could at least look in on the Aerie before he had to face his desk. He grinned as he pedaled, dodging traffic and pedestrians. If, he told himself, he could get there early enough, he could spend a little time staring at the sleek forms of the Hawks. Perhaps, if the Aerie's grooms had not done their work as perfectly as usual, he could run a hand down a neck to straighten feathers.

But he never had the chance. As he pulled into the Aerie's yard and swung his right leg back and over the seat, standing on the left pedal while hecoasted toward the bike rack, Connie Skoglund hailed him. She shouted, one arm upraised, her uniform blouse stretched tight across her torso, and once again he admired her. He changed course and stopped in front of her. Her scent, of soap and perfume, stood out against the earthier odors of the Aerie and made him think of other days, and nights.

"The Count wants you," she told him. "Right away." Above them, a Hawk noisily departed one of the Aerie's three launch platforms, small, circular decks set against the slanting roof. An elevator within the building carried the birds and their pilots up to what, in a barn, would have been the hayloft.

From there, ramps led to arched doorways, each on a different level, stepping upward from the front of the building toward the back. The arches, their tops filled in with stained gla.s.s salvaged from some ancient mansion of the city, opened onto the platforms. The platforms themselves pivoted on central hubs, so that the blast s.h.i.+elds erected along one edge would always be behind the Hawks when they took off into the wind. They reminded Bernie of the rotating gun platforms on naval wars.h.i.+ps in old movies.

He grimaced to show his disappointment. The Hawks would have to wait, while he straightened feathers of another sort. "The Count" was Lieutenant Alexander, the chief of the department's detectives, and the nickname was appropriate. His parents, presumably suffering from pretensions to glory, had given him the first name of Napoleon.

"Any idea what for?"

Connie shrugged. "Something to do with that airliner. All I know is, I'm on witness duty. I've got about twenty of 'em to interview today."

"See you later?"

She looked at him appraisingly. "Dinner?" When he nodded, she added, "Come over to my place, then."

Historians know that Napoleon Bonaparte was short and suspect that Alexander the Great was not much taller. The Count did better on that score, for he and his immediate ancestors had enjoyed the benefits of better nutrition. His more distant ancestors had been of taller stock, and he was as blond as only a Scandinavian, or one sprung from that region, can be.

He also had strikingly red lips. Though one might think that a Napoleon Alexander would be called "General" or "Emperor," and though he was fair, not dark, and was not given to long black capes, that feature was the one that had dictated the form of his nickname. If it failed to capture the flavor of his temper, no one seemed to mind.

"Fischer! How did those G.o.dd.a.m.n terrorists get away?"

Bernie, standing in front of his superior's desk, gave a deliberately sloppy imitation of a military salute. He had been in the army, and he wasn't about to give the SOB the real thing. "Sir?" The Count insisted on the word.

"The night s.h.i.+ft checked the pa.s.sengers. Three quarters of them dead, and every one of them absolutely innocent. Pa.s.sports in order, no guns in their briefcases or purses. Nothing!" The Count slapped a hand on his desktop in emphasis.

"The crew, sir?"

"Dead, every one of them. No one's talking. But their papers are in order, and..." He snarled. "They had to get away!" "I didn't see anyone leave the Sparrow after it fell, sir."

The Count spun in his swivel chair to stare out his office window at the front of the Aerie. A rack of bicycles, including Bernie's, was visible in the yard below. He sighed gustily. Finally, he admitted, "We have the c.o.c.kpit voice recorder. It actually looks like there weren't any terrorists. That Sparrow simply stopped responding to the controls. It just went berserk."

"Sir? But how...?" Bernie didn't own a genimal, but he knew they weren't supposed to act independently. They were supposed to be totally obedient to their masters, except when left to their own devices. That was why he had had to switch off his Hawk on the expressway. Left alone, it might well have eaten the Sparrow, or some of it. But as long as he was at the controls, it had to obey him. That was the way the gengineers had designed them.

"I have no idea," muttered Lieutenant Alexander. More loudly, he added, "But they've got that thing in a hangar out at the airport, and they're taking it apart. If they find anything, they'll let us know. And then--even if they find litter!--you can get to work. I want the son of a b.i.t.c.h responsible!"

So did Bernie.

"While you're waiting on them, I want reports. On that rape thing, and on just what you did see yesterday."

Later that morning, after the overcast had burned off and the heat had returned, Bernie's phone rang, echoing around the carrel that served him as an office. He grinned as he lifted his hands from the keyboard of his official munic.i.p.al antique, an electronic typewriter with a mere half page of memory.

Now, maybe, he could escape. Maybe he could get out of the building. Maybe he could even fly a...

It was the Count, and his message was simple: "They've found something out at the airport, and they want someone to come see. So go. And take a camera."

"Yes, sir!"

Delightedly, he launched the Hawk from the Aerie's uppermost platform, the jets thrusting the bird into the air, the wings snapping into place, the ground dropping abruptly away beneath him. He burned fuel with a prodigal hand, setting a direct course for the airport, wasting no time in soaring to gain alt.i.tude, certainly not to mesmerize himself with whirling landscapes as he had the day before.

Mere minutes later, he was descending on the hangar ap.r.o.n. Dust flew as he parked the Hawk, this time without the dormancy switch, for here there was nothing to make the bird misbehave. He dismounted, stroked his vehicle's neck feathers with one hand, and strode toward the small door set like a sally port in the hangar's gate. The electronic camera he had brought b.u.mped against his chest, swinging on the strap around his neck. It would record anything, in any light, that he could see with his eyes.

A balding man in a gray suit stood beside the door. Bernie introduced himself and held out a hand. The other took it, said, "Alan Praeger, Air Board," and opened the door. As it closed behind him, Bernie stopped, frozen in place by the scene before him.

The hangar was, of course, large enough for an airliner. A distant air-compressor labored inadequately to fight off the sun that beat down on the metal roof; the cavernous room stank of sweat and dust and spoiling meat. The Sparrow sprawled across the concrete floor and was dwarfed by the walls aroundit, and by the human mind's insistence on interpreting walls on a more human scale. Yet it was recognizably a sparrow, a small--a tiny--bird, and it paradoxically shrank the hangar to the point that the white-coated technicians laboring over the spot-lit chest, neck, and head seemed to have escaped from some tale of munchkins or brownies.

The Sparrow's abdomen was open, the exposed flesh already dark and dry; that was, Bernie thought, where the rescue crews had cut to retrieve the bird's victims. Great gashes, still s.h.i.+ning wet, had clearly only recently been opened by the technicians' laser scalpels. "We've been dissecting the thing," said Praeger with a gesture.

"I hear you found something?"

"Over there." Praeger pointed to the other side of the hangar's cavernous s.p.a.ce, where more spotlights illuminated the Sparrow's pa.s.senger pod. More technicians labored there, their efforts concentrated on the c.o.c.kpit area.

Praeger started walking, and Bernie followed.

A bench had been set up to one side of the work area. Most of it was covered with the workers' tools and test instruments. One end was clear, except for a padded case that stood open like a casket awaiting a s.h.i.+pment of crown jewels. Their course, Bernie realized, would end at that casket, and he wondered what they had found.

Praeger pointed at the casket. The padding was creased in the center, like that in a jeweler's ring box. In the crease rested a black plastic oblong with numerous metallic legs. "A chip," said Bernie.

Praeger nodded. "It had been added to the controller's motherboard. We have no idea what it does yet." He drew a pen from his s.h.i.+rt pocket and pointed at a line of identifying numbers on the chip's casing. "We do know it's a PROM--programmable read-only memory--chip. With the right equipment, someone could have stored a program in this thing."

And if that program could have taken over the Sparrow..."The perfect sabotage," said Bernie. "Like a virus program." The police had been dealing with those for decades. Invented for laughs when computers were new, soon adopted by saboteurs and vandals, now they were a favorite weapon in battles for corporate control. They were also used by political terrorists.

Praeger nodded again. "Long-distance. Remote control. And untraceable."

Bernie could already visualize other possibilities. A crook could make an armored car deliver its cargo wherever he wished. Or send a murder victim's vehicle over a cliff. Or separate a kidnap target from its guards. Or...He reached for the casket.

Praeger stopped him. "No, Officer. This is a federal case." Bernie agreed reluctantly. The man was right on two counts: Anything to do with terrorism was inevitably and promptly yanked out of local hands, as was anything that interfered with interstate commerce. But the feds did know that the local yokels could help. That was why they had summoned him, and..."It stays with us. We'll let you know when we've a.n.a.lyzed the program."

Bernie had to settle for what his camera could record.

Aloft once more, Bernie set his Hawk to soaring in circles, but this time he paid little attention to the whirling landscape. He was thinking: It would be weeks before the feds had any results to share, and there was no reason to expect that the chip would reveal a thing about who had set it to subvert theSparrow. He needed a different approach, an alternative way to seek the villain responsible.

Could he dismiss the idea that terrorists had done the deed? Too many groups had tried to claim the credit, but he could not rule out the possibility. He preferred it, in fact, to the thought that the villain was some nut bent on random destruction. Either might be the case, though he would rather hunt a rational foe--if rational was a word that could possibly fit with such a crime--one with a reason for his act, for through that reason, he might be able to track the man.

Bernie reflected on what any detective had to look for when he sought to solve a mystery. Modus operandi? That was unique, and therefore no help. There would be no clues in the department's records of the past. Did anyone gain from the Sparrow's attack? There must be dozens of insurance beneficiaries, heirs, disgruntled spouses. The sort of pedestrian grunt-work checking all of them out would need could safely be called a last resort. Who had had the opportunity to install the chip? Just every maintenance worker and pilot who had ever been in the Sparrow's c.o.c.kpit, in every airport it had ever landed in. Even, for that matter, in the factory that had built and installed the control unit.

What was left? Nothing. It was indeed the perfect crime, untrackable until the villain--terrorist or whatever--said or did something to arouse suspicion.