Loadstar 184/184.d81/t.niobe 1

Text File | 2022-08-26 | 36KB | 1,424 lines

     N I O B E  W E E P I N G

      by Cheryl de Boissiere
            Las Vegas NV


              * 1 *

    Derek studies the world below
him. He has seen a number of planets
but none that look so cold and empty
as this one. None that look so
lifeless.

    Yet clearly, it is inhabited.
White domes gleam in the black rock
and one can envision the thousands of
clones working in the dark tunnels in
their bulky protective environmental
suits.

    Their eyes were probably modified
to see in infrared or ultraviolet or
perhaps both. He has not looked at
the specs on that part of their
design. It is not affected.

    Their lungs still breath the same
mixture of air that Derek does though
it is a modified system. They can
last for hours on what he uses every
15 minutes. And their tolerance to
cold is impressive. He has seen the
specs on that and their lungs since
the problem is strictly respiratory.

    There was sometimes a connection
between cold tolerances and lung
problems or there was in Earth myths.
Derek has judged it wise to pay
attention to old medical mythology.
There is little understanding for
sickness now that the human race has
moved beyond it.

    The clones have not. Lab viruses
crop up during incubation when some
gen-designer has been less than
careful about a stray DNA strand.

    This problem, however, is a
strange rarity. There was a lack of
sterility and a prior experimental
test with an entirely different set
of clones at the production
facility.

    Those clones had been
deliberately destroyed by the Bio-
Warfare Division. They were hoping to
develop a resistant strain from the
bio-matter for their warrior clones
and they did.

    But someone had not followed
standard sterilization procedure.
Derek is sure somewhere heads are
rolling. His internal investigation
team would make sure of it.

    It was easy to develop a vaccine
with the virus and resistant strain
on hand and most of the true research
already available.

    The only problem was creating a
cure that restored the infected
clones to optimal range. Research
indicated that survival was easy but
physical damage, once incurred, was
impossible to reverse.

    There was no way around it. Some
of the clones were hopelessly
damaged. They could go back to work
but performance would be below
standard and they would terminate
years before their encoded expiration
date.

    He is going to have to pull the
damaged clones out, replace them, and
pay for a loss of business revenue.

    Yes, heads had better be
rolling!

    He has brought legal reps to do
the necessary arguing. And Derek has
come to Niobe himself to survey the
damage, to prove that Corday
Technologies cared about their good
name and customers.

    He would have preferred to send
in a team, two of his execs from
whatever regional outlet routinely
dealt with Niobe and this star
sector. They could have paid TJC off,
soothed their ruffled feathers and he
could have stayed on Gethsemane with
his robots and menagerie, his gardens
and beyond -- his father's former
game reserves. But that would have
been weak and lazy, Bad Business, and
he was The Corday.

    It was important that he go
himself though Taylor-Johnson-Cortez
Industries was a mere blip on his
business charts. There were more
important customers than TJC that
would take note of how he handled
this -- his largest business disaster
since he had come to the helm of
Corday Technologies.

    Still, time was so valuable...

    Playing in the labs, light
sailing, even walking on Gethsemane
was better then coming to see this.
He quailed at the thought of it --

    Stick to business: The revenue
loss on this was only major if you
were some fly-by-night clone
contractor.

    This disaster, if measured in
blood, would not fill a thimble.

    Business is business, Derek
thought and gave a sigh.

    The only problem now is what is
he going to do with a fifty to a
hundred thousand defective clones?

    A fire sale was not an option.
Nor was palming them off on some
other rinky dinky mining operation.

    That would be more disastrous to
the Corday name than anything. Corday
Technologies were industry leaders
and their clones were quality
workmanship.

    Derek was left with destroying
them, which is what Charles Corday
would have done without blinking an
eye. It was what Derek Corday
desperately wanted to avoid.

    But there was no way around it.
In the end, he was going to have to
do it. And that more than anything
had made him come out here.

    He would have to, at least, look
one clone in the eye before he went
home. One clone then... home to
Gethsemane.

    There was the other thing, the
thing he had to see, and the woman...
if only she was the one... Then home
to Gethsemane, he corrected a
heartbeat later.

    But it would be the clone he was
thinking of all the way home.

    Get on with it!

    But here he was, in orbit over
Niobe, with a sudden reluctance to
shuttle down.

    It was his own fault, he should
have looked at the bio-warfare
contracts ages ago. He should have
seen which ones he could safely
terminate or sell to one of his
lesser competitors at discount.

    He should have been aggressive
and said Bio-Warfare was operating at
a loss and he was going to have to
make some cuts in that division.

    It would have been a lie and some
would have even seen through it but
he could have said that Corday
Technologies wanted to focus more on
private sector interests and less on
planetary defense contracts.

    Some would think he was a Corday
with no business sense, the others
would think he was developing a new
line of research and needed extra
facilities.

    Perhaps he would do that. Expand
Xenozoology, who were definitely a
neglected division under his father.

    No, he had delayed it, because he
was afraid that someone might look
beyond all of it and see who (and
maybe what) he was.

    Well, at least now, it was going
to be easy to hack away at the BWD.
He could do it with a vengeance and
people would think he was massively
ticked at all the hotshotting on his
BW staff.

    Or he could do it calmly. Make it
seem introspective, shake his head a
lot.

    Derek had decided on
introspective on the way out to
Niobe. He could always find something
minor to go ballistic over later.

    There was a faint risk of
appearing to be weak but it would
fade as people saw how methodical he
was. Then there would be talk of how
he was cold and ruthless, in control,
a true son to the late, great Charles
Corday.

    Business is all P.R. Just a
thimble of it based on common sense.

    At least, for Corday
Technologies, this was true. They
were large. They could afford to be
stupid.

    Derek could make a wild number of
rash decisions, choose false focuses
and things would still go his way.

    The Covenant, after all,
protected him.

    Between fifty to a hundred
thousand clones and he had come to
look one of them in the eye so he
could have nightmares about them for
the rest of his life. Was he insane
or what?

    A female giggle intruded on his
thoughts and he glanced about seeking
but already knowing its source.

    Cousin Albert had Cousin Elise
pinned to a wall and was moving down
her body with a large feather.
Derek's first thought was, Where did
they get that from?

    The other was: Why had they come
along for the ride?

              * 2 *

    They take a shuttle to Niobe.
This, everyone knows, is one of the
idiosyncracies of the present
reigning Corday. Has been for some
two hundred or so odd years, ever
since he went from female to male.

    Long ago, there may have been
some valid reason behind it, people
think. Perhaps Derek was afraid of a
teleportation accident somehow
changing him back to female. Or
perhaps, he thought he would not
pattern properly in a buffer and
would come out scrambled.

    But even two hundred years ago
that wouldn't have been true. But
everyone has been modified in one way
or another down the years. Everyone
knows that post-operative and
preoperative phobias last for years,
sometimes decades.

    But two hundred years of avoiding
teleportation devices, it has to be a
record! Eve