Silverrock, p.18
Silverrock, page 18
A scorp near Pinch darted forward. He raised himself as high as his legs could stretch and waved his large claw. The sentries felt his display with their antennae, and even the queen reached her antennae forward once, but nothing more happened. He dropped back.
Two more scorps extended their claws as high as they could and presented themselves to be touched by the three sentries and the queen. After receiving a touch, they fell back. It looked like a crowd of penitents asking for a bishop’s blessing.
Then Pinch rose up. Even I could see that Pinch was bigger and stronger than the prior aspirants, his unusual two large claws drawing attention.
Immediately, Scrape jumped to the front, nearly as large and more aggressive. My helmetcam caught Scrape standing on the legs of a nearby scorp to appear taller.
The sentries carefully felt both rivals. The queen’s antennae lingered over each, then the three guards shifted aside to let one of the contenders approach the queen.
Pinch was the chosen one. Scrape dropped back.
As Pinch drew near, the massive queen rose again until she was nearly vertical. The rhythmic pounding grew deafening.
“Look,” Emma said. “She’s not just bigger; she has an extra pair of legs.”
Pinch grasped the edge of her carapace and extended his sperm transfer legs, inserting them between the plates of her underside into her brood pouch.
Emma hummed in appreciation. “Mmm, mmm, mmm. Already she’s storing sperm for the next clutch of eggs. Very efficient.”
“A birth and a wedding,” Havens said. “We are privileged. Lucien, once again, please convey our congratulations to the queen and Pinch, her chosen consort.”
As Pinch stood with her, his underside exposed, the queen swiftly brought up her tail. Pinch shivered as the queen’s stinger penetrated his belly.
I cringed. “What’s she doing?”
“She’s renewing the telepathy virus,” Emma said. “She must be tying Pinch closer to her thoughts and feelings.”
Beside me, Lucien sighed.
Suddenly Scrape leaped forward over the guards and inserted his small sperm legs into the queen’s underside as well. The rhythm became an inchoate roar as more scorps surged forward, all trying to reach the queen. The sentries were overwhelmed. Soon the queen was nearly invisible, covered by rampant scorps.
Eventually, scorps began to fall away from the scrum, spent or injured. The sound died down and scorps drifted away, first the small ones, then the larger adults. The queen’s coupling ended. She lowered herself cumbrously. Pinch dropped to the floor, resting. Scrape was nowhere to be seen.
As we joined the departing throng, I nudged Lucien. “Pinch must be pleased. He won the queen.”
“Maybe,” Lucien said. “But that doesn’t mean their rivalry has ended.”
It took some time to navigate our way back. It was uphill all the way, and by the time we reached the Pueblo, the flesh-and-blood parts of my legs were about to give out. At the overlook, I had Lucien stop for a bit so I could rest.
Lucien called base. “We’re still in the Pueblo. We’ll be home in an hour, so save us some supper.”
“Glad you’re all right,” Samson whispered into the mic. “You better get back as soon as you can. Dr. Havens already filed her report with the Coalition, and all hell’s breaking loose.”
CHAPTER 23
Fireworks
WHEN LUCIEN and I got back to base, Havens and Emma were nowhere in sight. Alone in the observation room, Samson was rerunning the recorded images from our excursion.
He quietly filled us in. “After you two left the queen’s chamber, Emma told Dr. Havens she’d need time to process the new information before she could finish her write-up for the assessment. That’s when Dr. Havens admitted she’d already sent her conclusion that scorps are sapient to the Coalition—without Emma’s input.”
Lydia brought us plates of rockskipper lasagna. “That Emma, she gave Dr. Havens a piece of her mind but good. Said she was grievously violated and she was a blot.”
“Egregiously violated scientific standards,” Samson translated, “and her report was a blot on the annals of exoanthropological analysis.”
Lydia nodded cheerfully. “That Emma, she knows an awful lot of big words, and some of ’em not very nice.”
Samson’s lips twitched. “Emma didn’t waste any time. She immediately sent her own analysis to the Coalition, saying that scorps were likely to starve without us. Worse, she accused Dr. Havens of rushing the process, excluding relevant information from her report.”
That made me wince. Whether human or non-hom, there was nothing a bureaucrat would hate more than someone taking shortcuts on process.
Lucien rubbed his face, looking bone-tired. “This is absurd. We were only gone half a day. Couldn’t Havens have waited until we got back?”
Samson dropped his voice further. “I think Dr. Havens was hoping she’d be sent home right away, job done. She wanted a nice, clean determination of not sapient to prove to the Coalition that she’s a team player.”
“And instead she’s had to convey a huge embarrassment to the Coalition, probably trigger a planetary evacuation, and every human on Silverrock is going to hate her.” I rubbed my jaw. “Did anybody warn the town that she’d reached a conclusion?”
Samson nodded. “That was part of the fireworks. Emma sent a copy of both reports directly to the mayor and to Venture Mining. Venture’s already posted an official objection. They must have had it all lined up, a gargantuan filing, filled with numbers, dates, and details. It will take the Coalition lawyers a week just to read the thing. In the meantime, everything’s on hold until the Coalition makes a decision. Now the two of them have stomped off to their respective rooms.”
Lucien pushed his plate aside. “Wonderful. Now everybody on Silverrock, the university, and the Coalition is going to know I hear scorp thoughts. Everyone’s going to think I’m either a lunatic or lying or a scorp tool. I’m too tired to deal with this. I’m going to take a shower and get some sleep.”
When I took our plates to the kitchen, Lydia turned to me, her face drawn with worry. “Booker, what’s gonna happen now?”
“I don’t know. It’s pretty clear the scorps are more than mindless beasts. What the Coalition will do about it is hard to predict.”
She bit her lip. “What about Lucien? Is he gonna be all right?”
Why would she think I’d know the answers? But then I thought of my sister and all the romantic drama she’d gone through at Lydia’s age.
“He shouldn’t stay here,” I said, as kindly as I could. “Hearing thoughts from a scorp isn’t good for him. He needs to go back to Prime and get cured.”
Lydia nodded like she’d known it all along.
On my way to the shower, I knocked on the door to Emma’s lab. “You all right?”
She was at her computer, bristling like a porcupine. “You heard that Havens sent her sapience report? The coward. She couldn’t face me for a rational discussion, so she went behind my back. She saw Silverrock as her chance to make a big splash with the Coalition. First-contact assessment, follow all the rules, show the non-homs that humans could be part of the team. But nothing’s gone like she expected. Now she has to rely for information on Lucien, someone she suspects is either lying or psychotic, and it’s making her feel like a fool.”
“She’s an anthropologist,” I said. “She knows how to read body language. She knew you were dragging your feet.”
Emma turned to me, determination tightening her jaw. “I’m not dragging my feet—not anymore, anyway. This is about more than keeping access to the Pueblo. Your audience with the queen raised some important questions.” She turned back to the computer, intent. “Go away now. I have work to do.”
The food and a shower made me feel human again. The sun was down and I dearly wanted to sleep, but instead I dressed for a trip to town.
On my way out, I told Samson I was going to Sweetwater City. “Keep the gate locked and tell everyone to stay inside until I get back.”
“Maybe you should stay here,” he said. “By now, everyone in town will know about the sapience report. There may be trouble.”
“That’s why I’m going. Havens is talking to the Coalition, Lucien’s talking to the scorps—somebody’s got to keep open the channel of communication to the ordinary folks in town.”
Sheriff Ugarte said he was willing to talk to me—as long as it was over an ale with me buying.
When I entered the Oak Leaf Tavern, I got a few dirty looks and turned backs but nobody threw a punch. In fact, the crowd was remarkably jovial for a colony living under an eviction threat.
Ugarte came in with Doc Slade in tow and hard-stared a couple of farmers into giving us their table.
“Thanks for being seen with me.” I passed the pitcher of ale.
“Is it true?” Slade asked. “Does that young man I treated really have some sort of telepathy with those creatures?”
“I was skeptical too, but that seems to be the case. Some kind of engineered virus brought it on.” I gave them a quick rundown of the experiment with the glyphs. “It’s rough, but the words are put together in a way that makes sense. We had an idea of their intelligence from the problem-solving tests, but we were all taken by surprise.” Well, all but Lucien.
“He should tell ’em to stay the hell out of our town,” Ugarte growled.
“You know, Sheriff, that’s pretty much the same thing the scorps said.” I topped up his mug. “But the scorps here in town are from a different hive. They aren’t the ones we can talk to. At least, not yet.”
Slade wiped foam from his lips. “Sapience. That damn report gives the Coalition the right to kick everyone off the planet.”
Ugarte grinned. “I’m not worried. What with counterclaims and appeals, Venture Mining will keep the whole thing tied up in court for years. Hell, all our grandchildren will be grown by the time they figure it out!”
“The status quo is not a good situation,” Slade grumbled. “There’s still no immigration or construction allowed.” He raised bushy eyebrows at me. “I’m too old to start someplace new. How do you see this all working out?”
“Best case, we show the non-homs in the Coalition that we can deal responsibly with a developing species. We make a truce with the scorps, stay out of their territory. Move the dump farther from town, feed them our garbage, and put up a fence to remind them to stay on their side of it. Maybe provide some water for them,” I said, thinking of the wandering Valley queen. “Someplace outside of town, to keep them happy far from the settlements. But peaceful relations depend on curbing the miners. They have to stay away from the caverns. They can’t keep blasting in the foothills—that’s what disturbs the scorps the most.”
Slade glanced over at the rowdy group of miners at the bar. “Easy to say, hard to do. I’ve seen even more leg wounds recently, clearly inflicted by scorps. I expect there’s more illegal mining in the hills than ever.”
The sheriff shrugged. “Prices for high-quality ore have gone up sky-high, and everybody and his brother are out there trying to cash in now, just in case they need to pull up stakes.”
A cheer went up at the bar—a video feed showed the mayor announcing that the Coalition had given Silverrock permission to reopen its dump, citing the danger of hunger in the scorp community. “While the other portions of the edict remain in place for the moment,” she said, “this is a hopeful sign. For once, the Stellar Coalition has shown commonsense flexibility in letting humans manage our relations with other species in a way that benefits everyone.”
The sheriff downed the rest of his ale and stood to leave. “I better go. Looks like I’m going to be busy tonight.”
Slade sighed and put his jacket on as well. “Me too. I’ll catch some sleep while I can. Silverrock celebrations are all the same—by dawn I’ll have a dozen patients needing stitches.”
I checked with base, but Havens hadn’t left me any instructions. Lucien had already informed Pinch that the dump would again become a scorp smorgasbord, but Havens didn’t seem to care that the Coalition had adopted Emma’s position on scorp hunger. Samson was probably right—all Havens wanted was to leave Silverrock.
On the way out of town, I stopped my hopper on a high point overlooking the dump and pulled out my night-vision glasses. Already farmhoppers full of trash were unloading and townspeople were setting their lines of rockskipper traps. The mayor appeared long enough to pose for news cameras as she took down the Dump Closed sign.
A shout went up. As the grasses fringing the dump stirred, people got back in their vehicles.
The rockskippers roiled up out of the fields, rushing for the fresh refuse. Then the scorps came, a score or more, led by Pinch. His minions surrounded him as if he were a politician taking credit for a new factory in town. As the rockskippers scurried out of their path, the scorps tore open the bigger hunks of garbage, the little rockskippers bickering over morsels left in their wake.
It didn’t take long for the fresh trash to be well picked over. As the scorps spread back into the grassland to forage, I bought a bucketful of fresh rockskippers to take back to base.
It was late when I got back to the ranch, and the place was quiet. Even the observation room was deserted, although the cameras at the dump still caught sporadic scorp activity rechecking the trash heaps.
Emma’s light was on, but she told me she was busy. So I slept alone, tired out from crawling through scorp tunnels, soothed by a bellyful of ale, and pleased that the Coalition had apparently followed Emma’s lead in signaling that humans and scorps might find a future together.
In the morning, Lydia used the fresh rockskippers to stir up some omelets for breakfast. The group was tucking in when Emma appeared, eyes shadowed from a sleepless night.
She sat at the table but made no move to take any of the food.
“Dr. Havens,” Emma said. “We haven’t always gotten along, and I’m sorry for my part in that.”
Havens raised her brows. I was skeptical too—apologies weren’t in Emma’s nature. This had to be part of some new agenda.
Emma fiddled with a fork. “You came into this assessment assuming the Coalition couldn’t have overlooked sapience in an indigenous species. I now realize that you were right.”
Lucien slapped his hand down. “What are you saying? They are sapient. We proved it!”
“Scorps are sapient,” Emma agreed, “but they’re not an indigenous species. They’re just as alien to Silverrock as humans are.”
I pointed with my fork. “Wait. You said scorps must have evolved here because they’re related to sandbugs and rockskippers. Are you saying now that they’re not related?”
“Of course they’re related,” Samson said. “The pre-colonization survey did a full genetic analysis of all three species.”
Emma was pale, almost to gray. “The genomes for sandbugs, rockskippers, and scorpidons are very different from one another, but there are common genetic sequences among them. Our mistake was in assuming that meant they’d evolved from a common ancestor.”
“You have an alternate hypothesis?” Havens was smug—enjoying Emma’s discomfort.
“They’re the same species.” Emma nodded toward the platter of omelet. “The rockskippers that everyone here eats? Those are baby scorps.”
CHAPTER 24
Scorpidons
I PUSHED MY plate aside, no longer hungry. Baby scorps? And I’d been eating them—we’d all been eating them—the whole time we’d lived on Silverrock.
Lydia rushed from the room, hand over her mouth. Feeling queasy myself, I cleared away all the uneaten food.
Samson frowned. “How can that be? If rockskippers and scorps have different genomes . . .”
“It only dawned on me yesterday,” Emma said, “when I saw the queen. All the scorps I’ve seen have ten legs. She has twelve. That wasn’t something I’d been able to see in the images of the Valley queen at the waterworks.”
“That’s not unprecedented,” Havens said. “Some of Earth’s arthropods also go through stages of development that cause a very different appearance, like a caterpillar to a butterfly.”
“True, but it made me wonder about the scorp’s earlier stages. When I looked at the genomes again, the pattern became clear. Rockskippers have a larger genome than sandbugs, but on close review, it’s actually the same genome with some sequences repeated. Somehow, in the metamorphosis from sandbug to rockskipper, there’s a reshuffling and partial replication of the sandbug genome, resulting in a genetically more complex creature: more legs, more antenna, more redundancy in the circulatory and nervous system. It’s the same for the transition from rockskippers to scorpidons—scorps are rockskippers that have metamorphosed into a more complex creature by replicating some portions of the rockskipper genome.”
“They can’t be the same species,” Samson said. “Scorps frequently attack rockskippers. They’ll tear the leg off a rockskipper and eat it.” Even as he spoke, the cavern monitors showed rockskippers scurrying out of the way of any approaching scorp.
Emma shrugged. “Many animals will feed on their own young if they encounter them. And as we’ve seen, the loss of a leg does no serious harm.”
Lucien slumped in his chair. “But Pinch doesn’t feel anything about rockskippers. No kinship, no protectiveness.”
Lydia returned to his side, face pale but washed. “They don’t care,” she whispered. “We been killing their babies for years and they don’t care.”
Emma smiled at her. “Even on Earth, love for offspring isn’t shared by all species. Human babies are born helpless—if we didn’t love our children enough to feed them and protect them, our species would have died out eons ago. But a species like scorps, who have hundreds or thousands of offspring that don’t require nurturing, has no need of affection.”
