“Let them go where? You seem to forget, Mr. Graf, that the bulk of them are still mere children.” Leo faltered. “The older ones could help take care of the younger ones, they already do, some… Perhaps they could be moved for a few years to some other sector that could absorb the loss from their upkeep—it couldn’t cost GalacTech that much more than a like number of workers on pensions, and only for a few years.…”
“The company retirement pension fund is self-supporting,” Gavin the accountant observed elliptically. “Roll-over.”
“A moral obligation,” Leo offered desperately. “Surely GalacTech must admit some moral obligation to them—we created them, after all.” The ground was shifting under his feet, he could see it in her unsympathetic face, but he could not yet discern in what direction the tilt was going.
“Moral obligation indeed,” agreed Apmad, her hands clenching. “And have you overlooked the fact that Dr. Cay created these creatures fertile? They are a new species, you know; he dubbed them Homo quadrimanus, not Homo sapiens race quadrimanus. He was the geneticist, we may presume he knew what he was talking about. What about GalacTech’s moral obligation to society at large? How do you imagine it will react to having these creatures and all their problems just dumped into its systems? If you think they overreact to chemical pollution, just imagine the flap over genetic pollution!”
“Genetic pollution?” Leo muttered, trying to attach some rational meaning to the term. It sounded impressive.
“No. If the Cay Project is proved to be GalacTech’s most expensive mistake, we will containerize it properly. The Cay workers will be sterilized and placed in some suitable institution, there to live out their lives otherwise unmolested. Not an ideal solution, but the best available compromise.”
“St—st…” Leo stuttered. “What crime have they committed, to be sentenced to life in prison? And where, if Rodeo is to be closed down, will you find or build another suitable orbital habitat? If you’re worried about expense, lady, that’ll be expensive.”
“They will be placed planetside, of course, at a fraction of the cost.”
A vision of Silver creeping uncomfortably across the floor like a bird with both wings broken burst in Leo’s brain. “That’s obscene! They’ll be no better than cripples.”
“The obscenity,” snapped Apmad, “was in creating them in the first place. Until Dr. Cay’s death brought his department under mine, I had no idea that his ‘R&D—Biologicals’ was concealing such enormously invasive manipulations of human genes. My home world embraced the most painfully draconian measures to ensure our gene pool not be overrun with accidental mutations—to go out and deliberately introduce mutations seems the most vile…” she caught her breath, contained her emotions again, except what escaped her nervously drumming fingers. “The right thing to do is euthanasia. Terrible as it seems at first glance, it might actually be less cruel in the long run.”
Gavin the accountant, squirming, twitched an uncertain smile at his boss. His eyebrows had gone up in surprise, down in dismay, and at last settled on up again—not taking her seriously, perhaps. Leo didn’t think she’d been joking, but Gavin added in a facetiously detached professional tone, “It would be more cost effective. If it were done before the end of this fiscal year, we could indeed take them as a loss—total—against Orient taxes.”
Leo felt suspended in glass. “You can’t do that!” he whispered. “They’re people—children—it would be murder—”
“No, it would not,” denied Apmad. “Repugnant, certainly, but not murder. That was the other half of the reason for locating the Cay Project in orbit around Rodeo. Besides physical isolation, Rodeo exists in legal isolation. It’s in the ninety-nine-year lease. The only legal writ in Rodeo local space is GalacTech regulation. I fear this has less to do with foresight than with Dr. Cay’s successful blocking of any interference with his schemes. But if GalacTech chooses not to define the Cay workers as human beings, company regulations regarding crimes do not apply.”
“Oh, really?” Bannerji brightened slightly.
“How does GalacTech define them?” asked Leo, glassily curious. “Legally.”
“Post-fetal experimental tissue cultures,” said Apmad.
“And what do you call murdering them? Retroactive abortion?”
Apmad’s nostrils grew pinched. “Simple disposal.”
“Or,” Gavin glanced sardonically at Bannerji, “vandalism, perhaps. Our one legal requirement is that experimental tissue be cremated upon disposal. IGS Standard Biolab rules.”
“Launch them into the sun,” Leo suggested tightly. “That’d be cheap.”
Van Atta stroked his chin gently and regarded Leo uneasily. “Calm down, Leo. We’re just talking contingency scenarios here. Military staffs do it all the time.”
“Quite,” agreed the Ops VP. She paused to frown at Gavin, whose flippancy apparently did not please her. “There are some hard decisions to be made here, which I am not anxious to face, but it seems they have been dealt to me. Better me than someone blind to the long-term consequences to society at large like Dr. Cay. But perhaps, Mr. Graf, you will wish to join Mr. Van Atta in showing how Dr. Cay’s original vision might still be carried out at a profit, so we can all avoid having to make the hardest choices.”
Van Atta smiled at Leo, smarmily triumphant. Vindicated, vindictive, calculating… “To return to the matter at hand,” Van Atta said, “I’ve already requested that Captain Bannerji be summarily terminated for his poor judgment and,” he glanced at Gavin, “and vandalism. I might also suggest that the cost of TY-776-424-X-G’s hospitalization be charged to his department.” Bannerji wilted, Administrator Chalopin stiffened.
“But it’s increasingly apparent to me,” Van Atta went on, fixing his most unpleasant smile on Leo, “that there’s another matter to be pursued here…
Ah shit, thought Leo, he’s going to get me on an assault charge—an eighteen-year career up in smoke—and I did it to myself—and I didn’t even get to finish the job…
“Subversion.”
“Huh?” said Leo.
“The quaddies have been growing increasingly restive in the past few months. Coincidentally with your arrival, Leo.” Van Atta’s gaze narrowed. “After today’s events I wonder if it was a coincidence. I rather think not. Isn’t it so that,” he wheeled and pointed dramatically at Leo, “you put Tony and Claire up to this escapade?”
“Me!” Leo sputtered in outrage, paused. “True, Tony did come to me once with some very odd questions, but I thought he was just curious about his upcoming work assignment. I wish now I’d…”
“You admit it!” Van Atta crowed. “You have encouraged defiant attitudes toward company authority among the hydroponics workers, and among your own students entrusted to you—ignored the psych department’s carefully developed guidelines for speech and behavior while aboard the Habitat—infected the workers with your own bad attitudes—”
Leo realized suddenly that Van Atta was not going to let him get a word of defense in edgewise if he could possibly help it. Van Atta was onto something infinitely more valuable than mere vengeance for a punch in the jaw—a scapegoat. A perfect scapegoat, upon whom he could pin every glitch in the Project for the past two months—or longer, depending on his ingenuity—and sacrifice qualmlessly to the company gods, himself emerging squeaky-clean and sinless.
“No, by God!” Leo roared. “If I were running a revolution, I’d do a damn sight better job of it thanthat—” he waved in the general direction of the warehouse. His muscles bunched to launch himself at Van Atta again. If he was to be fired anyway, he’d at least get some satisfaction out of it—