“I’ll do what I can,” Paula said.
“Where now?” Hoshe asked as the car drove away from the big isolated plantation house.
“The ex-husband, Morton.”
He sneaked a look at her. “You got any idea what happened?”
“It wasn’t an accident. I believe Tara, she used to be too sensible to do anything like running off with Wyobie. He was already giving her everything she wanted from the relationship. That means Tampico is all wrong; it was a setup, an alibi.”
“Used to be sensible?”
“You saw what she is today.”
“Yeah. That’s what you meant by investigating people, isn’t it?”
“Of course.” She turned to stare out of the car’s windows, seeing nothing but a blur of big shaggy walrush trees that had been planted as a windbreak for the neat plantation bushes. “It’s people who commit crimes, so that’s where you’ll find the motivation: people.” It was so instinctive, so obvious, she didn’t have to think to talk to him.
Her parents, or rather the couple she had thought to be her parents during her childhood, had sincerely believed that instinct could be stillbirthed. It was the old nature versus nurture argument, and in this particular ultra-modern chapter of it they desperately wanted to prove to the whole Commonwealth that nurture could be the victor, that there was no preordained fate. Especially not the one Paula’s creators intended for her.
The planet where she was birthed was called Huxley’s Haven, though the other Commonwealth worlds derisively called it the Hive. Settled in 2102, it was funded, and populated, by the Human Structure Foundation, a strange collective of genetic researchers and intellectual sociopolitical theorists. They were keen to explore the genetic possibilities for psychoneural profiling now they were clear of Earth’s restrictions, believing it possible to create a perfectly stable society by implementing the phrase “each to his own” to a degree that the rest of humanity found quite chilling. A lot of Anglo-Saxon surnames originated from occupation: tailor, thatcher, crofter… the aim of the Foundation was to make the link solid and unbreakable, determined within an individual’s DNA. Professions couldn’t be installed wholesale, of course, a psychoneural profile merely gave a person the aptitude to do his or her designated job, while simpler, physiological modifications complemented the trait. Doctors would be given dextrous fingers and high visual acuity, while farm workers and builders possessed a large, strong physique—so it went, right through the entire spectrum of human activity. The traits were bundled together, and fixed to prevent genetic drift. As far as the traits were concerned, there would never be any mixed profiles. The Foundation scrupulously avoided using the word “pure” in its press releases.
The Commonwealth as a whole detested the notion. Right from its conception, Huxley’s Haven became a near-pariah state. There were even serious calls for military/police style intervention made in the Senate, which contravened the organization’s constitution—the Commonwealth was set up originally to guarantee individual planet freedom within an overall legal framework. In the end, the Foundation was able to proceed because legally the planet was independent and free.
After several prominent and well-financed private court cases against the Foundation came to nothing, it was CST’s turn to face a barrage of media-supported pressure to close the gateway. Nigel Sheldon had to reluctantly argue the case for keeping it open: if they closed one gateway because of a cause activist campaign, that left all gateways vulnerable to people who disagreed with a planet’s culture, religion, or politics. The Hive stayed connected to the Commonwealth, though it never really contributed to the mainstream economic and financial structure. Quietly, and with considerable scientific flare, the Foundation got on with the job of building their unique society.
Some people never did accept the lost court cases or the Foundation’s “right” to pursue its goal. A greater human right took precedence, they argued. In their view Huxley’s Haven was a planet of genetically modified slaves who needed liberation.
If there was ever anybody to whom the term extreme liberals could be applied, it was Marcus and Rebecca Redhound. Born into the considerable wealth of Grand Earth Families, they were happy to contribute financially as well as actively to the cause. Along with a small, equally dedicated cabal, they planned a raid against the Hive, which they were convinced would be the grand event that would finally demonstrate to the rest of the Commonwealth that the Foundation was wrong, not just in its politics but in its science as well.
After months of covert planning and preparation, nine of these urban rich-kid commandos broke into one of the Foundation’s birthing wards in the Hive’s capital, Fordsville. They managed to steal seven new birthed babies and get them to the CST planetary station before the alarm was raised. Three infants were traced immediately by the Intersolar Serious Crimes Directorate and returned to their creche on Huxley’s Haven. The publicity was everything the group could have wished for, though public sympathy didn’t entirely swing their way. Something about stealing babies just cut people cold.
Four of the cabal were arrested when the babies were traced. After that, the Serious Crimes Directorate mounted the largest manhunt the Commonwealth had ever seen to find the four missing babies, one male and three females. It took another fifteen months of painstaking detective work by ten Chief Investigators aided by the SI to locate the missing boy in a town on the then-frontier planet of Ferarra. Five months after that two more of the girls were recovered on EdenBurg. The last child and remaining two cabal members proved more elusive.
With the paranoia that only the truly committed can muster, Marcus and Rebecca had spent over two years fermenting elaborate preparations for the snatch, an activity they kept secret from the rest of their cabal. The first part of their cover was to have a child of their own, Coya, who would act as a sister to the Hive baby. She would set a normal behavioral example to the psychoneural profiled waif; and a young family with twins would be less likely to attract attention. It was a good plan. Marcus and Rebecca had bought a house on Marindra, out in a small agricultural town, where they established a market garden business. It was a pleasant place to live, with a good community spirit. The children fitted in well as they grew up. Paula’s half-Filipino features were slightly incongruous, given her parents and “twin” Coya were all of prominent eastern Mediterranean stock. But they explained it away as a genetic modification designed to bring out Rebecca’s distant Asian ancestry, honoring her deep ethnic origin. By then, the case of the last missing Hive baby had long faded from public attention.
As a child, Paula really wasn’t too different from her sister. They played together, ran their parents ragged, loved the puppy Marcus bought them, had a fondness for swimming, and did well at school. It was as she moved into her teens that Paula was noticeably more restrained than Coya; she did as her parents asked, didn’t argue with them, and steered clear of all the trouble that was to be found in their little rural community. Everyone commented on what a nice girl she was becoming, not like half of the teenagers in this town who were simply terrible and a sure sign of society’s imminent collapse. She regarded boys with the same contempt and fascination as her peers; started dating, suffered the heart-aching humiliation of being dumped, and promptly took it out on her next two boyfriends by chucking them. Found another boy she liked—and went steady for five months. In sports she was competent rather than outstanding. Academically she excelled at languages and history. As teachers remarked, she had superb recall and an obsession with tracing down the smallest facts connected to her subjects. Aptitude tests showed she would make a great psychologist.