“Yes, until the end of time. If he is your choice, then I am… I am hopeful that the Mother approves. Jane, you must give to me some time to fit myself to something so unseen!”
“Of course. We are friends until the end of time. I don’t even know if Colin will wish this.”
“He is gravely injured?”
“He will recover. And he was not injured in his mating parts,” Jane said, poking her friend. She suddenly felt full of lightness, mischievous as a child.
La^vor laughed. “You already know this?”
“No!”
“But you want to discover it?”
“Yes!”
“Will his lahk mother consent? Marianne-mak?”
“Terra does not… yes, I hope Marianne will consent.” Jane had learned long ago that although La^vor’s heart was loyal and generous, her mind was not elastic.
“When will you ask Colin-mak?”
“I don’t know.”
“How often do you think he will visit you?”
La^vor assumed that matings here would be like matings on World: each partner would stay with his or her lahk, and the children would be raised by the mother’s lahk. Jane had observed that it was different on Terra. Zack and Susan lived together; Toni and her wife lived together; the parents of the six children in Enclave Dome all seemed to be caring together for their offspring. Jane had doubts about how well that could work—coming from different lahks, wouldn’t the parents sometimes have different ideas about their children, with no lahk privileged over the other to make decisions? Marriage rooted only on the partners, not in their society—how could that endure? No plant, even the most brief-lived, could flower without roots.
But La^vor was right, too. Jane could not go with Colin to a new Settlement; she was not immune to RSA. She doubted that Colin would stay longer at the base than he had to. If they moved beyond just copulating and signed a contract for two years, it would be more like a World mating than a Terran marriage.
“I hope he would choose to visit often. But, beloved heart, he has not yet even agreed to simple copulation!”
“He will. Men always love you!” La^vor said, without the least tinge of jealousy.
Jane hugged her. “But if the—” Someone knocked hard on the door.
La^vor said, “Enter, please!” And then, “I greet you, Ka^graa.”
Jane, quicker, said, “What is it, Father? What has happened?”
Ka^graa, his face creased with grief, said, “I greet you, La^vor. Come from the room, Jeg^faan.”
Jane scrambled off the bed. Her heart thudded against her chest. In the corridor, Ka^graa gently closed the door behind them, took his daughter’s hand, and led her to her own cubicle.
Inside, he said, “Glamet^vor¡ is dead. Also Kayla Rhinehart. They left the dome and were killed by a wild animal.”
Jane cried out. Unreality took her; for a moment the room spun wildly and nothing was itself. Then the universe righted itself. “Outside the dome? Why did they go outside the dome? Are you sure?”
“Yes. They both left notes. I saw his. They planned to steal the spaceship and return home.”
It made no sense. They didn’t know where the spaceship was, Glamet^vor¡ couldn’t pilot it—or could he? He had watched Branch Carter, who hadn’t known much about the ship, either. But Glamet^vor¡ was desperate and Kayla was unbalanced in her mind. Or maybe they’d both been unbalanced.
Ka^graa said, “Claire-mak performed autopsies without permission. I was only informed afterward. All this time, and not even Marianne-mak understood that you are the temporary lahk Mother while we are on Terra and they should have asked you. Or maybe she did know and thought that you would deny permission due to some primitive custom. We are not primitives. I am a scientist, Jeg^faan.”
Jane saw how angry her father was; otherwise, he would not have spoken so. All the Worlders—except Glamet^vor¡—were so aware that they stood now on Terran soil, not their own. They had tried to adapt themselves to Terran custom. But it was hard to be so disrespected. Her father was among the most eminent scientists on World.
It was disturbing, too, that he had stopped calling her “Jane.”
She said, “They don’t know better. I will speak to Colonel Jenner.”
“That will not help.”
“It may.”
“I think not. Tell him that we must have a farewell burning, outside, and the ashes of Glamet^vor¡ must go back with us to World.”
“I will tell him. But, my father—if they know that Glamet^vor¡ and Kayla died from a wild animal, why did they do an autopsy?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it is their custom to always do so when someone dies.”
There had been no autopsies on the people killed at Colin’s Settlement. She did not say this. Her father looked, for the first time that Jane could remember, very old.
CHAPTER 12
Jason waited in the command post for Hillson to send Jane to him. She didn’t come. Instead, two of the scientists arrived with Elizabeth Duncan.
“Sir,” she said, “Doctors McKay and Steffens request to speak with you. They say it’s urgent.”
Why were the virologists being escorted by Jason’s second in command instead of a soldier on guard duty? Duncan’s face was as impassive as ever, but McKay’s twisted with emotion and Steffens’s had been wiped of her usual sneer.
“Permission granted. Major, remain here, please. Dr. McKay, what is it?”
“Autopsies were performed on both victims of the bear attack,” McKay began.
“Already? With or without permission from Dr. Ka^graa?”
“Without. The medical research team suspected an anomaly that it seemed vital to examine without delay.”
The words had a stilted, rehearsed feel, as well as vagueness: “the medical research team.” It wasn’t like either McKay or the brash Steffens to evade responsibility. So it had been Jason’s grandmother who had made the decision to autopsy, and McKay was trying—ineptly—to shield her. Jason let that go, for now.
McKay said, “Brain tissue from both people showed anomalies. Excess gliosis—that means too many glial cells of different kinds. This kind of gliosis in healthy adults usually means an injury to the brain: an infection or other neural distress.”
“They were attacked by a bear.”
“No, the gliosis was well advanced. Really well advanced. Kayla and Glamet^vor¡ had this going on before they left the dome. They may have had it going on since they left World. Glial cells release complex cascades of a variety of proteins. Some cause the destruction of neural synapses—the connections between brain cells—and some cause formation of new synapses. Essentially, they rewire the brain in fetuses, in early childhood, in adolescence, and after brain trauma.”
“Are you saying that Ms. Rhinehart and Dr. Glamet^vor¡’s brains were being rewired? Why?”
“One possible explanation is the virophage they contracted on World. Everyone from the ship has experienced symptoms of infection, notably headaches and oversleeping.”
Oversleeping. Jason’s eyes met Major Duncan’s. I don’t think they woke up when the bear started clawing away. Neither of ’em woke up. They just lied there.
McKay’s face twisted. “The other people experiencing headaches and oversleeping are children at Enclave Dome. I checked with the parents. Kids’ brains are still developing. If the virophage is transmissible person to person, and if—”
“Don’t you know if it’s transmissible that way? Haven’t you looked?”
“It’s not that simple. We don’t even have a culture of the virophage. The cultures aboard ship were destroyed by atmospheric contamination when the survivors were transported from the Settlement.”