Selected Short Stories Featuring Ghost Dust Read online

withstand higher pressures, breathe underwater, see with far less light. Right now the downside is we haven’t figured out how to make these optional; he’s stuck in a pressurized tank, and he has to breathe water. Later in the tour we’ll take you to the aviary, where we’re having similar issues with a high altitude NuMan we call ‘the bird.’”

  Amber clicked her heels in annoyance. “Isn’t the term Nu-Man sexist? Don’t you have any female test subjects?” Padden began to stammer out a reply as Sherman launched into an explanation of the original project, which involved only combat soldiers and was thus only men. Of course, I didn’t pay much attention to it; gender-baiting irritates me, and besides, the whale had moved closer to the tank and was leaning forward.

  I didn’t hear the low rumble of his voice in the water; I think maybe he was whispering. “You’re going to the aviary? Tell Racheal I said hey.” I cocked my head to the side. There was excitement in his eyes, and something I couldn’t understand at first- sadness.

  “Wait,” I said, “you’re in love with the bird?”

  “That’s where the names came from- that old Tom Waits song. I just don’t think we’ll end up the same way. I sort of can’t- I couldn’t handle that.”

  “But isn’t that song called ‘Fish and Bird?’”

  “Goddamnit, that’s what I said. Bunch of comedians around here.” He smiled. “It’s okay; I’ll just get Rex to piss in the coffee machine again. But since I figure you’ll be around, you can call me Dale- and uh, don’t drink the coffee, because there’s pee in it.”

  I was suddenly aware of the debate going on a few feet from me: “It’s NuMan, like ‘human’- I don’t think there’s a more gender-neutral term in the language.” She sighed, a big, heavy sigh signaling that she was happy to disagree, and, of course, thought the Colonel was a caveman.

  But he didn’t let it ruffle his feathers, and led us out into another hallway just off the tank, and took over for Padden. “I’m a man of science first, an American second, and a military man a distant third. I came to DARPA in ’72, when it got mostly out of the missile ballistics business and into the science business. One of the things I’m most impressed by is this machine right here. Measures telomeres. They’re the wicks left in your cellular candles, let you know how much time you’ve got before your cells stop replicating right- barring an accident, of course. Care to-”

  Padden interrupted him, because he hadn’t forgotten that the only reason I was here was my cells already weren’t replicating right, so measuring my telomeres was like trying to check how much gas is in the tank on a rough stretch of road, “That isn’t necessary, Colonel.”

  “How about the lady, then? Pretty thing like you must have an excellent genetic structure.” She forced a smile, trying to take it as innocently as she could in light of the argument they’d just ended. But curiosity got the better of her, and she put her hand inside the machine. A tiny needle jabbed her finger; she pulled it out hastily, stuffed it into her mouth, and glared at Sherman. “Er, uh, I forgot to mention there’d be a little prick.” Dr. Padden and I exchanged a mischievous glance, and Amber noticed, understood and stifled a laugh. Sherman took it as a sign that she’d forgiven him and clapped her on the shoulder. “There you are. I appreciate a woman who can man up.” He leaned forward to read a number off the screen. “88. You’ve got some healthy telomeres. You’ll bury us all.”

  Padden smiled. “Now, if you want to take Newman to meet the bird, now’d be a good time. I actually have a few, uh, technical things I need to discuss with Ms. Prentice. Make sure our national security interests are being looked after in her article.” Sherman threw his arm around Amber and pulled her down a branching corridor, and the speed and precision of it all, along with Padden’s nonreaction, told me it was scripted- though I had no real reason to worry about it.

  Padden immediately started back into his tour: “The bird is fascinating, and most of the reason NASA throws a chunk of its estimable budget behind us. Currently we’re butting up against the limits of known carbon-based tissues, though we have made some interesting headway with silica-based cells. She’s the polar opposite of the whale- though both of them are built to live at different pressures than most humans. In fact, Dale can leave his tank for short periods of time, so long as he’s careful about nitrogen narcosis, but the bird, Racheal, has to stay at high altitude. Most of her time is spent in what we call the aviary, which I’m always happy to show to people, but, and you’ll see why in a moment, she has to sleep in a hypobaric chamber. Because of the aviary, she can only speak through sign language; I don’t suppose you sign?”

  I once wanted to date a non-blood “cousin” who at the time wanted to major in ASL- but that didn’t really count, so I shook my head. “Not surprising. You’ll learn. But for today, just put on this headgear. Once you’ve got it in place you won’t be able to hear my voice- but it’ll still be loud in there.”

  I think he said something after that- but I couldn't hear it. The room was massive but dull, all concrete and metal. I couldn't hear much, but I could tell there was a loud rumbling, and wind pulsed throughout the room. On the floor was a heavy grating, and beneath were gigantic industrial fans pointed at the ceiling.

  The bird was floating on a pillow of air, reading on a tablet computer. A light on the computer flashed red, and she turned languidly towards us. Her skin was exceedingly pale, perhaps even slightly blue, but most of it was covered in a similarly-tinted flight suit. She smiled at Dr. Padden, then seemed surprised to see me, and winked. Then she did a backstroke of sorts, letting the way she contorted her body float her across the jet of air. Then she turned back towards us and began quickly signing something; Padden made a few gestures then shrugged. He grabbed my shoulder and guided me back out of the room.

  He was already talking again by the time I removed my headgear. “-fans are powered entirely by a small wind farm we bought in the hills you probably saw on the drive in- it pleases me to no end to be able to say that her 'flight' is powered by the wind. The techs that work with her actually have specially-built helmets that shield noise and allow for point-to-point radio chatter, but they're expensive so we don't keep too many of them on hand. And those we do keep, well, they disappear- the regular crew squirrel them away so they have them on hand if one of theirs breaks.”

  “But she's uniquely adapted to the sky. It would be impossible to create a human being with bones as light as a bird's. Initially, Racheal had trouble walking more than a few hundred feet under her own steam. If we'd made her bones any more hollow she'd have clinical osteoporosis, which starts at 2.5 standard deviations below peak bone mass for a healthy female. She's at a little over 2. But the innovation I'm enthused by, and the reason she had trouble walking, past tense, is those hollow bones now house hydrogen-excreting microorganisms. Lots of them. It's enough that she basically floats when she moves around- even walking, and it's decreased the strain on her skeletal structure to the point where she can walk all day. She doesn't like to, and frankly, we don't want her to. This research is designed to create an airborne human being, after all, not just one who's light on her feet.”

  “She also sports a few additions that make sky-living possible, like highly attuned vision. And I'm sure you noticed, even in the jumpsuit, that the woman doesn't have an ounce of fat on her. Some of that is the nigh constant aerobic exercise, but some of it is a few little tweaks to some energy storage genes. And the best part of that is those microorganisms, her immune system is attuned to cannibalize them if either their population grows too large or she requires energy. It's an almost perfect-” A red light I hadn't noticed before in the hallway began to flash.

  “That’s, probably just a routine alarm,” Padden said, though from the way he narrowed his eyes I wasn’t certain. His eyes flicked to a member of security I hadn’t seen come around the corner. “Cross will take you to a security checkpoint to ride out the lockdown. I want to go check on Sherman and Amber.” There was a moment of tensi
on, when Cross looked at Padden; he didn’t want to let him go anywhere alone, but Padden won their standoff and he turned the other direction down the corridor.

  “Is this normal?” I asked Cross.

  “Nope. I’ve only ever heard the alarms kick on during a drill, and as head of internal security, I’m always in on the drills. I don’t know what this is.”

  I frowned. “I really don’t like this. First day here, and suddenly the building goes to crap. I’m in a bad SyFy Channel movie.” He sighed, and took a pistol off his belt and handed it to me. I cocked my head; it couldn’t be that easy. “Did you just give me a gun that’s not loaded or has the safety on or something?”

  “Nope. Though I’d suggest kicking on the safety until you’re thinking of using it.” I looked at the gun and flicked what I was fairly certain, having played with my share of air soft guns in the store, was the safety, and he nodded his approval. “Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t just hand over a pistol. But the same reason Padden sent me with you is the same reason I stayed with you: you’re worth a hell of a lot of money. $67 million dollars. That’s how much it costs to find and recruit a