If Tomorrow Comes

CHAPTER 9

There had been no time to build a biosafety level 4 lab. No time, no materials, no expertise at the level required. The imitation of Terran facilities, where Kindred had been carrying on its fruitless search for a vaccine, had been destroyed in the Russian attack, along with its researchers. Marianne, Claire, and Branch improvised.

“Put in the mice,” she said to Branch Carter. The young tech acted as if he hadn’t been seized by a homegrown terrorist and nearly killed. After the first shock of discovering the time jump, Branch had seemed to adopt a stance of energetic we-must-carry-on. Well, they were all carrying on. Branch’s ability with hardware was turning out to be indispensable. As equipment, solicited and bargained for by Noah and Isabelle, arrived from clinics around southern Kindred, Branch modified it to create what they needed. He cannibalized some items to create something else. He jerry-rigged and connected and improvised, a human version of duct tape.

Branch said, “Dr. Jenner”—she’d given up on getting him to call her Marianne—“they’re not mice.”

Of course they weren’t. They were leelees, rounder and smellier and purple. But Marianne had spent years working with mice; old tapes die hard.

Branch brought three of the animals to one of the two glass cages on the bench. Airtight, each cage had been rigged with a negative-pressure system and three redundant air filters, the best available on Kindred, with specs that should stop R. sporii. One advantage: R. sporii was large for a virus. But if the filters didn’t stop the spores, if they got loose from the lab, Marianne might kill a lot of people before the cloud did. But there was no choice; to test the synthesized vaccine, you needed to first determine that something was susceptible to the disease, then vaccinate that something, and then expose it. Leelees were the something they had that was closest to the human genome.

Spores for the experiment had come from Claire’s suitcase. She’d admitted freely to the vaccines, which used inactivated pathogens. She had not, however, admitted to the sealed packet of live spores also in the suitcase. Only a handful of people knew that the means to bring on a spore cloud early resided in the locked metal cabinet in a corner of the leelee lab: the compound researchers, Terran and Kindred; Isabelle; Noah; the Mother of Mothers. Marianne did not want to start a panic. Branch, who seemed immune to the leelee smell, slept in the lab, guarding the cabinet and the experiments.

What had Claire been thinking, to bring live spores down in the shuttle? Had she suspected that there was as yet no vaccine on Kindred? Marianne had asked her.

“Yes,” Claire had said in her musical accent. “It always struck me as suspicious that the Kindred traveled all the way to Earth for help in developing a vaccine. I mean, when they were advanced enough to build a spaceship.” She’d looked Marianne straight in the eye as she said it. Marianne had not replied; Claire was not the person she needed to have that conversation with.

Soon.

The leelees, one held in each of Branch’s hands by their short tails, chittered. He dropped them into the negative-pressure cage. Claire Patel and the two senior Kindred scientists, Llaa^moh¡ and Ka^graa, watched, all of them taut as guitar strings. Ka^graa’s mouth twisted in a grimace. Branch turned on the filtration systems and negative-pressure blower, and pressed the lever that released live spores into the cage.

The leelees scampered and chittered.

The spores took about twenty minutes to shed their dormancy and begin to propagate—or, at least, they had taken twenty minutes on Earth. Incubation period for the disease was three days in mice. Who knew what it was in leelees? Eventually, the leelees would be either dead or still scampering. If dead, Marianne had her test animals. If not, they would have to move on to another animal. If they ran out of either species or time, the synthetic vaccine would have to be administered to humans with no testing.

The problem with that protocol, of course, was that the vaccine would’ve been synthesized using available processes, grown on available cultures, guessed at with inadequate facilities. The synthesized vaccine would not be the exact duplicate of the Terran version, and the Kindred bodies were not the exact duplicates of Terran bodies, so who knew how well—or if at all—the synthesized version would protect?

She watched the purplish animals sniff the glass walls of the cage, climb over the pieces of karthwood that Branch had put in. At least behind glass, they could be neither smelled nor heard.

Branch said, pointlessly, “Now we wait.” Ka^graa nodded. He and Llaa^moh¡ were picking up English quickly, but it scarcely mattered. Everybody knew they had to wait.

Marianne, weary, went to her own bed. Unlike everyone else, she had a room to herself, in what had been a closet. In both the clinic and Big Lab, bunks were jammed wherever possible. No one wanted to be away from the work, and Lieutenant Lamont had insisted on as much containment as possible. Only Isabelle, Noah, and Llaa^moh¡ went back and forth to the karthwood lahk house on the hill. Kayla and Lily were there, too, under the care of a sister of Llaa^moh¡.

On the wall of Marianne’s closet were photos of her two children and two grandsons on Terra. She had tried to reconcile herself to never seeing them again. This had not worked. As she lay on her pallet, looking up the photos, she dashed away tears. Stupid. If she was here, she lost Elizabeth, Ryan, Jason, and Colin. If she was with them, she lost Noah and Lily. That was just the way it was. She stood up, carefully stripped the photos from the wall, and put them on a shelf under the supply of wraps that Isabelle had given her.

She was deeply asleep when loud knocking on the wall woke her. “Come in!”

Branch stood silhouetted in the light from the room beyond. “Dr. Jenner, you said you wanted to know when the leelees died.”

Marianne looked at her watch. “The incubation period is two hours?”

“Yes. I witnessed the deaths and made notes. It was respiratory. I sealed the cages.”

“Good.” The notes were important; they could not remove the mice for autopsy without releasing spores into the air. But now they knew: the leelees were susceptible to R. sporii.

She said, “Just let me get dressed and I’ll be right there. Claire?”

“She’s there. The whole team is. And Dr. Jenner—”

“What?”

“Your son is here. Noah. He wants to see you right away.”

Alarm coursed through her. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. But he says the Mother of Mothers is up at the big house and wants to see you right away.”

“Fuck, no,” Owen said. “I can’t spare anyone to escort her. She ought to realize that.”

Leo said carefully, “She didn’t ask for an escort, sir.”

He had stopped Dr. Jenner and Noah as they left the compound by the clinic door. Leo, on door duty, had told them to halt. All the while he was asking their intentions, he’d watched the refugee camp a hundred yards away, where cook fires burned and people moved around, green in his night-vision goggles. His orders were to not permit anyone in, anyone out after nightfall. The problem was that Owen didn’t have the authority to give that order. Leo’s choices: violate an order, force civilians against their will (it was clear that the Jenners had wills of their own), or ask the CO for clarification and look like a wuss. He’d called Owen, who was asleep.

“Brodie, hold them there. On my way.”

Leo said to Dr. Jenner, “Ma’am, can you tell me the reason you want to leave the safety of the compound?”

Noah said, “Don’t tell him anything, Mom. Ranger, you can’t hold us here.”

“I’m only asking your destination and intentions.”

“Neither is your business.”

“Noah,” Dr. Jenner said. “Ranger, we’re going up to the lahk to see the Mother of Mothers.”

The old lady that Kandiss said had arrived this afternoon. “It’s not a good time for a social visit, ma’am.”

“It isn’t social,” Noah snapped. “Step aside, please.”

Owen strode up to them. “Dr. Jenner, I’m sorry but you can’t leave here.”

Noah said, “The hell I can’t!”

“You can, Mr. Jenner. You do, often. But Dr. Jenner is vital to creating vaccines, and my charge is to protect that mission. My unit cannot spare the troops to protect her away from the compound.”

Before Noah could speak again, Dr. Jenner jumped in. “Why don’t you get more soldiers by training some of the Kindred?”

Christ, for an old lady who looked exhausted, she was feisty! Her hand rested on Noah’s arm, keeping him from saying anything else. Leo, face impassive, waited. Leo already knew the answer—Owen didn’t trust the Kindred because any one of them could be an infiltrator—but he wanted to know what Owen would say.

“Because I choose not to, ma’am. Now will you return inside or will Corporal Brodie have to carry you in?”

Noah stepped forward. What the fuck—Jenner wore one of those girlish dresses like they all did; he was unarmed; he was tall but skinny and not very muscled. Owen was a Ranger in full kit: armor, helmet, rifle, sidearm. What did Jenner think he could do?

“Noah, no,” his mother said. “I’m going back inside. We can resolve this in the morning.”

“Mom—”

“No.”

Leo almost felt sorry for the guy—ordered around like a ten-year-old by his mother. But Jenner didn’t look humiliated, just angry, and not at Dr. Jenner. She had pointedly turned and headed back inside. Noah strode off into the night.

“Back on duty, Brodie.”

“Yes, sir.”

Five minutes later Leo toggled his radio to the private frequency he shared with Zoe, on roof duty and undoubtedly observing the whole thing. She said, “Jesus, Leo.”

“Yeah. And you didn’t even see Lamont. Something’s eating him, Zo.” Leo thought. “I mean, more than everything eating everybody.”

“Yeah. I noticed.”

“See anything strange from up there?”

“Nope.”

“Good.”

An hour later, her voice sounded on his wrister, this time on the squad frequency. “Alert. Code two. Near perimeter breached, seven o’clock.”

He raced around the compound to the site. A litter was entering the perimeter from the direction of the house on the hill, carried by four strong fighting-age males. On it, sitting against a pile of pillows, was an old woman. Christ—the pillows could conceal more pipe guns, explosives, anything. Leo unslung his rifle and released the charging handle; it made an audible clack. “Go back. Now,” he said, in Kindese. Behind him, he knew, Zoe crouched at the edge of the roof, weapons at the ready. Owen had gone back to the ready room to snatch a few hours’ sleep; Kandiss was on patrol.

One of the litter bearers, scowling, jabbered at Leo in Kindred, too fast for him to catch any words.

“Go back,” he said, not gesturing, not taking his hands off his rifle or his eyes off the group. At the edge of the camp, figures paused, grouped, started forward. More men, a few women. Nobody armed, as far as he could tell, but you never knew.

Movement behind him. At the same moment Zoe said, “Isabelle Rhinehart. Not armed.”

She ran from the compound to Leo. “Don’t shoot!”

“Tell them to go back to your lahk, or else inside the camp. Now.”

Isabelle called to the litter bearers, saying Christ knew what. Leo felt his adrenaline pumping. If the men laid down the litter or the old lady reached under the pillows…

Isabelle said, “They’re not leaving. But I told the men to not let go of the litter with even one hand.”

God, she was quick! “Tell the old lady to keep her hands where I can see them. While they go back.”

“They’re not going back, Corporal. That’s the Mother of Mothers.”

And what kind of stupid name was that for a president or dictator or whatever the hell she was? It sounded like a nursery-school teacher. But Isabelle talked some more, and the old lady raised her hands. Then she squinched her behind along the litter to the edge, painful slow movements. The men lowered the litter to within a few inches of the ground, scowling at Leo.

Isabelle said, “I’m going to help her. I’ll stay out of your line of fire. Okay?”

He hesitated. Orders were nobody in, nobody out. “She can’t come in.”

“I vouch for her. Leo, you can’t shoot a hundred-and-two-year-old mother. Or me.”

A hundred and two? But those weren’t Earth years. Still, she looked a hundred and two. When she tried to slip off the edge of the litter, she staggered and fell. One of the bearers let go of his pole with one hand and reached it toward her. Then he glanced at Leo and put his hand back on the karthwood.

Isabelle ran forward and helped the ancient woman to her feet.

Leo said quickly, “Don’t shoot, Zoe.”

“Jesus, Leo!”

“On my responsibility.”

She held her fire. Kandiss came toward them at a dead run, sidearm drawn.

Isabelle and the Mother of Mothers tottered across the perimeter. And Leo let them because Isabelle was right: He couldn’t shoot her and a hundred-and-two tottering old bird, even if he was court-martialed for disobeying orders. If he shot, Terrans would never again be trusted on Kindred. Also, there were hundreds of people in that camp; even unarmed, their sheer numbers could overwhelm the squad and then what would they do to the other Terrans inside, to the whole vaccine program? The Ranger creed said I will complete this mission, though I be the lone survivor. Well, this was the way to complete it: by disobeying Owen’s order.

And Leo wasn’t a Ranger, anyway.

It took a long time for Isabelle to get the old lady across the hundred yards of cleared perimeter and into the lab door. By that time, people from inside the compound crowded the doorway, but nobody challenged Leo’s order to stay inside. The door closed. Kandiss said, “Returning to outer perimeter, unless…”

“Stay here for now,” Leo said. “I’ll wake Lamont.” What was he doing deciding this? Kandiss outranked him! One lousy alien planet and the command structure fell apart? Not if Owen had anything to say about it.

Kandiss said only, “Camp is quiet.”

“Great,” Leo said. He could feel the adrenaline still coursing. It had nowhere to go. The feeling was sour, like too much bad beer you couldn’t vomit up. He knew that Zoe and Kandiss felt it, too. Rangers were trained for action. Inaction was hard.

He called Lieutenant Lamont.

Salah didn’t know that anything was going on outside until it was all over.

He’d been reading on his bunk, one of three stacked in the ex–storage room he shared with biologist Ha^jak¡ and Branch Carter, although Branch now slept in the leelee lab. Salah had about fifty books on his tablet, which was good because he wasn’t ever going to get any more. Marianne might have some on her laptop, but file transfer was beyond Kindred. Still, as long as the tablet held out, Salah could reread War and Peace or medical journals now decades out of date, or the poetry of al-Mutanabbi.

Austin Rhinehart flung open the door without knocking. “Doctor! Isabelle wants you! Ranger Brodie almost shot the Mother of Mothers!”

Salah stared at Austin, flushed with excitement. What the boy said made no sense. When he didn’t answer right away, Austin turned sulky, deflated at the lack of response.

“It’s true. And Isabelle wants you.” He vanished.

Salah caught up with him in the middle of the milling, gesturing crowd filling the central area of Big Lab. He caught phrases in Kindred:

“… did not know the…”

“… should not be permitted…”

“Mother of Mothers…”

“… attack…”

“Austin,” he said, grabbing him by the shoulder, “What happened? And where is Isabelle?”

“The Rangers almost shot the Mother of Mothers because she crossed the perimeter and Isabelle stopped them and she’s with Dr. Jenner. Hey, Graa^lok!” He plunged across the room toward his friend.

Salah pushed his way through the crowd to the clinic and Marianne’s room. The tiny space was jammed with people: Marianne, Claire, Isabelle, Ha^jak¡, Ka^graa, Llaa^moh¡. At least there were no Rangers present. Propped up on pillows on Marianne’s bed, puffing with exertion, sat a wizened woman with fantastically lined copper skin. There were cloudy white circles at the edge of her filmy dark irises. Her bare feet extended straight in front of her, the toes dusky blue and the legs swollen.

Cyanosis, edema, arcus senilis, cataracts. Probable congestive heart failure. This lady was very sick.

Isabelle made a curious gesture that Salah hadn’t seen before: a small circle with two fingers in front of her forehead. Some sort of salute, maybe. She said in English, “This is the Mother of Mothers. You address her as Ree^ka-mak. She wants to speak to you in World.”

Salah said, “I greet you, Ree^ka-mak.”

“I greet you, Salah-mak.” Her voice was low but clear, without the quaver of her dying body. The filmy eyes had followed the sound of his voice. How much could she see through the cataracts?

She said, “You come from Terra, the long-ago place.”

“Yes.” Beside him, Isabelle translated in a low murmur for Marianne and Claire. Salah hoped his Kindese was up to this. Tenses in this difficult language were very complicated. In addition to past, present, and future, different inflections indicated different states of being for each: absolute, tentative, in flux, rotational. There were also degrees of rank carried by different wording. He could not afford miscommunication here.

Ree^ka said, “You bring vaccines to prevent deaths from the spore cloud.” Tentative state of being. He matched it.

“We bring some vaccines and we try to make more.”

“So Marianne-mak says. She says you have enough already for fifty of my people.”

“Yes.”

“How will you decide who will receive these fifty gifts of life?” Future tense, in flux.

There had been conferences about vaccine allotment among himself, Marianne, and Claire. There actually remained fifty-two vaccine syringes; two had been reserved for Noah’s wife and child. Salah knew that in giving way to Marianne on this he had subverted what he was going to say next before he’d even said it, but it had not been possible to deny Marianne. Or Noah. Salah said, “That is for the people of World to decide.”

Ree^ka-mak said, “You are not saying everything.”

How did she know? For a nanosecond, bizarre thoughts swept through Salah’s mind: telepathy, primitive magic. But of course it was not that. Either the Mother of Mothers had a highly developed ability to hear the nuances in voices, which sometimes happened with the blind, or else she was on a fishing expedition. Salah repeated, “That will be for the people of World to decide.”

“There are many people outside this lahk who wish that vaccine.”

“Yes.”

“You have brought soldiers with weapons to keep them out.”

How to explain the Ranger unit that had somehow morphed from an honor guard into a self-appointed and dangerous entity with its own ideas of what should happen here? Salah knew a refugee camp could be dangerous; he’d spent two years in the Mideast with Doctors Without Borders. The Rangers protected the compound, for which Salah was grateful, but he didn’t trust Lamont and his three war machines. “The soldiers keep them out, yes.”

“Until they do not.”

“I cannot say what will happen, Ree^ka-mak. Perhaps it helps if the Mother of Mothers speaks to the camp.”

“I have spoken.”

When? Then Isabelle murmured to him in English, “Through the radio and through the lahk mothers.”

He said to her, “There was a radio broadcast? Were we told about this?”

“I only learned it myself ten minutes ago. We’ve been busy in the lab, Salah. But maybe one of us should monitor the radio.”

“Yes.” As he and Isabelle spoke, the Mother of Mothers watched—no, listened—sharply. Salah said to her, “I ask what Ree^ka-mak said to the camp.”

“I told them they must be patient,” she said, and the tense was one Salah had not heard before.

“What… may I ask what the camp replied?”

“It is not a single thing, this camp.”

That he could well believe. Humans, even in a united cause, were individuals. Salah waited.

“Some in the camp said yes to patience,” Ree^ka-mak said. “Some did not reply. Do you understand what that means, Salah-mak?”

“Yes,” he said, because he did. He’d been here before, in far different cultures, but with the same situation.

When the Mother of Mothers spoke again, the tense was clear to him: future absolute. “Some will attack to get the vaccine.”

As soon as Isabelle had translated, Branch pushed forward. Salah had not heard him come from the leelee lab. The young man blurted out in English, “Won’t the others in the camp try to stop anybody trying to steal vaccine? There must be cops there! Are there cops there?”

Isabelle said, “Yes.”

“Won’t the cops stop the others from rushing us?”

“Translate, please,” Ree^ka-mak said sharply.

Isabelle did. The Mother of Mothers, an old and dying woman, leaned back against her pillows and closed her eyes. It was Isabelle who answered Branch.

“Nobody knows, Branch. Nobody knows.”