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That was good, she decided, sipping more tea while she discarded one strategy for delivering her news and organized an alternative. He looked so forbidding and stern that she’d automatically assumed a certain degree of closed-mindedness, and she’d been wrong. That he had the fierce temper reputation assigned him and did not suffer fools gladly she could readily believe, but there was a much livelier mind behind those eyes than she’d expected, and if he was prepared to be comfortable with her on a personal level, so much the better for the professional one, as well.
She gave a mental nod, set down her cup and saucer, and lifted her small briefcase from its place beside her chair into her lap.
"I realize you have a tight schedule, Your Grace, and that you sandwiched me into it at very short notice, so with your permission, I’d like to waste as little of your time as possible and get straight to the reason I asked to see you."
"My schedule is almost always ‘tight’ in Father Church’s service, My Lady," he said wryly, "but believe me, time with you could never be wasted."
"My goodness!" Allison murmured with a smile and a dangerous set of dimples. "I could wish the Star Kingdom would import a little Grayson manners!"
"Ah, but that would hardly be a fair exchange for your own presence here, My Lady!" Sullivan replied with a broad grin of his own. "Your Kingdom would get only an outward expression of our appreciation for beauty and charm, whereas we would get their reality."
Allison chuckled appreciatively, but she also shook her head and unsealed the briefcase, and Sullivan sat back in his own chair, nursing his teacup. The teasing gallantry faded from his expression, and he crossed his legs and watched alertly as she set out a tiny holo projector and keyed her memo pad to life.
"Your Grace," she said much more seriously, "I have to tell you that I felt some trepidation about requesting this meeting. As you know, I’ve been working on mapping the Grayson genome for over six T-months now, and I’ve discovered something which I’m afraid some of your people may find... disturbing." The bushy brows knitted together in a frown—not of anger, but of concentration and, possibly, a little concern—and she drew a deep breath.
"How much do you know about your planet’s genetic background, Your Grace?"
"No more than any other layman, I imagine," he said after a moment. "Even our doctors were several centuries behind your own in that regard before the Alliance, of course, but we Graysons have been aware of the need to keep track of our bloodlines and avoid inbreeding since the Founding. Aside from that and the genealogical and family health history information my own and my wives’ physicians have requested from us over the years, I’m afraid I know very little."
He paused, watching her intently, and she felt the unasked "Why?" floating in the air between them.
"Very well, Your Grace. I’ll try to keep this as simple and nontechnical as I can, but I have something I need to show you."
She switched on the holo unit, and a holographic representation of a chromosome appeared in the air above the coffee table. It didn’t look very much like an actual magnified chromosome would have, for it was a schematic rather than visually representative, yet Sullivan’s eyes flickered with interest as he realized he was looking at the blueprint for a human life. Or, to be more precise, a portion of the blueprint for a human life. Then Allison tapped a command into the holo unit, and the image changed, zooming in on a single, small portion of the schematic and magnifying that portion hugely.
"This is the long arm of what we call Chromosome Seven, Your Grace," she told him. "Specifically, this—" she tapped a macro on the holo unit and a cursor flashed, indicating a point on the image "—is a gene with a long and sometimes ugly history in medical science. A single gene mutation at this site produces a disease known as cystic fibrosis, which drastically alters the secretory function of the lungs and pancreas."
It was also, she did not mention, a disease which had been eradicated over a millennium and a half ago on planets with modern medical science... and one which still turned up from time to time on Grayson.
"I see," Sullivan said after a moment, then quirked one eyebrow at her. "And the reason for telling me this, My Lady?" he inquired politely.
"The reason for telling you, Your Grace, is that my research and mapping suggest quite conclusively to me that this portion of the genetic code of your people—" she jabbed an index finger at the cursor in the holo image "—was deliberately altered almost a thousand years ago."
"Altered?" Sullivan sat upright in his chair.
"Altered, Your Grace. Engineered." Allison drew a deep breath. "In other words, Sir, you and all your people have been genetically modified."
She sat very still, awaiting the potential eruption, but Sullivan only gazed at her for several seconds without speaking. Then he leaned back, reclaimed his teacup, and took a deliberate sip. She wasn’t certain if he was buying time for shattered thoughts to settle or simply deliberately defusing the tension, but then he set saucer and cup back in his lap and cocked his head.
"Continue, please," he invited, and his voice was so calm she felt almost flustered by its very lack of agitation. She paused a moment longer, then glanced down at her memo pad and scrolled through two or three pages of preliminary, hysteria-soothing notes it had just become obvious she wasn’t going to need.
"In addition to my purely laboratory research," she said after a second or two, "I’ve been doing some extensive searches of your data bases." Which was one hell of a lot more work than it would have been back home with proper library computer support. "In particular, I was searching for the earliest medical records—dating back to your Founding, if at all possible—which might have shed some corroborative light on my lab findings. Unfortunately, while there is a good bit of information, including case history notes on a surprising number of individual colonists, I was unable to find any data on the specific points which concerned me. Which," she said, meeting his eyes with a frankness she had not intended to bring to this meeting before she got a feel for his personality, "was one reason for my concern."
"You thought that perhaps those records had been suppressed?" Sullivan asked her, and chuckled at her expression. "My Lady, for all your frankness, you’ve been very cautious in your choice of words. Bearing that in mind, did you really think it would require a—what is the Manticoran slang phrase? a hyperphysicist, I believe?—to deduce the reason for your concern?" He shook his head at her. "I suppose it’s possible, even probable, that Father Church’s servants have suppressed... unpleasant information from time to time in our history, but if so, they did it without Father Church’s approval. Or the Tester’s." Her eyebrows rose against her will, and he chuckled again. "My Lady, we believe God calls us to the Test of Life, which requires us to test both ourselves and our beliefs and our assumptions as we grow and mature in His love. How could we do that, and what validity would our Tests have, if Father Church itself distorted the data which forms the basis upon which we are to make them?"
"I... hadn’t thought of it that way, Your Grace," Allison said slowly, and this time Sullivan laughed out loud.
"No, My Lady, but you’ve been rather more polite about it than some off-worlders have. We are a people of custom, and one which has traditionally embraced a highly consensual Faith and way of life, yet our Faith is also one of individual conscience in which no one —neither a man’s Steadholder, nor his Protector, nor even the Reverend or the Sacristy—may dictate to him on matters of the spirit. That is the central dynamic of our beliefs, and maintaining it has never been easy. Which is fair enough, for God never promised us the Test would be easy. But it means that, for all our consensuality, we have experienced many periods of intense, even bitter debate and doctrinal combat. I believe that has ultimately strengthened us, but memories of those periods make some of us uneasy about embracing changes in our Church and society. To be perfectly honest, I myself harbor some personal reservations about at least some of the changes—or, perhaps, about the rate of change—which I see around me. Yet not even the priests of Father Church, or perhaps especially not the priests of Father Church, may dictate to the consciences of our flock. Nor may we properly decide that this or that bit of knowledge, however unpleasant we may fear its consequences will be, should be restricted or concealed. So continue with your explanation, please. I may not fully understand it, and it may yet shock or concern me, but as a child of the Tester and of Father Church, it is my duty to hear and at least try to understand... and not to blame the bearer of the news for its content."
"Yes, Your Grace." Allison shook herself again, then smiled crookedly. "Yes, indeed," she said, and nodded much more comfortably at the holo image.
"As nearly as I can reconstruct what must have happened, Your Grace, at least one person, and possibly several, in your original colonial medical team must have been real crackerjack geneticists, especially given the limitations of the technology then available. As you may be aware, they were still using viruses for genetic insertions rather than the precisely engineered nanotech we use today, and given the crudity of such hack and slash methodologies, his—or their—achievements are truly remarkable."
"I am less surprised to hear that than you might think, My Lady," Sullivan interposed. "The original followers of Saint Austin were opposed to the way technology had, as they saw it, divorced men from the lives God wished them to lead. But they recognized the advances in the life sciences as the gift of a loving Father to His children, and their intention from the beginning was to transplant as much of that gift to Grayson as they could. And that was certainly as well for all of us when our ancestors discovered what sort of world they had come to."
"I believe that probably constitutes at least a one or two thousand percent understatement, Your Grace," Allison said wryly. "One of the things which has puzzled those of us who have studied the situation has been how your colony could possibly have survived for more than a generation or two amid such lethal concentrations of heavy metals. Obviously, some sort of adaptive change had to have occurred, but none of us could understand how it happened quickly enough to save the colony. Now, I think, I know."
She took a sip of tea and crossed her own legs, leaning back in her chair and cradling the tissue-thin porcelain cup between her hands.
"Heavy metals enter the body via the respiratory and digestive tracts, Your Grace, hence your air filtration systems and the constant battle to decontaminate your farm soil. Apparently, whoever was responsible for this—" she jutted her chin at the holo image once again "—intended to build a filtration system into your bodies as well, by modifying the mucosal barriers in your lungs and digestive tract. Your secretory proteins are substantially different from, say, my own. They bind the metals—or a large proportion of them, at any rate—which allows them to be cleared from the body in sputum and other wastes, rather than being absorbed wholesale into the tissues. They don’t do a perfect job, of course, but they’re the reason your tolerance for heavy metals is so much higher than my own. Up until two or three months ago, the assumption, particularly in light of your ancestors’ limited technological resources and, um, attitude towards the resources they did have, was that this must represent a natural facet of adaptive evolution, even if we had no idea how it had happened so quickly."
"But you no longer believe this to be the case," Sullivan said quietly.
"No, Your Grace. I’ve found flanking regions of rhinovirus genetic material around the cystic fibrosis locus indicated in the holo here, and I think I can say with some assurance that it didn’t get there accidentally."
"Rhinovirus?"
"The vector for the common cold," Allison said dryly, "which could have offered several useful advantages to the med teams who made use of it. For one thing, with your people so tightly confined in the limited air-filtered habitats they could build, an aerosol vector like this would be very easily spread. Given the fact that I’ve found absolutely no mention of it anywhere in the records, I might also hazard the guess that the project was kept confidential at the time—possibly to avoid raising hopes if, in fact, it should fail. Or there could have been other reasons. And if there were, spreading the alteration via ‘a cold’ would have the advantage of maximum concealability, as well."
"Indeed it would have, and there could well have been ‘other reasons’ to do such a thing quietly," Sullivan agreed, and it was his turn to smile crookedly. "Despite my own analysis of why Father Church does not believe in suppression, not everyone in our history would have agreed with me, and no doubt there have been times when our freer thinkers found that... discretion was indicated. As I’m sure you’ve discovered in the course of your research, My Lady, many of our Founders were zealots. Heavens, look at those lunatics who launched the Civil War four hundred years later! However trying our own times may be, they do not compare to the Tests which faced the Founders, and it would certainly have been possible that the Founding Elders might have feared that some of the more blindly faithful among their flock would have reacted badly to the notion of such a thing as permanently modifying their own bodies and those of all their descendants."
"As you say, Your Grace," Allison murmured, then shrugged. "At any rate, we might think of this as a sort of weapon of beneficent biological warfare, an agent designed to modify the genetic material of your people in order to give them a fighting chance at surviving their environment. Unfortunately, it looks like it was a fast and dirty method, even by the standards of then-current technology."
Sullivan frowned, and she shook her head quickly.
"That wasn’t a criticism, Your Grace! Whoever managed this was clearly working on a shoestring, with limited resources. He had to do the best with what he had, and what he managed was brilliantly conceived and clearly executed effectively. But I suspect that the need for speed, coupled with extremely limited facilities, prevented his team from carrying out as careful an analysis as they would have wished, and it looks like the vector carried a second, unintentional modification which they failed to recognize at the time."
"Unintentional?" Sullivan’s frown was deeper now, not in displeasure but in thought, and Allison nodded.
"I’m certain it was. And the nature of their problem no doubt helps explain what happened. You see, whoever designed this modification had to make the adaptive mutation inheritable. Simply modifying the gene in those actually exposed to the rhinovirus wouldn’t work, because it would have been a purely somatic mutation, which means it would have died with the first generation of hosts. To keep that from happening, he—or they—had to cross from the somatic to the germ line—modify the rhinovirus to cross the mucosal barrier and show a predilection for primordial germ cells in the host’s ovaries and testes—in order to pass it on to the first generation’s offspring. What had to be accomplished was analogous to, oh, the mumps virus. That infects the salivary glands, but also attacks the ovaries and testes and can account for some cases of male infertility."
Sullivan nodded to indicate understanding, and Allison hid another mental smile. Interesting that he showed no discomfort at all with the way the conversation was headed. Of course, with the high percentage of stillborn boys on this planet, Graysons had been fanatical about prenatal care for centuries, and men were just as involved in the process (at one remove, of course! she amended) as women.
"They had no real option about that," she went on. "Not if they wanted the change to be a permanent addition to the planetary genome. But in the process, they also got an unintended mutation. Their intervention introduced a stable trinucleotide repeat on the X chromosome, which wouldn’t have been a problem... except that it in turn affected one of the AGG codons." Sullivan looked blank. "AGG codons are adenine-guanine-guanine sequences that act as locks on the expansion of other trinucleotide repeats," she explained helpfully.
"Of course," Sullivan agreed. He didn’t look too terribly enlightened, but he nodded for her to continue, and she punched a new command into her holo unit. The imagery changed to a color-coded schematic of nucleotides—an enormous chain composed of the color-coded letters "A," "C," "G," and "T," repeating again and again in jumbled patterns. As Sullivan watched, the image zoomed in on a single section—two three-letter groups of "CGG" in yellow, green, and green, separated by an "AGG" in red, green, and green.
"Essentially, it was a very tiny change," Allison told the Reverend. "An adenine here—" she touched another key, and one of the "AGG" codes flashed brilliantly "—mutated to cytosine—" another key, and the flashing red "A" turned into a yellow "C" and the three-letter group to its right grew suddenly into an enormous chain of the same codes, repeating again and again "—which deactivated the lock and allowed unstable expansion of—"
"Excuse me, My Lady," Sullivan interrupted, "but I think we’re drifting into deep water here. What, precisely, does that m— No." He stopped and raised one hand. "I’m certain that if you told me what it meant, I would be no closer to understanding than I am now. What I truly need to know, I suppose, is what the consequences of this... unstable whatever are."
"Um." Allison sipped some more tea, then shrugged.
"DNA is composed of four nucleotides, Your Grace: adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine. They link together in thousands of repeats—codes, if you will—which combine to carry the blueprint for our bodies... and transmit it to the next generation. They link in groups of three, hence the term ‘trinucleotide,’ which usually occur in ‘runs’ of thirty or less, but there are several diseases, such as the one we call ‘Fragile X,’ in which the number of repeats expands enormously, often into the thousands, effectively... well, scrambling a portion of the master code, as it were. Are you with me so far?"
"I believe so," he said cautiously.
"All right. This schematic represents a portion of the nucleotides—in this case cytosine, adenine, and guanine—from the Grayson genome. This trinucleotide here—" she touched her controls and the holo reverted to its original form with the "AGG" flashing once more "—is what we call a ‘lock,’ sort of a blocker to prevent the CGG repeats on either side of it from expanding in a way that would scramble the code. What happened, though, was that when the adenine mutated into cytosine, the ‘lock’ disappeared... and that allowed an unstable expansion of the CGG chain ‘downstream’ of it."
"I won’t pretend to understand completely, My Lady," Sullivan said after a moment, "but I believe I understand the process, in general terms at least. And just how serious a problem is this ‘unstable expansion’?"
"Well, in Fragile X, the consequence is—or was, before we learned to repair it—moderate mental retardation. But what resulted here was worse—much worse. It destroyed a portion of the chromosome necessary for early embryonic development."
"Which means, My Lady?" Sullivan asked intently.
"It means that it produced an embryonic lethal mutation in males, Your Grace," Allison said simply.
This time the Reverend came bolt upright in his chair, and she nodded to the display still glowing above the coffee table.
"Any male embryo with this mutation cannot be carried to term," she said. "Female embryos each have two X chromosomes, however, which gives them the chance for an extra copy of the destroyed gene. And the lyonization process, which inactivates one X chromosome in a female, almost always inactivates the structurally damaged one in cases like this, which means that, unlike males with the same problem, they survive."
"But in that case—" Sullivan stared into the holo for several seconds, then looked back at Allison. "If I understand you correctly, My Lady, you’re saying that no male child with this mutation could live?" She nodded. "In that case, how could our ancestors possibly have survived? If everyone who received the benign mutation also received this one, then how were any living male children born at all?"
"The two mutations are linked in that they were both introduced by the same vector, Your Grace, but that’s the only linkage between them. Everyone got the intended mutation—well, that’s probably an overstatement. Let’s say that everyone who survived got the intentional one, but the unintentional one, fortunately, had incomplete penetrance. That means that thirty percent or so of the males didn’t express the mutation and so survived—but even those who survived could be carriers. To use the Fragile X analogy again, the fragile site from that disease is seen in forty percent of the cells of affected males, but carriers may not show the fragile site at all."
"I... see," Sullivan said very slowly.
"There was nothing anyone could have done about it, Your Grace. The original modification was essential if your people were to survive at all. It had to be made, and even assuming that any of the original med team were still alive by the time the harmful side effect began to manifest, and even assuming that they still had the technical capability for genetic level examinations, it was too late to do anything about it," Allison said quietly, and sat back to wait.
"Sweet Tester," Sullivan murmured at last, his voice so soft Allison hardly heard him. Then he pushed himself all the way back in his chair and inhaled deeply. He gazed at her for endless seconds, then shook himself.
"I feel certain that you must have felt very confident in your findings before you brought them to my attention, My Lady. May I also assume that your documentation of them will be sufficient to convince other experts of them?"
"Yes, Your Grace," she said positively. "For one thing, it explains the two things about your population which have most puzzled the Star Kingdom’s geneticists from the beginning of the Alliance." Sullivan raised an eyebrow, and she shrugged. "I’ve already mentioned the incredible rapidity with which your ancestors evolved a ‘natural’ defense against heavy metals. That was number one. But a disparity in male-female birth rates on the scale of Grayson’s, while not all that unusual under distressed conditions, seldom lasts as long as yours has."
"I see." He gazed at her meditatively, then drank more tea. "And is there anything which can be done about this, My Lady?"
"It’s really too early for me to say yes or no to that one, at least with any degree of confidence. I’ve isolated two or three possible approaches, but the site of the problem may well make things difficult, because the mutated gene on the X is near the zinc-finger X protein gene. That’s a key gene in sex determination, and it’s at the Xp22.2—" She paused as his expression began to indicate that he was lost once more.
"It’s at a locus where changes can involve literally dozens of disease states, Your Grace," she simplified. "Many of those diseases are lethal, and others can cause disorders of sex determination. We know a lot more about sex differentiation than whoever whipped up your survival modification did, but we still dislike meddling with it, and particularly in this area. There’s a lot of room for small errors to have large consequences, and even if we avoid the more dangerous disease states, the Beowulf Code specifically prohibits genetic manipulation in order to predetermine the sex of a child." She grimaced. "There were some very unpleasant—and shameful—episodes relating to that in the first and second centuries Ante Diaspora, and I’m afraid they’ve been repeated from time to time on some of the more backward colony worlds since. Nonetheless, I think I could probably at least ameliorate the situation. But whatever I do, it will take time to perfect the methodology... and probably result in at least some decreased fertility among your planet’s male population."
"I see," he said again, and switched his eyes to the holo image above the coffee table once more. "Have you spoken to the Sword’s health authorities about this yet, My Lady?" he asked.
"Not yet," Allison admitted. "I wanted to be certain of my data before I did, and then your visit to Harrington gave me the opportunity to speak to you first. Given the role your Church plays in the day-to-day life of Grayson, I thought it might be wiser to speak to you first."
"Obviously Father Church will have to address the issue," Sullivan agreed, "but we who serve him have learned bitter lessons about meddling in secular affairs. I believe you should draw this to the Sword’s attention as soon as convenient, My Lady. If my offices can be of assistance to you in this, please tell me."
"I appreciate the offer, Your Grace, but I have the channels to take care of that myself."
"Good. And if I may offer one bit of advice—or, perhaps, make a request?"
"Certainly you may, Your Grace," Allison said. Of course, I don’t have to follow the advice if it violates my own professional oaths, she thought, bracing herself for some last-minute swerve towards suppression of her findings.
"This information must be made public, and the sooner the better," he said firmly, "yet it would be wiser, I think, to allow the Sword to make the announcement." She cocked her head at him, and he twitched his shoulders with a small, apologetic smile. "You remain a woman, a foreigner, and—if you will forgive the term—an ‘infidel.’ We learned from your daughter that those were not necessarily bad things, yet some of our people, especially the more conservative, remain uneasy with the notion of women in positions of authority. Including, alas, myself from time to time. I wrestle with it in prayer, and with the Comforter’s aid, I feel I have made some progress, yet I had hoped that Lady Harrington would—"
He broke off, his expression sad, and Allison felt a brief, terrible stab of hurt deep down inside. "I had hoped Lady Harrington would live long enough to change our minds," she completed the thought for him, and felt her eyes sting. Well, she didn’t. But that doesn’t mean other people can’t pick up the torch for her, and I can damned well be one of them! Howard Clinkscales’ request flickered in the back of her mind as the thought flashed past, but she only looked at Sullivan and nodded.
"I know, Your Grace." Her voice was just a bit husky. Then she inhaled deeply. "And I understand. I have no problem with allowing Protector Benjamin’s people to make the announcement. Besides, there’s no huge rush about this—your planet has survived for the next best thing to a thousand years with the problem, and I’m nowhere near devising a corrective procedure that I’d feel comfortable recommending, anyway. Better to go through channels and possibly even give the Sword a little while to consider the best way to go public... and what position the Protector should take when it hits the ’faxes."
"That was very much my own thought," Sullivan told her. "Nonetheless, I also believe I’ll personally suggest to the Protector that you should be present—and clearly credited with the discovery—when the announcement is made."
"You will?" Allison blinked in surprise, and he shrugged.
"My Lady, you did discover it, and you and the clinic your daughter endowed will undoubtedly take the lead in devising any ‘corrective procedure’ which may be found. Besides, if we’re ever to overcome that ‘foreign and female’ problem among our more mulish people," he smiled and flicked one finger briefly at his own chest, "then we dare not miss an opportunity such as this."
"I see." Allison considered him with fresh thoughtfulness. Reverend Sullivan was not only less comfortable with the changes in his society, on a personal level, than his predecessor had been; he was also aware that he was. His faith and his intellect impelled him to accept and support them, but a part of him longed for the stability and comfortably defined roles of the planet on which he had been raised, and that part resisted his own duty to help demolish those definitions. Which made his last suggestion even more impressive, and she felt a deep, warm rush of affection for him.
"Thank you, Your Grace. I appreciate the suggestion—and the thought."
"You are more than welcome, My Lady," he told her, setting his teacup aside and rising as she came to her feet, switched off the holo projector, and tucked it back into her briefcase. "But no thanks are necessary," he continued, once more capturing her hand to escort her back to the door. "This planet, and all the people on it, are far too deeply in debt to the Harrington family, and especially to the really remarkable women of that name, for that."
Allison blushed, and he chuckled delightedly, then paused as they reached the door. He bent over her hand and kissed it gallantly, and then opened the door for her.
"Farewell, Lady Harrington. May the Tester, the Intercessor, and the Comforter be with you and your husband and bring you peace."
He bowed once more, and she gave his hand a squeeze of thanks and stepped through the door. It closed quietly behind her.
Chapter Seven
She gave a mental nod, set down her cup and saucer, and lifted her small briefcase from its place beside her chair into her lap.
"I realize you have a tight schedule, Your Grace, and that you sandwiched me into it at very short notice, so with your permission, I’d like to waste as little of your time as possible and get straight to the reason I asked to see you."
"My schedule is almost always ‘tight’ in Father Church’s service, My Lady," he said wryly, "but believe me, time with you could never be wasted."
"My goodness!" Allison murmured with a smile and a dangerous set of dimples. "I could wish the Star Kingdom would import a little Grayson manners!"
"Ah, but that would hardly be a fair exchange for your own presence here, My Lady!" Sullivan replied with a broad grin of his own. "Your Kingdom would get only an outward expression of our appreciation for beauty and charm, whereas we would get their reality."
Allison chuckled appreciatively, but she also shook her head and unsealed the briefcase, and Sullivan sat back in his own chair, nursing his teacup. The teasing gallantry faded from his expression, and he crossed his legs and watched alertly as she set out a tiny holo projector and keyed her memo pad to life.
"Your Grace," she said much more seriously, "I have to tell you that I felt some trepidation about requesting this meeting. As you know, I’ve been working on mapping the Grayson genome for over six T-months now, and I’ve discovered something which I’m afraid some of your people may find... disturbing." The bushy brows knitted together in a frown—not of anger, but of concentration and, possibly, a little concern—and she drew a deep breath.
"How much do you know about your planet’s genetic background, Your Grace?"
"No more than any other layman, I imagine," he said after a moment. "Even our doctors were several centuries behind your own in that regard before the Alliance, of course, but we Graysons have been aware of the need to keep track of our bloodlines and avoid inbreeding since the Founding. Aside from that and the genealogical and family health history information my own and my wives’ physicians have requested from us over the years, I’m afraid I know very little."
He paused, watching her intently, and she felt the unasked "Why?" floating in the air between them.
"Very well, Your Grace. I’ll try to keep this as simple and nontechnical as I can, but I have something I need to show you."
She switched on the holo unit, and a holographic representation of a chromosome appeared in the air above the coffee table. It didn’t look very much like an actual magnified chromosome would have, for it was a schematic rather than visually representative, yet Sullivan’s eyes flickered with interest as he realized he was looking at the blueprint for a human life. Or, to be more precise, a portion of the blueprint for a human life. Then Allison tapped a command into the holo unit, and the image changed, zooming in on a single, small portion of the schematic and magnifying that portion hugely.
"This is the long arm of what we call Chromosome Seven, Your Grace," she told him. "Specifically, this—" she tapped a macro on the holo unit and a cursor flashed, indicating a point on the image "—is a gene with a long and sometimes ugly history in medical science. A single gene mutation at this site produces a disease known as cystic fibrosis, which drastically alters the secretory function of the lungs and pancreas."
It was also, she did not mention, a disease which had been eradicated over a millennium and a half ago on planets with modern medical science... and one which still turned up from time to time on Grayson.
"I see," Sullivan said after a moment, then quirked one eyebrow at her. "And the reason for telling me this, My Lady?" he inquired politely.
"The reason for telling you, Your Grace, is that my research and mapping suggest quite conclusively to me that this portion of the genetic code of your people—" she jabbed an index finger at the cursor in the holo image "—was deliberately altered almost a thousand years ago."
"Altered?" Sullivan sat upright in his chair.
"Altered, Your Grace. Engineered." Allison drew a deep breath. "In other words, Sir, you and all your people have been genetically modified."
She sat very still, awaiting the potential eruption, but Sullivan only gazed at her for several seconds without speaking. Then he leaned back, reclaimed his teacup, and took a deliberate sip. She wasn’t certain if he was buying time for shattered thoughts to settle or simply deliberately defusing the tension, but then he set saucer and cup back in his lap and cocked his head.
"Continue, please," he invited, and his voice was so calm she felt almost flustered by its very lack of agitation. She paused a moment longer, then glanced down at her memo pad and scrolled through two or three pages of preliminary, hysteria-soothing notes it had just become obvious she wasn’t going to need.
"In addition to my purely laboratory research," she said after a second or two, "I’ve been doing some extensive searches of your data bases." Which was one hell of a lot more work than it would have been back home with proper library computer support. "In particular, I was searching for the earliest medical records—dating back to your Founding, if at all possible—which might have shed some corroborative light on my lab findings. Unfortunately, while there is a good bit of information, including case history notes on a surprising number of individual colonists, I was unable to find any data on the specific points which concerned me. Which," she said, meeting his eyes with a frankness she had not intended to bring to this meeting before she got a feel for his personality, "was one reason for my concern."
"You thought that perhaps those records had been suppressed?" Sullivan asked her, and chuckled at her expression. "My Lady, for all your frankness, you’ve been very cautious in your choice of words. Bearing that in mind, did you really think it would require a—what is the Manticoran slang phrase? a hyperphysicist, I believe?—to deduce the reason for your concern?" He shook his head at her. "I suppose it’s possible, even probable, that Father Church’s servants have suppressed... unpleasant information from time to time in our history, but if so, they did it without Father Church’s approval. Or the Tester’s." Her eyebrows rose against her will, and he chuckled again. "My Lady, we believe God calls us to the Test of Life, which requires us to test both ourselves and our beliefs and our assumptions as we grow and mature in His love. How could we do that, and what validity would our Tests have, if Father Church itself distorted the data which forms the basis upon which we are to make them?"
"I... hadn’t thought of it that way, Your Grace," Allison said slowly, and this time Sullivan laughed out loud.
"No, My Lady, but you’ve been rather more polite about it than some off-worlders have. We are a people of custom, and one which has traditionally embraced a highly consensual Faith and way of life, yet our Faith is also one of individual conscience in which no one —neither a man’s Steadholder, nor his Protector, nor even the Reverend or the Sacristy—may dictate to him on matters of the spirit. That is the central dynamic of our beliefs, and maintaining it has never been easy. Which is fair enough, for God never promised us the Test would be easy. But it means that, for all our consensuality, we have experienced many periods of intense, even bitter debate and doctrinal combat. I believe that has ultimately strengthened us, but memories of those periods make some of us uneasy about embracing changes in our Church and society. To be perfectly honest, I myself harbor some personal reservations about at least some of the changes—or, perhaps, about the rate of change—which I see around me. Yet not even the priests of Father Church, or perhaps especially not the priests of Father Church, may dictate to the consciences of our flock. Nor may we properly decide that this or that bit of knowledge, however unpleasant we may fear its consequences will be, should be restricted or concealed. So continue with your explanation, please. I may not fully understand it, and it may yet shock or concern me, but as a child of the Tester and of Father Church, it is my duty to hear and at least try to understand... and not to blame the bearer of the news for its content."
"Yes, Your Grace." Allison shook herself again, then smiled crookedly. "Yes, indeed," she said, and nodded much more comfortably at the holo image.
"As nearly as I can reconstruct what must have happened, Your Grace, at least one person, and possibly several, in your original colonial medical team must have been real crackerjack geneticists, especially given the limitations of the technology then available. As you may be aware, they were still using viruses for genetic insertions rather than the precisely engineered nanotech we use today, and given the crudity of such hack and slash methodologies, his—or their—achievements are truly remarkable."
"I am less surprised to hear that than you might think, My Lady," Sullivan interposed. "The original followers of Saint Austin were opposed to the way technology had, as they saw it, divorced men from the lives God wished them to lead. But they recognized the advances in the life sciences as the gift of a loving Father to His children, and their intention from the beginning was to transplant as much of that gift to Grayson as they could. And that was certainly as well for all of us when our ancestors discovered what sort of world they had come to."
"I believe that probably constitutes at least a one or two thousand percent understatement, Your Grace," Allison said wryly. "One of the things which has puzzled those of us who have studied the situation has been how your colony could possibly have survived for more than a generation or two amid such lethal concentrations of heavy metals. Obviously, some sort of adaptive change had to have occurred, but none of us could understand how it happened quickly enough to save the colony. Now, I think, I know."
She took a sip of tea and crossed her own legs, leaning back in her chair and cradling the tissue-thin porcelain cup between her hands.
"Heavy metals enter the body via the respiratory and digestive tracts, Your Grace, hence your air filtration systems and the constant battle to decontaminate your farm soil. Apparently, whoever was responsible for this—" she jutted her chin at the holo image once again "—intended to build a filtration system into your bodies as well, by modifying the mucosal barriers in your lungs and digestive tract. Your secretory proteins are substantially different from, say, my own. They bind the metals—or a large proportion of them, at any rate—which allows them to be cleared from the body in sputum and other wastes, rather than being absorbed wholesale into the tissues. They don’t do a perfect job, of course, but they’re the reason your tolerance for heavy metals is so much higher than my own. Up until two or three months ago, the assumption, particularly in light of your ancestors’ limited technological resources and, um, attitude towards the resources they did have, was that this must represent a natural facet of adaptive evolution, even if we had no idea how it had happened so quickly."
"But you no longer believe this to be the case," Sullivan said quietly.
"No, Your Grace. I’ve found flanking regions of rhinovirus genetic material around the cystic fibrosis locus indicated in the holo here, and I think I can say with some assurance that it didn’t get there accidentally."
"Rhinovirus?"
"The vector for the common cold," Allison said dryly, "which could have offered several useful advantages to the med teams who made use of it. For one thing, with your people so tightly confined in the limited air-filtered habitats they could build, an aerosol vector like this would be very easily spread. Given the fact that I’ve found absolutely no mention of it anywhere in the records, I might also hazard the guess that the project was kept confidential at the time—possibly to avoid raising hopes if, in fact, it should fail. Or there could have been other reasons. And if there were, spreading the alteration via ‘a cold’ would have the advantage of maximum concealability, as well."
"Indeed it would have, and there could well have been ‘other reasons’ to do such a thing quietly," Sullivan agreed, and it was his turn to smile crookedly. "Despite my own analysis of why Father Church does not believe in suppression, not everyone in our history would have agreed with me, and no doubt there have been times when our freer thinkers found that... discretion was indicated. As I’m sure you’ve discovered in the course of your research, My Lady, many of our Founders were zealots. Heavens, look at those lunatics who launched the Civil War four hundred years later! However trying our own times may be, they do not compare to the Tests which faced the Founders, and it would certainly have been possible that the Founding Elders might have feared that some of the more blindly faithful among their flock would have reacted badly to the notion of such a thing as permanently modifying their own bodies and those of all their descendants."
"As you say, Your Grace," Allison murmured, then shrugged. "At any rate, we might think of this as a sort of weapon of beneficent biological warfare, an agent designed to modify the genetic material of your people in order to give them a fighting chance at surviving their environment. Unfortunately, it looks like it was a fast and dirty method, even by the standards of then-current technology."
Sullivan frowned, and she shook her head quickly.
"That wasn’t a criticism, Your Grace! Whoever managed this was clearly working on a shoestring, with limited resources. He had to do the best with what he had, and what he managed was brilliantly conceived and clearly executed effectively. But I suspect that the need for speed, coupled with extremely limited facilities, prevented his team from carrying out as careful an analysis as they would have wished, and it looks like the vector carried a second, unintentional modification which they failed to recognize at the time."
"Unintentional?" Sullivan’s frown was deeper now, not in displeasure but in thought, and Allison nodded.
"I’m certain it was. And the nature of their problem no doubt helps explain what happened. You see, whoever designed this modification had to make the adaptive mutation inheritable. Simply modifying the gene in those actually exposed to the rhinovirus wouldn’t work, because it would have been a purely somatic mutation, which means it would have died with the first generation of hosts. To keep that from happening, he—or they—had to cross from the somatic to the germ line—modify the rhinovirus to cross the mucosal barrier and show a predilection for primordial germ cells in the host’s ovaries and testes—in order to pass it on to the first generation’s offspring. What had to be accomplished was analogous to, oh, the mumps virus. That infects the salivary glands, but also attacks the ovaries and testes and can account for some cases of male infertility."
Sullivan nodded to indicate understanding, and Allison hid another mental smile. Interesting that he showed no discomfort at all with the way the conversation was headed. Of course, with the high percentage of stillborn boys on this planet, Graysons had been fanatical about prenatal care for centuries, and men were just as involved in the process (at one remove, of course! she amended) as women.
"They had no real option about that," she went on. "Not if they wanted the change to be a permanent addition to the planetary genome. But in the process, they also got an unintended mutation. Their intervention introduced a stable trinucleotide repeat on the X chromosome, which wouldn’t have been a problem... except that it in turn affected one of the AGG codons." Sullivan looked blank. "AGG codons are adenine-guanine-guanine sequences that act as locks on the expansion of other trinucleotide repeats," she explained helpfully.
"Of course," Sullivan agreed. He didn’t look too terribly enlightened, but he nodded for her to continue, and she punched a new command into her holo unit. The imagery changed to a color-coded schematic of nucleotides—an enormous chain composed of the color-coded letters "A," "C," "G," and "T," repeating again and again in jumbled patterns. As Sullivan watched, the image zoomed in on a single section—two three-letter groups of "CGG" in yellow, green, and green, separated by an "AGG" in red, green, and green.
"Essentially, it was a very tiny change," Allison told the Reverend. "An adenine here—" she touched another key, and one of the "AGG" codes flashed brilliantly "—mutated to cytosine—" another key, and the flashing red "A" turned into a yellow "C" and the three-letter group to its right grew suddenly into an enormous chain of the same codes, repeating again and again "—which deactivated the lock and allowed unstable expansion of—"
"Excuse me, My Lady," Sullivan interrupted, "but I think we’re drifting into deep water here. What, precisely, does that m— No." He stopped and raised one hand. "I’m certain that if you told me what it meant, I would be no closer to understanding than I am now. What I truly need to know, I suppose, is what the consequences of this... unstable whatever are."
"Um." Allison sipped some more tea, then shrugged.
"DNA is composed of four nucleotides, Your Grace: adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine. They link together in thousands of repeats—codes, if you will—which combine to carry the blueprint for our bodies... and transmit it to the next generation. They link in groups of three, hence the term ‘trinucleotide,’ which usually occur in ‘runs’ of thirty or less, but there are several diseases, such as the one we call ‘Fragile X,’ in which the number of repeats expands enormously, often into the thousands, effectively... well, scrambling a portion of the master code, as it were. Are you with me so far?"
"I believe so," he said cautiously.
"All right. This schematic represents a portion of the nucleotides—in this case cytosine, adenine, and guanine—from the Grayson genome. This trinucleotide here—" she touched her controls and the holo reverted to its original form with the "AGG" flashing once more "—is what we call a ‘lock,’ sort of a blocker to prevent the CGG repeats on either side of it from expanding in a way that would scramble the code. What happened, though, was that when the adenine mutated into cytosine, the ‘lock’ disappeared... and that allowed an unstable expansion of the CGG chain ‘downstream’ of it."
"I won’t pretend to understand completely, My Lady," Sullivan said after a moment, "but I believe I understand the process, in general terms at least. And just how serious a problem is this ‘unstable expansion’?"
"Well, in Fragile X, the consequence is—or was, before we learned to repair it—moderate mental retardation. But what resulted here was worse—much worse. It destroyed a portion of the chromosome necessary for early embryonic development."
"Which means, My Lady?" Sullivan asked intently.
"It means that it produced an embryonic lethal mutation in males, Your Grace," Allison said simply.
This time the Reverend came bolt upright in his chair, and she nodded to the display still glowing above the coffee table.
"Any male embryo with this mutation cannot be carried to term," she said. "Female embryos each have two X chromosomes, however, which gives them the chance for an extra copy of the destroyed gene. And the lyonization process, which inactivates one X chromosome in a female, almost always inactivates the structurally damaged one in cases like this, which means that, unlike males with the same problem, they survive."
"But in that case—" Sullivan stared into the holo for several seconds, then looked back at Allison. "If I understand you correctly, My Lady, you’re saying that no male child with this mutation could live?" She nodded. "In that case, how could our ancestors possibly have survived? If everyone who received the benign mutation also received this one, then how were any living male children born at all?"
"The two mutations are linked in that they were both introduced by the same vector, Your Grace, but that’s the only linkage between them. Everyone got the intended mutation—well, that’s probably an overstatement. Let’s say that everyone who survived got the intentional one, but the unintentional one, fortunately, had incomplete penetrance. That means that thirty percent or so of the males didn’t express the mutation and so survived—but even those who survived could be carriers. To use the Fragile X analogy again, the fragile site from that disease is seen in forty percent of the cells of affected males, but carriers may not show the fragile site at all."
"I... see," Sullivan said very slowly.
"There was nothing anyone could have done about it, Your Grace. The original modification was essential if your people were to survive at all. It had to be made, and even assuming that any of the original med team were still alive by the time the harmful side effect began to manifest, and even assuming that they still had the technical capability for genetic level examinations, it was too late to do anything about it," Allison said quietly, and sat back to wait.
"Sweet Tester," Sullivan murmured at last, his voice so soft Allison hardly heard him. Then he pushed himself all the way back in his chair and inhaled deeply. He gazed at her for endless seconds, then shook himself.
"I feel certain that you must have felt very confident in your findings before you brought them to my attention, My Lady. May I also assume that your documentation of them will be sufficient to convince other experts of them?"
"Yes, Your Grace," she said positively. "For one thing, it explains the two things about your population which have most puzzled the Star Kingdom’s geneticists from the beginning of the Alliance." Sullivan raised an eyebrow, and she shrugged. "I’ve already mentioned the incredible rapidity with which your ancestors evolved a ‘natural’ defense against heavy metals. That was number one. But a disparity in male-female birth rates on the scale of Grayson’s, while not all that unusual under distressed conditions, seldom lasts as long as yours has."
"I see." He gazed at her meditatively, then drank more tea. "And is there anything which can be done about this, My Lady?"
"It’s really too early for me to say yes or no to that one, at least with any degree of confidence. I’ve isolated two or three possible approaches, but the site of the problem may well make things difficult, because the mutated gene on the X is near the zinc-finger X protein gene. That’s a key gene in sex determination, and it’s at the Xp22.2—" She paused as his expression began to indicate that he was lost once more.
"It’s at a locus where changes can involve literally dozens of disease states, Your Grace," she simplified. "Many of those diseases are lethal, and others can cause disorders of sex determination. We know a lot more about sex differentiation than whoever whipped up your survival modification did, but we still dislike meddling with it, and particularly in this area. There’s a lot of room for small errors to have large consequences, and even if we avoid the more dangerous disease states, the Beowulf Code specifically prohibits genetic manipulation in order to predetermine the sex of a child." She grimaced. "There were some very unpleasant—and shameful—episodes relating to that in the first and second centuries Ante Diaspora, and I’m afraid they’ve been repeated from time to time on some of the more backward colony worlds since. Nonetheless, I think I could probably at least ameliorate the situation. But whatever I do, it will take time to perfect the methodology... and probably result in at least some decreased fertility among your planet’s male population."
"I see," he said again, and switched his eyes to the holo image above the coffee table once more. "Have you spoken to the Sword’s health authorities about this yet, My Lady?" he asked.
"Not yet," Allison admitted. "I wanted to be certain of my data before I did, and then your visit to Harrington gave me the opportunity to speak to you first. Given the role your Church plays in the day-to-day life of Grayson, I thought it might be wiser to speak to you first."
"Obviously Father Church will have to address the issue," Sullivan agreed, "but we who serve him have learned bitter lessons about meddling in secular affairs. I believe you should draw this to the Sword’s attention as soon as convenient, My Lady. If my offices can be of assistance to you in this, please tell me."
"I appreciate the offer, Your Grace, but I have the channels to take care of that myself."
"Good. And if I may offer one bit of advice—or, perhaps, make a request?"
"Certainly you may, Your Grace," Allison said. Of course, I don’t have to follow the advice if it violates my own professional oaths, she thought, bracing herself for some last-minute swerve towards suppression of her findings.
"This information must be made public, and the sooner the better," he said firmly, "yet it would be wiser, I think, to allow the Sword to make the announcement." She cocked her head at him, and he twitched his shoulders with a small, apologetic smile. "You remain a woman, a foreigner, and—if you will forgive the term—an ‘infidel.’ We learned from your daughter that those were not necessarily bad things, yet some of our people, especially the more conservative, remain uneasy with the notion of women in positions of authority. Including, alas, myself from time to time. I wrestle with it in prayer, and with the Comforter’s aid, I feel I have made some progress, yet I had hoped that Lady Harrington would—"
He broke off, his expression sad, and Allison felt a brief, terrible stab of hurt deep down inside. "I had hoped Lady Harrington would live long enough to change our minds," she completed the thought for him, and felt her eyes sting. Well, she didn’t. But that doesn’t mean other people can’t pick up the torch for her, and I can damned well be one of them! Howard Clinkscales’ request flickered in the back of her mind as the thought flashed past, but she only looked at Sullivan and nodded.
"I know, Your Grace." Her voice was just a bit husky. Then she inhaled deeply. "And I understand. I have no problem with allowing Protector Benjamin’s people to make the announcement. Besides, there’s no huge rush about this—your planet has survived for the next best thing to a thousand years with the problem, and I’m nowhere near devising a corrective procedure that I’d feel comfortable recommending, anyway. Better to go through channels and possibly even give the Sword a little while to consider the best way to go public... and what position the Protector should take when it hits the ’faxes."
"That was very much my own thought," Sullivan told her. "Nonetheless, I also believe I’ll personally suggest to the Protector that you should be present—and clearly credited with the discovery—when the announcement is made."
"You will?" Allison blinked in surprise, and he shrugged.
"My Lady, you did discover it, and you and the clinic your daughter endowed will undoubtedly take the lead in devising any ‘corrective procedure’ which may be found. Besides, if we’re ever to overcome that ‘foreign and female’ problem among our more mulish people," he smiled and flicked one finger briefly at his own chest, "then we dare not miss an opportunity such as this."
"I see." Allison considered him with fresh thoughtfulness. Reverend Sullivan was not only less comfortable with the changes in his society, on a personal level, than his predecessor had been; he was also aware that he was. His faith and his intellect impelled him to accept and support them, but a part of him longed for the stability and comfortably defined roles of the planet on which he had been raised, and that part resisted his own duty to help demolish those definitions. Which made his last suggestion even more impressive, and she felt a deep, warm rush of affection for him.
"Thank you, Your Grace. I appreciate the suggestion—and the thought."
"You are more than welcome, My Lady," he told her, setting his teacup aside and rising as she came to her feet, switched off the holo projector, and tucked it back into her briefcase. "But no thanks are necessary," he continued, once more capturing her hand to escort her back to the door. "This planet, and all the people on it, are far too deeply in debt to the Harrington family, and especially to the really remarkable women of that name, for that."
Allison blushed, and he chuckled delightedly, then paused as they reached the door. He bent over her hand and kissed it gallantly, and then opened the door for her.
"Farewell, Lady Harrington. May the Tester, the Intercessor, and the Comforter be with you and your husband and bring you peace."
He bowed once more, and she gave his hand a squeeze of thanks and stepped through the door. It closed quietly behind her.
Chapter Seven
The sentries at Harrington House’s East Portico snapped to attention with even greater than usual precision as the luxury ground car purred through the dome’s main vehicle entrance. A small pennon—a triangle of maroon and gold bearing the opened Bible and crossed swords that were the Protector’s emblem, starched-stiff in the wind of its passage—flew from a fender-mounted staff, and two-man grav sleds hovered watchfully above it. Further up, out of sight from the ground, sleek transatmospheric craft kept equally attentive watch, and teams of crack marksmen—some in Mayhew maroon-and-gold, and some in Harrington Steading’s green-on-green—stood unobtrusively on vantage points on Harrington House’s roof and dome catwalks while sophisticated electronic devices scanned the grounds ceaselessly.
It all seemed just a trifle much to Allison Harrington. She knew about the security features built into Harrington House, and she’d gotten used to the notion that Harrington Steading’s armsmen insisted on watching over her and her husband, although she was devoutly thankful that they were less intrusive about it than they had been about guarding poor Honor. More to the point, she supposed, she’d anticipated some of this in advance, given the nature of the occasion. Even if she hadn’t, Miranda LaFollet’s expression when she suggested it would have offered ample warning. Miranda continued to function as Harrington Steading chief of staff, so it was she who had been responsible for issuing the actual invitation, and she’d shown more than a little trepidation at the prospect. Allison had been confident that the invitees would accept, and she’d been right. But if she’d realized a simple supper invitation was going to put the equivalent of what seemed like a full Marine brigade on alert, she probably wouldn’t have had the nerve to issue it in the first place.
Not "nerve," she corrected herself. Gall.
The thought helped, and she smiled more naturally as she and Alfred stepped out under the portico with Howard Clinkscales to greet their guests. Miranda and Farragut flanked them on Allison’s right, and James MacGuiness, in the civilian clothing he’d worn since returning to Grayson, followed on Alfred’s left. At Benjamin IX’s personal request, the RMN had granted the steward indefinite leave in order for him to serve as Harrington House’s majordomo, and his eyes swept back and forth almost as attentively as the watching armsmen’s, searching for any imperfection.
They found none. The green-uniformed men on either side of the doorway stood rigidly to attention, gazes fixed straight ahead, as the ground car slid to a halt. The counter-grav ground effect died, and gravel crunched as the car settled. Then the front passenger door opened, and an athletic major in maroon and gold, with the braided aigulette of Palace Security hanging from his right shoulder, climbed out it.
The Mayhew armsman stood scanning his surroundings while he listened to reports over his earbug. Grav sleds swept through the portal and grounded, and a dozen more men in the same colors joined the major to form an alert, open ring about the car. Then he nodded, and a sergeant opened a rear door and snapped to the salute as Benjamin IX stepped out of it past him.
The Protector waved as Allison, Alfred, and Clinkscales came down the steps to greet him, then turned and handed Katherine Mayhew, his senior wife, from the car. Allison and Katherine had met briefly on several occasions during the days before Honor’s funeral, but the demands of protocol and solemnity had kept them from truly getting to know one another. Nonetheless, Allison had sensed a kindred spirit in Katherine, even through the unrelenting formality of those dreary days, and this was one case in which it probably helped that she hadn’t been born to an aristocratic tradition. She understood how such traditions worked, and she’d come to respect them—mostly—but they weren’t really a part of her cultural baggage. That left her less impressed with Katherine Mayhew’s rank than she might have been, and she looked forward to becoming better acquainted with the other woman despite her exalted position, for she suspected they were too much alike not to become friends. They were also very much of a size—which was to say "tiny"—and the First Lady of Grayson held out her hand with a smile as Allison swept down on her.
"Good afternoon, Madam Mayhew," Allison said formally, and Katherine shook her head.
"I would really prefer ‘Katherine,’ or even ‘Cat,’ " she said. "‘Madam Mayhew’ sounds much too formal coming from a Harrington."
"I see... Katherine," Allison murmured, and Katherine squeezed her hand and turned to greet Alfred as Benjamin assisted his second wife, Elaine, from the car. Elaine was the shy one, Allison remembered, although the Protector’s junior wife seemed to have gained considerably in composure compared to the almost timid person Honor had described from their first meeting, and Allison greeted her warmly.
"Thank you for inviting us," Elaine replied, smiling as she watched Alfred bend over Katherine’s hand as gallantly as any Grayson might have. "It’s not often we get out for anything except formal occasions."
"This isn’t formal? " Allison demanded, flicking her free hand at all the punctilious military courtesy and firepower conspicuously displayed about them.
"Oh, goodness no!" Elaine laughed. "With the entire family—except for Michael, of course—all out in the open in one place? This is the lightest security I’ve seen in, oh, ages! "
Allison was certain for a moment that her leg was being pulled, but then she looked back at the major and realized Elaine was dead serious. The major was too well trained to be obvious, but he was clearly unhappy about his charges’ potential exposure, and Allison hid a wince of sympathy as he almost visibly swallowed a need to urge the Protector and his wives to get themselves inside Harrington House and under cover. Unfortunately for the major, Benjamin was in no hurry, and Allison chuckled as a torrent of Mayhew offspring poured out of the car on Elaine’s heels.
Actually, there were only four of them; they merely seemed like a torrent, and individual armsmen peeled off to attach themselves to each child with the ease of long practice. It seemed dreadfully unfair for children that young to already be burdened with their own permanent, personal bodyguards, but Allison supposed they’d better start getting used to the fanatical way Graysons guarded their steadholders and protectors early. And truth to tell, their armsmen’s presence certainly didn’t seem to have stunted the Mayhew brood’s boisterous development.
The sturdy eleven-year-old in the lead favored Katherine strongly, although she was already as tall as her mother and promised to go right on growing. Rachel Mayhew had been the terror of the palace nursery in her day, and she seemed to be fighting a stubborn rearguard action against the encroachments of civilization. From a few amused comments Clinkscales had let drop, Allison suspected Honor had been a major influence on the taste Rachel had developed for "unladylike" athletics. She was already training as a pilot, as well, and carried a very respectable grade-point average, but her tastes ran to the engineering and hard science courses which had been traditionally male on Grayson. Even worse, in conservative eyes, perhaps, she already held a brown belt in coup de vitesse.
The old-fashioned term "tomboy" came to mind every time Allison laid eyes on the girl—who was more likely to be cheerfully engaged in taking an air car’s grav generators apart to see how they worked than in learning to dance, giggle over the opposite sex, or any of the other things she "ought" to be doing. At the moment, one of her hair ribbons had come untied, and she’d managed to get a smear of dirt on her cheek. Which, Allison reflected, must have taken some doing, since the ground car had brought her and her family straight here from the shuttle pad. Funny. I thought Honor was the only child who could teleport dirt into otherwise sterile environments!
Jeanette and Theresa—ten and nine and the biological daughters of Elaine and Katherine, respectively—followed just a bit more sedately. Jeanette had the same dark eyes as Rachel, but her hair was a bright chestnut, whereas Theresa’s resemblance to their oldest sister was almost eerie. Except that Theresa was neat as a new pin and obviously hadn’t made the acquaintance of Rachel’s secret dirt patch.
And finally, Benjamin reached back into the car and lifted out his youngest daughter. The baby of the family—for the moment; that status tended to be transitory in families the size people were raising on Grayson these days—she was only four years old and clearly another of Elaine’s. She was tall for her age, with hair much the same auburn as Miranda LaFollet’s, and huge sea-gray eyes, and a promise of elegant beauty already showed through her immature child’s bone structure. She buried her face shyly against her father when she saw all the strangers, but then she straightened up and demanded to be put down. Benjamin complied, and she reached out and grabbed one of Katherine’s hands tightly while she stared curiously at Allison.
"Our youngest," Katherine said quietly, touching the child’s curly mop of hair with her free hand. "Your daughter’s goddaughter."
Allison had known who the little girl was, but her eyes misted for just a moment anyway. She stooped gracefully, making herself the same height as the child, cleared her throat, and held out her own hand.
"My name is Allison," she said. "What’s your name?"
The girl looked gravely at the offered hand for several seconds, then back at Allison’s face.
"Honor," she said after a moment. Her Grayson accent softened the name, but she spoke clearly and distinctly. "Honor Mayhew."
"Honor," Allison repeated, keeping the pain from her own voice, and smiled. "That’s a very good name for someone, don’t you think?" Honor nodded wordlessly. Then she reached out and laid her hand in the one Allison still held extended. She looked up at Katherine and Elaine as if for approval, and Katherine smiled at her. She smiled back, then looked up at Allison.
"I’m four," she announced.
"Four years old?" Allison asked.
"Uh-huh. And number four, too," Honor told her with a grin.
"I see." Allison nodded in grave approval and stood back fully erect, still holding Honor’s hand. Each of the adult Mayhews had corralled one of the older girls, and Allison dimpled as the major sighed in profound relief when MacGuiness, with the able assistance of Miranda and Farragut, began chivvying people up the steps.
"I won’t say we never get out—there’s always some damned state occasion or another—but just to visit someone?" He shook his head.
"Actually," Katherine said with a wicked smile, "we’re all rather hoping some of the other Keys decide to follow your example, Allison. Tester knows half the wives out there are hovering on the brink of death from pure envy over your ‘social coup’ right now!" Allison’s eyebrows rose, and Katherine chuckled warmly. "Of course they are! You’re the first hostess outside the immediate Mayhew Clan or one of its core septs who’s had the sheer nerve to simply invite the Protector and his family over for a friendly family dinner in over two hundred T-years!"
"You’re joking... aren’t you?"
"Oh, no she isn’t," Benjamin said. "She checked the records. What was the last time, Cat?"
"Bernard VII and his wives were invited to a surprise birthday party by John Mackenzie XI on June 10, 3807—um, 1704 P.D.," Katherine replied promptly. "And the experience clearly made a profound impression on Bernard, because I found the actual menu, including the ice cream flavors, in his personal diary."
"Two hundred and eight years?" Allison shook her head, unable to believe it. "That long without an invitation for anything but a state occasion?"
"I wouldn’t imagine many people just screen Queen Elizabeth and ask her if she’d like to drop by for a beer, Alley," Alfred observed dryly.
"No, but she has to get invitations at least a bit more frequently than once every two centuries!" Allison protested.
"Perhaps so," Benjamin agreed. "But here on Grayson, any informal or personal invitations traditionally go from the Protector to the steadholders, not the other way around."
"Oh, dear. Have we violated protocol that grossly?" Allison sighed.
"You certainly have," Benjamin replied. "And a darned good thing, too." Allison still looked a little concerned, but Elaine nodded in vigorous agreement with her husband even as she removed an old-fashioned printed book from Honor’s clutches before it could suffer serious damage.
"Benjamin warned Katherine and me both about protocol before he proposed," Elaine said over her shoulder, leading an indignant Honor firmly back towards where the older Mayhew girls were engaged in a board game with Miranda LaFollet. Rachel had expressed some rather pointed reservations about her younger siblings’ level of skill, but she had a basically sunny disposition, and she’d let herself be talked into playing. By now, she’d forgotten to maintain her air of exaggerated patience and entered as fully into the play as Jeanette or Theresa while Farragut watched over them all from the back of Miranda’s chair.
It all seemed just a trifle much to Allison Harrington. She knew about the security features built into Harrington House, and she’d gotten used to the notion that Harrington Steading’s armsmen insisted on watching over her and her husband, although she was devoutly thankful that they were less intrusive about it than they had been about guarding poor Honor. More to the point, she supposed, she’d anticipated some of this in advance, given the nature of the occasion. Even if she hadn’t, Miranda LaFollet’s expression when she suggested it would have offered ample warning. Miranda continued to function as Harrington Steading chief of staff, so it was she who had been responsible for issuing the actual invitation, and she’d shown more than a little trepidation at the prospect. Allison had been confident that the invitees would accept, and she’d been right. But if she’d realized a simple supper invitation was going to put the equivalent of what seemed like a full Marine brigade on alert, she probably wouldn’t have had the nerve to issue it in the first place.
Not "nerve," she corrected herself. Gall.
The thought helped, and she smiled more naturally as she and Alfred stepped out under the portico with Howard Clinkscales to greet their guests. Miranda and Farragut flanked them on Allison’s right, and James MacGuiness, in the civilian clothing he’d worn since returning to Grayson, followed on Alfred’s left. At Benjamin IX’s personal request, the RMN had granted the steward indefinite leave in order for him to serve as Harrington House’s majordomo, and his eyes swept back and forth almost as attentively as the watching armsmen’s, searching for any imperfection.
They found none. The green-uniformed men on either side of the doorway stood rigidly to attention, gazes fixed straight ahead, as the ground car slid to a halt. The counter-grav ground effect died, and gravel crunched as the car settled. Then the front passenger door opened, and an athletic major in maroon and gold, with the braided aigulette of Palace Security hanging from his right shoulder, climbed out it.
The Mayhew armsman stood scanning his surroundings while he listened to reports over his earbug. Grav sleds swept through the portal and grounded, and a dozen more men in the same colors joined the major to form an alert, open ring about the car. Then he nodded, and a sergeant opened a rear door and snapped to the salute as Benjamin IX stepped out of it past him.
The Protector waved as Allison, Alfred, and Clinkscales came down the steps to greet him, then turned and handed Katherine Mayhew, his senior wife, from the car. Allison and Katherine had met briefly on several occasions during the days before Honor’s funeral, but the demands of protocol and solemnity had kept them from truly getting to know one another. Nonetheless, Allison had sensed a kindred spirit in Katherine, even through the unrelenting formality of those dreary days, and this was one case in which it probably helped that she hadn’t been born to an aristocratic tradition. She understood how such traditions worked, and she’d come to respect them—mostly—but they weren’t really a part of her cultural baggage. That left her less impressed with Katherine Mayhew’s rank than she might have been, and she looked forward to becoming better acquainted with the other woman despite her exalted position, for she suspected they were too much alike not to become friends. They were also very much of a size—which was to say "tiny"—and the First Lady of Grayson held out her hand with a smile as Allison swept down on her.
"Good afternoon, Madam Mayhew," Allison said formally, and Katherine shook her head.
"I would really prefer ‘Katherine,’ or even ‘Cat,’ " she said. "‘Madam Mayhew’ sounds much too formal coming from a Harrington."
"I see... Katherine," Allison murmured, and Katherine squeezed her hand and turned to greet Alfred as Benjamin assisted his second wife, Elaine, from the car. Elaine was the shy one, Allison remembered, although the Protector’s junior wife seemed to have gained considerably in composure compared to the almost timid person Honor had described from their first meeting, and Allison greeted her warmly.
"Thank you for inviting us," Elaine replied, smiling as she watched Alfred bend over Katherine’s hand as gallantly as any Grayson might have. "It’s not often we get out for anything except formal occasions."
"This isn’t formal? " Allison demanded, flicking her free hand at all the punctilious military courtesy and firepower conspicuously displayed about them.
"Oh, goodness no!" Elaine laughed. "With the entire family—except for Michael, of course—all out in the open in one place? This is the lightest security I’ve seen in, oh, ages! "
Allison was certain for a moment that her leg was being pulled, but then she looked back at the major and realized Elaine was dead serious. The major was too well trained to be obvious, but he was clearly unhappy about his charges’ potential exposure, and Allison hid a wince of sympathy as he almost visibly swallowed a need to urge the Protector and his wives to get themselves inside Harrington House and under cover. Unfortunately for the major, Benjamin was in no hurry, and Allison chuckled as a torrent of Mayhew offspring poured out of the car on Elaine’s heels.
Actually, there were only four of them; they merely seemed like a torrent, and individual armsmen peeled off to attach themselves to each child with the ease of long practice. It seemed dreadfully unfair for children that young to already be burdened with their own permanent, personal bodyguards, but Allison supposed they’d better start getting used to the fanatical way Graysons guarded their steadholders and protectors early. And truth to tell, their armsmen’s presence certainly didn’t seem to have stunted the Mayhew brood’s boisterous development.
The sturdy eleven-year-old in the lead favored Katherine strongly, although she was already as tall as her mother and promised to go right on growing. Rachel Mayhew had been the terror of the palace nursery in her day, and she seemed to be fighting a stubborn rearguard action against the encroachments of civilization. From a few amused comments Clinkscales had let drop, Allison suspected Honor had been a major influence on the taste Rachel had developed for "unladylike" athletics. She was already training as a pilot, as well, and carried a very respectable grade-point average, but her tastes ran to the engineering and hard science courses which had been traditionally male on Grayson. Even worse, in conservative eyes, perhaps, she already held a brown belt in coup de vitesse.
The old-fashioned term "tomboy" came to mind every time Allison laid eyes on the girl—who was more likely to be cheerfully engaged in taking an air car’s grav generators apart to see how they worked than in learning to dance, giggle over the opposite sex, or any of the other things she "ought" to be doing. At the moment, one of her hair ribbons had come untied, and she’d managed to get a smear of dirt on her cheek. Which, Allison reflected, must have taken some doing, since the ground car had brought her and her family straight here from the shuttle pad. Funny. I thought Honor was the only child who could teleport dirt into otherwise sterile environments!
Jeanette and Theresa—ten and nine and the biological daughters of Elaine and Katherine, respectively—followed just a bit more sedately. Jeanette had the same dark eyes as Rachel, but her hair was a bright chestnut, whereas Theresa’s resemblance to their oldest sister was almost eerie. Except that Theresa was neat as a new pin and obviously hadn’t made the acquaintance of Rachel’s secret dirt patch.
And finally, Benjamin reached back into the car and lifted out his youngest daughter. The baby of the family—for the moment; that status tended to be transitory in families the size people were raising on Grayson these days—she was only four years old and clearly another of Elaine’s. She was tall for her age, with hair much the same auburn as Miranda LaFollet’s, and huge sea-gray eyes, and a promise of elegant beauty already showed through her immature child’s bone structure. She buried her face shyly against her father when she saw all the strangers, but then she straightened up and demanded to be put down. Benjamin complied, and she reached out and grabbed one of Katherine’s hands tightly while she stared curiously at Allison.
"Our youngest," Katherine said quietly, touching the child’s curly mop of hair with her free hand. "Your daughter’s goddaughter."
Allison had known who the little girl was, but her eyes misted for just a moment anyway. She stooped gracefully, making herself the same height as the child, cleared her throat, and held out her own hand.
"My name is Allison," she said. "What’s your name?"
The girl looked gravely at the offered hand for several seconds, then back at Allison’s face.
"Honor," she said after a moment. Her Grayson accent softened the name, but she spoke clearly and distinctly. "Honor Mayhew."
"Honor," Allison repeated, keeping the pain from her own voice, and smiled. "That’s a very good name for someone, don’t you think?" Honor nodded wordlessly. Then she reached out and laid her hand in the one Allison still held extended. She looked up at Katherine and Elaine as if for approval, and Katherine smiled at her. She smiled back, then looked up at Allison.
"I’m four," she announced.
"Four years old?" Allison asked.
"Uh-huh. And number four, too," Honor told her with a grin.
"I see." Allison nodded in grave approval and stood back fully erect, still holding Honor’s hand. Each of the adult Mayhews had corralled one of the older girls, and Allison dimpled as the major sighed in profound relief when MacGuiness, with the able assistance of Miranda and Farragut, began chivvying people up the steps.
* * *
"—so we were delighted by the invitation," Benjamin said, leaning back in the comfortable armchair in the Harrington House library while he nursed a glass of Alfred Harrington’s prized Delacourt. Allison had decided to use the library instead of one of the grander, more formal sitting rooms the architects had provided. Aside from the huge Harrington seal inlaid into the polished hardwood floor, the library managed not to shout that it was part of a consciously designed "great house," and the titles on its shelves and the relatively simple but comfortable furnishings and efficient data retrieval systems made her think of Honor. Given her determination to keep the night informal, Clinkscales had withdrawn with a gracious smile to join his wives while the Harringtons entertained their guests. Now she and Alfred and the adult Mayhews sat in a comfortably arranged conversational group near the main data terminal, and Benjamin waved his wineglass gently."I won’t say we never get out—there’s always some damned state occasion or another—but just to visit someone?" He shook his head.
"Actually," Katherine said with a wicked smile, "we’re all rather hoping some of the other Keys decide to follow your example, Allison. Tester knows half the wives out there are hovering on the brink of death from pure envy over your ‘social coup’ right now!" Allison’s eyebrows rose, and Katherine chuckled warmly. "Of course they are! You’re the first hostess outside the immediate Mayhew Clan or one of its core septs who’s had the sheer nerve to simply invite the Protector and his family over for a friendly family dinner in over two hundred T-years!"
"You’re joking... aren’t you?"
"Oh, no she isn’t," Benjamin said. "She checked the records. What was the last time, Cat?"
"Bernard VII and his wives were invited to a surprise birthday party by John Mackenzie XI on June 10, 3807—um, 1704 P.D.," Katherine replied promptly. "And the experience clearly made a profound impression on Bernard, because I found the actual menu, including the ice cream flavors, in his personal diary."
"Two hundred and eight years?" Allison shook her head, unable to believe it. "That long without an invitation for anything but a state occasion?"
"I wouldn’t imagine many people just screen Queen Elizabeth and ask her if she’d like to drop by for a beer, Alley," Alfred observed dryly.
"No, but she has to get invitations at least a bit more frequently than once every two centuries!" Allison protested.
"Perhaps so," Benjamin agreed. "But here on Grayson, any informal or personal invitations traditionally go from the Protector to the steadholders, not the other way around."
"Oh, dear. Have we violated protocol that grossly?" Allison sighed.
"You certainly have," Benjamin replied. "And a darned good thing, too." Allison still looked a little concerned, but Elaine nodded in vigorous agreement with her husband even as she removed an old-fashioned printed book from Honor’s clutches before it could suffer serious damage.
"Benjamin warned Katherine and me both about protocol before he proposed," Elaine said over her shoulder, leading an indignant Honor firmly back towards where the older Mayhew girls were engaged in a board game with Miranda LaFollet. Rachel had expressed some rather pointed reservations about her younger siblings’ level of skill, but she had a basically sunny disposition, and she’d let herself be talked into playing. By now, she’d forgotten to maintain her air of exaggerated patience and entered as fully into the play as Jeanette or Theresa while Farragut watched over them all from the back of Miranda’s chair.