The Seeds of Time by Kay Kenyon

Author:Kay Kenyon
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780307780317
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2011-02-16T07:00:00+00:00

FASTER

THAN

LIFE

CHAPTER 23

In a Vanda security cell, Clio slept for twelve hours. She was wakened by two army corporals who looked like they could bend steel with their bare hands. Behind them, a vastly smaller med tech stepped forward with a little paper cup and two red pills. She put them in her mouth, took a swallow of the offered water. The gorillas gave her two minutes to clean up, then herded her down the crew corridor of Vanda into the main causeway.

Clio squinted in the brilliance of lit corridors and polished metal. Magnificent Vanda, built in the days of space mania; no expense spared. The main gravity corridor was thirty meters wide, and long, designed to hide the curve with tricks of perspective. Swellings in the corridor signaled activity nodes with store frontages, and corridor seating with clusters of techs, crew, and, now, army. Trees and shrubs clustered around data-access VDTs. But for all Vanda’s four-trillion-dollar price tag, they still skimped by on the sickly greenish fluorescent lights. Clio’s head throbbed with the pounding of her escort’s feet as they marched on. No time to gape at Vanda, and no need to.

Been here before, many times and long ago. Vandarthanan Station keeps on spinning, same as before. But not the same. Army, everywhere army. A presence on-station, to be sure, and watchful, they were, not as though waiting for assignment. Twice her guards showed ID as they crossed from one quadrant to the next, as defined by the massive fire and airlock doors stowed against corridor walls. The mood on Vanda had changed. No longer the collegial, self-contained scientific community, but an army base. Time was, Vanda had been the main base solely for Space Recon and the giant corporate enterprises feeding on it: Biotime, Timeco, Alpha One, those gallant companies of exploration, mining the galaxy for biota, bringing home the green.

Biotime and Timeco and the others—they brought home the green, all right. Some made it to Earth transition farms, where, Clio knew, they died. Earth went on rejecting the new DNA like a condor finding an eaglet in its nest, grabbing it by the scruff, and hurling it out. But Biotime, the rest of them, can’t give that secret away.

People have enough to worry about these days besides the end of the world.

As her escort turned her down med corridor, it hit her where they were going. Heading to the lab for some tests, oh yes, could guess what tests. She yanked her arm free from the linebacker on her right and stomped to a halt.

They were on her in an instant. “Yeah, yeah,” she said, as they used a little too much force. “Don’t worry, I’m coming, just like to get there with my arms still in their sockets.”

The corridor widened out to a seating area with med techs on break and a few Biotime staffers playing vid games. Almost got through, no one recognizing her, but there was Starfish Void. Her old Dive competitor was heading toward her.

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