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The woman’s eyes narrow, but she laughs genially and waves her hand, dismissing the question. “I know you’re opposed to the weapons manufacturing we’ve implemented, but rest assured that your people will not be asked to produce weapons. Just energy cubes, as we discussed before. ”
Captain Davis looks skeptical, but he doesn’t comment again.
“As I’ve said, the problem is the production rate. Our people—the original colony and, when you land, all of your people—are having problems with solar radiation. Too much sun; it makes people sick. ”
My jaw clenches. This isn’t true. We’ve been on Centauri-Earth nearly a week, and none of us have gotten sick from sun exposure.
The woman waves her hand, and the men who came with her from the shuttle appear, carrying the thermal crates. They open one of them and hand the woman a syringe filled with golden liquid.
“This is a genetic modification vaccination. I assume you’re aware of gen mod material?” the woman asks.
Captain Davis nods. “The livestock were modified to better adapt to life in the bio-dome of the ship. We’ve used it sparingly on some crops throughout the years. ”
The woman smiles. “Gen mod material has been enormously helpful in this situation,” she says. “We grafted a vaccination to solar radiation onto gen mod material. We simply inject a person with this vaccination . . . ” She reaches for Captain Davis’s arm, but he snatches it away. The woman laughs as if this were all a joke, but it is clear neither of them trusts the other. “Once someone is injected with the vaccine, it grafts to the person’s genetic code, ensuring that not only will that person be vaccinated against solar radiation for the rest of his or her life, but all of their descendants will be born immune as well. One shot, and every generation that lives on the new planet will never have to worry about solar radiation again!”
Captain Davis doesn’t speak.
“I’ve got enough vaccine for everyone on board Godspeed. I’ll leave it here with you. ” The woman waves her hand again, and the men cover the crates and take them away. “Once your ship is vaccinated, we’ll talk again and help you land the ship on the planet’s surface. ” She looks around her, her eyes lingering on the curving metal ceiling. “I imagine you’ll be glad to get off this outdated hunk of metal. Bit claustrophobic. ”
The image cuts to black.
“What is this?” I ask softly. “None of this lines up with what we thought happened. . . . ”
Chris doesn’t respond. I glance back at him. His jaw is fixed in a hard line, his startlingly blue eyes flashing. He looks furious.
The screen’s image shifts, and I turn to it again. Now Captain Davis is in a laboratory—the gen lab, on the cryo level. Two men and a woman in lab coats stand around a young girl, maybe fifteen or so, with long dark hair and narrow eyes that remind me of the captain’s. She sits on a chair in the center of the lab. Behind her, I can make out the Phydus pump—but it’s not pumping Phydus. Instead, a large vat labeled VITAMINS AND SUPPLEMENTS stands next to it. Over the girl’s shoulder are the cylinders of fetuses from Earth, but none of them contain clones of Elder. Not yet.
“Is it reversible?” Captain Davis asks one of the men in the lab coats.
He shakes his head. “From what we can tell, the ‘vaccine’ does nothing but turn a person into an obedient dog. ” He hands Captain Davis one of the syringes the woman with black hair gave him.
The man in the lab coat shakes his head sadly at the girl. “We’d tested it . . . we had no idea our volunteer would be affected in this way. ”
“Maybe you should have tested it before you accepted my daughter as your volunteer,” Captain Davis growls. “You should have known better than to test it on a human subject so quickly. ”
The scientists look nervously at each other, all scared of the captain’s wrath. The only person in the room who doesn’t show any emotion is the girl. His daughter.
“We’ve isolated the compounds within the ‘vaccines,’” the woman continues, her voice high and scared. “There is gen mod material there and another drug, one we’ve never seen. When injected, a person becomes . . . well, a person becomes this. ”
They all look at the girl on the chair. She stares vacantly back.
“What is this drug?” Captain Davis grinds out, furious.
“We’re calling it Phydus. When taken orally or injected into the bloodstream, it makes a person temporarily obedient. When it’s combined with gen modifiers, though, the condition becomes permanent. ”
“This is what the FRX wants from us. Mindless workers. Perfect slaves. ” Captain Davis looks bitter and enraged. I think for a moment he’s going to punch his own daughter, but he spins away from her instead.
“You know from our communication with the first colony on the planet that the FRX was pressuring them to increase production of solar glass and make more weapons,” the woman in the lab coat says. “After trade negotiations crumbled, we never heard back from the colony again. ”
Captain Davis gapes at the woman. “Do you think . . . the entire first colony? They’re already drugged into slavery? Transformed into something not entirely human?”
“It must be,” the woman says. She sounds as if she’s about to cry. “Maybe the FRX tricked them like they tried to do with us, calling it a vaccine. Maybe the FRX found a way to force the drug on them. Either way . . . ”
“Either way, it’s too late for them. ” Captain Davis’s face crumples. “And her. ”
“We’re working on a drug to inhibit the properties of Phydus. ” One of the male scientists steps forward. “We might be able to find a cure. ”
Captain Davis whips around to his daughter, a sudden look of hope crossing his face—one that fades just as quickly. “And if we land and give the cure to the first colony?” he demands. “The FRX will just do it again. They want their glass, their weapons. There aren’t enough of us, even if we joined forces with the colony, even if we could cure them. ”
