Part 42 (2/2)

'What's going on?'

'In twenty-five words or less? The subplanet is changing us.' Cooper gestured at the creature on the stadium screen. 'Into that.'

Eva Shoat laid a hand upon her long throat. 'You knew this, and you let my son go down?'

'The effects aren't universal,' said Cooper. 'In the veteran populations, the split is roughly fifty-fifty. Half show no effect. Half display these delayed mutations. Hadal physiologies. Enlarged hearts, pulmonary and cerebral edema, skin cancer: those are all symptoms that hadals develop when they come to the surface. Something is switching on and off at the DNA level. Altering the genetic code. Their bodies begin producing proteins, chimeric proteins, which alter tissues in radically different ways.'

'You can't predict which half of the population will develop the problems?' asked Vera.

'We don't have a clue. But if it's happening to six-year veterans, it's eventually going to happen to four-month miners and settlers.'

'And Helios has to find a solution,' observed Foley. 'Or else your empire beneath the sea will be a ghost town before it ever starts.'

'In vulgar terms, precisely.'

'Obviously, you think there's a solution in the hadal physiology itself,' Vera said.

Cooper nodded. 'Genetic engineers call it ”cutting the Gordian knot.” We have to resolve the complexities. Sort out the viruses and retroviruses, the genes and phenotypes. Examine the environmental factors. Map the chaos. And so Helios is building a multibillion-dollar research campus here, and importing live hadals for research purposes. To make the subplanet safe for humans.'

'But I don't understand,' said Vera. 'It seems to me research and development would be a thousand times less complicated down below. Among other things, why stress your guinea pigs by transporting them to the surface? You could build this same facility at a subterranean station for a fraction of the cost. You'll need to pressurize the entire laboratory to subplanetary levels. Why not just study the hadals down there? There would be no transportation costs. The mortality rate would be far lower. And you could test your results on colonists in the field.'

'That's not an option,' de l'Orme said. 'Or it won't be soon.'

They all turned to him.

'Unless he brings up a sample population of hadals, there won't be any hadals to sample soon. Isn't that the idea, Mr Cooper?'

'No idea what you're talking about,' Cooper said.

'Perhaps you could tell us about the contagion,' de l'Orme said. 'Prion-9.'

Cooper appraised the little archaeologist. 'I know what you know. We've learned that prion capsules are being planted along the expedition's route. But Helios has nothing to do with it. I won't ask you to believe me. I don't care if you do or not. It's my people who are at risk down there. My expedition. Except for your spy,' he added, 'the von Schade woman.'

January's expression hardened.

'What's this about a contagion?' Eva demanded.

'I didn't want to worry you any more,' Cooper said to his wife. 'A deranged ex-soldier has attached himself to the expedition. He's lacing the route with a synthetic virus.'

'My G.o.d,' his wife whispered.

'Despicable,' hissed de l'Orme.

'What was that?' Cooper said.

De l'Orme smiled. 'The individual planting this contagion is named Shoat. Your son, madam.'

'My son?'

'He's being used to deliver a synthetic plague. And your husband sent him.'

The a.s.sembly gawked at the archaeologist. Even Thomas was dismayed.

'Absurd,' Cooper bl.u.s.tered.

De l'Orme pointed in the direction of Cooper's son. 'He told me.'

'I've never seen you in my life,' Hamilton replied.

'True as it goes, no more than I've seen you.' De l'Orme grinned. 'But you told me.'

'Lunatic,' Hamilton said under his breath.

'Ach,' chided de l'Orme. 'We've talked about that sharp tongue before. No more humiliating the wife at c.o.c.ktail parties. And no more fists with her. We agreed. You were to work on governing your anger, yes? Containing your tide. '

The young man drained gray beneath his Aspen tan.

De l'Orme addressed them all. 'Over the years, I've noticed that the birth of a son sometimes tempers a wild young man. It can even mark his return to the faith. So when I heard of the baptism of Hamilton's son, your grandson, Mr Cooper, I had an idea. Sure enough, it seems fatherhood changed our spoiled young sinner. He has thrown himself onto the Rock with that special fervor of a lost man found. For over a year now, Hamilton's kept away from his heroin chic and his expensive call girls and he has cleansed himself weekly.'

'What are you talking about?' Cooper demanded.

'Young Cooper has developed a taste for the holy wafer,' said de l'Orme. 'And you know the rules. No Eucharist before confession.'

Cooper turned to his son with horror. 'You spoke to the Church?'

Hamilton looked afflicted. 'I was speaking to G.o.d.'

De l'Orme tipped his head with mock acknowledgment.

'But what about the confidence between penitent and confessor?' marveled Vera.

'I left the cloth long ago,' de l'Orme explained. 'But I kept my friends.h.i.+ps and personal connections. It was simply a matter of antic.i.p.ating this venal man's mea culpa, and then installing myself in a small booth on certain occasions. Oh, we've talked for hours, Hamilton and I. I've learned much about the House of Cooper. Much.'

The elder Cooper sat back. He stared out the skybox window into the night, or at his own image in the gla.s.s.

De l'Orme continued. 'The Helios strategy is this: for disease to rage through the interior in one vast hurricane of death. The corporate ent.i.ty can then occupy a world conveniently sterilized of all its nasty life-forms. Including hadals. That's why Helios is preserving a population up here. Because they're about to kill everything that breathes down below.'

'But why?' Thomas asked.

De l'Orme gave the answer. 'History,' he said. 'Mr Cooper has read his history. Conquest is always the same. It's much easier to occupy an empty paradise.'

Cooper gave a sulfurous glance at his foolish son.

De l'Orme continued. 'Helios obtained the Prion-9 from a laboratory under contract to the Army. Who obtained it for Helios is blatantly obvious. General Sandwell, it was also you who recruited the soldier Dwight Crockett. That's how Montgomery Shoat could be immunized under a scapegoat's name.'

'Monty's been immunized?' his mother said.

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