Exiled from Earth

2

Lou Christopher leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on the desk: his favorite position for thinking. In his lap he held a small tablet and a pen. Although he was both worried and puzzled, his face showed neither of these emotions. He was frowning and looked more angry than anything else.

Through the plastiglass partition that made up one wall of his small office, Lou could see Ramo, the Institute’s main computer, flashing its console lights as it worked.

“Come on, Ramo,” he muttered to himself, “get it right this time.”

Lou tapped the pen on the tablet and watched the little viewscreen on his desk. It was blank. Then…

“I’m sorry,” Ramo said in a warm baritone voice from the overhead speaker, “but the possible permutations are still three orders of magnitude beyond my programming instructions.”

“Three orders!”

“I can proceed with the existing matrix, or await further programming.” Ramo’s voice sounded neither worried nor puzzled. Not happy nor angry. He was simply stating facts.

Lou tossed the pen back onto the desk and slammed his feet to the floor. The tablet fell off his lap.

“Still three orders of magnitude to go. Lou shook his head, then glanced at his wristwatch. It was already nine A.M.

“I’m waiting for instructions,” Ramo said calmly. You and your instructions can both… Lou caught himself, realizing that the computer wasn’t at fault. There were millions upon millions of branching pathways in the human genetic code. It was simply going to take more time to get them all programmed properly.

Shrugging, he said, “Okay, Ramo, looks like we’ve got a full day ahead of us.”

Ramo said nothing, but somehow Lou felt that the computer nodded in agreement.

Lou got up and walked out of the office, past the computer’s humming, light-blinking main console, out into the hall. He got a cup of water from the cooler, gulped it down as he looked out the hallway window at the New Mexico morning outside. It had been barely dawn when Lou drove to the Institute. Now it was full daylight, bright and cloudless.

Half the gliders have already taken off, Lou thought glumly. I just won’t make this race. Better call Bonnie.

Tossing the plastic cup into the recycling slot in the wall, Lou went back to his office, plopped tiredly into his cushioned chair, and punched the phone button on the desk top.

“Bonnie Sterne,” he said. “She’s not at home, you’ll have to use her pocket phone.”

It took a few seconds, then Bonnie’s face appeared on the viewscreen. Behind her, Lou could see people bustling around in a crowded room. She must be in the Control Center, Lou thought. Sure enough, he heard the muted thunder of one of the big gliders’ takeoff rockets.

“Lou! When are you getting out here? I’ve asked the judges to postpone your takeoff time, but…”

He put up his hands. “Better tell them to scratch me. Can’t make it today. Probably not tomorrow, either.”

“Oh no.” Bonnie looked genuinely heartbroken. She was blonde and had light gray eyes, but the finely-etched bone structure of her face always reminded Lou faintly of an Indian’s. Maybe it was the high cheekbones, or the cast of her eyes. Maybe she had some Apache blood in her. Lou had always meant to ask but somehow never did.

“Isn’t there any way you can get out of it?” she asked. “Can’t some of the other programmers do it?”

Lou shook his head. “You know they can’t. I’m just as sorry as you are. I’ve been working toward this race all year. But Kaufman needs this stuff by Monday. The whole Institute’s depending on it.”

“I know,” Bonnie admitted, biting her lower lip. Lou knew that she was trying to figure some way—

“Listen!” she said, suddenly bright again. “Why don’t I come down and work with you? Maybe we can finish the programming in time for taking off tomorrow—”

“Thanks, but there’s not much you can do. It looks like I’ll have to work all night, at least. So I won’t be in much shape for flying tomorrow.”

Her expression dimmed once more. “It’s just not fair. You have to work all weekend… and this is the biggest race of the year.”

“I know. But genetics comes before racing,” Lou said. “You have a good weekend. See you Monday.”

“All right. But it’s really unfair.”

“Yeah. So long.”

“So… oh, wait! There was a man out here looking for you. Said he was a Federal marshal.”

Lou blinked at her. “A what?”

“A Federal marshal. He wanted to see you.”

“What for?”

Bonnie shook her head. “I thought marshals were only something in Western stories.”

With a grin, Lou said, “Well, we’re out in the West, you know.”

“But he said he was from New York.”

Shrugging, “Well, if he’s looking for me, I’ll be right here all day.”

“If he comes around again, I’ll tell him.”

“All right.” Suddenly curious, Lou asked, “Did he say what he wanted? Why does he want to see me?”

“I don’t know,” Bonnie replied.

After Bonnie signed off, Lou plunged back into work, doing intricate mathematics problems with Ramo’s help and then programming the results into the computer’s memory banks. When he looked at his watch again, it was well past noon. He walked down to the cafeteria and took a sandwich and a steaming cup of coffee from the automatic dispensers. The cafeteria was practically empty: only a few of the weekend clean-up crew at the tables.

The scientific staffs out enjoying the weekend,—Lou grumbled to himself. Well, guess they can’t do much until I finish programming Ramo.

He took the plastic-sealed sandwich and coffee back to his office. As he got there, he saw Greg Belsen standing by the computer’s main console, watching the big display viewscreen there as it flashed a series of colored drawings and graphs at eyeblink speed.

“What are you doing in here today?” Lou asked.

Greg turned and grinned at him. “Thought you might be lonesome, old buddy, How’s it going?”

Lou jabbed a finger toward the viewscreen. “See for yourself. We’re still three orders of magnitude off.”

Greg gave a low whistle. “That close?”

“Close? It sounds pretty blinking far to me.”

Greg laughed. He had an infectious giggle, like a ten-year-old boy’s, that was known throughout the Institute. “You’re just sore because there’s still more work to do. But if you stop to think of where we were six months ago, when you started this modeling program…”

“Yeah, maybe,” Lou admitted. “But there’s still a long way to go.”

They walked back into Lou’s office together. Greg Belsen was one of the Institute’s bright, aggressive young biochemists. He was just short of six feet tall, slightly bigger than Lou. He was lean and flat-gutted from playing tennis and handball, two of the favorite, socially useful sports. Like Lou, Greg had straight dark hair. But his face was roundish and his eyes brown. Lou had more angular features and blue eyes.

“Is there anything I can do to help out?” Greg asked, taking the extra straight-backed chair in Lou’s office. “I know you wanted to get to those glider races today—”

Lou sank into the desk chair. “No, there’s nobody around here who can program this stuff into Ramo as fast as I can. And Kaufman wants it for Monday morning.”

Nodding, Greg said, “I know.”

“Is it really that important?”

Greg smiled at him. “I’m not a geneticist, like Kaufman. But I know this—what you’re doing now, this zygote modeling, is a crucial step. Until we have it down cold, there’s no hope of genetic engineering in any practical sense. But once you’ve taught Ramo all the ins and outs of the human genetic code, the way is clear. We can be turning out supermen within a year.”

Lou leaned back in his chair. “Yeah… that’s what Kaufman said.”

“You’re the crucial man,” Greg said. “Everything depends on you… and your electronic partner.”

Not bad for a kid from a hick college, Lou thought to himself.

“Well,” Greg said, getting up, “if there’s nothing I can do to help, I can at least get out of your way. Guess I’ll go see how Big George’s doing.”

Lou nodded and started to sort through the papers on his desk.

With a grin, Greg added, “Maybe I’ll take Bonnie out to dinner… seeing’s how you’ve stood her up.”

“Hey! Hands off!”

He laughed. “Relax pal. Relax. I don’t go poaching. Got a few girls of my own, hidden under rocks here and there.”

“Hmph,” said Lou.

“But if you can tear yourself away from Ramo for an hour or so, might be a good idea for you to take Bonnie out for dinner. The kid’s worked just as hard as you have to get your glider ready for this race, you know. Be a shame to leave her alone all weekend.”

“Yeah,” Lou agreed. “Maybe I will.”

But as soon as Greg left, Lou went back to work. He didn’t think about Bonnie or flying or anything else except matching the myriad possible permutations of the human genetic code and storing the knowledge in Ramo’s magnetic core memory. It was late afternoon when he was startled out of his concentration by a hard rap on his office door.

Looking up from his paper-strewn desk, Lou saw the door open and a hard-looking, thick-bodied older man stepped in heavily.

“Louis Christopher, I have a Federal warrant for your arrest.”