chromosome division had stalled, and a delicate chromosomal fibril, which should have divided, dangled through an incomplete cell division instead. The embryo would develop malformed. Absently she inserted a flash probe and vaporized the culture, then removed its entry from her catalog. This no longer bothered her.
Next, she turned to her weekly fertilizations. Fewer than ten percent of zygotes survived to adulthood. The others were culled as malformed embryos or imperfect-response infants, pronounced untrainable at the settlements where they were raised, or killed in training.
As she reached for her touchboard, a barely perceptible temblor shook the ground. Her ancestors had built the Golden City inside an extinct, plugged volcano. The world itself had not quite died.
The tissue-bank list contained her orders for the day, and the first ovum to be fertilized carried the TWS-1 designation. That was her own code—this would be her first fertilization! She sat up straight and flicked black hair out of her face. The odds said this offspring would perish before adulthood, but this was an honor. Her supervisor ordered gene crosses according to hereditary talents and his mysterious ability to predict future events.
Was the cross with Dru Polar? she wondered. The colony's late testing director had been abnormally strong in Ehretan talents. Just last night, her hall-mates on Third South had regaled each other with shivery tales about the trainer who culled so many of their peers. Polar had been found dead twenty days ago, hideously lulled, beside Terza's masterful grandfather and another City resident, Cassia Talumah.
Terza grasped her lower lip between her teeth and glanced across the screen, checking her guess. Was it Polar?
No. The ordered fertilization's paternal designation was not Polar's DLP, but the cryptic BDC-5X.
BDC—Brennen Daye Caldwell? Terza clenched a hand. She'd personally cloned that prisoner's skin cells several days before he escaped— but Shirak males made a sport out of thinning his family! According to zealots among his people, a Caldwell would eventually destroy her world.
Terza's people had sacrificed one planet, their home world, to save themselves. Recently, they'd taken a city off the Sentinels' adopted world. They would neutralize the Caldwells if necessary and create more craters, because the timing was urgent. Soon they would be able to offer humanity a gift it wanted at any price: immortality. One world at a time, Terza's people—the unbound starbred—would craft a new human race in a more durable image.
Fortunately, Terza hadn't been involved in selecting the first planetary population to be modified.
She refocused her eyes on her orders. BDC-5X: This would be a female with Caldwell genes, but one who wouldn't carry the allegedly messianic Carabohd name.
This, at least, made sense. Before Dru Polar's interrogations and research ruined him, Caldwell had shown prodigious psionic talent. Maybe her supervisor wanted to create a pool of Shirak-Caldwell embryonic cells. He could tease apart that breeding stock to create a quick second generation.
Whatever he wanted, she must exceed his expectations. She keyed the stasis unit to deliver appropriate cultures. Within moments, the BDC-5X dropped into the micro-injector on her examining cradle.
Because of its dermal origins, the gamete had no whiptail. She confirmed with a glance that it carried the requisite X chromosome, then injected the gamete into the TWS-1 ovum, creating her own first offspring. Instantiy, the smaller cell's nuclear membrane started to dissolve, releasing its genetic contents. Flattening her lips, she transferred the new zygote into a dish of nutrient medium.
Maybe her father hoped to duplicate Caldwell's abilities in his own gametic descendants, the ones who might live forever. Or maybe Terza's lab supervisor meant to test her, to see if she'd obey a distasteful order—this one—or else destroy her own fertilization
Next, she turned to her weekly fertilizations. Fewer than ten percent of zygotes survived to adulthood. The others were culled as malformed embryos or imperfect-response infants, pronounced untrainable at the settlements where they were raised, or killed in training.
As she reached for her touchboard, a barely perceptible temblor shook the ground. Her ancestors had built the Golden City inside an extinct, plugged volcano. The world itself had not quite died.
The tissue-bank list contained her orders for the day, and the first ovum to be fertilized carried the TWS-1 designation. That was her own code—this would be her first fertilization! She sat up straight and flicked black hair out of her face. The odds said this offspring would perish before adulthood, but this was an honor. Her supervisor ordered gene crosses according to hereditary talents and his mysterious ability to predict future events.
Was the cross with Dru Polar? she wondered. The colony's late testing director had been abnormally strong in Ehretan talents. Just last night, her hall-mates on Third South had regaled each other with shivery tales about the trainer who culled so many of their peers. Polar had been found dead twenty days ago, hideously lulled, beside Terza's masterful grandfather and another City resident, Cassia Talumah.
Terza grasped her lower lip between her teeth and glanced across the screen, checking her guess. Was it Polar?
No. The ordered fertilization's paternal designation was not Polar's DLP, but the cryptic BDC-5X.
BDC—Brennen Daye Caldwell? Terza clenched a hand. She'd personally cloned that prisoner's skin cells several days before he escaped— but Shirak males made a sport out of thinning his family! According to zealots among his people, a Caldwell would eventually destroy her world.
Terza's people had sacrificed one planet, their home world, to save themselves. Recently, they'd taken a city off the Sentinels' adopted world. They would neutralize the Caldwells if necessary and create more craters, because the timing was urgent. Soon they would be able to offer humanity a gift it wanted at any price: immortality. One world at a time, Terza's people—the unbound starbred—would craft a new human race in a more durable image.
Fortunately, Terza hadn't been involved in selecting the first planetary population to be modified.
She refocused her eyes on her orders. BDC-5X: This would be a female with Caldwell genes, but one who wouldn't carry the allegedly messianic Carabohd name.
This, at least, made sense. Before Dru Polar's interrogations and research ruined him, Caldwell had shown prodigious psionic talent. Maybe her supervisor wanted to create a pool of Shirak-Caldwell embryonic cells. He could tease apart that breeding stock to create a quick second generation.
Whatever he wanted, she must exceed his expectations. She keyed the stasis unit to deliver appropriate cultures. Within moments, the BDC-5X dropped into the micro-injector on her examining cradle.
Because of its dermal origins, the gamete had no whiptail. She confirmed with a glance that it carried the requisite X chromosome, then injected the gamete into the TWS-1 ovum, creating her own first offspring. Instantiy, the smaller cell's nuclear membrane started to dissolve, releasing its genetic contents. Flattening her lips, she transferred the new zygote into a dish of nutrient medium.
Maybe her father hoped to duplicate Caldwell's abilities in his own gametic descendants, the ones who might live forever. Or maybe Terza's lab supervisor meant to test her, to see if she'd obey a distasteful order—this one—or else destroy her own fertilization
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