For Love of Mother-Not - Alan Dean Foster [93]
“I’m sorry, Dr. Cruachan, sir. They’re not responding to any of our call signals. I can’t even raise their tight-beam frequency anymore.”
The tall man nodded slowly, reluctantly. “You know what this means?”
“Yes,” she admitted, sadness tinging her voice. “Nyassa-lee, Haithness, Brora—all gone now. All those years.” Her voice sank to a whisper.
“We can’t be sure,” Cruachan murmured. “Not one hundred percent. It’s only that,” he hesitated, “they ought to have responded by now, at least via the emergency unit.”
“That stampede was terrible luck, sir.”
“If it was bad luck,” he said softly. “History shows that where the subject children are concerned, the unknown sometimes gives luck a push—or a violent shove.”
“I know that, sir,” the communicator said. She was tired, Cruachan knew; but then they were all tired. Time was running out for them and for the Meliorare Society as well as for its noble, much-misunderstood goals. There had been thoughts, years ago, of training new acolytes in the techniques and aims of genetic manipulation pioneered by the Society, but the onus under which they were forced to operate made the cooperation of foolish younger researchers impossible to obtain, thanks to the unrelenting barrage of slanderous propaganda propagated by the Church and the Commonwealth government.
Curse them all for the ignorant primitives they were! The Society was not dead yet!
Haithness, Nyassa-lee, Brora—the names were a dirge in his mind. If they were truly gone now, and it seemed that must be so, that left very few to carry on the Work. The conflict within him was strong. Should he press on or flee to set up operations elsewhere? So many old friends, colleagues, great scientific minds, lost; was this one subject worth it? They still had no proof that he was. Only graphs and figures to which the computers held. But the computers didn’t care. Nobody cared.
There was nothing to indicate that the subject had been in any way responsible for the unfortunate stampede that had destroyed the camp together with their hopes. Of course, it was, quite possible that the subject had perished along with the others, Cruachan mused. If not, if he decided to pursue this one to a conclusion, then there could be no more external manipulation attempted. They would have to confront the subject directly, as they had years ago tried to do with the girl.
It was a long, roundabout course to their next “safe” station. Cruachan was not at all confident of working through another several years of hiding and seeking out another promising subject. If the long arm of the Peaceforcers had not caught up with him by then, time and old age were liable to do the job for the government. They had come a long way together, he and his associates. A great effort; many lives had been expended to keep the project alive. He and his few remaining colleagues had to follow this case to its conclusion.
“Thank you, Amareth,” he told the woman waiting patiently at the console. “Keep the receiver open just in case.”
“Of course, Dr. Cruachan, sir.”
Turning, he headed slowly toward Conference. Halfway there, his step picked up, his stride became more brisk. This won’t do, he told himself. As president of the Society, it was incumbent upon him to set an example for the others, now more than ever. By the time he reached the meeting room and strode inside, his initial despair at the reports from below had been replaced by icy determination.
Half a dozen elderly men and women sat waiting for him. So few, he thought, so few left. The last of the Society, the last supporters of a great idea. Their upturned faces all silently asked the same question.
“Still no word,” he said firmly. “We must therefore assume that doctors Brora, Haithness, and Nyassa-lee have been lost.” There were no outward expressions of grief, no wails or cries. They waited expectantly for