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CHAPTER 8

  "Lani? Lani? There you are. You need to come out from under there. Please stop rocking, honey."

  Lani opened her eyes to see a weathered brown face. The Professor was peering under the lab bench at Lani, concern in her brown eyes. The Professor started to reach toward Lani, but her hand hesitated halfway.

  Lani had no memory of crawling under her workstation. Her chest constricted and she felt panic creeping over her again. Get a grip, you aren't ten anymore, a voice in her head said. The voice sounded remarkably like her mother. Lani finally managed to stop rocking. "I was, I was just, I mean," she stammered.

  The Professor smiled encouragingly. "Bax and Juls are on their way back. They are okay. Bax is a little scratched up, but they got out okay."

  Lani looked up into the Professor's face. Was she telling the truth? Bax was okay, she hadn't killed him? Lani's hand trembled as she reached out to take the Professor's hand, still outstretched. There was a strength in those slim, aged fingers as the Professor slowly drew her out.

  "S-sorry," the language skills always took a little while to come back, but at least her mind was working again. "Sorry," she repeated more confidently this time. She saw Chen and Soren looming behind the professor and Emma joined them. She must have heard something from her lab next door. Their faces wore various expressions from pity to disgust, if she was reading them right. Lani fought back tears. No doubt everyone thought she was a complete recessive, a genetic basket case. Now she was going to have to start all over again. It would be years before the whispers of "mutie" would stop, if they ever did.

  Professor Jonze turned around. "Don't you all have things to do?" she asked pointedly. They quickly scattered. The Professor gave Lani a few minutes to sit on the stool in front of the lab bench to compose herself. Lani realized she was still clutching the older woman's hand in a death grip and, embarrassed, let go.

  "So, what happened?" the Professor asked.

  "I made a mistake," Lani confessed.

  The Professor's lips twitched upward. "I heard that the first time."

  "Sorry," Lani started.

  "I heard that too. You're going to have to stop apologizing, or we will be here all day."

  "Sor—um, okay," Lani made an effort to corral her thoughts. "Sometimes when I get really stressed, I, everything, I have trouble," she ended lamely. She forced herself to take a deep breath. She could do this. "It wasn't the electrical fields. It wasn't the fields after all, Professor."

  "No?"

  "No, I was an idiot, stupid for even thinking that. I got cocky when some of my earlier hypoth, hy—guesses turned out to be right. This time I wasn't so lucky. You see, I, uh, measured a lot of electrical activity when I was out in the field with Bax and Juls, but I drew the wrong, uh, conclusion."

  "And, occasionally, letting biochemists out of the lab can be dangerous," the Professor gently teasing her.

  Lani's lips quirked in response. At least the Professor was not treating her like the freak she was. "That's true. It didn't help matters that the four monitors, the ones that are still working, that Bax installed around the base; those monitors showed the plant potentials picked up during that last incident with Mumson." She took a deep breath. "What didn't penetrate my thick skull was that those monitors are observing individual plants. The electrical potentials are present as ions in the plant fluids, like the, whatyoucallit—phloem. I should have realized plants don't routinely swap sap," Lani shook her head.

  "So, if not the electrical fields, then it must be something else," Jonze mused, drummed her fingers, then nodded. "The plants are communicating with sound, aren't they?"

  Lani returned the nod. "It makes sense. Sound isn't dependent on wind, messages can be transferred from plant to plant, and, best of all, the lower range of acoustics from Mumson's grinder is within the range used by plants for communication. Don't you see? The redvines weren't attacking Mumson, they were curious, attracted by the sounds his tools were making."

  The Professor's look spoke volumes. "You're saying the plants are talking with each other? Like we are now?"

  "Of course not, I mean" Lani suddenly felt exhausted. "My brain feels like sludge. I don't have the slightest idea of their language, their vocabulary, nothing like that. That's why we need to put up a bunch of microphones around the slab's perimeter and have Hoover monitor them. Maybe have someone go outside and do a few things to the plants. Hoover can look for patterns in their responses."

  "Absolutely not!" Jonze slapped the countertop hard, causing Lani's head to jerk up. She smiled at Lani's startled expression. "You are more tired than you realize, Miz Callis. You may have the right idea, but you certainly have the wrong place. You explained before that the aggressor volatiles are an order of magnitude higher around the base than elsewhere. I gather that one of the reasons Team 2, Bax and Juls, are still around is that the plants in their sampling spot, in Eden, had not been sensitized to us, yet. I am willing to have the techs set out microphones and provoke the plants, but I want them to do it somewhere with virgin plants."

  "That is a better idea," Lani admitted, yawning.

  "Of course it is," Jonze grinned. "That is why I am the boss. Now, as the boss, I am ordering you to get away from your lab for a change. Especially try and stay out from under the lab bench. That would not help morale one bit for the rest of our team to see our brilliant biochemist hiding under there again."

  The Professor's expression softened. "Remember what I told you about being too focused." She paused, listening. "Sounds like the flitter has returned. Go say hello to Bax, but then get some rest and something to eat, whichever order you choose. And to make sure you actually sleep, I am sending that horny boyfriend of yours off first thing to someplace safe to start talking to the plants."

  All of the field techs who went out for their "plant torture" sessions, as Juls put it, were armed with a canister of Lani's proven All-Clear compound, but no electronic plant repellers. Each team visited several different locations, where they cut, dug up, burned, froze, and otherwise molested the plants while recording any sounds the plants made in protest.

  "Are you okay?" Bax asked later, trying not to look too concerned.

  "Ah, you heard about me under the lab bench, then." Lani sighed. "Does everybody know I'm double recessive crazy?"

  Bax hesitated, then told her the truth. "It's a small group here," he shrugged.

  "Great, just great," her eyes were clouding up again, with showers on the horizon.

  Bax reached out and tilted her chin up. "For what it's worth, I already knew you were crazy."

  "W-what?"

  "Who else would have been nuts enough to pull me into her hutch and assault me? Me?"

  Lani felt her lips curl up in spite of the tear rolling down her cheek. "You're a good man, Bax."

  "You better believe it," he grinned and wiped her cheek. "Now on to the less-important things that keep interrupting, like the plant torture sessions. It was creepy. After a while I felt the plants were whispering, plotting against us."

  Lani pursed her lips in mock sympathy, "Poor boy, but I'm glad you toughed it out, because I think it might be important, Jonze even assigned Zach to help me," Lani added, trying to insert some normality into her voice.

  "Who?"

  "Zach. You know, the Geek?"

  Bax nodded. "Right. I'm kind of surprised, though."

  "Why? He's really good."

  "No, I meant that you'd need help."

  "What? Zach can program circles around me."

  "But you're so smart."

  "I'm not that smart, not with everything. How can you even say that after I nearly killed you and Juls with that dumb plant repeller idea and then run away and hide?"

  "Who else would have even had an idea to begin with? I wish I were as smart as you."

  Lani pulled back in surprise. "Why? You're handsome, outgoing, funny, athletic, everything I'm not.
"

  Bax snorted. "Most of the human race is good looking, in a generic sort of way. We select for appearance. But you're smart, you're just born with that. What? What's wrong?"

  Lani hands were folded over her mouth, shaking her head.

  "Lani?"

  "Epigenetics," she blurted out. "I wasn't kidding about the recessives. I wasn't just born with anything. My parents might not have been wealthy, but they scrimped and saved what little they had to spend on their future child to give me a better life. You're right, you can't do full-scale genetic engineering for intelligence, the Church Universal won't allow it among other things, but you can tweak the epigenetic material—the stuff that turns the genes on and off. That way you can still pass the genetic purity tests. But my parents couldn't afford the name brand labs, the Zyzvals or even Operon United. They used an unknown firm, then later spent the last of their money to have me undergo the Church testing for Citizenship. I failed, Bax. I'm a mutant. That's one of the reasons I have trouble with stressful situations."

  "You're a what?"

  He was upset. The look on his face said it all. It might have been better if she had not even undergone the tests. You could get by without knowing, but her parents had believed the blackhole genetics firm. They had wanted her to be able to have everything they couldn't, the things that came with citizenship.

  "I'm a mutant," her lower lip quivered. Oh, Spirit, at least let his rejection be quick. People, especially from the outworlds of the Empire, still followed Church teachings closely. Unless a man speaks his father's tongues...and under stress she had trouble speaking at all.

  "You're not a mutant," Bax said.

  "Bax, I saw the tests myself, my parents—"

  "Lani, you're not a mutant. So a few genes don't completely match up to some test hundreds of years old. I don't care. I wish my parents had been able to do for me what yours did, but I was the fifth of seven kids. No way my parents could have ever afforded the genetic tweaking. You're the smartest person I've ever met, that part sure worked. Nothing wrong with that."

  Lani sniffled. "I wish I had gotten better looks. I'm pudgy, I'm—"

  "You're beautiful," Bax interrupted, staring into her eyes. He leaned forward to kiss her, but the moment was spoiled when she had to wipe her runny nose.