Barkhoff slouched in the chair, his left hand tapping the armrest impatiently. "I thought you needed a blood sample. Are you preparing to drain me dry, or am I not paying you enough to move your feet?"
"It's the formula," the technician explained. "It's still got traces of rhixis in it so we have to be very careful about moving it. And we want to make sure we have this half of the test set up in advance so we can mix it with your blood immediately after we draw it out. The results are more likely to be accurate that way."
"I daresay they will be accurate enough. In case you haven't noticed, son, I'm in a hurry."
"Right, sir. I'll do my best."
Barkhoff narrowed his eyes. "Where's Kreshner?"
"Um, he's delivering a pseudostrain of the virus to a, um, specialist hyperthermic clinic—I mean, research center—a few miles from here to have it liquefied for analysis. Once it's been compounded he'll be on his way back, I think. Don't worry, it's nothing that can be traced back to you or any of this, it'll just look like regular rhixis research," he added hastily.
"Pseudostrain?"
"Yes, it's an artificial version of the virus. If it tests like the genuine article, then we know the rest of our research is accurate, and we can rule out any extraneous experiments that might take up time and resources. If that makes sense."
Barkhoff nodded. "I suppose."
"Shall I prepare the cart, sir?"
"Yes, please." The technician hurried out of the room.
The Doctor and Camelia slipped into a darkened room that smelled faintly, and unpleasantly, familiar. Berin came in behind them, turning on the light and shutting the door. "What, no security cameras in the laundry room?" asked Camelia.
"I know. You would think," said Berin drily. They had just spent the past five minutes trying to predict each and every camera they came into contact with so the Doctor could hack it blind while they went past. "You should be fine in here for a few minutes. I have to turn in a report, I'll be right back."
"Thank you," said the Doctor. Berin nodded and left, shutting the door behind him.
As soon as he was gone, she asked: "Did you say you earlier you were using that to download something?"
"I was. First I saved it onto Medley's key, but since that couldn't come with us I had to improvise."
"Why didn't you just save it to the screwdriver in the first place?"
"Because that would mean losing the visible format. It's a screwdriver, not a projector. It can store the file, but it can't display it."
"Ahh. But you got something good?"
"I think so." He gazed thoughtfully at the device. "Possibly even the answer . . ."
She waited. She was too tired to push him. Much. "And?"
"I'm not sure. I don't know what to make of it, there's some things I don't understand."
"Like what?"
He looked her in the face. "Camelia . . . tell me, what exactly do you mean when you say 'sponsor'?"
She blinked. "I told you. I mean a sponsor like anyone's sponsor."
"One sponsor for everyone, or a sponsor each?"
"A sponsor each! You know what I mean!"
He groaned, exasperated. "Just . . . pretend I'm from another planet."
As if you aren't? she thought. "Alright, um, my sponsor is my . . . my predecessor. Eddie Trisk and Jean something were my sponsors, I told you. One day one of them—I don't know which—thought it might be fun to sponsor some offspring, so—"
"'Offspring'?" he echoed incredulously.
"Yes, let me finish: So they sent some samples to a breeding facility in Nysa—that's some ways outside Ilythia—and I and seven other copies came out. Though I guess technically you could say I'm a copy as much as any of them—"
"A breeding facility?! What on earth is that?"
"Calm down." His confusion was increasingly unnerving. "You should know what a breeding facility is!"
"Well, I don't!"
"You would if you were human!"
Silence. Then a new voice chimed in: "Being human's got nothing to do with it."
They turned to see Berin standing in the doorway. "If he's from Hecate, he really might not know what you're talking about."
"Yes! thank you! What are we talking about?" the Doctor asked.
"A breeding facility," explained Berin, "is where people are grown from embryo to infant. I take it you were born naturally?"
"Wha—" The Doctor gaped at Camelia. "This is it, then? You're not born, you're . . . raised by machines?"
Camelia likewise stared. "You mean . . ." She looked at Berin. "There are still people who are . . . birthed? " She squirmed uncomfortably.
Berin nodded. "A few years back we had to set up a room just to accommodate the occasional Hecatian pregnancy that came through."
"Wha—all Hecatians, though? They still . . ." She waved her hands vaguely. "Like animals?"
"Not all of them. I think some people on the northern continent have started sterilizing."
"What does that mean?" asked the Doctor, growing all the more exasperated. "And what do you mean, you had to set up a room just for Hecatians? Surely there are . . . accidents? Doesn't anyone on Aurora conceive naturally?"
Berin and Camelia both shook their heads.
He sighed. "That's . . . some birth control."
"It is," agreed Berin. "It stems back about a hundred years or so—here, you seem pretty clever, should I tell you the whole story?"
The Doctor leaned back in his seat and folded his arms. "Please."
"Alright, lemme think . . . Over a hundred years ago, there was a crisis. Sexually transmitted diseases had become so prolific and so destructive that some countries were actually on the verge of war over medical resources in the struggle to stop them. A lot of people made a profit off various new vaccines, one for each strain that cropped up, but eventually people had enough and could see they were really getting nowhere, just doing damage control for a problem that raged on despite all their efforts. So finally, they tried—"
"They tried monogamy?" The Doctor raised his eyebrows.
"No. They turned to genetics. Our ancestors isolated the genes responsible for sexual reproduction and found a way to neutralize them in such a way that prevented a myriad of STDS from taking root, but without destroying any gametes. . . Most of them, at least."
The Doctor frowned intently. ". . . And this . . . only happened on Aurora?"
"This is mainly to do with Aurora, yes. Hecate was largely left out of the process."
"Mm. Keep going."
"Alright—anyway, there was some resistance, of course, until the province of Pelion developed the first public-run breeding facility. Once people understood that they could still have children, and without government involvement, they began volunteering themselves and their children for sterilization."
"When did it become global?"
The Doctor's voice was flat. The light seemed to have gone out of his eyes.
"About eighty or ninety years ago."
"And everyone since then . . ."
"Is born artificially, yes."
"Why."
"What?"
"Why?" the Doctor spat. "You got rid of the problem, your doctors killed the STDs. Why continue, why keep raising people in warehouses when you could move on and get married and have families like healthy human beings?!"
"Married?" scoffed Camelia bitterly. She had grown quiet through Berin's lecture and now emerged with a scornful look on her face. "No one gets married, marriage was outlawed fifty years ago!—I take it that's still allowed on Hecate, too?"
"What! Why?!"
"Civil liberties," explained Berin. "Marriage is considered a vestige of slavery."
"That's ridiculous! Marriage is one of the most wonderful things you humans have! Promising to spend your life taking care of someone else? That's not about holding someone hostage, it's about holding yourself to sacrifice! You don't have to be freed from it, you lot just reject it when you don't like it!"
"Then we didn't like it!" burst Camelia. "And we got rid of it! Problem solved!"
"Let me show you something. Berin, would you mind letting me borrow your key?"
The Doctor took the key, set it on the table, and aimed the screwdriver at it. Images raced through the interface until a document appeared. "I found this on the computer downstairs. Go on, read it." He couldn't understand when he'd first discovered the file. Now he wished he didn't.
Berin and Camelia leaned forward to read the text.
The Doctor got to his feet. "Well?"
"But . . ." Berin was in shock. "But this would mean they've known for years!"
"Known what?" asked Camelia. The file's medical terminology had gone over her head.
The Doctor looked at her directly, and tried to be gentle. "It means the government's known what rhixis is for the last five years. They're just afraid to let anyone know, because there's nothing anyone can do about it."
"Wha—but—but why? What is it? Just tell me!"
"A mutation," said Berin, eyes still on the hologram.
"A mutation," echoed the Doctor. "Your contraceptive genes are decaying. And it's created the worst disease of all: The kind you can't run away from."
Berin took a deep breath. "So, in essence, everyone on Aurora is born a carrier."
"No! No, not if you read the whole thing. Turns out the virus is only activated by . . . well . . . let's just say children don't contract it."
"But I've . . . I've never had rhixis, obviously," said Camelia. "You're saying it just lies around in our DNA like it's dormant or something?"
"Exactly."
"What's it waiting for, then? Why don't more people change?"
"Not 'waiting' for anything, really. At least, not anything in particular; that's just the thing, there are any number of random triggers floating around that could push anyone over the edge. That's why it appears so spontaneous. It could be stress, it could be a food you've never eaten before, it could even be dehydration. Any time your body produces new cells after a change of routine you introduce the possibility of the virus coming to fruition. Tell me, is there any cancer on Aurora?"
No answer. Through the course of his speech his audience had grown very quiet. Camelia's fingers were trembling under the table.
Berin coughed and found his voice. "Uh—uh, um, no, there isn't."
"And why do you think that is? . . . Because the first cell that divides into cancer activates rhixis all on its own. It's not that cancer's been cured, it's just overwhelmed by something even worse."
"Alright!" cried Camelia. "But what are they doing to stop it? What does it say they're working on?"
"Well—they can't tell people the truth, of course. Might cause a panic—might force them to take a closer look at how they live their lives, even," he added wryly. "So they keep it quiet, and turn to the only control subjects they can find—the Hecatians."
"Why couldn't they just fix the genes? Reverse the problem?"
"Can't risk it. It might work on a child, but once the mutation has been activated any tweaking might set it off."
"Why use the Hecatians, then? What good would they do?!"
"Cowpox," murmured the Doctor. Aloud, he explained: "On earth, the vaccine for smallpox was developed by exposing people to a weaker form of the disease carried by cows."
"I've heard of that," said Berin. "The human immune system attacks the relatively harmless virus and the antibodies learn its weaknesses so that when the fatal strain appears a defense is mounted immediately."
"Exactly. But with rhixis the virus is already present—even if it wasn't, you could hardly expect the cells to attack their own DNA. That's why cancer's so hard to fight. So what do you do?" His eyes darkened. "You force that virus on a healthy subject with correct genes to see if their antibodies will build a defense for you."
"They thought the Hecatians might build an immunity to rhixis?" said Camelia.
"Ironic, really." Berin's eyes were far away. "You'd expect the people most exposed to the disease to build up a resistance, not the other way round."
"Desperate times," said the Doctor. "People turn to desperate measures." He looked like he was going to be sick.
"What were all the animals there for?" asked Camelia.
"Probably to see if rhixis could cross the species barrier," said Berin. "Did they? . . . Cross the barrier, I mean."
"Um, no, not that we could see."
"Good. I'd hate to think they started experimenting on humans when they could've been looking for a vaccine in animals."
"As opposed to experimenting on humans at all?"
Berin couldn't think of how to answer.
"Either way, it didn't look like any of it was actually working," said Camelia. "Most of the people in that room were infected."
The Doctor groaned and rubbed his face. "Ohhh, the virus is too aggressive. Human cells can't divide fast enough or forcefully enough, you need—" He stopped.
"What is it?" asked Camelia.
"Nothing."