Звезда Пандоры

“What sort of criminals?” Tara asked shakily. “What would they be doing to make them kill me and Wyobie?”

“It is only a theory,” Paula told her quickly. “I have difficulty in accepting major criminal conspiracies—the probability is extremely low, though we can’t ignore it. But that implausibility does leave us with a quandary. If it wasn’t that, and it wasn’t your private life, which appears blameless, then what did happen?”

Tara fumbled with her case, and lit another cigarette. “You’re the detective, everybody knows that.” Her hands were trembling as she took a drag. Matthew deSavoel held her tight, glaring at Paula. “Have you got enough?” he snapped.

“For now,” she said calmly.

“Find out,” Tara called out as Paula and Hoshe started to leave. “Please. I have to know. Everything you’ve said… it wasn’t a freak accident, was it? I’ve told myself that for twenty years; told everybody I had a mad romantic impulse and ran off with Wyobie, because if you say it and keep on saying it, then that becomes what happened. It was like making up the memory. But I knew, I really knew it didn’t happen like that.”

“I’ll do what I can,” Paula said.

“Where now?” Hoshe asked as the car drove away from the big isolated plantation house.

“The ex-husband, Morton.”

He sneaked a look at her. “You got any idea what happened?”

“It wasn’t an accident. I believe Tara, she used to be too sensible to do anything like running off with Wyobie. He was already giving her everything she wanted from the relationship. That means Tampico is all wrong; it was a setup, an alibi.”

“Used to be sensible?”

“You saw what she is today.”

“Yeah. That’s what you meant by investigating people, isn’t it?”

“Of course.” She turned to stare out of the car’s windows, seeing nothing but a blur of big shaggy walrush trees that had been planted as a windbreak for the neat plantation bushes. “It’s people who commit crimes, so that’s where you’ll find the motivation: people.” It was so instinctive, so obvious, she didn’t have to think to talk to him.

Her parents, or rather the couple she had thought to be her parents during her childhood, had sincerely believed that instinct could be stillbirthed. It was the old nature versus nurture argument, and in this particular ultra-modern chapter of it they desperately wanted to prove to the whole Commonwealth that nurture could be the victor, that there was no preordained fate. Especially not the one Paula’s creators intended for her.

The planet where she was birthed was called Huxley’s Haven, though the other Commonwealth worlds derisively called it the Hive. Settled in 2102, it was funded, and populated, by the Human Structure Foundation, a strange collective of genetic researchers and intellectual sociopolitical theorists. They were keen to explore the genetic possibilities for psychoneural profiling now they were clear of Earth’s restrictions, believing it possible to create a perfectly stable society by implementing the phrase “each to his own” to a degree that the rest of humanity found quite chilling. A lot of Anglo-Saxon surnames originated from occupation: tailor, thatcher, crofter… the aim of the Foundation was to make the link solid and unbreakable, determined within an individual’s DNA. Professions couldn’t be installed wholesale, of course, a psychoneural profile merely gave a person the aptitude to do his or her designated job, while simpler, physiological modifications complemented the trait. Doctors would be given dextrous fingers and high visual acuity, while farm workers and builders possessed a large, strong physique—so it went, right through the entire spectrum of human activity. The traits were bundled together, and fixed to prevent genetic drift. As far as the traits were concerned, there would never be any mixed profiles. The Foundation scrupulously avoided using the word “pure” in its press releases.

The Commonwealth as a whole detested the notion. Right from its conception, Huxley’s Haven became a near-pariah state. There were even serious calls for military/police style intervention made in the Senate, which contravened the organization’s constitution—the Commonwealth was set up originally to guarantee individual planet freedom within an overall legal framework. In the end, the Foundation was able to proceed because legally the planet was independent and free.