Mutant Star Read online

  Table of Contents

  INTRODUCTION

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  .

  MUTANT STAR

  KAREN HABER

  Phoenix Pick

  An Imprint of Arc Manor

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  Mutant Star by Karen Haber. Introduction copyright © 1991 by Agberg Ltd. Text copyright © 1992 by Karen Haber. All rights reserved. This book may not be copied or reproduced, in whole or in part, by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise without written permission from the publisher except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any actual persons, events or localities is purely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author and publisher.

  Tarikian, TARK Classic Fiction, Arc Manor, Arc Manor Classic Reprints, Phoenix Pick, Phoenix Science Fiction Classics, Phoenix Rider, The Stellar Guild Series, Manor Thrift and logos associated with those imprints are trademarks or registered trademarks of Arc Manor, LLC, Rockville, Maryland. All other trademarks and trademarked names are properties of their respective owners.

  This book is presented as is, without any warranties (implied or otherwise) as to the accuracy of the production, text or translation.

  Digital Edition

  ISBN (Digital Edition): 978-1-61242-193-3

  ISBN (Paper Edition): 978-1-61242-192-6

  Published by Phoenix Pick

  an imprint of Arc Manor

  P. O. Box 10339

  Rockville, MD 20849-0339

  www.ArcManor.com

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  For my brother, Mark

  .

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  What is this flesh I purchased with my pains,

  This fallen star my milk sustains,

  This love that makes my heart’s blood stop

  Or strikes a sudden chill into my bones

  And bids my hair stand up?

  —W. B. Yeats

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  INTRODUCTION

  GENETICS IS DESTINY: that is the truism that underlies Karen Haber’s four-volume saga of the emerging mutant subculture of twenty-first-century America. And we see a dramatic confirmation of that truism as the series moves along into its third volume and we encounter a pair of strikingly different twins with significantly different genetic endowments.

  A generation has passed since the previous volume, The Mutant Prime. At the close of that book, we saw how the challenge of the false supermutant Victor Ashman was resolved by Ashman’s violent death. And just afterward, Melanie Ryton, the troubled mutant girl who was instrumental in bringing the flamboyant career of the impostor Ashman to an end, had come forward to announce before the assembled meeting of the Mutant Council that she intended to marry the nonmutant composer Yosh Akimura.

  Melanie is a “null,” in the lingo of the mutant clan—someone in whom the mutant powers never developed—but she carries recessive mutant genes. These, she assumes when she falls in love with Yosh, will be lost to the mutant clan’s gene-pool: and a small loss at that, she thinks.

  But Yosh is not only not a mutant, he is sterile besides. If Melanie is to bear children at all, artificial insemination will be necessary. Since the mutants are a small group within American society, painfully aware of their need to be fruitful and multiply if they are to keep from being submerged in the normal world about them, the Mutant Council maintains a sperm bank for just such situations.

  So Melanie agrees to be impregnated with the sperm of an unknown mutant donor—and brings forth Rick and Julian Akimura, the twin boys who, now grown to manhood, are the central figures of Mutant Star.

  Julian has the mutant powers.

  Rick does not. Like his mother, he is a null.

  Genetics is destiny.

  ***

  Rick and Julian are, of course, fraternal twins, not identical ones. If they had been identical, they would have been similar in all respects—with identical genetic endowments, including that of mutancy. That’s an important distinction; it bears a moment of close examination here.

  Identical twins are the kind we tend to be most familiar with, because of their startling mirror-image resemblance. They are known technically as monozygotic (MZ) twins, because they result from the union of a single egg and a single sperm. At some point in the development of that fertilized egg, it divides into two fetuses, which continue to grow side by side within the womb until the time of birth. Why twinning takes place is still uncertain, though its tendency to recur frequently in certain families and in certain racial groups (blacks, for instance, bear more twins than whites) inclines biologists to think that some genetic predisposition toward twinning must exist.

  MZ twins, since they spring from the same package of genetic material, are, in essence, clones of each other. They are always of the same sex. They have the same blood type. They bear a marked physical similarity, down to such details as handprints and footprints. Their eyes are the same color; their hair has the same texture. Where some physical differences do exist between identical twins, they are caused, apparently, by modifications occurring in the womb during the period of embryonic development. But as a rule such differences are minor ones. (Identical twins do differ in such things as handedness: one will be right-handed and the other left-handed. This seems to be nothing more than a function of the original division of the fertilized egg into opposing halves.)

  A pair of MZ mutant twins, therefore, would inherit identical complements of mutant abilities. If one twin was capable of mindspeech, the other one would be also. If one could levitate, so could the other. And if one twin turned out to be a null, unable to perform any of the mutant wonders, the other would likewise have to be a null.

  But Rick and Julian are fraternal twins. And thereby hangs this tale.

  ***

  Fraternal twins—dizygotic (DZ) twins—are actually a much more common phenomenon than the MZ kind, although, because their twinship is usually not so readily apparent it is easy to overlook the fact that so many twinned siblings of the fraternal kind exist. In the United States, nearly one birth out of a hundred results in twins; of these, there are almost three times as many fraternal pairs as identical ones.

  Dizygotic twins come into being when two eggs are fertilized at the same moment by two sperm cells, and both zygotes survive and grow to maturity. Since fraternal twins have the same father and the same mother, they will bear the sort of resemblance to each other that any two siblings of the same family would bear—which is to say, they may look very much like each other indeed, or they may be quite dissimilar. It’s all a matter of the random distribution of the genetic mix in the sperm and eggs from which they spring.

  Therefore DZ twins may be of differing sexes. They may belong to different blood groups. Their fingerprints and footprints may be quite similar, or not similar at all. The color of their eyes and hair will be no more likely to be the same than those of a pair of children born to the same parents ten years apart.

  In the world of mutant genes, one member of a pair of DZ twins may be gifted with mutant genes, and the other a null.

  Which is the case with the two very different twin brothers of Mutant Star. The twin relationship is complex enough even in our normal world, difficult beyond that of ordinary sibling existence: two children who com
e into being virtually at the same moment, who are by heritage of birth each other’s closest allies and yet who must nevertheless be rivals from their very first instant of life for the parental care that they must have. Throughout the years that follow, that double-edged paradox of alliance and rivalry exerts its force. How much more intricate the problems are when one twin is equipped with the astonishing powers of a mutant, and the other is not!

  Conventional, studious, hard-working Julian, the mutant brother, finds it easy to fit into the tight-knit family structure of mutant society. His turbulent, unruly twin Rick, deprived by birth of mutant powers but nevertheless bearing the startling golden mutant eyes that make his ancestry unmistakable to any outsider, has grown up deeply embittered, uncertain of his place in the world.

  In effect neither mutant nor nonmutant, Rick has struggled all his life without success to find his bearings. To the world of normals, his golden eyes mark him indelibly as a member of that strange subspecies of extraordinarily gifted human beings who, emerging from seclusion late in the twentieth century, have made a profound mark on every aspect of twenty-first-century life. But to the mutants themselves, Rick Akimura is something incomplete, something handicapped, a man to be pitied—and, perhaps, to be feared.

  The story of that troubled man—and of his very different twin brother—forms the core of this third volume of Karen Haber’s Mutant Season series. Rick’s struggle to adapt to a world that has no room for him, and Julian’s efforts to comprehend the nature of the man who once shared his mother’s womb with him, illuminate this dark new phase of the epic of the emerging mutants. Genetics is destiny, indeed: and we see in the newest Mutant Season novel how closely the genes that shaped Rick Akimura will control the destiny of the entire mutant race.

  — Robert Silverberg

  Oakland, California

  February 1991

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  1

  I’m the man in the moon.

  Ethan Hawkins stared at the silver-white, pockmarked surface of Earth’s one natural satellite and saw himself—dark face, tightly curled dark hair just showing gray at the temples—reflected back through the metal-impregnated safety glass. The inscrutable, ancient lunar surface formed a frame—a glowing halo—for his lean, muscular features.

  He frowned as the view gradually changed to show dense velvety blackness pricked by the cold white stars. Then he shrugged. The constant rotation of the doughnut-shaped structure that housed Hawkins’s corporate headquarters and private rooms provided a regular lunar audience. Patience, he told himself. It’s a quality that some folks even consider to be a virtue.

  Hawkins shifted in his chair, wincing as pain stabbed at him where his arm implants met real flesh just below his right shoulder. He took a deep breath and slowly counted each breath that followed. He made it to twenty before the pain eased.

  It took a king’s ransom to pay for implants—and he was wealthier than five kings, as he often liked to point out when there were other wealthy men in the room. But cost was incidental. The implant had been a gift, given several years ago. Even then it wasn’t perfect: just the best that medical bionics could offer.

  The arm twinged again, and as it did, his screen lit up. A suave face, olive complexion, twinkling brown eyes. A thick head of curling brown hair topped by a red cap. His virtual assistant, Leporello. A computer simulacrum programmed to his specifics.

  “Colonel Hawkins?”

  There was rhythm in the title, the cadence of marching feet, the flourish of drums. He’d been Colonel Hawkins ever since that nasty Marsbase landing when he’d lost his right arm saving the life of Lee Oniburi, a rich Japanese space entrepreneur. Lose an arm, gain a promotion. And enough multinational industry connections and media notoriety to fill five kings’ coffers. To build five satellites and ring the Moon with them. Not a bad trade-off for one arm. He could almost accept the exchange rate. Almost.

  “Yes?” Hawkins’s voice was a deep, ringing basso. But he had chosen space over an operatic career. He had wanted a broader stage, needed more room and more challenges than Verdi, Mozart, and Wagner could offer. And he had found them, yes he had.

  “Jasper Saladin on screen two.”

  Leporello had a thin tenor voice. If he had been flesh and blood instead of software, he would never have made it into the chorus, let alone have achieved a principal part on the main stage of an opera house. But he was a good electronic spear carrier. Yes indeed. And Hawkins had need of spear carriers. Now more than ever.

  The craggy, sallow face of Hawkins’s chief of operations took form above the holoscreen on the other side of his desk.

  “More delays on Pavilion Two, Ethan.”

  “Damn! What now?”

  “Oniburi’s factory changed the specs on the baffle couplings—getting them seamlessly mated in vacuum is making us crazy.”

  “Tell them to order the old parts.”

  “They don’t make ’em. I told you to retool your own factory last year—if you’d listened, we wouldn’t have this problem now.”

  Hawkins paused. Ordinarily he tolerated little insubordination. But Saladin was a good man working the equivalent of three jobs at once. He just needed to blow off steam. “I’ll have Fac-3 retool immediately. In the meantime, is there anything else we can do?”

  Saladin pointed a holographic finger at him. “If you could get Construction a couple of telekinetics, we might be able to fuse the seams and force the seals. Those mutants are better than the best equipment.”

  “Will that speed things up?”

  “With the mutants, we might make the deadline. Without them, forget it.”

  “Surely the union …”

  “We’ve tried already. There are only a few mutant vacuum welders, and they’ve got work leading into next year. Besides, the rest of the welders resent the hell out of them.”

  “So if we hire mutant talent from outside, we make the regulars unhappy.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Well, Jasper, you’ve certainly handed me a conundrum. But I’ll see what I can do.”

  Saladin faded from view.

  Hawkins switched to his interoffice screen. “Leporello, what was the name of that Cable News producer so eager for an interview?”

  “Melanie Akimura.”

  “She’s mutant, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Send her a message telling her I’ll be Earthside shortly and would like to meet with her concerning the feature she proposed. Tell her I’ll do it on one condition: that I be invited to a Mutant Council meeting, preferably in California. And even more preferably, soon.”

  “Yessir.”

  Hawkins’s arm was almost numb from pain. He swallowed a betaprofin tab and chased it down with coffee. Outside the window, the Moon floated into the frame of his window once more.

  “Colonel, your spaceplane’s ready.”

  A new pain-free implant awaited down on Earth, courtesy of the perpetually grateful Mr. Lee Oniburi. But first, a few business meetings. If he was going to stay on schedule with construction, he had to enlist the help of some mutants. He needed them. What’s more, the future of space development needed them.

  I may be retired from the Shuttle Corps, he thought. But once a spacer, always a spacer. And colonization of the solar system is one way to stay aloft.

  “On my way,” Hawkins said. As he walked toward the door, the white-faced Moon spun away, out of sight.

  ***

  White, then red. Green and blue and violet. Silver flashing to yellow melting into orange oozing into red and violet and blue. Julian Akimura rode back and forth across the spectrum, and as he rode, he wept. It was like the wild, late-night skimmer ride, random-dial, that he had taken with his twin brother, Rick, at Neon Park during high school. But high school was seven years past. And no skimmer ride had ever been like this.

  Spectral, kaleidoscopic colors assaulted his optic receptors. His golden eyes wept, tears trailing down his cheeks to spread
the dark purple stain at the collar of his blue lab coat. He’d grown accustomed to the pain, the tears, even, God knew, to the fragmented, iridescent flashes. But wait—what the hell was that?

  A woman wearing a white gown that fell to her ankles walked up the steps of a great floodlit room toward an altar. She was a figure out of some antique storybook: long white hair, pale face, full red lips. A bewitched princess. But her eyes! At once gold and prismatic, reflecting green, blue, purple, like a thin layer of fine cloisonné enamel over gold wash. Those dazzling eyes seemed to be looking right at Julian. The woman smiled. Then she vanished in a hail of blinding particles.

  “Image,” Julian said loudly, then remembered that the inductor mike at his throat could pick up the mildest whisper. Could it pick up the excited pounding of his heart as well? “Fifteen seconds duration. Woman in white, white hair, mutant with some sort of iridescent mutant eyes, walking up the stairs of a large hall. End image.”

  A soft alto voice whispered from the inductor headphone in his ear. “Any clue to date or place?”

  “Negative.”

  “Relax, Julian,” Dr. Eva Seguy said, chuckling. “A simple ‘no’ will do.”

  “Sorry.”

  “And I’m sorry. I forgot, this is your first sighting, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” Julian felt his cheeks growing hot. He had been at the UG Berkeley lab for two months, had ridden three other subjects before this, but only today had he seen his first image. Of course he was excited.

  “Congratulations,” Dr. Seguy said warmly. Julian could imagine her elfin face, green eyes dancing. “How I envy you the chance to ride along on these flares. But that’s a privilege reserved for mutants—telepathic ones.”

  “Some privilege,” Julian said. Privately, he agreed with her, but he took care to keep his response light. Eva Seguy might the boss of the flare research lab at Berkeley, but she was also nonmutant. She could record observations but never make them herself. “My nose runs, my head hurts for hours afterward, and I have to wear dark glasses to protect my eyes from sunlight.”