Genetic Cleansing
By John Pearce
()
About this ebook
Evolution had been paralleled on other planets; most humans would not accept this. Politics nurtured this ignorance which meant that many crimes were allowed to go unpunished. Denial of the existence of these other peoples was not only dangerous for all species, but held back the whole Galaxy. Human complacency was born of their reliance on technology which they assumed put them at the pinnacle of evolution!
Humanity hadn't changed, now it had the means as well as the motivation to exploit whole planets by purloining these other worlds. Ambition simmered at all levels to retain the resources of these luxuriant prizes and the enslaved who inhabited them.
The battles moved from space and into the genes and jungles of the Galaxy. Scientists were being drawn into these battles which were always political, but sometimes bloody. In which direction was the arms race heading? Was epigenetics being twisted by politicians into the ultimate weapon of domination?
Of the fourteen Federation planets, some had fractious alien species lurking in their jungles; just what would the military do to keep the peace? Eventually, someone got creative, which was one of evolution's most ambitious mutations: only a few heroes needed to be recruited, with genes that could dodge epigenetic programming, as well as lasers.
Would evolution's multiple species win through, or was the dream of making peace with aliens, a dream too far?
Read more from John Pearce
The Untamed Gene Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Voting Species Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Genetic Cleansing
Related ebooks
In the Garden Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStarfarers Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Science Fiction Archive #6 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCone of Silence Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Kruton Interface Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Thief of The Gods: An Area 51 Confession Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOne Minute to Midnight Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMissing Link Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBed Farewell: vengeance a cocktail drug, #4 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFar Out Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGalactic Pirates Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Earth Ship Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTechnosphere: A Short Story: Antigravel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEnlightenment Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLevel Six Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOblivion Threshold: A Military Science Fiction Space Opera Epic (The Oblivion Saga Book 1) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Big Ancestor Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Favorite Shorts: A Collection of Science Fiction and Other Short Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFury: Forsaken Mercenary, #3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStinker's Return Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Greenstar Season 3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChasing Solace: Lost Solace, #2 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Astralis – Sons Of The Past: Astralis Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBody Parts Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPawn's Gambit: And Other Stratagems Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Chronicles of All-Time:: Remember to Forget Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sab's of Mentra Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCalling Point Nemo Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPreviously Posted On Reddit Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThrough Chaos: The Chronicles of Sarco, #3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Science Fiction For You
The Silo Series Collection: Wool, Shift, Dust, and Silo Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Who Have Never Known Men Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Alchemist: A Graphic Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This Is How You Lose the Time War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Warrior of the Light: A Manual Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sarah J. Maas: Series Reading Order - with Summaries & Checklist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Roadside Picnic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Psalm for the Wild-Built Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Flowers for Algernon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wool: Book One of the Silo Series Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Contact Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How High We Go in the Dark: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Institute: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dust: Book Three of the Silo Series Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Troop Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unsheltered: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England: Secret Projects, #2 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Stories of Ray Bradbury Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Brandon Sanderson: Best Reading Order - with Summaries & Checklist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shift: Book Two of the Silo Series Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Am Legend Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Annihilation: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rendezvous with Rama Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Frankenstein: Original 1818 Uncensored Version Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Deep Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Genetic Cleansing
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Genetic Cleansing - John Pearce
GENETIC CLEANSING, JOHN PEARCE
COPYRIGHT © JOHN PEARCE 2013
SMASHWORDS EDITION
CONTENTS:
THE SPIRIT OF ORION
ALIEN RESOURCES
FULLY SCANNED
A GIFT FROM THE SENATOR
ENQUIRING MIND
THE STUFF OF LIFE
GENETIC EXPRESSION
CONVERGENCE
WALK AND TALK IN THE SUN
AN ARROW SHAFT OF LIGHT
A VIEW FROM A HILL
THE HOUR OF THE WARRIOR
JUNGLE RETREAT
A FOREST OF SPEARS
THE END OF THE BEGINNING
THE SPIRIT OF ORION
The small eight man craft that was a Federation patrol ship, dropped its speed to sub-light. The bright streaks soon shortening to become a myriad of tranquil stars.
‘Let’s see if we can pick up anything on the holoscreen,’ The Captain advised.
‘Should show up at this speed…it’s radio sure enough,’ The Comms Officer added.
‘But there’s nothing solid out there,’ a melee of six troopers observed. All eight of them stared hard at this nothing.
One by one the young faces lit up, then spoke together. ‘A ghost ship!’
The Captain grinned. ‘That’s the first time I’ve met one out here, or should I say not met one.’
‘The RF transcriber says it was just over two hundred light years away when it sent its message…at the speed of light that means just over two hundred years ago!’ continued the Comms Officer. ‘At that speed it would take twenty five thousand years to get to Earth.’
‘So, why bother?’ asked a trooper.
‘Quantum problems, who knows!’
‘It worked, we got the message, just a little late that’s all,’ added another trooper.
‘So, we have a séance on our hands.’ The Captain’s words seemed to switch the mood from light to heavy, now they were forced into reverence, ready to receive a message from this radio spirit of a long lost spaceship.
The Comms Officer took the role of medium. ‘Looks messy, there’s mention of DNA, plenty of As, Cs, Gs and Ts, that much I do know. Then it seems to have got garbled, it mentions RNA, As, Cs, Gs, Us and Is; I’ve no idea what that’s about!
‘We’d better quantum an encrypted copy back to base, just in case anybody’s interested!’ The Captain concluded.
‘It’s been confirmed Admiral, take a look at this.’
The Admiral screened the file the Commander had just slid at him across his large boardroom table. ‘So the rumours, ghostly and otherwise, were correct. Has Hernandez seen this?’
‘He has, I’ve taken the liberty of calling the Professor in, this’ll give him something to enthuse about.’
‘These people would rattle humanity down to their DNA. The time has come Commander, we need to put together a team that should succeed based on their genes, and that would succeed based on their deeds.’
‘Are we to scour the DNA Database for such a team?’
‘That’s the starting point, we’ll get the Professor to do it; I’ve got something else he can do at the same time.’
By the twenty fifth century, the space fields and light speed barriers had been broken, allowing escape from an overpopulated planet to find promising new worlds. Technology had isolated travelling spaceships and quantum links from the effects of their space-time environment, hence space drag and time distortion had been eliminated. Galactic travellers could not only get somewhere but would have contemporaries to come home to. There was the much publicized scandal, scientific not familial, of the space researcher who got his sums wrong: After returning from a space flight he found that the woman at home was not his visiting mother-in-law but his wife. Earlier research was transferred from space-time warping to space field mechanics, warp factors and hyperspace were the preferred mode of travel for science fiction writers only. This meant the multitudes were free to shake off the chains of their home planet and find fourteen others to their liking.
Outer space was not the only direction humans went in; inner space was now able to yield its molecular treasures in the form of find and fix scanning, benefiting medical as well as physical science. Gene expression allowed the transparency that suggested to humans their past, present and future, suggested to and not dictated to because of the mellowing affects that choice had on their behaviour. As of now, there had been no intelligent extraterrestrial life recognized; there had been a few humanoids scanned and dismissed as near misses. Not everybody was disappointed by this.
ALIEN RESOURCES
‘What are the smugglers up to now?’ asked the big swarthy man of his Lieutenant, both sweating into their grey guard’s uniforms. They lounged on a covered balcony, overlooking a shaded clearing that was deep in the equatorial jungle.
‘Maybe going it alone, or worse!’
‘What could be worse?’
‘The Military could have got them, there goes our sideline.’
‘Thank the gods our deal is with the Cyanese Government, or else our platinum would be floating around in space somewhere!’ The Chief of the guards thought awhile. ‘Perhaps we’re not being ambitious enough!’
The hard looking wiry man replied, ‘We’re soldiers of fortune, usually somebody else’s.’
The Chief cursed out his next words, ‘All we’ve done for weeks is round up native Cyanese to be used as lab rats; I say we find out more about what they’re researching. Epigenetics may be the science that turns uranium into platinum.’
‘What?’
‘Metaphorically speaking of course.’
‘Who says so?’
‘Every visitor we’ve checked has been from the government. They wouldn’t work up a sweat in the jungle unless there was money in it, and of course votes.’ The Chief calculated further. ‘Maybe we could replace lost earnings from another source, like those inquisitive natives that keep straying into our back yard?’
‘Natives? What could they do with a state of the art lab.’
‘Those natives had clothes on, and spoke our language better than we do!’
Even the more cautious Lieutenant started to look interested. ‘We win or we don’t lose, that’s a better deal than we’ve got now, we’ve lost or we’ve lost. How would you work it?’
‘Our scientists could be encouraged, a nice bonus for extra-curricular activities…some would say bribed. There’s a hell of a lot of gear in that lab, there must be a market for such a setup!’
‘How do we get all this past the Government?’
‘The scientists continue with their Government work as well as freelance, for them they’ll be well paid and they may even be appreciated. They’ll hardly be doing anything wrong anyway, just borrowing the lab!’
The wiry man narrowed his eyes. ‘What if the scientists are asked to do something particularly gruesome, epigenetics can be nasty!’
‘That’s up