Senescence (Jezebel's Ladder Book 5) Read online

  Senescence

  Characters

  Prologue

  Chapter 1 – Homecoming

  Chapter 2 – Response

  Chapter 3 – Halo Jump

  Chapter 4 – Salome

  Chapter 5 – The Price of Freedom

  Chapter 6 – Infotainment

  Chapter 7 – The Third Degree

  Chapter 8 – Preliminary Hearing

  Chapter 9 – First Blush

  Chapter 10 – Observation

  Chapter 11 – Grand Jury Convenes

  Chapter 12 – Beautiful Lies

  Chapter 13 – Indignation

  Chapter 14 – Betrayal

  Chapter 15 – Confrontation

  Chapter 16 – Joining the Circus

  Chapter 17 – Zoo

  Chapter 18 – Sting

  Chapter 19 – Corrupting the Devil’s Advocate

  Chapter 20 – Heart and Minds in Cairo

  Chapter 21 – Sample

  Chapter 22 – The Top Thousandth of a Percent

  Chapter 23 – Ultimatum

  Chapter 24 – Paparazzi

  Chapter 25 – STEM Rock Star

  Chapter 26 – Morning Swim

  Chapter 27 – What is Truth?

  Chapter 28 – Warning

  Chapter 29 – Combat Demonstration

  Chapter 30 – Make Love, not War

  Chapter 31 – Loophole

  Chapter 32 – Eowyn

  Chapter 33 – Lists

  Chapter 34 – State Secrets

  Chapter 35 – Do Not Disturb

  Chapter 36 – Embassy Invasion

  Chapter 37 – On the Lam

  Chapter 38 – Cold Comfort

  Chapter 39 – Six Dog Night

  Chapter 40 – Don’t Ask if You Don’t Want to Know

  Chapter 41 – Blockade

  Chapter 42 – Meeting the Parents

  Chapter 43 – Desperation

  Chapter 44 – Lies and Politics

  Chapter 45 – Honeymoon

  Chapter 46 – Family

  Chapter 47 – Diversion

  Chapter 48 – Lunar Assault

  Chapter 49 – Dominoes

  Chapter 50 – Pax Argentum

  Chapter 51 – Homeward Bound

  Chapter 52 – Gravity Boy’s Last Adventure

  Chapter 53 – Night Falls

  Chapter 54 – The Trumpet Blast

  Chapter 55 – Farewell

  Senescence

  Book Five of Jezebel’s Ladder

  by Scott Rhine

  Amazon Edition

  Copyright 2014 Scott Rhine

  To my wife, Tammy, who is always right.

  Thanks to my editors Linda Branam and Weston Kincade, as well as my beta readers Jackie Lynch and Steve Terry.

  Cover art by http://www.thecovercounts.com

  Characters

  Sanctuary Crew

  Auckland – Dr. Ahunga O Te Ika Whenau Whanganui, a Maori physician.

  Herk – Rafael Herkemer, a Polish bomb technician for the UN and head of security trained in underwater rescue and firefighting. Body Override talent. Married to Risa.

  Joan – Thirteen-year-old daughter of Oleander Dahlstrom and the deceased Johnny Bartilucci. Gene spliced with Magi DNA.

  Lou – Captain Kai Llewellyn, a handsome Welsh pilot who acquired Strange Attractors and Ideal Planets. Married Mercy.

  Mercy – Mercy Smith Llewellyn, born in Brazil, dual US citizen. A childhood friend of Red’s. She placed her large inheritance into a charity fund to educate third-world girls in science, technology, and math. Gravity Generation and Icarus Field talents. Married to Lou.

  Mira – Miracle Redemption “Red” Zeiss, a US math prodigy and heir to the Fortune Aerospace billions. An aggressive pilot with Index, Pattern Simplification, Collective Unconscious, Empathy, and Quantum Computing talents. Married to Zeiss.

  Oleander – Specialist Oleander Dahlstrom, an experienced Norwegian space hand who did jail time for bombing bank offices but once rescued Mira’s aunt and uncle. Out-of-body scout.

  Pratibha – A woman from India who specializes in economic flow models and space colonies. Married to Auckland.

  Risa – Sonrisa Belinda De Gama Herkemer, a Panamanian expert in solar power and space construction, Herk’s wife, and Red’s former roommate. Alien structural engineering talent: superdense ice and algae acrylics.

  Snowflake – Alien AI computer that runs the giant spaceship. Takes commands from the planning committee and has bonded with Mercy.

  Sojiro – Japanese manga artist, computer programmer, and alien-interfaces expert. Mind-machine Interface and Red Giant Locator talent.

  Stu – Stewart Angus Llewellyn, eighteen-year-old son of Mercy and Lou. A born pilot with a fondness for sculpting.

  Yvette –Yvette Chenonceau, a psychologist and nurse who specializes in high-risk pregnancies. Ethics and Empathy talents.

  Zeiss – Commander Conrad Zeiss, a tall and quiet Swiss astrophysicist and navigator. His talents include Quantum Computing, Rubber Sheet Theory, and a multi-species version of Collective Unconscious. Married to Mira.

  Crew of Ballbusters

  Artemis – Israeli huntress, auburn girlfriend of Evangeline. Loves to intimidate men.

  Evangeline – Team nurse from New Orleans.

  Freya – Attractive, blonde huntress and former bodyguard for Mary Smith.

  Grant – Grant Thisbe, investigative journalist, and Devil’s Advocate for men.

  Hans – Show’s creator and director. A former celebrity cyberstalker, he catapulted to fame when he spotted an assassin waiting for Mary Smith.

  Nemesis – Hacker and technical expert. Heavyset Greek woman who doesn’t like being on camera.

  Sif – Chinese huntress.

  Themis – Legal council. Oldest member and former judge.

  Other Citizens of Earth

  Eowyn – An unknown Earth hacker with the Mind-Machine Interface talent.

  Kaguya – Only daughter of Tetsuo Mori. Former rock star and astronaut candidate. Unanchored, her Quantum Computing talent causes her to unplug from the physical world. Zeiss was her teacher at Sirius Academy and her only visitor at the asylum.

  Kelly – Empath nurse, Onesemo’s girlfriend. Contagious disease specialist.

  Kieran – Kieran Llewellyn, Lou’s cousin with an accounting degree, a way with women, and a splash of noble blood.

  Laura – Laura Salome Zeiss, daughter of Commander Zeiss. Heiress to billions. Managing researcher at Mori Genetics with a hundred patent applications thanks to her talents in Quantum Computing and Simplification. Her gift of Empathy allows her to influence key legal disputes for the company.

  Lena – Dr. Lena Maurier, foremost expert in Active medicine, and Mary’s physician. Married to Luca.

  Luca – Luca Maurier, a former Swiss guard, head of Fortune security, and married to Lena.

  Mary Smith – Posing as Mira Hollis. Mercy’s sister. The richest woman in the world and CEO of Fortune Enterprises.

  Mo – Corporal Onesemo, member of the Rescue Corps from American Samoa. Override and Empathy talents.

  Nana – Amanda Mori, Kaguya’s mother. Supports her husband Tetsuo above all else.

  Tetsuo Mori – Ruthless billionaire board member of Fortune Enterprises. Founder of Mori Electronics and Genetics. Resolved the last war to his advantage.

  Prologue

  The crowd of reporters at Cardiff airport thought they knew everything about Mira Hollis, the CEO of Fortune Enterprises. News drones stalked the thirty-something blonde around the clock. What she lacked in raw beauty, she made up for in glamour and elegance. Most often compared to Lady Diana, she was corporate royalty
, born and bred. Because she was the richest woman in the world, her security handle was Golden Goose.

  Inside the privacy of her armored limousine, her smile faded. Rolling through the green of the Welsh coast, she complained, “Thirteen years after landing on the artifact, Mira is still ruining my life.”

  Her plump Brazilian assistant, Gabriela, smiled at the third-person reference. “You agreed to stand in for Ms. Hollis, senhorita. You liked the deal well enough when she paid for you to attend business school in Paris in her name.”

  Mary Smith had been Mira’s best friend growing up. Wealthy, overprotective parents had kept either from appearing in photographs. The trade had seemed harmless at first. As heiress to the biggest aerospace and media company in the Solar System, too many people would have been watching Mira for her to pursue her dream of becoming an astronaut. For Mira’s final space mission, she stole a prototype shuttle to visit an alien artifact that the UN had declared off-limits. “I agreed to a couple of weeks playing media shadow for my best friend, not sacrificing my life.”

  “No,” Gabriela corrected. “Our loved ones at Alcantara are the ones who sacrificed their lives.” When the artifact had turned out to be a starship, war broke out among those wishing to control the new technology. The bombing of Alcantara Spaceport had killed all the family and friends Mary had on Earth. All but three members of the Fortune board had been assassinated, leaving Mary, the pretender, on the throne.

  The two women observed a period of silence at the mention of the home that they could never return to.

  On a screen on the back of the seat, Gabriela watched several of the bloggers who covered the popular CEO. “If this topic is so painful, why did you sneak a visit to the Ascension Memorial Museum onto our itinerary?”

  Mary had done so yesterday, on Gabriela’s day off. She lowered her eyes at the deception. “It’s just a short one to see their new exhibit.”

  “Every time the stolen shuttle is mentioned in public, your company’s stock drops. When you visit that place, it looks like you’re endorsing the theft.”

  “Kieran invited me.” The infamous curator of the museum happened to be Mary’s longest affair to date. The handsome redhead was the most eligible bachelor in Wales and still hadn’t settled down.

  “He’s ten years older than you, and the Llewellyns are all womanizers.”

  “I wouldn’t have made it through the funeral without him,” Mary said. “He lost family in the bombing, too.”

  Gabriela switched to the romance-gossip channel. “This is a PR disaster. You’re already the lead story. Viewership is increasing, and so is the chatter about you.”

  Covering her face, Mary asked, “God, what are those hateful people saying?”

  “It’s been eleven months since your last Cinderfella, and the Golden Goose needs to get laid.” Cinderfella was what the bloggers called the men “Mira” slept with and then made into successes—all of them heading subsidiaries of Fortune Enterprises.

  “He was a generous lover.”

  “Too giving, in fact,” Gabriela said with a chuckle. “Didn’t you catch him kissing one of your security decoys in the back pantry?”

  “I fired both of them, with generous severance packages.” Mary had loaned him millions to renovate the family estate and turn it into the museum.

  “Querída, what would possess you to set yourself up for that heartache again?”

  “It’s complicated.” On her computer pad, Mary examined a photo of the eighteen astronauts from the first human interstellar mission, including her older sister, Mercy. Mere months after launch, the crew had reported all manner of discoveries from the Tau Ceti system. The radio transmissions from the spaceship, however, had taken over twelve years to reach Earth.

  Mary zoomed in on the image of Kai Llewellyn, known by the nickname Lou. She handed the photo to Gabriela. “Mercy announced her marriage to Sanctuary’s pilot, Lou.” Her voice softened. “They’re expecting.”

  “That’s marvelous!” the assistant exclaimed, hugging her. “Congratulations! I didn’t hear a thing about it in the media.”

  “That’s because I have an advance listening post three light-days from Earth, near the dark-matter observatory. I have the observatory transmit messages by quantum channels, which arrive here ahead of the radio waves.” Thank goodness for the time lag. Each broadcast from Sanctuary rocked the science world, overturning apple carts and causing a scramble to redirect research. The delay gave her management team time to prepare.

  “Your sister was always too bookish. The match will be good for both of them,” Gabriela said. “Are you thinking that you gave up too easily with Kieran? That you could have had a future with Lou’s cousin?”

  “A little. Mainly, I have to clean up a mess before everyone else gets the transmission.” Mercy had suspected that her personal finances might be seized for participating in the crime, and she also prepared for the possibility that the space mission might last a lifetime. So before she left, Mercy had placed all of her finances and inheritance into a foundation to help educate poor Brazilian girls in science, technology, and math. The university also made Rio a favorite hub for global engineering and aerospace companies. With the death of her parents at Alcantara and matching funds from various charities and alumnae, the foundation was now worth billions. “Mercy didn’t make Lou sign a prenuptial, and that could leave her STEM foundation open to claims from his family.”

  To the Brazilians, Mercy was a heroine second only to the Virgin Mary. By pair-bonding with Lou, Mercy had shared her gravity sense. This healed the pilot’s blindness and enabled the space mission to continue. They’ll probably call that a miracle. Talk about living in your older sister’s shadow. To the rest of the world, Mary Smith was just a party girl who vaporized in her parents’ mansion at Alcantara. No one misses her.

  ****

  The limo slowed to a halt in front of an ornate iron gate. The gate opened automatically, revealing the well-groomed lawn and flowers beyond. In a black T-shirt and Armani jacket, Kieran greeted them at the door of the limo. After he helped Mary out of the car, he kissed her hand.

  She eyed his muscular frame. “You’ve been working out.”

  “Just fencing,” he replied, posing for the camera drones.

  A banner over the museum entrance announced the exhibition, The Fountain of Youth. She wondered why Kieran would feature this topic in a scientific history museum.

  To one side, a model of Sanctuary’s floating staircase rose from a polished marble base. Kieran led them into the museum, gesturing to an archway on his left entitled Life Sciences.

  “It’s not complete, but I suppose I could give a private tour to such an important benefactor.” The last time Kieran had uttered this phrase, she had ended up in the Louis XIV bedroom.

  The first room past the arch featured the image of da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man and data from the Human Genome Project. The centerpiece was a game where she could compute her lifespan. Kieran helped Mary play the game at the console. The theoretical maximum was 122 years. Mary stopped after a few questions. “This is no fun. Every answer subtracts from my life expectancy.”

  “Falling in love adds seventeen years to your lifespan, not to mention reducing stress.” Kieran ran a finger down Mary’s arm, causing her to shiver.

  The next room held a wall tank of giant Japanese koi. The sign below the colorful fish read, Longevity 226 Years. The enormous goldfish had been donated by Tetsuo Mori. He’s on the Fortune board, and his own company specializes in biotech and quantum computing. What is his interest in this museum? Mori knew her identity but had kept silent in exchange for medical patents and a few key votes.

  Ahead of them, Gabriela gasped. “Disgusting!” Her assistant pointed to the magnified image on the wall. A wormlike creature with seven writhing tentacles wriggled on the screen.

  Kieran explained, “The hydra is biologically immortal.”

  “You’re joking. A worm that lives forever?” Gabriela made
a sour face.

  “Whenever the cells in your body divide, each copy is imperfect. A chain called a telomere gets shorter, like a fuse. When it’s gone, boom. You stop. Hydras are the only creatures without this built-in self-destruct mechanism.”

  Mary recalled her human biology class. Telomeres were one reason that clones started at the same cellular age as the sample from the parent. “In embryos, cells divide about fifty times in rapid succession while the fetus is formed. Then, the person gets about that many more replications during their entire lives.”

  “The Hayflick limit,” Kieran said. “Senescence is the final stage of aging where your cells no longer renew themselves. Barring violence or disease, it is the death that awaits the entire human race.”

  Gabriela nodded. “No matter how far we push medicine, every birth certificate comes with an expiration date.”

  Anxious, Mary asked, “What does this have to do with Ascension and Sanctuary?”

  Kieran led them into the final room of the exhibit. A picture of Mary’s sister Mercy filled the wall. “Some of Dr. Baatjies’ personal notes made it into the fitness evaluations due to a buffer sizing error. His observations on Miss Smith were fascinating. We already knew that the alien decontamination process changed her.” A segment of Mercy’s DNA fingerprint appeared below the photo, offering a before and after comparison.

  “Yes. Erased all her breast cancer genes.” The more attention this DNA data receives, the greater the chance that I could be exposed.

  “Dr. Baatjies’ hidden notes revealed something new. He believes that because of the alien intervention, her telomeres have stopped shortening.”

  Mary blinked. “You mean the entire crew has found the Fountain of Youth?” That’s what Mori wants! Mori would auction such a treatment to a small subset of the rich and powerful until people rioted or stole the secret. Of course, the process would be disastrous to the world at large. She already spent almost a third of employee compensation on medical expenses. If people didn’t die of old age, the majority of the planet would starve within a generation.