Vanguard Of The Mutants

2: Four Little Star Dragons

"Doctor, I've been told we are getting another population bomb." Sheranee spoke up once the others had left.

"Yes dear, don't worry. The Vellamun's main reactor produces more than enough power to keep them frozen ten thousand times over. Especially with the new Vanadium Dioxide heat recyclers installed."

"I'm not worried about the power supply. Aine told me what the new embryos are."

"So?" Maximillian put a hand on her shoulders.

"As it's now, we have three population bombs. That's 2000 Astari and 2000 Imenu embryos to build a human colony, 800 Apua embryos so they all have something to cuddle with and 10000 modern Spartans, designed for war. So we have 14000 human embryos, of which 12000 are male and only 2000 female. That's extremely imbalanced!"

"I know." Maximillian sighed.

"So what am I supposed to do with them?"

"You could make half of them female by exchanging their Y-chromosomes for another X-chromosome."

Sheranee raised an eyebrow at this. Of course a genetic engineer would say something like this. But knowing where these embryos came from, she wondered, "And van Gelda didn't add an automatic self-destruct sequence to his creations in case someone does this?"

Doctor Moreau had to pause for a second. "I did not find one when I revised their codes... but I wouldn't put it beyond him."

Sheranee let out a sigh, cursing the mad Dutchman her creator once called a colleague.

"Don't worry, a solution will present itself." Maximillian tried to encourage her.

"You don't know that."

"Was it not me who created you?"

"That doesn't give you authority over reality."

Doctor Moreau let out a proud laugh, "You are right dear, I don't know what's waiting for you out there. But I know you and I have no doubt you will find a way."

Sheranee smiled as Maximillian hugged her once more. "Did you already plot a course for your exploration of the Nod system?" he asked.

"Didn't we have an entire department for this?"

"Yes, but they were among the first parts of this project to be shut down."

"Dicknanas! Oh well, I wanted to propose a course anyway. Since the wormhole drops us out in Nod-B, I thought it's best to explore this system for a while. Sure, Nod-A might have one, perhaps even two habitable planets, but those might contain diseases we have no immunities against or we might carry diseases the beings there are vulnerable to."

"Did Valentina bring this to your attention?"

"Yes, she doesn't want to destroy an alien biosphere, which we're all onboard with. So I thought, a red dwarf system might be a better place to set up a base. It's much smaller. We could easily travel to other planets if we need certain resources. Traveling from one planet to another inside Nod-A would take months or even years, just like in our own solar system. Inside Nod-B, it would only take days or weeks. Besides, there must be several tidally locked planets in the Nod-B system. A base in the temperate twilight strip of one such planet would benefit from perpetual sunlight and strong winds. If the red dwarf star is not too volatile, we could have a base with a very secure power supply, allowing us to keep the Vellamun's fusion reactor on board and the ship operational."

"Good idea!" Maximillian exclaimed proudly.

"With the Vellamun still available, we can build the colony ship to get our cousins off Earth much faster and it won't have to make the 19-year journey from Nod-A to B either." Sheranee added with a smile.