Koban: The Mark of Koban by Stephen W Bennett

be able to accept a modification to the neural network tissue that
can actually respond to the faster signals to and from the brain. The enhanced
musculature they will inherit from the parents will respond faster, but with no
more strength than we already gave to poor old slow Thad and Dillon here.”
    “Thanks. I think . I hope you meant physically slow.”
    “I did Thad,” Rafe replied, grinning. “The dual passing of
‘ghost’ signals, as we are calling the slower old nerve impulses, will be
present in the SG kids, but they will be able to react faster using the
superconducting nerves. Instead of a premonition, they should experience a
sense of déjà vu when the
slower signal arrives and they have already finished the action .”
    Aldry was swayed somewhat, but still had a question
concerning mental stability for a human subject. “You don’t think that Thad or
Dillon, being aware that far ahead of the action needed and unable to execute
the action, won’t be driven a bit nuts? If you don’t mind a nonscientific
description of a condition I have no training to analyze.”
    “That’s something we can pose to the one psychologist and two psychiatrists
at Hub City,” Rafe proposed.
    “Rafe,” Aldry answered, “they went there
because they are opposed to our project. Do you really think you can convince
them to become part of helping us be more successful?”
    “It doesn’t matter Aldry,” Dillon interjected.
“We have to try this, or else our whole survival plan for humans on Koban is
out the window. Despite a wisecrack that I know Maggi would deliver in
rebuttal, Thad and I are aware of what’s happening. Unlike the ignorant animals
were.”
    He raised a warning eyebrow at Aldry as she
appeared about to fill-in for the absent feisty Maggi Fisher. She smiled and
held her tongue.
    “Thad and I survived our last hunt by dumb
luck and fast thinking. We will never match a whiteraptor in strength, but greater
speed and strength would allow our grandchildren to react fast enough to use
the weapons and defenses we already have. If I’d had five times as much mental
preparation available to consider my first shot at that beast, as it climbed
the rocks, and the physical ability to hold my aim steadier, it would never
have reached us.”
    “Does Noreen know you plan to do this?” Aldry
asked. “Maggi informs me the two of you have discussed, as she quaintly put it,
‘tying the knot’ soon.”
    Puzzled and blank looks from Thad and Rafe
made Aldry laugh. “That means the same thing as ‘signing the line’ means today,
Gentle Men. Maggi likes using archaic terms when she has a chance to put those
dumbfounded expressions on anyone’s face.”
    Dillon had taken the unusual and normally
brazen step for a male, of offering to sign a marriage-with-children
contract with Noreen. Gentle Men traditionally accepted such offers from
Ladies.
    In this case, he had needed to know her personal
position on the genetic modifications he was planning to accept. If she weren’t
interested in a contract for children after he had ‘gone Koban,’ as it was
described, then he would not volunteer for this next step. He loved her more
than long-term survival meant to him.
    However, she had enthusiastically agreed, followed
by another of their exhausting marathon love fests. It was Jungle boy versus
Queen of the Jungle fantasy time.
    Noreen had wanted to volunteer with him, but
Dillon insisted that the contract signing and her own modification had to await
the results of his and Thad’s first Koban gene mods. She would return from Hub City before implementation of the new program.
    Aldry relented, since she had no more
arguments to present, and there were certainly no better-informed volunteers. Thad
had agreed at every step, and so they now had the first two human subjects
ready to “go Koban.”
     
    ****
     
    The shuttle deposited the sling load of fresh
meat near the north entrance of the Hub City dome, with a number of