Mutiny in Space by Rod Walker Page B

Ducarti.
    “Like, there are a hundred thousand people on New Sibersk,” I said. “The colony might fail on its own. There are billions of people on Social Party planets and even a big harvest like this won’t feed them all. You can’t care that much about New Sibersk. I mean, you’ll kill them or impoverish them if you get the chance, but you have bigger things on your mind.”
    “Interesting,” said Ducarti. “Do continue, Mr. Rovio. You may be even more clever than your late parents.”
    A bolt of sheer rage flashed through me, and I wanted to get up and strangle him until I squeezed that smug look off his face. Only the certain knowledge that his commandos would shoot me dead before I even touched him kept me from doing it.
    “If wrecking the harvest is only a side project,” I said, “that means you have some other reason for taking the ship. You could have just blown up the ship, but you didn’t. You boarded it. So either you want the ship itself, or there’s something on the ship you want.”
    I frowned as I realized it must be the latter. There was nothing special about
Rusalka
except her size.
    “There is something you want,” I said, “but something you can’t get. Because the captain kept asking for a key.”
    “Precisely,” said Ducarti. “Now, Mr. Rovio. Where is this key?”
    I shrugged. “I don’t know what’s locked up. Williams can unlock anything in the computer. If there’s something physically locked up, you’ve probably got plasma torches. So it’s something trickier than that.”
    “Correct,” said Ducarti. “We are not discussing a physical or a digital lock.” He seemed to consider something for a moment. “Tell me. Are you familiar with noncoding DNA?”
    “What?” I said. I had no idea what he was talking about.
    “More colloquially known as junk DNA,” said Ducarti. “Surely you must have sat through a biology course at some point.”
    “We’re talking about biology now?” I said, baffled. “Okay, if I remember right, every cell has DNA, which is the instructions for making more cells. Except not all of the DNA gets used because it’s full of mutations and stuff. That’s the junk DNA. It’s like a bunch of old temporary files on a hard drive that never get erased and just sort of sit there taking up space.”
    “A crude, but sufficient summary,” said Ducarti. “As you said, junk DNA is mostly useless, but among the scientists of the Thousand Worlds there are scientists clever enough to alter the junk DNA.”
    “So what?” I said. “Genetic engineering has been a science since… I don’t even know. Since before people left Earth’s solar system for the first time.”
    “Indeed,” said Ducarti. “And the grain from New Sibersk has not been genetically altered in any significant way, save for the alterations made millennia ago to weed out certain diseases and promote good health and so forth. Yet the scientists on New Sibersk have employed a specific genetic engineering technique to hide altered code within the junk DNA of their grain.”
    “That’s where the information you want is,” I said. “In the grain.”
    “Precisely,” said Ducarti. “The grain contains a list of names required by the revolution.”
    “Decryption. You need the decryption key, because you can’t read it otherwise.”
    “In a word, yes,” said Ducarti.
    “Whose names?” I said. “More people you plan to kill?”
    “I’m afraid the situation is far more serious than that,” said Ducarti. “No, as it happens, this is a list of our friends.”
    “You jerks have friends?” I said.
    “Many,” said Ducarti. “The Revolution has freed only a small number of worlds. Yet the governments and corporations of many other worlds are home to those who are friendly to the cause of the Revolution. Captain Williams, for one.” Williams beamed as if that was a compliment. “Naturally, should their true affiliations become known, our friends will be at grave