Seveneves

by Neal Stephenson

  “It sounds like a lot of work,” Camila said. “If there is anything I can do to ease your burdens and make myself useful, I am at your disposal.”

  “Thank you. We will all be working at it for months,” Moira said, “before anything happens. We have very little else to do.”

  “Excuse me, but what is the point of discussing this, since we have no sperm to work with?” Aïda asked.

  “We don’t need sperm,” Moira said.

  “We don’t need sperm to get pregnant! This is news to me,” Aïda said, with a sharp laugh.

  Moira went on coolly. “There is a process known as parthenogenesis, literally virgin birth, by which a uniparental embryo can be created out of a normal egg. It’s been done with animals. The only reason no one ever did it with humans is because it seemed ethically dodgy, as well as completely unnecessary given the willingness of men to impregnate women every chance they got.”

  “Can you do it here, Moira?” asked Luisa.

  “It’s not fundamentally more difficult than the sorts of tricks I was just describing in the case of repairing damaged sperm. In some ways, it would actually be easier.”

  “You can get us pregnant . . . by ourselves,” Tekla said.

  “Yes. Everyone except Luisa.”

  “I can have a child of whom I am both the mother and the father,” Aïda said. The idea clearly fascinated her. Suddenly she was no longer the prickly, brittle Aïda but the warm and engaged girl who must have charmed the powers that be during the Casting of Lots.

  “It will take some tricky work in the lab,” Moira said. “But that is the whole point of having brought the lab safely to this place.”

  They all pondered it for a bit. Julia was the first to speak up. “Stepping into my traditional role as scientific ignoramus: Do you mean to say that you can clone us?”

  Moira nodded—not to say yes, but to say I understand your question. “There are different ways to do it, Julia. One way would indeed produce clones—all offspring genetically identical to the mother. This isn’t what we want. For one thing, it would not solve our basic problem—the lack of males.”

  Camila’s hand went up. Moira, clearly annoyed by the interruption, blinked once, then nodded at her. “Is it really a problem?” Camila asked. “As long as we have the lab and can go on making more clones, would it really be such a bad thing to have a society with no males? At least for several generations?”

  Moira silenced her with a gentle pushing movement of one hand. “That’s a question for later. There is another problem with this version of parthenogenesis, which is, again, that all offspring are the same. Exact copies. To get some genetic diversity, we need to use something called automictic parthenogenesis. Look, it’s a long story, but the point is that in normal sexual reproduction there is crossing over of chromosomes during meiosis. It’s a form of natural recombination of DNA. It’s what causes your children to look sort of like you, but not exactly like you. In the form of parthenogenesis that I am proposing to use, there would be that crossing over. An element of randomness.”

  “And both boys and girls?” Dinah asked.

  “That’s harder,” Moira admitted. “Synthesizing a Y chromosome is no joke. My prediction is that the first set of babies—perhaps the first few sets of them—will all be female. Because we simply need to get the population up. During that time I can be working on the Y chromosome problem. Later on, I hope that some little boys will result.”

  “But these little girls—and later the boys—will still be made out of our own DNA?” Ivy asked.

  “Yes.”

  “So they’ll be quite similar to us genetically.”

  “If I do nothing about it,” Moira said, “they’ll be like sisters. Perhaps even more similar than that implies. But there are a few tricks that I can use to create a wider range of genotypes out of the same source material. Perhaps they’ll be more like cousins. I don’t know, it’s never been tried.”

  “Are we talking about the inbreeding problem? It sounds like it,” Dinah said.

  “Loss of heterozygosity. Yes. I happen to know something about it. It’s why I was chosen as a member of the General Population.”

  “Because of your work on black-footed ferrets and so on,” Ivy said.

  “Yes. This is a closely analogous problem. But the point I would like you all to keep in mind is that we solved that problem in the case of the black-footed ferrets and we are going to solve it again.”

  She said it with force and confidence that silenced the others for a few moments and left them looking at her for more.

  Moira went on. “I think we all have at least an intuitive understanding of this, yes?”

  That one was aimed at Julia, who looked mildly peeved, and bit off the following: “My daughter had Down syndrome. That is all I will say.”

  Moira acknowledged it with a nod, then went on: “Everyone has some genetic defects. When you are breeding more or less randomly within a large population, there’s a tendency for those errors to be swamped by the law of averages. Everything sort of works out. But when two people sharing the same defect mate, their offspring is likely to have that defect as well, and over time we see the usual unpleasantness that we all associate in our minds with inbreeding.”

  “So,” Luisa said, “if we follow the plan you have laid out, and begin, a few years down the road, with seven groups of what amount to siblings or cousins—”

  “It’s not enough heterozygosity, to answer your question,” Moira said. “If you have a genetic predisposition to any disease, for example—”

  “Alpha-thalassemia runs in my family,” Ivy said.

  “That’s a fine example,” Moira returned. “As it happens, Old Earth compiled vast databases on such things before its destruction. All of which are in there now.” She gestured in the direction of her lab. “We have a very good idea which defects, on which chromosomes, are responsible for alpha-thalassemia. If you supply me with an ovum, I can find those defects and I can fix them before we begin parthenogenesis. Your offspring will be free of that defect. Barring some random future mutation, it’ll never return.”

  Dinah raised her hand. “My brother was a carrier of cystic fibrosis. I haven’t been tested.”

  Julia raised hers. “Three of my aunts died of the same form of breast cancer. I’ve been tested. I know I carry that defect as well.”

  “The same answer applies in all of these cases,” Moira said. “If there’s a genetic test for it, then it means, by definition, that we know which defects are responsible for it. And knowing that, we can perform a repair.”

  A new voice joined the conversation. “How about bipolar disorder?”

  Everyone looked at Aïda.

  She would live out the rest of her life, and go to meet her maker, without having a friend, or even a friendly conversation. So, no one was in a receptive frame of mind about her question. But the mere fact that she’d asked it suggested a level of introspection they hadn’t seen from her before. Moira considered it.

  “I would have to do some research. I think that it does run in families to some extent. To the extent that it can be traced to particular locations on particular chromosomes, it can be treated like any other disease,” Moira said.

  “Do you believe it should be?” Aïda asked.

  Everyone looked automatically at Luisa, who nodded. “We are long past the point of thinking of mental illnesses as somehow a lesser kind of disease than physical. Such disorders should, in my opinion, be addressed in just the same way.”

  “Do you believe it must be?”

  Luisa colored slightly. “What is the point of these questions, Aïda?”

  “I have done research on it,” Aïda said. “Some say that bipolarity is a useful adaptation. When things are bad, you become depressed, retreat, conserve energy. When things are good, you spring into action with great energy.”

  “And your point is . . .”

  “Will you treat this condition in my offspring against my
will? What if I want to have a lot of little bipolar kids?”

  In the flustered silence that followed, Camila spoke. “What about aggression?”

  Everyone turned to look at her, as if unsure they had heard her correctly.

  “I’m serious,” she said. She looked toward Aïda. “I don’t mean to trivialize the suffering that your condition causes. But over the course of history, aggression has caused a far larger amount of pain and death than bipolar disorder or whatever. As long as we are fixing those aspects of the human psyche that lead to suffering, should we not eliminate the tendency to aggressive behavior?”

  “That’s different,” Moira began. But she was interrupted by Dinah.

  “Hold on a sec,” Dinah said. “I’m aggressive. I always have been. I was on track to be an Olympic soccer player! That’s the only way I’ve ever been able to amount to anything—by channeling my aggression into doing things.” She nodded across the table at Tekla. “Hell, look at her! How many times has she saved our asses by being aggressive?”

  Tekla nodded. “Yes. Dinah saved me by taking aggressive action against rules of space station. Problem is not aggression. It is lack of discipline. A person can be aggressive”—she nodded at Dinah—“and still be constructive in society if she controls her passions.” And she threw a significant glare at Aïda, who let out a little snort and looked away.

  “So you’re suggesting we breed people for discipline and self-control?” Ivy asked. “I’m not sure if I follow.”

  “I believe that Camila was merely saying that certain personality types, taken to an unhealthy extreme, are as bad as diagnosable mental illnesses per se. If not worse,” Julia said.

  “I don’t want you to speak for me,” Camila said. “Please do not speak for me anymore, Julia.”

  “I am merely trying to be helpful,” Julia said. But where the old J.B.F. would have said it reproachfully, the new one merely seemed exhausted.

  Dinah broke in. “Well, what I am trying to say is that I don’t appreciate being labeled as a genetic freak that needs to be eradicated from the human future.”

  “No one would say that of you, Dinah,” Ivy said. “Camila’s talking about the knuckle draggers who tried to kill her for wanting an education.”

  “And what is your opinion?” Tekla asked Ivy.

  “Similar to yours. Aggression is fine. It needs to be controlled. Directed. But the way to do that is through intelligence. Rational thought.”

  That elicited a cackle from Aïda. “Oh, sorry,” she said. “I was thinking about the Swarm. Eight hundred people all carefully hand-selected for intelligence and rational thought. In the end, all we could think about was how they tasted.”

  “None of us ate each other,” Ivy said.

  “But you thought about it,” Aïda said with a smile.

  Dinah slammed her palm hard on the table. She sat still for a moment with her eyes closed tight, then stood up and walked out of the room.

  “I guess she is not disciplined or intelligent enough to control her aggression!” Aïda cracked.

  “It is a form of self-discipline,” Tekla said. “So that she would not kill you. You see, Aïda, thinking about doing such things and doing are different. This is why greater discipline is a requirement.”

  “Sweetie, what do you mean when you speak of discipline?” Moira asked. “I’m just trying to cash that word out in terms of genetics. I can find a genetic marker for cystic fibrosis. I’m not sure if the same is true of discipline.”

  “Some races are disciplined. Is fact,” Tekla said. “Japanese are more disciplined than . . . Italians.”

  She gave Aïda a stare that would have frozen most people to their chairs, but Aïda just threw her head back and laughed exultantly. “You are forgetting the Roman legions, but please go on.”

  “Men are more disciplined than women. Is just fact. So there must be genes for it.”

  This produced yet another silence, eventually broken by Luisa: “I’m seeing a side of you I didn’t know about, Tekla.”

  “Call me bad, call me racist if you want. I know what you will say: That it is all training. It is all culture. I disagree. If you do not feel pain, you do not respond to pain. And hormones.”

  “What about hormones, lover?” Moira asked. Her affection for Tekla was obvious, and took some of the tension out of the room.

  “We all know that when hormones are a certain way, emotions have big impact. Other times, not so much. This is genetic.”

  “Or maybe epigenetic. We really don’t know,” Moira said.

  “Whatever,” Tekla said. “My point is that for people to live in tin cans for hundreds of years requires order and discipline. Not from above. From within. If there is a way to make this easier with your genetic lab, then we should do it.”

  Luisa said, “We never explored Ivy’s point that intelligence was key.”

  “Yes,” Ivy said, with a glance at Aïda. “I was interrupted.”

  Aïda covered her mouth with her hand and sniggered theatrically.

  Ivy went on: “If we are really going to open the door to genetic improvement of our offspring, then it seems obvious to me that we should look to the one quality that trumps all others. And that is clearly intelligence.”

  “What do you mean it trumps all others?” Luisa asked.

  “With intelligence, you can see the need to show discipline when the situation calls for it. Or to act aggressively. Or not. I would argue that the human mind is mutable enough that it can become all of the different types of people that Camila, Aïda, and Tekla have been describing. But that’s all driven by what separates us from the animals. Which is our brains.”

  “There are many different types of intelligence,” Luisa said.

  Ivy gave a little shake of her head. “I’ve seen all of that stuff about emotional intelligence and what have you. Okay. Fine. But you know exactly what I’m talking about. And you know it can be propagated genetically. Just look at the academic records, the test scores of the Ashkenazi Jews.”

  “Speaking as a Sephardic Jew,” Luisa said, “you can imagine my mixed feelings.”

  “We need brains, is the bottom line,” Ivy said. “We’re not hunter-gatherers anymore. We’re all living like patients in the intensive care unit of a hospital. What keeps us alive isn’t bravery, or athleticism, or any of those other skills that were valuable in a caveman society. It’s our ability to master complex technological skills. It is our ability to be nerds. We need to breed nerds.” She turned to look Aïda full in the face. “You ask for realism. Your complaint about her”—she nodded at Julia—“and the people around her was that they were holding out panaceas. Not facing facts. Fine. I’m giving you facts. We’re all nerds now. We might as well get good at it.”

  Aïda shook her head in derision. “You completely leave out the human component. It’s why you are a bad leader. It’s why you were replaced by Markus, when wiser people than you were in control. And it’s why we are here.”

  “Here, safe and sound,” Ivy said, “unlike the people who followed you. All of whom are dead.”

  “So they are,” Aïda said, “and I am alive, and I can see how it’s going to be: you are going to keep me locked up in an arklet making genetic freak babies and taking them away from me.” And she broke down weeping.

  “She has what I have, except worse,” Julia explained. “She sees many outcomes—most of which, given the circumstances, are dark—then acts upon them.”

  “What an unusual degree of introspection from you, Julia,” Moira said.

  “You have no concept of my level of introspection,” Julia shot back. “I have been clinically depressed for most of my life. I once used drugs to fix it. Then I stopped. I stopped because I decided they were making me stupid, and I’d rather be miserable than stupid. I am what I am.”

  “Depression is genetically based to some extent. Would you like me to erase it from your children’s genomes?” Moira asked.

  “You heard what I
said,” Julia answered. “You know, now, the decision I made. Which was to suffer for the greater good. Because society will go astray if there are not those who, like me, imagine many outcomes. Let those scenarios run rampant in their minds. Anticipate the worst that could happen. Take steps to prevent it. If the price of that—the price of having a head full of dark imaginings—is personal suffering, then so be it.”

  “But would you wish that on your progeny?”

  “Of course not,” Julia said. “If there were a way to have one without the other—the foresight without the misery—I would take it in a heartbeat.”

  “We only need a few people of this mentality,” Tekla said. “Too many, and you get the Soviet Union.”

  “I am forty-seven,” Julia said. “I have one baby in me, if I’m lucky. The rest of you can punch them out for twenty years. Do the math.”

  “It amazes me that we have already gone over to the competitive angle!” Camila wailed. “I am so sorry that I brought this topic up.”

  A sharp rapping noise brought the room to attention.

  Heads turned toward the Banana’s window. It was not large—about the size of a dinner plate. For three years it had been buried in ice and forgotten about. But now it afforded a clear if somewhat dizzying view of their surroundings.

  Outside of it, carabinered to the spinning torus, was Dinah. She had put on a space suit and gone out through an airlock.

  Seeing she had their attention, she reached up and slapped a small object onto the glass. It was a lump of clay, some wires, and an electronic gadget. She depressed a button on the gadget and it began to count down from ten minutes.