Ell Donsaii 13: DNA

by Laurence Dahners

  Emma elbowed Roger, “Sure, it’d be fun,” she said for both of them.

  Author’s notes:

  The Virgies only have the female sex so Geo thinks of Virgwald as female.

  Geo’s prehensile digit is a DNA sensing organ, denoted here as a “taeng.”

  In the dark, Geo kept one eye cracked to watch Virgwald. Geo’s ancestors had evolved themselves to be able to keep part of their mind awake in the night for safety. Though there was little need for it anymore, there was little harm in keeping the ability, so they still had it. The part of Geo’s mind which remained awake tried to ponder the strange being. Why is she so… heavily built? Why doesn’t she have wings?! And, most disturbing of all, What happened to Virgwald’s DNA? Geo’d taengisted moderate quantities of nucleic acids and quite a few fragments of denatured DNA, but there’d been very little intact DNA of any significance. It was as if Virgwald had been heated in a fire! Hot enough to coagulate the proteins! Not hot enough to completely destroy her DNA but enough to unwind the helix.

  Geo’d been so excited to encounter a being so very, very different. Who could know what Virgwald’s DNA might hold?! Her exhilaration when Virgwald had allowed Geo to taengist her arm had been so extreme Geo almost couldn’t keep her wings furled.

  Yet, when Geo’s taeng had actually touched Virgwald’s arm, she’d taengisted such strangeness! Geo had actually swept her taeng along the surface of the arm, hoping to taengist something more, anything! Virgwald’s arm had tasted something like a gold nugget or some flakes of silver or copper that Geo had once encountered. But Geo had taengisted so little DNA!

  Though she was unable to understand how a living being could exist with so little DNA taengistable on its surface, Geo had somehow managed to force that supreme mystery to the back of her mind. Instead, Geo had focused on the more minor mysteries of where Virgwald came from and whether she could teach Geo something else. It’d quickly become obvious that Virgwald did not speak normally, but that the deep rumbling groans it made were somehow an attempt to communicate. Virgwald had given her name, then acquired Geo’s, repeating Geo’s name back at a normal tone. Then Virgwald had started on numbers.

  Perhaps Virgwald has some way to hide her DNA? Maybe after I’ve learned to communicate in some fashion, Virgwald will allow some of her DNA to come to the surface where I can taengist it? Even in Geo’s semi-sleeping state a shiver ran over her at the thought of taengisting DNA so alien. What miracles might be contained within?

  Somehow, I must be the first to taengist Virgwald!

  ***

  Geo’s sleeper mind woke the rest of her as sunrise began to filter into her hex. She looked over at Virgwald, still standing absolutely motionless. Though her sleeper mind hadn’t been considering this possibility, it seemed to Geo that Virgwald hadn’t even swayed in the night, much less excreted into the wall. Thinking of that made Geo aware of some urgency, so she moved to the wall of her hex and extruded her excretory orifice down into the roots.

  Having done her business, Geo moved slowly toward Virgwald. Having time to simply observe without having to communicate, Geo was able to further consider the massively thick limbs with their hard appearing surfaces. Apparently, Virgwald had been evolved with exoskeletal DNA as Geo had seen no movement of the muscles underneath that rigid appearing surface yesterday. In the past, Geo had met a few individuals who had evolved themselves to become exoskeletal, one of whom had been an arena fighter. However, it made changing oneself much more difficult, so very few Virgies did it.

  Interestingly, Virgwald had two eyes, both mounted solidly into a large, rigid block of tissue atop her body. This would make accuracy of binocular depth perception more accurate and perhaps provide some protection from eye injury, but Geo thought the loss of the three hundred and sixty degree vision provided by rotatable eye-stalks would be a major downside.

  Suddenly, Geo had a thought. If the surface of Virgwald’s exoskeleton was non-living—a typical situation for exoskeletal animals—that may be why there’d been so little DNA where Geo had taengisted Virgwald’s arm yesterday. Also, Virgwald might not have any sensation on her exoskeleton, so, if Virgwald was asleep, perhaps Geo could taeng her now? Especially, because Virgwald could only see to the front.

  Geo circled around behind Virgwald and quietly stepped close. Reaching out, she swiped her taeng over Virgwald’s surface just below the visible hip joints where some DNA might have leaked out through the more flexible surfaces.

  Allen said, “Ell… Geo is approaching Virgwald.”

  Ell checked the time and saw that she was still on “Virgwald duty,” though Roger was supposed to be taking over in a few more minutes. “Let me see,” Ell said, looking up at her HUD. “It looks like it’s morning there. Did Geo do anything overnight?”

  “Swaying, shifting feet. Still no evidence of respiration, so I suspect he has some system for pumping air through a lung type organ like the teecees do. A method that doesn’t involve visibly inflating and deflating.

  “The first thing Geo did when he began moving this morning was to go to the wall of this structure and extend some kind of prehensile member from its back end. It placed the end of that member down amongst the roots of the greenery making up the wall. I suspect he relieved himself, simultaneously fertilizing the plants making up his home.

  “Subsequently, Geo approached Virgwald and circled several times, apparently observing closely.” Allan said, “Now I believe, based on auditory information, that he has approached Virgwald from behind. Though Virgwald has no touch sensors back there, based on micro stresses detected at Virgwald’s ankles Geo seems to be touching Virgwald very lightly.”

  “Do you think he’s doing Virgwald any harm?” Ell asked.

  “No, I believe he is touching Virgwald with one of those tongue-like digits he has on his hands. Perhaps it provides Geo with a sense similar to the sense of smell? Or taste?”

  Ell pondered what to do for a moment, then said, “You learned a greeting word when Geo encountered the other Virgies upon entering town yesterday, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Say, ‘Hello Geo,’ then lift your arm into view so that you can inspect the area where Geo touched it with his prehensile digit yesterday. See if you can detect any evidence of damage.” Ell snorted a little laugh, “I don’t want to find out that Geo’s gradually eating Virgwald.”

  Ell heard Allan make one of the Virgies’ clatters, then Virgwald’s arm came into Ell’s field of view on the HUD. To Ell, Allan said, “It would seem that the greeting startled Geo. From the sounds I deduce that Geo jumped away from Virgwald when he spoke. Now I believe Geo is moving around to the front side of Virgwald.”

  Ell said, “You can lower Virgwald’s arm back down to its normal position. It looked normal to me; did you see any evidence of damage?” As Ell finished speaking, Virgwald’s arm dropped down out of view and Geo moved into the picture on her HUD. Geo was clattering.

  Allan said, “I didn’t detect any damage to Virgwald’s arm. Geo says, ‘Hello.’”

  Ell said, “I wonder if Geo has an agenda for today?” After a moment, she continued, “You don’t have enough vocabulary yet to say, ‘Take me to your leader?’ do you?”

  Allan said only, “No.”

  Geo stepped away from Virgwald and waved for him to follow, a motion which appeared to be fairly universal. Since Ell wasn’t on a waldo controller, she told Allan to have Virgwald follow the alien. Geo moved to the other side of his living hexagonal dwelling. Allan moved Virgwald along behind him. This area had some substantial nodules protruding from its walls. Ell looked around, realizing that the other walls had nodules as well; they just appeared to be bigger in this section. They’d arrived at Geo’s hexagon after sunset the day before and it’d been hard to see much until now, even with Virgwald’s enhanced low light vision.

  All of the walls of the hexagon appeared to be made of densely woven vine. Ell had the feeling that the weave was loosening up as the minutes p
assed. She thought perhaps to let in more air and light. The roof had woven vine on the visible ceiling with the over lapping shingled leaves on the roof visible through the weave of the vines. The center of the hexagon was held up by a kind of post, also made of densely woven vines. The roof was slightly arched to have a dimple at the post, so that a little bit of the rainwater trickled down the central support, but most of it ran out to the walls. As Ell peered through the weave of the wall, she could see tiny glimpses of the parallel wall of another hexagonal dwelling about two feet away. The outer surface of the vines of the wall next door was chlorophyll green even though the interior surfaces of the vines she was seeing in Geo’s hut were brown.

  The densely woven vine was so tangled that Ell couldn’t tell whether it was made up of many plants, or only one. She had Allan walk Virgwald over to inspect it more closely. As she had suspected, the interwoven vines were joined to one another in many locations, thus creating a more rigidly interlocked structure than one would expect from ordinary tangled but separate vines on earth. It would appear that the leaves on the roof harvested most of the sunshine, as well as deflecting the water down the walls or to the central post. At present, the overlapping leaves of the roof seemed to be lifting up a little to allow some reflected light to bounce into the interior. Geo clattered, and a moment later, the leaves of the triangular section they were in lifted even farther, brightening the inside. Plants that follow commands?! Ell thought wonderingly.

  Geo waved at Virgwald, so Ell had Allan turn Virgwald toward Geo. She’d entered the building at D5R, but took a moment to tell the small team she was supposed to meet with at D5R that she’d be a couple of minutes late. That done, Ell walked toward her office so she could use the waldo controller there.

  Geo was indicating several of the different nodules protruding from the vines of the wall, but Ell had no idea what Geo wanted. She said, “Allan… make that ‘query’ sound.” This was a sound they’d noticed apparently preceding questions the day before. She heard Virgwald making a clatter, presumably the query sound, though Ell still couldn’t distinguish one clatter from another.

  Ell would have sworn that Geo looked puzzled by the query, but, after a moment’s consideration, he twisted a couple of nodules loose from the wall. Approaching Virgwald, he broke both of them in half and held the broken ends up to Virgwald. Apparently preparing to take over, Roger’s voice came in Ell’s ear, “Is Geo offering Virgwald some food?”

  Ell said, “Maybe?” She’d reached her office, closed the door, and stepped up onto the saddle of the waldo controller. She slid her hand into the waldo glove and reached out to take one of the nodules from Geo. She moved it up closer to Virgwald’s eyes where she could look at its fleshy appearing surface. “Are you ready to start running Virgwald?”

  “Sure,” Roger said. “What’s been happening so far?”

  As Ell reviewed what had happened in the first few minutes of the morning, Ell pinched off a piece of the nodule and put it in the little chemical analyzer on Virgwald’s chest. As soon as Ell had chosen one of the nodules, Geo made it obvious that it was indeed food by taking the other nodule and placing it in an opening that appeared just below Geo’s large central eye. The opening closed, leaving only a faint wrinkle in the surface. Ell realized that this “mouth” just didn’t look much different than the wrinkles covering most of Geo’s surface.

  Geo didn’t seem to chew.

  Allan said, “Preliminary analysis suggests DNA, sugars, hydrocarbons and amino acids. Presumably the nodule contains complex carbohydrates, lipids and some form of proteins. Determining the exact content will take several hours.”

  “Wow,” Roger said. “So, this hexagonal hut provides shelter and food, adjusts the lighting on command, and does it all biologically?”

  “It’s a bathroom too,” Ell said, explaining Geo’s first undertaking of the morning. She finished by saying, “Okay, Roger you take over control.” She watched for a minute as Roger had Allan guide Virgwald in following Geo back across the hexagon. Roger had Allan turn Virgwald’s head to look around. There were piles of material here and there on the floor and various objects suspended on the walls. Every bit of it though, appeared to be biological. No rocks even. On a hunch, Ell asked Roger to have Virgwald stop and squat to look at the floor. What she’d thought was some kind of matting looked like it was actually living plant fiber! Something similar to the interwoven small vines that made up the surface of the paths outside, but here it was even finer. Probably softer too, she thought.

  Geo had gone to one of the corners of the hexagon and pulled open the wall. He stood there, patiently looking back at Virgwald. Roger had Virgwald stand, move to the corner and step through the opening Geo had provided.

  Shaking her head at all the revelations, Ell left her office and went to her meeting…

  Since Virgwald had managed to express a desire to see the water, Geo led Virgwald to one of the main avenues that went in the direction of the coast. As they walked along, Geo named objects and actions for Virgwald. At first, Geo’d tried to learn Virgwald’s low-pitched words at the same time that Virgwald was learning hers, but when it became evident that Virgwald remembered every word perfectly without needing any repetition, Geo had finally given up. Virgwald pronounced words without evident inflection, but was still understandable when she did so. Geo wondered whether she should evolve her memory center so that she’d be able to remember words as well as Virgwald even though it was difficult to say Virgwald’s words in such a low tone. Virgwald had obviously evolved her memory to the point that she had a near perfect memory. Unfortunately, Geo didn’t have any DNA strands tucked away that would improve her memory to that degree. Geo didn’t want to find and negotiate for the kind of DNA that would require, so she settled for simply using available DNA to increase the size of the vocabulary lobe of her brain.

  During a lull in word naming, Geo pondered their breakfast that morning. Virgwald had eaten no more than a tiny nibble of one of Geo’s food nodules. Virgwald didn’t have her own food and hadn’t eaten yesterday. Geo couldn’t help but wonder what was keeping Virgwald going. Perhaps Virgwald has more lipid storage underneath that rigid carapace than I would expect? But why not eat more when I offered it to her?

  Even more disappointing, Geo’s taengisting of Virgwald that morning had produced only a few substantial fragments of denatured single strand DNA. Geo had repaired them and inserted them into some cells to see what the fragments might produce, but they were small enough that Geo didn’t have much hope that they would make anything very useful.

  As they approached the coast, they began to encounter more Virgies who’d evolved themselves for swimming and diving. Geo had the feeling, even though Virgwald hadn’t said as much, that Virgwald found the appearance of the swimming-evolved very disturbing.

  Geo turned an eye-stalk to look appraisingly at Virgwald’s carapace. If her exoskeleton is actually metallic, like I thought it tasted, it might be damaged by the salt water of the sea! Geo thought. Perhaps that’s what she’s worried about? Geo didn’t know much about metals, they were very uncommon after all, however she’d heard that they were surprisingly strong, but easily corroded in salt water.

  With a shiver of apprehension, Geo thought about the fact that those Virgies she’d known of who’d evolved an exoskeleton had done it to become fighters. And, if this one had the DNA to evolve a heavy and powerful metallic exoskeleton, she might be a truly fierce warrior. Times had been peaceful for hundreds of years since Virgies had voluntarily restricted the number of offspring they produced.

  But, what if Virgwald was the first scout for a group who were evolving metallic exoskeletons? Maybe they thought they were so powerful that they could produce as many offspring as they wanted. Then they’d just take over as much territory as they needed for their new people!

  Geo began to wonder if she really wanted to try to keep Virgwald to herself. Perhaps she should let others know about this newcomer…?

 
; ***

  Jamieson sat in his hotel room staring with unfocused eyes at the big stacks of hundred dollar bills on his desk. There were a hundred bills in each ten thousand dollar bundle, and he had a hundred bundles!

  He’d already taken care of the gold. That had been a bigger hassle than he’d expected. At current prices, a million dollars’ worth of gold weighed over forty pounds. He’d put a half a million each in safety deposit boxes in two different banks, one in Virginia and another in South Carolina. He’d buried another million down by the coast and the last million in Tennessee. He definitely didn’t want to have to return to this area to get his money later. Someday he’d try to put it into a bank account, but right now he didn’t trust banks.

  The million in cash sitting on the desk represented his working capital. He was going to have to buy some stuff and hire some guys to carry out the kidnapping successfully.

  First though, he needed to do some more surveillance and come up with an actual workable plan…

  ***

  Zage stared unseeingly at the big screen. His current theory had to do with the fact that, at least in his case, an early infection with HA-36 had for some reason incorporated two genes from the adenovirus into the DNA of a number of his cells. Thus, even though his body’s immune system had eradicated the HA-36 infection, he was still expressing the products of those two genes. One of those genes, zbo, had been demonstrated to express a peptide which epigenetically down-regulated production of Trim28.