DNA

by Laurence Dahners

  Ell grinned at him, “My AI has strict instructions to feed me information about any esoteric subjects my smart-aleck son brings up.”

  Zage looked suspiciously at his mother for another minute. Shan thought he probably found it hard to believe that, even if Alan could put the information up on the HUD in Ell’s contact, she could have read and understood it fast enough to respond as quickly as she had. However, he apparently decided not to express his doubts. After a minute he nodded as if he accepted her explanation. He said in a serious tone, “Thanks for letting me keep working in the lab. I know it’s a lot of money.”

  Shan simply said, “You’re welcome.”

  Ell reached out to ruffle his hair, “It is a lot of money, but we think it’s wonderful that you’re so interested in science. We don’t mind making some sacrifices so you can keep it up.”

  Later that evening, Shan and Ell were both sitting on the couch looking at things on their own HUDs. Shan looked over at his wife. He’d been struggling with his new theory that gravity worked through Ell’s tiny fifth dimension. Although rough approximations had initially made it look like a very plausible explanation for many of the surprising physical facts about gravity, to his frustration, more precise calculations kept coming out just a little bit off.

  Although he kept telling himself he wanted to figure this one out by himself, it was getting to the point that he thought bouncing it off of somebody would be very helpful. And, of course, the most obvious person to bounce it off of would be Ell.

  However, the expression on her face showed that she was very frustrated with an issue of her own. He could tell she wasn’t really looking at whatever was being shown in her HUD. “Worried about Zage?” he asked.

  “No,” she said, slowly shaking her head, “worried about extraterrestrials.”

  “Thinking about what to do if we encounter even more dangerous ones?”

  Ell shrugged, “We’ve already encountered some new ones and they’re what I’m worried about. The problem is that I can’t decide whether they’re actually dangerous or not.”

  “Oh. Ones I haven’t heard about yet?”

  “Yeah,” she sighed, “let me tell you about them. Maybe you’ll have some ideas.” Ell went on to describe the world circling 61 Virginis, then the Virgies themselves.

  “So,” Shan said musingly, lifting one finger, “you have a world where we could actually live.” He lifted another finger, “On that world you see no evidence of an advanced technological civilization. Rather you find primitive horticulturalists who use few if any tools.” Shan lifted a third finger, “They may have somehow been transported to 61 Virginis from other worlds, or, alternately, have mutated into what seems to be a large number of different intelligent species.” He frowned, “The only thing I can think of that might make them a threat would be the possibility that all the mutations came from some kind of bio-weapon that might spread to us?” He shrugged, “My thought would be that we certainly shouldn’t go there in person until we know, but they hardly seem to be a danger to us where they are.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Ell said, “it’s just that there’re a lot of people who’d like to know about them. If the government knew about them, they’d want to start undertaking diplomatic missions and otherwise communicating with them. Some people would want to help them advance their technological level. There’d be a few crazies who’d want to wipe them out” She shook her head, “On the one hand, I’d like to at least let the scientists start trying to understand them and how they came to be. On the other, I feel guilty not letting the government know about them because, like you say, it’s hard to imagine a primitive people like theirs posing a danger to us. But… something about them… Just worries me.”

  Zage’s voice came from behind them, “I don’t think they sound primitive. They’ve got to be purposefully modifying their own DNA to have developed the way you’ve described. They may not be very advanced in the physical sciences, but they’re way ahead of us in the biological ones.”

  Shan and Ell had frozen, eyes widening at one another as soon as they heard their son’s voice back there. They’d had no idea he was in the room or they most certainly wouldn’t have been talking about that topic. Ell grimaced for a moment, then purposefully relaxed her face and turned slowly to look at Zage. “Um, I hope you understand that we wouldn’t want you to tell anyone about what you’ve just heard?”

  Zage grinned at her, “Yeah, from what you said I got the impression you guys were spilling some pretty big secrets. Probably didn’t know I was back here, huh?”

  Though she wanted to snap at him, Ell calmed herself and said in her most sober tone, “No. Can you promise me that you won’t tell anyone what you’ve just heard?”

  Zage nodded, a serious look on his face. “I understand. This is the kind of thing that Dr. Donsaii went to prison for, right? She didn’t want to tell the government about alien races until she was sure they were safe and the government felt like they had a right to know.”

  Ell nodded, “So, you can understand that this is very serious business, right?”

  “Sure. But,” he said, a big smile breaking across his face, “this is really cool stuff. I had no idea you worked in the part of D5R that dealt with the early exploration of ET planets! I knew you sometimes helped with interstellar stuff because you were on the team that helped the Teecees when they got hit by the asteroid, but I had no idea Dr. Donsaii trusted you enough to have you on the team that works with them before she’s sure they’re safe!”

  Ell said, “She does trust me, but she wouldn’t be very happy if she knew I’d let my five-year-old son hear all this stuff.”

  Zage frowned, his eyes going back and forth between his father and his mother. “Are you even supposed to be telling Dad about these aliens without Dr. Donsaii’s approval?”

  Shan studied Ell as he wondered how she was going to dig herself out of this hole. In fact, she didn’t say anything for a moment, then she replied carefully to Zage, “Dr. Donsaii knows your dad and she trusts him.”

  Zage turned to his dad, “Because you wrote that paper with her?”

  Shan nodded, doing his best to keep a solemn look on his face. He looked at Ell and explained, “The DeWitt’s mentioned the K-D paper to Zage at the company picnic.”

  Zage turned to his mother and frowned a little, “It doesn’t seem like the fact they’ve written a paper together would make her trust him on something like this though. Are you sure she’d be okay with it?”

  Ell nodded, “She’s asked him for help on a similar problem in the past.”

  “Oh, okay,” Zage said. Shan thought his son looked very impressed that his own father knew Ell Donsaii that well.

  Ell said in a very serious tone, “Thank you Zage. I appreciate your willingness to keep this very important secret for me. I hope you’ll give some thought to the possibility that sometimes you can let a secret slip without meaning to, okay?”

  “You mean,” Zage said, a little grin creeping up on his face, “like you just did?”

  Ell snorted, “Yes! You’ve got me there, but I hope you’ll try to do better than I did, okay? Only talk to me or your dad about it OK?”

  Zage got a very serious look on his face. “I will.” He turned, “Tanner,” he called to his dog, “here boy.” As the dog came running in from the other room, Zage patted his stomach, “Tanner and I are going out for a run, okay?”

  “Yeah,” Ell said distractedly. “Um… Wait a minute. What was it you said about the aliens earlier?”

  “I said, ‘I don’t think they’re primitive.’”

  “I remember that part,” Ell said, “I’m just trying to remember your rationale.”

  “Well, the only possible explanation for them to have so many different body plans without one becoming dominant over the others has to be because they’re purposefully modifying their own DNA. That way they can look like different species even though, underneath, they’re actually all from the same one.”
He shrugged, “I guess by our definition they might have mutated themselves into a different species, but, you get what I mean. Anyway, they may not be using a lot of high tech, but they’ve got to be biological geniuses.”

  “Wait a minute,” Shan said, “If they’re not technologically advanced, how are they purposefully modifying their own DNA?!”

  “Well,” Zage said thoughtfully, “maybe calling them biological geniuses wouldn’t be quite correct. What I was thinking was that they might have evolved an organ or some other kind of structure or biologic process that lets them purposefully control DNA splicing.”

  “So, you’re thinking that,” Ell said with a look of intense concentration, “they make their own random mutations? I don’t see how that’d be different from some kind of environmental influence that causes mutations. They’d still wind up with a lot of bad outcomes.”

  “Not random. That would be a disaster. I’m picturing a system for adding various bits of DNA. Presumably, they know what those pieces of DNA do. Other pieces, perhaps they can guess what those fragments do—kind of like our sense of smell tells us what something is or was. Maybe they do make some random bits of DNA, but only actually insert them if their sense of ‘smell’ gives them the impression that that particular sequence might be beneficial. Maybe they even have some organ in their body where they can insert bits of DNA into cells to see what happens?”

  “And…” Ell said, a focused look on her face as she tried to grasp what her son was saying, “you think that they then selectively and purposefully generate a genome for their offspring?”

  “Well, sure, that too. But, I was thinking more that they might actually modify their own genomes as they see fit. The first thing they’d have to do would be to adjust their growth and repair systems to make themselves a little more like a fetus or a salamander. Then they could add limb buds or start new organs or eyes even in their adult forms. That way, all these different body plans you say you’re seeing could start out fairly similarly,” Zage shrugged, “or maybe not, if the parent designed the child differently to begin with. But then, even as adults, they could become more and more divergent in their body design depending on the desires of that particular individual. So, if someone wants to live by the sea, they might borrow some DNA, and perhaps modify other DNA, to build fins or whatever other aquatic structures they think would give them an advantage.” He tilted his head as if wondering whether his parents grasped the idea, “Intelligent design, of a sort.”

  Shan, looking as if he were taken aback, said, “But, surely they’d immediately realize that intelligence has tremendous value. Once you’ve recognized that fact, what’s to keep you from evolving or building yourself a huge brain that makes you smarter than everyone else? Once you’ve done that, you could take over the world!”

  Zage shrugged, “Big brains are expensive. It requires a lot of energy to power them and just making them larger doesn’t necessarily make them more effective. Einstein’s brain was smaller than average, which pretty strongly suggests that bigger isn’t necessarily better. One problem is that the neurons in a big brain get to be farther and farther apart so that they can’t communicate as well. You’ve got to remember that even though electrical depolarization is responsible for the way nerves function, they don’t actually send their impulses at the speed of light like many people assume. Even the faster nerves only transmit at a little over a hundred meters per second—about 225 miles an hour. That’s pretty fast, but nothing like electrical speeds, so a really big brain would get kind of slow.” He frowned, “Having a big brain might let you remember more, or do more complex calculations, without necessarily giving you the intuition it takes to figure things out. People with photographic memories aren’t necessarily really smart.”

  Shan and Ell glanced at one another, stunned to be getting a lecture from their five-year-old son. Being lectured by a five-year-old seemed like it should be irritating, except for the fact that he’d been telling them so many things they didn’t know. Ell said, “So, you think maybe they use this ability to modify their own DNA… to adjust their own body plan so they can be more successful at whatever… career they take up? That the first one we saw, the one that had the big bundles of vegetation on his back might have decided on a career of transporting stuff from one town to another?”

  Zage nodded, “Yeah, he’s working as a truck. It would seem crazy to us, because all our trucks are automated and it’s a boring job, but for them it might be a decent occupation if you like getting out and seeing the country. Same for some of those whale sized aquatic Virgies you were talking about.” He gave them a hopeful look, “I’d sure like to see some of the video you have of them.”

  His mother snorted. “I’m sure you would. Let me… check into it,” she said, looking as if she couldn’t decide whether it would be a good idea.

  Chapter Six

  The man put his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair. He appeared to be just staring up at the ceiling, a behavior that always irritated Jamieson. However, he’d always done this when he was thinking and Jamieson had gotten used to it. Jamieson had used Roger before in some questionable enterprises, though not anything quite as obviously illegal as an out and out kidnapping like this one. In addition to being physically fit and very weapons capable, Roger was very good with tech stuff so Jamieson really wanted him for this mission.

  But Jamieson worried that Roger might balk at kidnapping.

  He also wondered whether Roger was really the man’s name, though it didn’t really matter. Jamieson was going by Arthur, rather than using his real name so it wasn’t like Roger was the only one. They were meeting in Richmond and Roger had no idea, as yet, who the targets of the kidnapping would be. So if Roger did object, he wouldn’t be able to give the plan away.

  Roger’d been thinking about it for a long time though, and it was starting to put Jamieson on edge. He slid his hand surreptitiously into the cargo pocket on his pants to lightly grasp his Taser.

  Then Roger tilted his chair back forward and said, “You’ll need a panel van without any windows. We can hang foil over any other openings from the front to the back. That’ll block all the GPS signals. Then if they have any tracking devices on them, they won’t know where they are.”

  Jamieson narrowed his eyes, “I was just going to strip ‘em naked and toss their clothes.”

  Roger shrugged, “That’d work, if they didn’t have a security team or if their security is actually as bad as you think it is. But if you’re wrong, the security team’ll be tracking you until you dump the woman and the kid’s stuff. If that security team gets a drone up in a hurry, they might have ‘eyes on’ before you get them out of their clothes, purses, backpacks, and other stuff and stop to toss all that crap out. Besides, now you’re going to be driving around with a couple of naked people in a vehicle with windows? And…”

  Jamieson waved his hands to stop the litany, “Yeah, yeah, no problem. We’ve got to have a vehicle, no reason for it not to be a panel van. You can be in charge of that part of the prep. You in?”

  Roger gave him a predatory look, “Kidnapping’s a capital offense. I’m not getting on board for the offer you’ve made. I’ll need more up front and more on the back end.”

  Irritated, Jamieson didn’t say anything for about 20 seconds. But Roger was the best guy he knew of for this job. And he’d already earmarked a million for expenses. He nodded, “I’ll double it.”

  Roger grinned, “Triple it.”

  Jamieson thought back to how he himself had kept raising the price on Wang. Rather than negotiate further, he just said okay.

  ***

  Shan was pouring his breakfast cereal when his AI said, “You have a call from Agnetha Olssen in Stockholm.”

  Not knowing anyone in Sweden, Shan blinked in surprise. After a moment’s hesitation, he said, “I’ll take it… Hello, this is Shannon Kinrais.”

  A woman’s voice said, “Hello Dr. Kinrais I am Agnetha Olssen, calling for the
Nobel selection committee in physics. I am pleased to tell you that the committee has chosen your paper regarding the galactic rotation paradox as the recipient for this year’s Prize.”

  Shan grabbed the back of one of their kitchen chairs, pulling it out and dropping unsteadily into it. “Um, really?”

  “Yes Dr. Kinrais. We’ll be sending your invitation to the ceremonies by mail as well as electronically. I hope that you don’t have any major conflict for early December?”

  “Um, no, I’m… sure I can reschedule any commitments I may have. Um, will my co-author be getting a similar notification?”

  “Yes, I’ll be calling her as soon as we’re done.”

  A moment later the call had been disconnected. Ell looked up from her eggs, “What’s up? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Or like you’ve heard one, I guess.”

  Feeling a little lightheaded, Shan choked out a little laugh, “Yeah, Alfred’s ghost.”

  Ell frowned curiously, “Alfred?”

  Trying to play it off as if it was no big deal, Shan gave a casual wave and said, “Alfred Nobel, you know, that guy?”

  Ell lifted an eyebrow, “The K-D paper?”

  “Don’t you go trying to act all casual on me!”

  Ell lifted a finger for a pause as she got her own call from Agnetha Olssen. Once she’d disconnected, she said, “Well, that’s nice.”

  Shan rolled his eyes, “‘That’s nice’ she says. Just because she already has a Peace Prize and a Prize in physics. No big deal for her.” He made another casual wave of his hand, “Hell, she’s practically rolling in them!”

  Ell grinned at him and put another forkful of eggs in her mouth. With her other hand she made a “come on” motion as if inviting him to heap more abuse on her.

  Shan stepped over to her, pulled her to her feet, threw his arms around her and danced her around the kitchen. In her ear, he whispered, “This may not be a big deal to you, but it’s a big deal to me! Spit out those eggs… Your Nobel Prize-winning husband is taking you out to breakfast!”