by Geoff Ryman
They sit up and turn and smile, delighted. There is the woman with the green teeth and the wide happy eyes. There is the young boy, with hair down the middle of his back and he is happy too. They all are happy.
In some other time, someone else is shouting, Keep Well! Keep Well! Keep Well! It is a fervent hope.
The Bees all exclaim in triumph, pointing in unison at me.
'Cancer!' they cry, like birds.
chapter seventeen
TERMINAL
(LOVE SICKNESS)
If cancer did not swim in the same sea as us, we might admire it, as we admire sharks. We might admire its simplicity and fitness for purpose, its lethal beauty.
Cancer is a disruption of the process of growth. Some cancer cells produce their own growth hormone, giving themselves the signal to divide and multiply. Others increase the number of growth hormone receptors on the membrane of the cell, or duplicate the internal message bearers that carry the command to grow. They do not respond to messages of overcrowding from other cells. They need blood to feed and so they secrete proteins that induce the body to grow new blood vessels for them.
They do not need to be firmly attached to the intercellular matrix, as normal cells do. They can split off from the main tumour, float freely in the bloodstream and find new sites to grow. Cancers are a disfunction of what is called differentiation. They do not mature into fully functioning blood or bone or muscle or skin cells — they are not differentiated. When they find a new site, in different kinds of tissue, they can grow there too. They can spread. The word for that is metastasis. The word for that is malignant.
And, cancers are immortal. Normal cells stop dividing after between fifty and one hundred and fifty times. Normal cells senesce. Cancer cells go on growing.
Before the Revolution, in the world of the very rich and the very poor, something terrible had happened. Through some alteration of genes in DNA viruses, there were new strains of cancer that spread with the ease and speed of the common cold. New DNA was inserted in proto-oncogenes, which altered their function. Sometimes as soon as two weeks after infection, tumours began to grow with an almost choreographed dexterity, spinning off and landing with both feet firmly in other tissues.
A final cure for cancer became a matter of shrieking urgency.
Cancers disrupt key genes in the chromosomes. These genes are called proto-oncogenes. They code for proteins that are involved in growth or differentiation or certain kinds of cell structuring. Genetic material might be added to them — as when retroviruses introduce new genetic material. Genetic material might be taken away from them, as when they are irradiated. They might suffer an accident in reproduction where their order is reversed, or they are translocated among other gene sequences.
Proto-oncogenes are normal. When disrupted by addition, subtraction or alteration, they can become oncogenes — genes that are involved in cancer.
All possible proto-oncogenes had been identified. A final cure for all the cancers would be something that would protect these key genes from any kind of genetic change.
The DNA spiral is made of alternating phosphates and sugar. Between them are rungs, like rungs of a ladder, made of nucleic acids. The answer was to coat the rungs themselves in sugars and phosphates — and reinforce the helices of DNA.
The sugar-coated genes were protected against attempts to add new genetic material to them. They were firmly bound to a reinforced spiral and would not be broken and replaced out of sequence. Radiation or chemicals did not remove genetic material from them. They were able to communicate with reverse transcriptase and mRNA. The communication was one-way. They were inviolate to change, locked in sugar.
People called the cure Candy. Engineered retroviruses inserted Candy genes into all cells of the body — including germ cells. Candy became part of human genetic inheritance.
Cloned tumour-suppressants cured the existing cancers. Cancer disappeared. The capacity for cancers disappeared. So did the proteins they secreted.
Cancers had been of unsuspected benefit. They secreted anti-senescence proteins in large amounts of very low molecular weight. The proteins entered other cells easily.
Cancers delayed senescence of other cells. Small, premalignant lesions prolonged human life to its accustomed span. Without cancer, the span of human life was halved.
Attempts to duplicate the anti-senescence proteins produced only localised effects. Only patches of tissue responded.
And the proto-oncogenes and the Candy genes were locked safely behind a wall of sugar.
Bees admired cancer, as we would admire flowers; for their life, for their beauty. For them, it burned like a white light. They could feel its escape from order as a break for freedom by individual cells.
They followed Milena, entranced.
'It sings,' they would sigh.
'Milena! You are a Garden!' they would call to her. 'Full of flowers!'
The Bees followed Milena to St Thomas's Hospital, to the Cancer Wards where she was tested. They followed her when she was summoned to the Reading Rooms, under the purple forest on Marsham Street. Milena was Terminal and she kept asking the Consensus as she approached it: what have you got to tell me? The Consensus stayed silent.
Milena remembered waiting in the white brick rooms and thinking: all the bad things in my life happen here.
The door opened and in came Root, the Terminal.
Root stared at Milena, her shoulders slumped. She kept shaking her head. Root the voluble did not know how to begin. 'Oh, child,' she said. From down the corridor came the sound of a garden full of children; the guitars, the kazoos, the clapping hands, and the singing of ten year olds waiting to join the world.
'You got cancer,' Root said finally, held up her hands and let them drop.
Milena looked at the white bricks and the bare electric light. 'How?' she asked, 'How is that possible? Cancer's dead, cancer's gone.'
'You got no Candy,' said Root. She came to Milena, who was sitting on the only chair, and knelt at her feet. She picked up Milena's hand. 'You can play around with genes, love, like you was thinking with them. You kept trying till you found a gene that made a new kind of transcriptase. It went to the rungs, and dissolved the sugar round them.'
'No I didn't,' said Milena, pulling away her hand.
'You didn't know.' Root's mouth formed the word like a kiss. 'You didn't know you was doing it.' Root tried to reach up and stroke her head. Milena leaned away. 'We're like a huge ocean, with a leaky boat on top. The boat is all we know of ourselves. The rest is underneath.'
'This is nonsense,' said Milena, and tried to stand, but Root was resting across her lap.
'No, love, it's not.' Root's face was suffused with love for her. 'You broke Candy, and then so we could see, you changed your genes so the cancer came back. Like you were flying flags of joy, saying Here? See? Milena! You brought the cancer back so that all of us can live!'
Milena succeeded in pushing Root away from her. She stood up, and walked away as if she could escape from what had happened.
'Because of you, we can all get old again!' Root said. 'We'll see our children grow!'
'I don't want people to get old!' exclaimed Milena, her back towards Root. 'And I hate children. So why would I do something like that, eh? Eh?'
'We can copy the new gene you made. We can put it in new retroviruses, we can cure everyone!'
'After what happened the last time?' Milena found her two fists were clenched together in rage and were shaking at Root. 'You're still going to muck around after what happened last time! Who knows, maybe you'll kill everyone off straight away, this time!' She was shouting. She turned back around, and hugged herself. 'What's going to happen to me?'
She heard Root rustle up from her feet and swish her way towards her. She felt the warm, plump hands on her shoulder. She was turned around and enveloped in the fatty tissues of Root's arms and breasts.
'Oh Milena, love, don't be worry, don't be fear. We got the genes that shut off th
e new blood vessels, we got the genes that stop the growing. We'll give you those, we'll make you well!'
'Will you make me like Lucy, too?' asked Milena, as cold as ice, and pushed Root away again.
'We don't know,' said Root, shaking her head.
'I don't want to be like Lucy!' Here was a new dark terror. To grow so old that you understood nothing of the world, except that everything and everyone you loved was dead. Milena's fingers were dug into her hair.
'Sssh. Sssh. If you don't want it, then you won't be. With what you can do? You can change your cells, move things round, cut, splice. Nothing will happen that you don't want to. You're Milena, who is immune.'
'What cancers? What cancers do I have?'
Root looked helpless.
'Well tell me!'
'All of them,' said Root very quietly. 'All of them we ever knew of.'
The room seemed to hiss all around them, as if the walls were leaking air.
The merry viruses had already known where she was ailing. The merry viruses began to roll off a list.
Skin — squamous epithelium, basal, and pigment cells — squamous and basal carcinoma, malignant melanoma
Alimentary tract — squamous epithelium of lips, mouth, tongue, oesophagus — squamous carcinoma
Alimentary tract — columnar epithelium of stomach, small bowel, large bowel — carcinoma
Milena found she was chuckling.
'Isn't that a bit excessive?' she said, shaking her head. 'Wouldn't one have been enough?'
No, replied the merry viruses. The whole balance had to be restored. All the cancers had to be brought back.
'We'll be with you, love, all of us.' said Root, dismayed. 'The Terminals, the Angels, we'll be with you all the time, helping you fight, singing in your blood.
Nasopharynx, larynx and lungs — bronchial epithelium — carcinoma
'I hope cancer likes music,' said Milena. She was shaking, as if with laughter. She found that her hands were on her face, feeling the flesh. There were pimples on her nose.
'Oh, Milena, if only you knew how much we all love you for this.'
'That sure makes all the difference,' said Milena. 'I used to wonder why those Mayan maidens let themselves be thrown over the edge of cliffs. Now I know. Everyone loved them for it.'
'No one's throwing you over a cliff. You're going to get well!' Root exclaimed in anguish.
Urinary system including bladder — urothelium cells — carcinoma
'Yah,' said Milena.
'You have to believe you are,' said Root, warning her.
Solid epithelial organs — epithelial cells of liver, kidney, thyroid, pancreas, pituitary, etc — carcinoma
'Shut down!' Milena said to the viruses, to make them still. It was the viruses that would have told her the meaning of each gene, the function of each protein so that she could change them. There was a kind of hiccup, but the list kept scrolling up through her mind. Part of her wanted to know.
'So how are you going to cure me?' she demanded.
'First, you move into the hospital, St Thomas's. You live there, you and Mr Stone, he's pregnant, it's good for him, too. Then we start, site by site. We cut off the new blood supply. Then we have the retroviruses that infect the tumours with growth inhibitor. They start to regress.'
'How long before I'm well?'
Root looked helpless again. 'We're out of practice with cancer.'
'You don't know.'
Root shook her head.
Milena began to feel sick and weak in her stomach. She needed to sit down. She dropped back down onto the one chair.
'I want to see the baby,' Milena said. Already life had bargained her down. 'I never thought I would have a child, and I want to see her. I want to finish the Comedy. We've only got backgrounds for two of the books! I want to go up again and finish the Comedy!'
'And you will,' said Root, going a little harder. 'You'll do all those things and more.'
'If I the and if Mike dies, then the baby will be an orphan. Just exactly what I didn't want her to be!'
'You are not going to the. Why do you think we asked you here? The Doctors, me, the Consensus, we've got it all planned, exactly how you're going to get well.'
Milena looked up at her, bleakly. I've done it again, she thought.
I've done exactly what the Consensus wanted. I don't even have to think.
Milena felt an undertow. It was as if she had something dark inside her, pulling her down. It was larger than she was and had different interests. Life had wanted cancer back, all of life, the ocean within her that was part of her but which she did not know and could not control. Milena began to be afraid.
Milena went up and Milena came down and Milena gave the world cancer. Hop skip and jump.
'I could go to Antarctica,' she said. 'I could go to Antarctica and I wouldn't be free.'
'You take on too much,' said Root, her lips heavy as if with sadness. 'You always nipping about the place. It was like that with cancer. It always took the ones who did for everyone else. When they went, other people didn't know how they could go on. Well, you going to have to let other people take care of you now, Milena. I know you don't like it. You have to let yourself be the child, now.'
Milena was bullied by sympathy. She let Root keep hold of her hand.
'Come on,' said Root, patting her arm. 'Come on, love, let's get you home, let's get you home and talk to Mr Stone. We're going to fight this thing and we're going to win.'
Central nervous system whispered the viruses. The list continued.
Outside, the Bees were gathered.
Their faces were rigid, caught in a rigour of ecstasy, washed in waves of thought. The forest of the Consensus rose up huge around them, dazzling them with the processes of photosynthesis and elimination. Beneath their feet, the thought patterns of over one million people pulsed.
The Bees were dazzled by it. Tears streamed out of their faces and they clutched each other's hands.
'Milena,' they all whispered, like trees blown in a wind. They were caught up in the patterns of the forest of flesh. They were a forest of flesh. They wore curtains of vine leaves grown out of themselves. They were sheltered by a canopy of leaves growing out of their backs. People were becoming more and more like plants.
'Milena. Milena Shibush,' the Bees whispered over and over in love. 'Garden.'
They grew fruit out of themselves, heavy human fruit full of human sugars. They grew roses. The rose was a symbol of Milena. It was a symbol of the cancer. The Bees loved them both. They formed a wall of love in front of her, transfixed, trembling under the skin. The tears on their faces tremored slightly as they crept down their cheeks.
Milena stood facing them. 'They keep following me,' she said in despair. 'Go on, move,' said Root to them.
The Bees tried to shuffle, but it was as if their feet had taken root in the soil. Much longer, and they would take root, growing tender white shoots into the earth, as if from seedling potatoes.
'Part!' shouted Root. 'Like the Red Sea! Move!' Root advanced, holding Milena's hand. Root drew her hand back to strike.
'Please,' whispered Milena.
There was a great rustling. It was as if the ocean parted. Slowly at fist with the sound of many leaves shifting, hissing like the sound of surf, a passage began to clear. The wall split open with gathering speed, a cleft penetrating deeper into the mass of Bees. As if something had been sparked by the movement, the Bees came awake. They began to sing in joy.
Milena Shibush
Milena Cancer
Cancer Cancer
Cancer Shibush
Shibush Flower
Flower Cancer
Flower Flower
Cancer Flower
The wall of love became a wall of voices. Milena moved dazed through the shadows cast by the vines and the leaves that grew out of the human backs of the Bees.
It rained flowers. The Bees tore them from their backs and threw them. The human roses fell over Milena, leaking cl
ear sap. The flowers were caught by human thorns in her hair. Milena moved through the Bees and the wall of human hands.
Milena moved into the sunlight, onto the steps of the Consensus. As if she pulled them by wires, the Bees were dragged after her, still singing. They followed her down the steps.
Flower Cancer
Flower Shibush
Shibush Flower
'I hate that,' said Milena. At once, the song was cut off, like a thread.
On Marsham Street people were running. They ran towards the Consensus and the tumult of the Bees. They ran away from it, bearing news. Boys in the uniform of the Estate School shouted to each other. They swung down from the scaffoldings. Tykes still carrying laundry baskets stumbled down stairs and into the street.
Cancer, the people said, cancer.
A woman was leaning out of a window and a boy was shouting up to her. 'They say the cancer has come back!' A horsecart was reined to a halt. 'What's that?' the driver called as if in alarm.
Bells began to ring over and over, in no pattern at all.
'We got to get you out of this,' said Root, and gave Milena's hand a quick tug. She led them down the remaining steps and into the gathering crowd.
Transfixed, the Bees followed, gathering up people in front of them like a steam shovel. The crowd swirled, clotted, trying to change direction, trying to avoid the Bees, trying to avoid the sickness and the thorns.
'The Garda are coming!' said Root, and hauled Milena forward.
A man in an apron stained with green grease seized Milena by the shoulders. 'Cancer's back!' he roared with joy.
'It's true!' someone shouted down from a window. 'I'm Terminal and I've just been told. It's true!'
There was cheer from all along the street.
'Move!' shouted Root at the man in the apron. His face went blank. Root pushed him out of the way.
Milena stumbled forward. She felt sick. Her knees suddenly gave way. Root scooped her up in her arms and carried her. Milena's head fell backwards and she looked up.
There was a sound overhead, as if the air had become wood.