Darwin's Radio d-1

by Greg Bear

  “I do,” Mitch said.

  “Tell me what’s going to happen,” Daney said. “Are they going to release their findings about the mummies?”

  “They are,” Brock said. “They are going to claim contamination, that the mummies are in fact not related. The Nean-dertals are going to be labeled Homo sapiens alpinensis, and the infant is going to be sent to Italy for study by other specialists.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Mitch said.

  “Yes, and they will not get away with this pretense forever, but for the next few years, the conservatives, the hardliners, will rule. They will mete out information at will, to those they trust not to rock the boat, to agree with them, like zealous scholars defending the Dead Sea Scrolls. They are hoping to see their careers through without having to deal with a revolution that would topple both them and their views.”

  “Incredible,” Daney said.

  “No, human , and we all study the human, no? Was not our female injured by someone who didn’t want her baby to be born?”

  “We don’t know that,” Mitch said.

  “I know that,” Brock said. “I reserve my own irrational domains of belief, if only to defend myself against the zealots. Is this not the sequence that you dream, in some form or another, as if we have these events buried in our very blood?”

  Mitch nodded.

  “Perhaps this was the original sin of our kind, that our Neandertal ancestors wished to stop progress, hold on to their unique position…By killing the new children.

  Those who would become us. Now we do the same thing, perhaps?”

  Daney shook his head, quietly growling. Mitch observed this with some interest, then turned to Brock. “You must have examined the DNA results,” he said. “It must be available for criticism by others.”

  Brock reached down by his seat and brought up a briefcase. He tapped it meaningfully. “I have all the material here, on DVD-ROM, massive graphics files, tabulations, the results from different labs around the world. Oliver and I are going to make it available on the Web, announce the coverup, and let the chips fall where they may.”

  “What we’d really like to do is make this relevant in the broadest way imaginable,” Merton added. “We’d like to present conclusive evidence that evolution is knocking on our door again.”

  Mitch bit his lip, thinking this over. “Have you talked with Christopher Dicken?”

  “He told me he can’t help me,” Merton said.

  This shook Mitch. “Last time I spoke with him, he seemed enthusiastic, even gung ho,” Mitch said.

  “He’s had a change of heart,” Merton said. “We need to bring Dr. Lang onboard. I think I can convince some of the University of Washington people, certainly Dr. Konig and Dr. Packer, perhaps even an evolutionary biologist or two.”

  Daney nodded enthusiastically.

  Merton turned to Mitch. His lips straightened, and he cleared his throat. “Your look says you don’t approve?”

  “We can’t exactly go at this like we were college freshmen in a debating society.”

  “I thought you were a rough-and-tumble fellow,” Merton said archly.

  “Wrong,” Mitch said. “I love it smooth and by the book. It’s life that’s rough-and-tumble.”

  Daney grinned. “Well put. Myself, I love to be on the ground floor.”

  “How’s that?” Merton asked.

  “This is a marvelous opportunity,” Daney said. “I’d like to find a willing woman and bring one of these new people into my family.”

  For a long moment, neither Merton, Brock, nor Mitch could find the right words to reply.

  “Interesting idea,” Merton said quietly, and glanced quickly at Mitch, eyebrow raised.

  “If we try to kick up a storm outside the castle, we might close more doors than we open,” Brock admitted.

  “Mitch,” Merton said, subdued, “tell us, then, how should we go about this…more by the book?”

  “We put together a group of true experts,” Mitch said, and thought intently for a moment. “Packer and Maria Konig make a fine start. We recruit from their colleagues and contacts — the geneticists and molecular biologists at the University of Washington, NIH, and half a dozen other universities, research centers. Oliver, you probably know whom I’m referring to…maybe better than I do.”

  “The more progressive evolutionary biologists,” Merton said, and then frowned, as if that might be an oxymoron. “Right now, that’s pretty well limited to molecular biologists and a select few paleontologists, like Jay Niles.”

  “I know only conservatives,” Brock said. “I have been drinking coffee with the wrong crowd in Innsbruck.”

  “We need a scientific foundation,” Mitch said. “An overwhelming quorum of respected scientists.”

  “That’ll take weeks, even months,” Merton said. “Everyone has careers to protect.”

  “What if we fund more research in the private sector?” Daney said.

  “That’s where Mr. Daney could be helpful,” Merton said, looking from beneath shaggy red eyebrows at their host. “You have the resources to put together a first-class conference, and that’s just what we need now. Counter the public pronouncements from the Taskforce.”

  Daney’s expression dimmed. “How much would that cost? Hundreds of thousands, or millions?”

  “The former rather than the latter, I suspect,” Merton said with a chuckle.

  Daney gave them a troubled glance. “That much money, and I’ll have to ask Mother,” he said.

  59

  The National Institutes of Health, Bethesda

  ”I let her go,” Dr. Lipton said, sitting down behind her desk. “I let them all go. The head of clinic research said we had enough information to make our patient recommendations and bring the experiments to a halt.”

  Kaye stared at her, dumfounded. “You just…let them out of the clinic, to go home?”

  Lipton nodded, jaw lightly dimpled. “It wasn’t my call, Kaye. But I have to agree. We were beyond our ethical limits.”

  “What if they need help at home?”

  Lipton looked down at the desk. “We advised them that their infants were likely to be born with severe defects, and that they would not survive. We referred them to outpatient treatment at their nearest hospitals. We’re picking up all their expenses, even if there are complications. Especially if there are complications. They’re all within the period of efficacy.”

  “They’re taking RU-486?”

  “It’s their choice.”

  “It isn’t policy, Denise.”

  “I know that. Six of the women asked for the opportunity. They wanted to abort. At that point, we can’t continue.”

  “Did you tell them — ?”

  “Kaye, our guidelines are crystal clear. If there’s a judgment that the infants could endanger the mother’s health, we give them the means to terminate. I support their freedom to choose.”

  “Of course, Denise, but…” Kaye turned around, examining the familiar office, the charts, the pictures of fetuses at different stages of development. “I can’t believe this.”

  “Augustine asked us to hold off giving them the RU-486 until a clear policy could be established. But the head of clinical research calls the shots.”

  “All right,” Kaye said. “Who didn’t ask for the drug?”

  “Luella Hamilton,” Lipton said. “She took it with her, promised to check in with her pediatrician regularly, but she did not take it under our supervision.”

  “It’s over, then?”

  “We’ve pulled our finger out of the pie,” Lipton said softly. “We don’t have a choice. Ethically, politically, we’re going to get hit whatever we do. We chose ethics and support for our patients. If it were today, however…We have new orders from the secretary of Health and Human Services. No recommendations to abort and no dispensing of RU-486. We got out of the baby business just under the wire.”

  “I don’t have Mrs. Hamilton’s home address or phone number,” Kaye sai
d.

  “You won’t get it from me, either. She has a right to privacy.” Lipton stared at her. “Don’t go outside the system, Kaye.”

  “I think the system is going to eject me any minute now,” Kaye said. “Thanks, Denise.”

  60

  New York

  On the train to Albany, surrounded by the musty smells of passengers, sun-warmed fabric, disinfectant, plastic, Mitch sank into his seat. He felt as if he had just escaped from Wonderland. Daney’s enthusiasm for bringing a “new person” into the family both fascinated and frightened him. The human race had grown so cerebral, and had assumed so much control of its biology, that this unexpected and ancient form of reproduction, of creating variety in the species, could be stopped in its tracks, or engaged in as if it were some kind of game.

  He stared out the window at small towns, forests of young trees, bigger towns with gray expanses of warehouses, factories dull and dirty and productive.

  61

  Americol Headquarters, Baltimore

  Kaye picked up the papers she had ordered from Medline through the library, twenty copies each of eight different papers, all neatly collated. She shook her head and skimmed one of the folios as she boarded the elevator.

  She took an additional five minutes going through the security checkpoints on the tenth floor. Agents waved wands, scanned her photo ID, and then passed sniffers over her hands and purse. Finally, the head of the vice president’s Secret Service detail asked for someone inside the executive dining room to vouch for her. Dicken emerged, said that he knew her, and she entered the dining room fifteen minutes into the meeting.

  “You’re late,” Dicken whispered.

  “Caught in traffic. Did you know they’ve ended the special study?”

  Dicken nodded. “They’re dancing around each other now, trying to avoid making any commitments. Nobody wants to take the blame for anything.”

  Kaye saw the vice president sitting near the front, the science advisor beside him. The room held at least four Secret Service agents, which made her glad Benson had stayed outside.

  Soft drinks, fruit, crackers, cheese, and vegetables had been set out on a table at the back, but no one was eating. The vice president clutched a can of Pepsi.

  As Dicken led Kaye to a folding chair on the left side of the room, Frank Shawbeck finished a briefing on the findings of the NIH studies.

  “That took just five minutes,” Dicken whispered to Kaye.

  Shawbeck tapped his papers on the lectern, stepped aside, and Mark Augustine walked forward. He leaned on the lectern.

  “Dr. Lang is here,” he announced neutrally. “Let’s move on to social issues. We have suffered twelve major riots across the U.S. Most seem to have been triggered by announcements that we are going to pass out free RU-486. No such plans were ever completed, but they were of course under discussion.”

  “None of these drugs are illegal,” Cross said irritably. She sat to the right of the VP. “Mr. Vice President, I invited the senate majority leader to attend this meeting, and he declined. I will not be held responsible for—”

  “Please, Marge,” Augustine said. “We’ll air our grievances in a few minutes.”

  “Sorry,” Cross said, and folded her arms. The vice president glanced over his shoulder, surveyed the audience. His eye fell on Kaye and he seemed troubled for a moment, then turned again to face front.

  “The U.S. is not alone in having to deal with civil unrest,” Augustine continued. “We’re heading toward a social disaster of major proportions. Plainly speaking, the general public does not understand what is going on. They react according to gut instincts, or according to the dictates of demagogues. Pat Robertson, bless him, has already recommended that God blast Washington, D.C., with Hell’s hottest fires if the Taskforce is allowed to go ahead with RU-486 testing. He’s not alone. There’s a real likelihood that the public will knock around until they find something, anything, more palatable than the truth, and then they’ll flock behind that banner, and it’s likely to have a religious aspect, and science will go right out the window.”

  “Amen,” Cross said. Nervous laughter rippled through the small audience. The VP did not smile.

  “This meeting was scheduled three days ago,” Augustine continued. “The events of yesterday and today make it even more urgent that we keep our ducks in a row.”

  Kaye thought she could see where this was going. She looked for Robert Jackson and located him seated behind Cross. He angled his head, and his eyes swung left for the briefest moment, looking right at her. Kaye felt her face grow hot.

  “This is about me,” she whispered to Dicken.

  “Don’t be arrogant,” Dicken warned. “We’re all here to eat a little crow today.”

  “We’re already tabling the research on RU-486 and what has very loosely, and in very bad taste, been labeled RU-Pen-tium,” Augustine said. “Dr. Jackson.”

  Jackson stood. “Preclinical trials show no efficacy by any of our vaccines or ribozyme inhibitors against newly located strains of SHEVA, loosely referred to as SHEVA-X. We have reason to believe that all new incidents of Herod’s in the last three months can be attributed to lateral infection by SHEVA-X, which may come in at least nine different varieties, all with different coat glycoproteins. We can’t target the LPC messenger RNA in the cytoplasm because our current ri-bozymes do not recognize the mutated form. In short, we’re dead in the water on a vaccine. We probably won’t come up with alternatives for six more months.”

  He sat down again.

  Augustine pressed his fingers together symmetrically, making a flexible polygon. The room was silent for a long interval, absorbing the news and its implications. “Dr. Phillips.”

  Gary Phillips, science advisor to the president, stood and approached the lectern. “The president wishes me to convey his appreciation. We had hoped for so much more, but no research effort in any other nation has done better than the NIH and the CDC Taskforce. We have to realize we face an extremely clever and versatile opponent, and we have to speak with one voice, with resolve, to avoid pushing our nation into anarchy. That is why I have listened to Dr. Robert Jackson and to Mark Augustine. Our situation now is very sensitive, publicly sensitive, and they tell me there is a potentially divisive disagreement between some members of the Taskforce, especially within the Americol contingent.”

  “Not a split,” Jackson said acidly. “A schism”

  “Dr. Lang, I have been informed you do not share some of the opinions expressed by Dr. Jackson and Mark Augustine. Could you please express and clarify your point of view now, so that we may judge them?”

  Kaye sat in shock for a few seconds, then stood up and managed to say, “I don’t believe a fair hearing can be given now, sir. I am apparently the only person in this room whose opinion differs from the official statement you’re obviously preparing.”

  “We need solidarity, but we need to be fair,” the science advisor said. “I’ve read your papers on HERV, Ms. Lang. Your work was seminal and brilliant. You could very well be nominated for a Nobel prize. Your disagreements have to be listened to, and we’re prepared to listen. I regret nobody has the luxury of sufficient time. I wish we did.”

  He motioned for her to come forward. Kaye walked to the lectern. Phillips stepped aside.

  “I’ve expressed my opinions in numerous conversations with Dr. Dicken, and in one conversation with Ms. Cross and Dr. Jackson,” Kaye said. “This morning, I put together a folder of supporting articles, some of them my own, and evidence gleaned from studies in the Human Genome Project, evolutionary biology, even paleontology.” She opened her briefcase and handed the stack of folders to Nilson, who passed them to her left.

  “I do not yet have the conclusive linchpin that holds my theories together,” Kaye continued, then sipped from a cup of water handed to her by Augustine. “Scientific evidence from the Innsbruck mummies has not yet been released to the public.”

  Jackson rolled his eyes.

  “I d
o have preliminary reports on evidence gathered by Dr. Dicken in Turkey and the Republic of Georgia—”

  She spoke for twenty minutes, focusing on specifics and on her work with transposable elements and HERV-DL3. She came to an uncertain close by describing her successful search for different versions of the LPC on the same day she heard from Jackson that mutations in SHEVA had been located. “I believe SHEVA-X is a backup or alternate response to the failure of initial lateral transmissions to produce viable children. Second-stage pregnancies induced by SHEVA-X will not be open to herpes viral interference. They will produce healthy and viable infants. I have no direct evidence for this; no such infants have been born that I’m aware of. But I doubt we’ll have to wait long. We should be prepared.”

  Kaye was surprised that she had spoken as coherently as she had, yet she was miserably aware she could not possibly succeed in turning the tide. Augustine watched her closely, with some admiration, she thought, and he gave her a quick smile.

  “Thank you, Dr. Lang,” Phillips said. “Questions?”

  Frank Shawbeck raised his hand. “Does Dr. Dicken support your conclusions?”

  Dicken stepped forward. “I did for a time. Recent evidence convinced me I was wrong.”

  “What evidence?” Jackson called out. Augustine waggled his finger in warning, but allowed the question.

  “I believe SHEVA is mutating as a disease organism mutates,” Dicken said. “Nothing convinces me it is not acting as a human pathogen.”

  “Isn’t it true, Dr. Lang, that previous supposedly noninfec-tious forms of HERV have been associated with some kinds of tumors?” Shawbeck asked.

  “Yes, sir. But they’re also expressed in noninfectious form in many other tissues, including placenta. We only now have the opportunity to understand the many roles these endogenous retroviruses may play.”

  “We don’t understand why they are in our genome, in our tissues, do we, Dr. Lang?” Augustine asked.

  “Until now, we knew of no theory that could explain their presence.”