Primal Estate: The Candidate Species

by Samuel Franklin

  “Why have you not learned anything from noticing that your species originated in the tropics? You are a warm weather animal, as are we. You would be almost free of chronic disease if only you lived in an environment consistent with what that animal requires.”

  “Do you mean we need to live in the tropics?” Rick inquired, genuinely believing he should assume he knows nothing.

  “You need to create, both inside and out, an environment that comes as close as possible to the one in which your species evolved. By doing this, you give all your processes their best chance at maintaining homeostasis, at living the culture they were born to live. You cannot expect to remain healthy otherwise.”

  “But some people just have genes that cause them to have a disease. What about genetic predisposition?” Rick inquired, repeating a commonly held belief to see what kind of response he’d get. A conversation about genetics could lead to information regarding flaws of both humans and the Provenger.

  “Do you actually think that millions of years of evolution weren’t able to identify errors or weaknesses in your genetic makeup? Quite the contrary. Millions of years were spent eliminating weakness to the environment in which you thrived as they popped up. That time was spent adapting you to a specific environmental set, from the surface of your skin to the DNA in your cells. The genetic trait that you think you see giving someone a chronic disease is actually a gene’s reaction to an environment that has stretched its adaptability to the limit. The body enters survival mode; it gets desperate. There is always an exception to this, damaged genetic code, for instance, but this situation is the extreme exception.”

  “But humans have evolved to live in a huge variety of places. Isn’t the ability to adapt one of our greatest…adaptations?” Rick asked. Maybe he could get Syrjon to start talking about where the Provenger originated.

  “Most organisms have that ability. But if the environment changes too quickly, things will go wrong. The ability of the organism to leverage adaptability is limited. For instance, in your culture you were born and raised to attend backyard barbeques. Imagine how you would do if I invited you to a Provenger dinner party. Would you feel awkward? Would you express yourself, in an attempt to survive the situation, in a way you were meant to behave? Suppose we started tearing into a human corpse roasted on a spit. Would you sip your gin and tonic and make polite conversation?

  “I doubt it. You would not behave well by your standards, or ours. In fact, you wouldn’t even know what your standards are in that particular situation. You would be completely out of touch with what is normal. If we invited ten of your friends to that same situation, we would get a large variety of behaviors. Some people would get violent, some would act normal, and others would faint.

  “In other words, some would appear normal, and others would express opposite extremes. But all those people would be under extreme stress. Your cells and their genes are no different when you put them in an extreme environment. In fact, Rick, you have no idea how similar people are to genes. You commonly hold both people and genes responsible for their decisions, when usually these decisions, in both cases, are made precisely due to the subtle input of the surrounding environment. With people, you call it free will. With genes, you call it epigenetics.

  “We have introduced foods to your culture with the intent of purposely pushing these limits of behavior. We wanted you to populate your Earth at a specific rate without advancing your technology too rapidly. To achieve this rate, we needed you to become slightly less productive intellectually and creatively, and not live too long, thereby preventing you from more effectively building on the accomplishments of you predecessors. Wheat served this purpose exquisitely. It is a plant product that you didn’t evolve with and is not a human food.”

  Syrjon checked some readings on his monitor.

  “For example, humans were meant to live in a certain range of air temperature. They create that temperature wherever they go by using clothes. They take their environment with them. But if they were to live in the appropriate temperature water, they would certainly die. Your bodies are not designed to deal with the constant influence of water. Imagine the slow and chronic ailments that would follow; follow until death resulted. It would be truly horrific. Your skin would soak and blister, things nurtured from water would begin growing on it, in it. Infections and disorders of all kinds would result.

  “This is what is happening inside humans. Your skin needs the environment of air for health. Your intestines also need the environment that your species has evolved with. But we have put wheat in your bellies. We have created a foreign environment. You have not recognized it, and you suffer grievously for it.”

  While Syrjon was talking, Rick shifted in his seat and slightly raised his hand like he might make a comment. He didn’t know how much time he had, and this old-timer just wouldn’t let him get a word in.

  “You have more foreign cells in your intestine in the form of bacteria than you do in your entire body. If you feed them correctly, you are in symbiosis, and they help you. If you feed them incorrectly, you are fostering an adversarial environment. Kill them with insecticides or antibiotics and you’ve leveled the greatest city of your metabolic society.”

  “But when...” Rick tried.

  “The body’s cells are similar to people in how they survive. They are social. The lone person in your pre-history, living and hunting in isolation, was an anomaly predicated, no doubt, only by some catastrophe. The human cell works in the same manner. Alone it would perish. Working together with other cells, it can be a part of great accomplishments.”

  “…when the Provenger…”

  “When confronted by some new environment that is foreign or less than optimal, the cells have to make decisions. Human DNA is incredibly adaptable in this respect. When confronted with a challenge, the genes will make decisions taking cues from that environment. These decisions lead to action. They make different tools, communicate new terms to the cells and organs around them. Then those cells and organs experience an environmental change and respond accordingly. It creates a cascade effect with multiple feedback loops. They act differently; their culture changes.”

  “Well, that sounds like adaptation, not disease,” replied Rick.

  “When pushed to the extreme, it is the process of chronic disease. Keep in mind that the environment we are talking about, your intestines, the digestive system, is the place where you absorb the nutrients that make everything work. Compromise that environment, and you compromise the source material and energy for all other systems. It is the single most important system of your body for ongoing health. Continually demand that your body perform within an adverse environment, and it will start making compromises, mistakes. It will initiate a triage to the detriment of certain organs. Anywhere in this process, a reoccurrence of the old, friendlier environment will return the organism and the cells to their natural, healthy, rational state. They will be allowed to return to what is familiar, where repair and healing becomes easy and crisis management is no longer an imperative. This is accomplished by returning to an original diet that doesn’t include anything on the fringes of what is appropriate for the species. It’s that simple.”

  Rick squirmed in his seat and put his finger in the air as if he was going to make an interesting point.

  Syrjon gave no quarter. “In the case of your son,” Syrjon motioned to Carson, who was hanging on Syrjon’s every word, desperately trying to ignore the vibrating sensation of the wire clamped to the organ between his legs, “some cells’ DNA became damaged from the antagonism or inflammation caused by this persistent change of environment. Their motivation morphed to self-interest. Now, all they want to do is keep themselves alive.”

  Syrjon knew they only had a few more minutes in the chairs, and this course of his monologue was now turning toward Rick’s son. He’ll be more interested now, Syrjon thought, and stop trying to drive the conversation into some subject he can use against the Provenger. “The other s
ystems responsible for noticing this and terminating the self-interested cells are weakened by the same confused culture, as well as the stressful internal environment created by inappropriate foods, deficient nutrient absorption, and other environmental input. It just so happens that one of the main sources of inflammation and the source of preferred food for these cancerous cells is the same: glucose. That is what the starch from our wheat turns into.”

  I give up, Rick thought. He’s on to me.

  “Chronic disease is almost always the result of an inappropriate diet for a species. Being based in the digestive system, the immune system always suffers with it. Because the immune system is so unique, and due to the human’s genetic individuality as well as a result of past exposures, the reactions across populations are usually different. This is also where the varied diet of humans comes into play. And the process starts out very slowly. This has complicated your ability to identify the problem.”

  “So how do the Provenger play into all this, and how can we get rid of you?” Rick figured it was time to simply ask his questions, suspecting that Syrjon was already wise to his attempts to gather information.

  Syrjon smiled. “As for getting rid of us, Rick, forget about it. That would be like any of your animals on Earth trying to rid themselves of humans. The trick will be to work with us.” Syrjon contemplated the implications of what he’d just said and wondered if Rick really heard him.

  Syrjon speculated. If only Rick knew the degree to which he was really working with us, from his first step through the Recombinant to the depths of his soul, he might be encouraged, or he might be horrified. We were lucky to get approval to put him through after Ryvil’s botched mission. I must relate this conversation to him. He will be very interested.

  Syrjon continued. “The tragedy is that you haven’t noticed these effects of chronic disease sooner and managed them yourselves through your diet, the thing creating them.”

  “I noticed them,” Rick insisted.

  “Yes, but you were desperate and generally distrustful of people. You were almost forced to make your own decisions. Most do not. Your background as a warrior and an investigator compelled you to eventually rely on your own wits, to take responsibility for yourself and not defer to others when their reasoning or logic was unsound. Any doctor claiming to be able to treat a problem when they admit they don’t know the cause of that problem cannot have logic on their side.

  “We knew, due to our Algorithm, that the trend of agriculture would perpetuate and eventually dominate human societies. The cultures that adopted it were simply better able to compete, even if they were less healthy. They had ways to survive famine and feed their armies for the conquest of others. Large scale war is difficult to make without large food reserves. Agricultural stores made war possible. It created societies with excess wealth, something for an enemy to covet. Besides, since most of the bad effects of wheat come after the best age to fight and breed, agricultural societies maintained primacy. Your pacifist organizations should be boycotting whole grains, not red meat.”

  “I was hoping you’d give me something more,” Rick confessed.

  “Well, if you’re referring to chronic illness, there isn’t much more. But if you mean you want me to tell you how to dispose of us, I’m afraid that won’t happen. I don’t generally get to talk to anyone about this,” said Syrjon. “It was quite pleasurable, even if you had a mind to pump me for information.” Syrjon smiled. “Both of you are done, and we’ll proceed to the Recombinant.”

  The two were unhooked, and Rick helped Carson to his feet. He was still weak from his blood loss not an hour ago. They walked to an adjacent room. It was the size of a small warehouse with a large, circular, tube-like tunnel in the middle, big enough for an elephant to walk through. It had ridges of color-coded tubes running down the sides, its full circumference. Rick thought it looked like a hybrid of a cyclotron and giant undersea tubeworm with an appreciation of the rainbow.

  Syrjon approached a panel and started punching codes into a screen. Two beds emerged from the flat wall next to them, and the entrance to the Recombinant appeared in the side of the giant worm. Rick and Carson looked at each other, impressed.

  “You will enter and move together counterclockwise. Keep moving, use all your muscles, breathe deeply, flex your abs, wiggle your ears, tighten your sphincter…you get the picture. The more you use it, the more it will be repaired. Don’t concern yourselves with your internal organs; they are also working. The idea is to move through the space while the organ is being used. Do not stop. Carson, be gentle on yourself. You’ve recently stopped bleeding. When you hear a high-pitched tone, move to the door and exit. When you get out, you will feel tired. You will move directly to the beds and lie down. You will be sedated and, shortly afterward, put into a coma and monitored by our life support systems. You will be roused when you are done. Do you understand?”

  Rick and Carson nodded eagerly at Syrjon. They were both unusually confident in him. He seemed experienced and discouraged any fears they might have. Rick caught himself feeling happy that Carson might actually be rid of his cancer, and Carson was excited to be healthy again. Just last night he’d felt very weak and was contemplating his death. Now, he was going to be healed by an alien race that, by all appearances, was motivated to help them. His adjustment to this new paradigm was faster and easier than his father’s.

  “Do you have any questions?”

  They looked at each other again and shook their heads. Then Rick actually thought for a moment about work, glad he’d already taken two weeks off. “How long will it take to recover?”

  “No more than a week,” Syrjon replied.

  With that, Rick and Carson moved through the hatch of the Recombinant. They started walking normally but then began to move their arms in all manner of positions. They then mixed in squat thrusts and then twisted their torsos in various positions as they circled counterclockwise through the giant tube. There was a dull, low-toned vibrating sound, but they otherwise didn’t feel a thing.

  Syrjon made adjustments to the control panel. They were small changes but nonetheless important. Syrjon smiled. He enjoyed his work with Ryvil. Together they would see that the Provenger fulfilled the destiny that was set for them long ago, a destiny much farther reaching than the current, short-sighted resource projects.

  Looking at the monitor on his panel, Syrjon watched them, amused by the creativity of their motions, Rick encouraging his son to a great variety of contortions while simultaneously cautioning him against too much. Twisted facial expressions and weird dances engaged the two during their walk.

  Syrjon rarely had the opportunity to put beings unfamiliar with the Recombinant through the treatment. But when possible, he always gave them the instructions about movement to see what they would innovate. Those who didn’t understand the technology would believe anything, he thought. All they really had to do was walk through it. They could even shuffle if they wanted, as long as they moved. He was getting it all recorded. He and his associates would watch it later for a good laugh.

  Streyn entered Synster's office armed with the results of the physiological analysis of Carson's wound.

  Synster noted a concerned look on his face and figured their suspicion had been confirmed. Streyn placed the document on his desk and took a seat, knowing that Synster could read his expression.

  "How much evidence do we have?" Synster asked.

  "Only the nature of the injury. There is a signature of Provenger technology. The tissue laceration has no discernable etiology. So clean it must have been a disruption wave, very narrow. Nothing else that I can think of would have created such a clean effect. I couldn't find any evidence of Ryvil's absence from his schedule that day. If he transported under the recreational energy allotment, there would be no record of the transport if he’d wanted to hide it. There is the mandatory cloak travel mode for Earth right now, so we could identify a cloak during that timeframe, but we'd have to find the exact gauntlet he u
sed. I could initiate a comprehensive search, but I think that might complicate issues regarding this Project. The Nation is already anxious about our progress. Such a search might make it seem like we've lost control. Should I begin?"

  "No, not yet. I agree. A search would be bad. I think for now we should assume that Ryvil did this and proceed accordingly. We'll put protocols in place to monitor everything he does or as much of it as we can. Meanwhile, I think we might have another way to deal with this.” Synster told him, with Rick in mind, “Let me handle it. Speak to no one about this.”

  The first time Rick awoke, he immediately looked for Carson and saw him lying on a bed a yard away. He could see he was breathing but asleep. He had no wires or tubes attached to him. He could tell from the folds in the sheet over him and the position he was in that he had moved for himself, as that was how he often slept. Rick then thought to look for Shainan, or for Syrjon to ask about her. He closed his eyes and the exhaustion that he still felt overcame him. He slept again.