by Greg Egan
Another soldier, closer to Aslan’s age, took the sealed tube of blood from her and spiked it on to the input nozzle of a robust-looking machine that resembled nothing so much as a field radio in a World War II movie. Well, not quite: it had an LCD flatscreen in the lid, like an old laptop computer. The soldier hit some buttons, and the machine began to whir. Prabir glanced down at the markings on the case, and saw the acronyms NATO and PCR. NATO had been the US imperial force in Europe, PCR was Polymerase Chain Reaction. It was an old army surplus genetic analyser, presumably designed to detect traces of DNA from biological weapons. But its current owners could have cut and pasted any sequence they liked into the software, and it would have happily purred away and spat out the necessary primers and probes.
They were testing his blood for the São Paulo gene.
Prabir felt a surge of panic – what did they know that he didn’t? – then grew calm again almost immediately. A medical officer in the Lord’s Army could grab a sequence of codons off a web page as easily as anyone; it didn’t mean they’d found evidence of human effects. They were merely paranoid about contagion. And if passing this witchfinder’s test meant ceasing to be of interest to them, so be it. Grant would pass, he would pass. Everyone in the expedition had surely passed already.
Prabir was allowed to join Grant and a dozen of the expeditioners, who were eating lunch under an awning. Cole and Carpenter were with them, but the businessmen seemed to have left with the fishing boat. A soldier sitting on a fuel drum in the corner looked on listlessly; compared to burning Muslim villagers out of their homes in Aru, this could hardly be a stimulating tour of duty.
Prabir approached Seli Ojany, who was standing with a small group of people beside a crate covered in plates of sandwiches. He caught her eye and whispered, ‘Do you know where my sister is?’
Ojany put a finger to her lips, then pretended she’d been wiping off breadcrumbs. It occurred to Prabir belatedly that half the expedition could have been out in the field when the Lord’s Army arrived, and some of them would have had the opportunity to see what was happening and stay away. It wasn’t an entirely comforting thought; Madhusree would probably have been safer in the camp than in the jungle, unless there was some brutality going on here that he’d yet to observe.
Prabir glanced at the soldier, but he didn’t seem to be paying them much attention. ‘So what’s brought the Inquisition here?’ he asked. ‘Are there really that many animals turning up in West Papua?’
Ojany gestured at a colleague beside her. ‘Mayumi heard the story closer to first-hand.’
‘Not animals in West Papua,’ Mayumi said, ‘but there were some fishermen who went to Suresh Island.’ Prabir did his best to accept this casual use of his parents’ name; it seemed Madhusree had put them on the map forever, pinning their memories to the spot. ‘They came back to Kai and ran amok in their own village; most of them were captured, but one of them escaped and ended up on Aru. That seems to be why the LA got interested.’
‘What do you mean “ran amok”? What exactly did they do?’ Prabir was hoping for some solid evidence at last to write this off as the result of a psychotropic plant toxin.
Mayumi shrugged. ‘The Kai islanders who were here earlier wouldn’t tell me. And the LA aren’t exactly forthcoming either.’
Deborah, one of Madhusree’s friends whom Prabir had met earlier, responded impatiently, ‘Forget what the Lord’s Army think: we know from the fruit pigeons and the butterflies that the São Paulo gene can cross between species. We can’t assume that we’re immune to that possibility, so we have to stop taking risks. At the very least, we should quarantine Suresh Island. Maybe even sterilise it, if it comes to that. You wouldn’t need to use an atomic weapon: just enough herbicide to kill all the vegetation, so the whole food chain collapsed.’
Ojany said, ‘But what if that increases selection pressure for a version that can cross into marine species?’
‘If Furtado is right—’ Mayumi began, at which point almost everyone in earshot groaned. ‘If Furtado is right,’ he persisted, ‘it would do a lot more than increase selection pressure. Any avoidable risk of extinction would only sharpen the contrast between favourable and unfavourable mutations: if every surviving counterfactual cousin would have moved into the sea, the strategy would become impossible to miss. It would be like herding the gene straight into a new ecosystem.’
Deborah glanced at her watch and predicted, ‘In less than twenty-four hours, we’ll be able to stop worrying about Furtado.’ Prabir looked at her enquiringly; she explained, ‘The Lausanne team have gone ahead and started the synthetic chromosome test themselves. The verdict will be out by about noon tomorrow, our time.’
Cole, who’d been hovering at the edge of the group, interjected urbanely, ‘All this fear of “contagion” would be put swiftly to rest if you took the trouble to consult my seminal text on ambivalence towards the natural world, M/Other. My analysis of the relevant cultural indices across a time span of several centuries reveals that the predominant passion changes cyclically, from deep filial affection to pure xenophobia and back. Pastoralism, industrialism, romanticism, modernism, environmentalism, transhumanism, and deep ecology are all products of the same dynamic. The anxiety in the midst of which we stand at this very moment is a stark validation of my thesis, whereby the nurturing, enfolding presence of the mother is radically reinterpreted, psychically transmuted into a threatening, disempowering, even alien force. But this perception will not endure. In due course, the pendulum will swing back again.’
Prabir had been watching Carpenter while Cole spoke; there’d been an encouragingly troubled expression building on his face. Some of the biologists followed Prabir’s gaze, until everyone in the group was looking at the student, waiting for his response.
Carpenter began tentatively, ‘If this gene does spread, wouldn’t it be neat, though? All the animals would evolve: they’d grow hands, and opposable thumbs, and we could talk to them. And if it happened to us too, we’d become telepathic. That’s the next level, right? And why keep it out of the ocean? What’s wrong with you people? Don’t you want the reefs to dream? The super-dolphins won’t stop us surfing. They’ll be our friends!’
Prabir detected movement in the corner of his vision; he turned to see the medical officer and two junior soldiers approaching.
The medical officer addressed him. ‘Come with me, please.’
‘Why?’ Prabir looked around for support. ‘You’ve taken a blood sample, what more do you want?’
‘This is for your own protection,’ the man insisted blandly.
‘What is for my own protection?’ Prabir caught sight of Grant, who was watching with an expression of alarm. But she gave him a reassuring glance, as if to say that she hadn’t abandoned him, that she’d be working to get him out of this.
The medical officer said, ‘You’re infected. You’re going into quarantine.’
14
Prabir had expected to be placed under guard in a tent at the edge of the camp, or perhaps imprisoned in a cage built from rough-hewn branches tied together with rattan – the kind of thing they always seemed to be able to construct at short notice in movies, whenever someone on a tropical island needed to be restrained. What the Lord’s Army did instead was trash the control console of Grant’s boat, dispose of all the pigeons, butterflies and blood samples in a bonfire on the beach, steal Grant’s rifle and tranquilliser gun, and lock Prabir in the cabin. They posted one sentry on deck and another on the beach.
Prabir sat in the captain’s chair in front of the ruined console, swinging the seat slowly back and forth. The ancient PCR machine might have malfunctioned. Or it might have amplified nothing but a fragment of plant DNA that had entered his bloodstream through a scratch from a barbed-wire shrub. A foreign cell in the process of being taken apart by his immune system wouldn’t even have been replicating, let alone creating germ cells through meiosis – the prerequisite for the São Paulo gene to be expressed. Whatever
the powers of SPP in the right context, an inert copy of its gene was just another piece of junk to be scavenged, broken down and recycled.
The gene had found ways to cross between other species, though; he couldn’t pretend it was unthinkable that it had breached his body’s defences. He’d been cut, scratched, bitten, and glued by half a dozen kinds of Teranesian plants and animals, and handled dozens more with broken skin. The gene might not have created a transmission route specifically for humans, but having been exposed to so many different mechanisms tailored for other animals, he could have been infected with a viable copy by sheer bad luck.
What did it do when it succeeded? Headed for the place where germ cells were made, carrying an endonuclease to incorporate itself into the genome. What was the worst possible scenario, then? His sperm would all carry the São Paulo gene, their DNA would be rewritten by the protein. But if there was any risk of transmission through sex, he could always learn to use condoms – and if he ever wanted a genetic child, that could be done almost as easily with another cell type in place of sperm. If it was warranted, he could even have new testes grown for transplant from a single uninfected skin cell.
That was not the worst scenario. What had the fishermen done in their village? And why had Aslan been so ready to accuse him of rape? Could a gene that was switched on only in the stem cells that manufactured sperm influence sexual behaviour? Testosterone was made by other cells nearby; perhaps SPP could rewrite the genes of spermatocytes in such a way that they emitted chemical signals to enhance the secretion of testosterone by their neighbours. If the level in the blood had been cranked up sufficiently, could that alone have transformed the fishermen into rapists? It wasn’t completely far-fetched; body-builders had once gone psychotic from injecting similar hormones. The progression would not be inevitable, though: there were drugs that blocked testosterone. And again, in the longer term a transplant could dispose of the affected cells entirely.
Still not the worst. Why had he tried to make love to Martha? Because she’d saved his life, and he’d imagined she’d welcome it? Because he’d wanted to be comforted any way he could, after facing the kampung? Because a surge of testosterone and a lack of alternatives had been enough to overwhelm both his nature and his judgement?
He had no end of rationalisations, no end of excuses. But the worst scenario was that none of them had really been enough. If the gene could gauge the reproductive consequences of everything it did, it might ‘sense’ the fact that it was in a cul-de-sac, and find a way to change that. If Furtado was right, once the gene was active, whatever it was physically capable of doing to his brain or body that would lead to it counting more copies of itself would be done.
At dusk, they brought him a meal. The sentry ordered him to the far side of the cabin then left the plate inside the door. Prabir tried to think lustful thoughts as he ate, but the situation was not conducive. What was he hoping to do: assay his sexuality by introspection, hour by hour, like a diabetic monitoring blood sugar? What had happened with Grant proved nothing, except that strong emotions could breach a barrier that he’d come to think of as inviolable.
It did not prove that the São Paulo gene was in the process of tearing it down.
Later in the evening, as the sentries were changed, Colonel Aslan appeared on the moonlit beach. Prabir stood by the cabin window watching him. They both wanted the same thing: for the São Paulo gene to be contained, for the risks to humans to be minimised even if the gene itself could not be eliminated. The only problem was, Prabir was still hoping to fall on the right side of the line when the abominations were incinerated, but the Colonel might have some trouble with his criterion for judging that.
‘We are praying for you,’ Aslan announced. ‘If you repent, you will be forgiven. You will be healed.’
‘Repent of what?’ Prabir demanded angrily.
Aslan seemed to take pleasure in refuting the assumption that he had a one-track mind. ‘All your sins.’
Skin crawled on Prabir’s arms. What would it be like, to believe in a God as corrupt as that? But if his parents had been floating in fairy-floss heaven, there would have been a whole lot less to forgive. Lying about death was the only way these elaborate pathologies remained viable; all the milksop Christian sects that diverged from the dominant strain and embraced mortality with a modicum of honesty soon withered and vanished.
He called back, ‘What happened to the fishermen? Were they forgiven? Were they healed?’
Aslan replied, ‘That is between them, and God.’
‘I want to know what their crimes were, and how they died. I want to know what’s in store for me. You owe me that much.’
Aslan was silent, and too far away for Prabir to read anything from his face. After a moment, he turned and walked away along the beach.
Prabir shouted after him, ‘You can stop praying: I can already feel the power of the creator inside me! That’s who you’re fighting, you idiot! After four billion years, the old donkey’s finally woken up, and he’s not going to keep on carrying any of us the way he used to!’
By two a.m., Prabir felt tired enough to sleep. He had nothing to gain from vigilance, and he knew that if he didn’t grab at least a couple of hours he’d lose whatever judgement he had left. He lay down on Grant’s bunk; the air moved far more freely out in the cabin than in his allotted corner. He could still smell her sweat on the sheets, though, and the scent conjured up images of her, vivid memories of the night before.
He rolled off the bunk and stood in the darkness. He was becoming paranoid. He’d never been repelled by the thought of sex with women, merely indifferent, and despite all his failed, dutiful attempts in adolescence, he might yet simply be bisexual. Either way: he loved Felix, and nothing would change that. Their history together, brief as it was, had to count for something. He was not a tabula rasa, he was not an embryo.
If his brain could be melted and rewired, though, anything could change. It wasn’t just his sexuality at stake: the human species was riddled with far stranger compromises, any of which the São Paulo gene might find superfluous. Most of evolution had been down to luck; apart from the first few hundred thousand years of simple chemical replicators, there’d never been an opportunity for every physically possible variation to compete. At every step, chance and imperfection had created organisms with outlandish traits that would not have been favoured by a comprehensive exploration of the alternatives. Complexity had ridden on the back of success, but if the efficiency of the process had been tightened a few more notches, single-celled organisms – still the most successful creatures on the planet – would never have bothered to become anything else. The São Paulo gene wasn’t that far-sighted, it hadn’t dissolved every bird and butterfly into a swarm of free-living bacteria. But if it was allowed to reshape the evolutionary landscape for humans, many more things would vanish than the oxbow lakes.
Prabir heard a dull thud outside the cabin. He peered out on to the deck. The soldier had slumped to his knees; as Prabir watched, he keeled over on to his side.
The sentry on the beach was still standing, facing the jungle, oblivious to his comrade’s fate. Prabir searched the moonlit water, but the cabin was so low that the deck hid most of the view near the boat. The sentry reached back as if to slap away an insect, then staggered. Prabir couldn’t see the dart in his neck, but it could not have been a bullet. Grant must have borrowed a tranquilliser gun, but what had she loaded it with to have such an effect? Strychnine?
The man collapsed face-down in the sand. Grant would probably search him – and it seemed unwise to shout out to warn her not to bother – but neither sentry had the key to the boat: Prabir had seen it passed from hand to hand when his meal had been delivered, it had been brought from the camp and taken back again. There was no point both of them wasting time; he tried his strength against the door of the cabin, but neither the lock nor the hinges gave any sign of yielding. He picked up a stool and bounced it repeatedly against a window, hoping to f
lex the pane enough to snap the rivets that held it to the frame; the assault was gratifyingly silent, but completely ineffectual.
Someone tapped a staccato rhythm on the window on the other side of the cabin. He put down the stool and turned. Madhusree called out softly, ‘I’m told you can slide this one open from the inside.’
Prabir approached her. She was dripping wet, her hair tied back, long bare limbs catching the moonlight. She hadn’t seemed so beautiful to him since the day she was born, and all the reasons were reversed now: her vulnerability, her ungainliness, her bewilderment, had all been replaced by their opposites. His parents should have seen this transformation, not him, but he savoured the sweet kick in the chest, unearned or not.
He said, ‘I don’t want to infect you. You’d better get off the boat.’
Madhusree sighed. ‘Are you sneezing? Are you covered in pustules? What’s it going to do, launch missiles? It’s a molecule, not a voodoo curse. If you want to be careful you can stand away from me, but I need to come into the cabin and check out the equipment.’
Prabir was mystified. ‘Why?’
‘So I don’t waste time bringing things from the other boat.’
‘What are you talking about?’
Madhusree grimaced with impatience. ‘I don’t know what we’ll need. Martha said I could take whatever’s working from here, so it will help if I know what that is. Now open the window.’
Prabir complied, then retreated to the far corner as she climbed into the cabin and began inspecting the rack of biochemical instruments. The soldiers had attacked the autopilot with a crowbar, and taken away everything organic to be burned, but they seemed to have left these machines untouched.