Нэнси Кресс - Tomorrow's Kin

The most elite group, and by far the largest, worked on the spores: germinating, sequencing, investigating this virus that could create a worldwide human die-off. They worked in negative-pressure, biosafety-level-four chambers. Previously the United States had had only two BSL4 facilities, at the CDC in Atlanta and at USAMRIID in Maryland. Now there was a third, dazzling in its newness and in the completeness of its equipment. The Spore Team had the impossible task of creating some sort of vaccine, gene therapy, or other method of neutralizing, worldwide, a pathogen not native to Earth, within ten months.

The Biology Team investigated alien tissues and genes. The Denebs gave freely of whatever was asked: blood, epithelial cells, sperm, biopsy samples. “Might even give us a kidney, if we asked nicely enough,” Evan said. “We know they have two.”

Marianne said, “ You ask, then.”

“Not me. Too frightful to think what they might ask in exchange.”

“So far, they’ve asked nothing.”

Almost immediately the Biology Team verified the Denebs as human. Then began the long process of finding and charting the genetic and evolutionary differences between the aliens and Terrans. The first, announced after just a week, was that all of the seventeen aliens in the Embassy carried the same percentage as Terrans of Neanderthal genes: from 1 to 4 percent.

“They’re us,” Evan said.

“Did you doubt it?” Marianne asked.

“No. But more interesting, I think, are the preliminary findings that the Denebs show so much less genetic diversity than we do. That wanker Wilcox must be weeping in his ale.”

Patrick Wells Wilcox was the current champion of the Toba Catastrophe Theory, which went in and out of scientific fashion. Seventy thousand years ago the Toba supervolcano in Indonesia had erupted. This had triggered such major environmental change, according to theory proponents, that a “bottleneck event” had occurred, reducing the human population to perhaps ten thousand individuals. The result had been a great reduction in human genetic diversity. Backing for the idea came from geology as well as coalescence evidence of some genes, including mitochondrial, Y chromosome, and nuclear. Unfortunately, there was also evidence that the bottleneck event had never occurred. If the Denebs, removed from Earth well before the supervolcano, showed less diversity than Terrans, then Terran diversity couldn’t have been reduced all that much.

Marianne said, “Wilcox shouldn’t weep too soon.”

“Actually, he never weeps at all. Gray sort of wanker. Holes up in his lab at Cambridge and glowers at the world through medieval arrow slits.”

“Dumps boiling oil on dissenting paleontologists,” Marianne suggested.

“Actually, Wilcox may not even be human. Possibly an advance scout for the Denebs. Nobody at Cambridge has noticed it so far.”

“Or so we think.” Marianne smiled. She and Evan never censored their bantering, which helped lower the hushed, pervasive anxiety they shared with everyone else on the Embassy . It was an anxious ship.

The third scientific team aboard was much smaller. Physicists, they worked with Scientist Jones on the astronomy of the coming collision with the spore cloud.

The fourth team she never saw at all. Nonetheless, she suspected they were there, monitoring the others, shadowy underground nonscientists unknown even to the huge contingent of visible security.

Marianne looked at the routine work on her lab bench: polymerase chain reaction to amplify DNA samples, sequencing, analyzing data, writing reports on the genetic inheritance of each human volunteer who showed up at the Deneb “collection site” in Manhattan. A lot of people showed up. So far, only two of them belonged to Ambassador Smith’s haplogroup. “Evan, we’re not really needed, you and I. Gina and Max can handle anything our expensive brains are being asked to do.”

Evan said, “Right, then. So let’s have a go at exploring. Until we’re stopped, anyway.”

She stared at him. “Okay. Yes. Let’s explore.”

Noah emerged from the men’s room at the Mexican restaurant. During the midafternoon lull they had no customers except for a pair of men slumped over one table in the back. “Look at this!” the waitress said to him. She and the cook were both huddled over her phone, strange enough since they hated each other. But Cindy’s eyes were wide from something other than her usual drugs, and Noah took a look at the screen of the sophisticated phone, mysteriously acquired and gifted by Cindy’s current boyfriend before he’d been dragged off to Rikers for assault with intent.

VOLUNTEERS WANTED TO DONATE BLOOD

PAYMENT: $100

HUMAN NURSES TO COLLECT SMALL BLOOD SAMPLES

DENEB EMBASSY PIER, NEW YORK HARBOR

“Demonios del diablo,” Miguel muttered. “¡Vampiros!” He crossed himself.

Noah said drily, “I don’t think they’re going to drink the blood, Miguel.” The dryness was false. His heart had begun to thud. People like his mother got to see the Embassy up close, but not people like Noah. Did the ad mean that the Denebs were going to take human blood samples on the large dock he had seen form out of nothing?

Cindy had lost interest. “No fucking customers except those two sorry asses in the corner, and they never tip. I shoulda stood in bed.”

“Miguel,” Noah said, “can I have the afternoon off?”

Noah stood patiently in line at the blood-collection site. If any of the would-be volunteers had hoped to see aliens, they had been disappointed. Noah was not disappointed; after all, the ad on Cindy’s phone had said Human nurses to collect small blood samples .

He was, however, disappointed that the collection site was not on the large dock jutting out from the Embassy under its glittering energy shield. Instead, he waited to enter what had once been a warehouse at the land end of a pier on the Manhattan waterfront. The line, huddled against November drizzle, snaked in loops and oxbows for several blocks, and he was fascinated by the sheer diversity of people. A woman in a fur-lined Burberry raincoat and high, polished boots. A bum in jeans with an indecent tear on the ass. Several giggling teenage girls under flowered umbrellas. An old man in a winter parka. A nerdy-looking boy with an iPad protected by flexible plastic. Two tired-looking middle-aged women. One of those said to the other, “I could pay all that back rent if I get this alien money, and—”

Noah tapped her arm. “Excuse me, ma’am—what ‘alien money’?” The hundred-dollar fee for blood donation didn’t seem enough to “pay all that back rent.”

She turned. “If they find out you’re part of their blood group, you get a share of their fortune. You know, like the Indians with their casino money. If you can prove you’re descended from their tribe.”

“No, that’s not it,” the old man in the parka said impatiently. “You get a free energy shield like theirs to protect you when the spore cloud hits. They take care of family.”

The bum muttered, “Ain’t no spore cloud.”

The boy said with earnest contempt, “You’re all wrong. This is just—the Denebs are the most significant thing to happen to Earth, ever! Don’t you get it? We’re not alone in the universe!”

The bum laughed.

Eventually Noah reached Building A. Made of concrete and steel, the building’s walls were discolored, its high-set windows grimy. Only the security machines looked new, and they made high-tech examinations of Noah’s person inside and out. His wallet, cell, jacket, and even shoes were left in a locker before he shuffled in paper slippers along the enclosed corridor to Building B, farther out on the pier. Someone was very worried about terrorism.