Greg Bear - Darwin's Radio

“There are other possibilities,” Kaye said. “I’ve seen the results.”

“Go ahead,” Cross encouraged.

“The 1990s cases in the Caucasus. Massacres.”

“I’ve studied those, as well,” Nilson said efficiently, flipping through her legal pad. “We don’t actually know much even now. There was SHEVA in the local populations—”

Kaye interrupted. “It’s far more complicated than any of us here can deal with,” she said, her voice cracking. “We are not looking at a disease profile. We’re looking at lateral transmission of genomic instructions leading to a transition phase.”

“Come again? I don’t understand,” Nilson said.

“SHEVA is not an agent of disease.”

“Bullshit,” Jackson said in astonishment. Marge waved her hand at him in warning.

“We keep building walls around this subject. I can’t hold back anymore, Marge. The Taskforce has denied this possibility from the very beginning.”

“I don’t know what’s being denied,” Cross said. “In brief, Kaye.”

“We see a virus, even one that comes from within our own genome, and we assume it’s a disease. We see everything in terms of disease.”

“I’ve never known a virus that didn’t cause problems, Kaye,” Jackson said, his eyes heavy-lidded. If he was trying to warn her she was treading on thin ice, this time it wasn’t going to work.

“We keep seeing the truth but it doesn’t fit into our primitive views on how nature works.”

“Primitive?” Jackson said. “Tell that to smallpox.”

“If this had hit us thirty years from now,” Kaye persisted, “maybe we’d be prepared — but we’re still acting like ignorant children. Children who have never been told the facts of life.”

“What are we missing?” Cross asked patiently.

Jackson drummed his fingers on the table. “It’s been discussed.”

“What?” Cross asked.

“Not in any serious forum,” Kaye countered.

“What, please?”

“Kaye is about to tell us that SHEVA is part of a biological reshuffling. Transposons jumping around and affecting phe-notype. It’s the buzz among the interns who’ve been reading Kaye’s papers.”

“Which means?”

Jackson grimaced. “Let me anticipate. If we let the new babies be born, they’re all going to be big-headed super-humans. Prodigies with blond hair and staring eyes and telepathic abilities. They’ll kill us all and take over the Earth.”

Stunned, near tears, Kaye stared at Jackson. He smiled half-apologetically, half in glee at having warded off any possible debate. “It’s a waste of time,” he said. “And we don’t have any time to waste.”

Nilson watched Kaye with cautious sympathy. Marge lifted her head and glared at the ceiling. “Will someone please tell me what I’ve just stepped into?”

“Pure bullshit,” Jackson said under his breath, adjusting his napkin.

The steward brought them their food.

Nilson put her hand on Kaye’s. “Forgive us, Kaye. Robert can be very forceful.”

“It’s my own confusion I’m dealing with, not Robert’s defensive rudeness,” Kaye said. “Marge, I have been trained in the precepts of modern biology. I’ve dealt with rigid interpretations of data, but I’ve grown up in the middle of the most incredible ferment imaginable. Here’s the solid foundation wall of modern biology, built brick by careful brick…” She drew the wall with her outstretched hand. “And here’s a tidal wave called genetics. We’re mapping the factory floor of the living cell. We’re discovering that nature is not just surprising, but shockingly unorthodox. Nature doesn’t give a damn what we think or what our paradigms are.”

“That’s all very well,” Jackson said, “but science is how we organize our work and avoid wasting time.”

“Robert, this is a discussion,” Cross said.

“I can’t apologize for what I feel in my gut is true,” Kaye persisted. “I will lose everything rather than lie.”

“Admirable,” Jackson said. “ ‘Nevertheless, it moves,’ is that it, dear Kaye?”

“Robert, don’t be an asshole,” Nilson said.

“I am outnumbered, ladies,” Jackson said, pushing back his chair in disgust. He draped his napkin over his plate but did not leave. Instead, he folded his arms and cocked his head, as if encouraging — or daring — Kaye to continue.

“We’re behaving like children who don’t even know how babies are made,” Kaye said. “We’re witnessing a different kind of pregnancy. It isn’t new — it’s happened many times before. It’s evolution, but it’s directed, short-term, immediate, not gradual, and I have no idea what kind of children will be produced,” Kaye said. “But they will not be monsters and they won’t eat their parents.”

Jackson lifted his arm high like a boy in a classroom. “If we’re in the hands of some fast-acting master craftsman, if God is directing our evolution now, I’d say it’s time to hire some cosmic lawyers. It’s malpractice of the lowest order. Infant C was a complete botch.”

“That was herpes,” Kaye said.

“Herpes doesn’t work that way,” Jackson said. “You know that as well as I.”

“SHEVA makes fetuses particularly susceptible to viral invasion. It’s an error, a natural error.”

“We have no evidence of that. Evidence, Ms. Lang!”

“The CDC—” Kaye began.

“Infant C was a Herod’s second-stage monstrosity with herpes added on, as a side dish,” Jackson said. “Really, ladies, I’ve had it. We’re all tired. I for one am exhausted.” He stood, bowed quickly, and stalked out of the dining room.

Marge picked through her salad with a fork. “This sounds like a conceptual problem. I’ll call a meeting. We’ll listen to your evidence, in detail,” she said. “And I’ll ask Robert to bring in his own experts.”

“I don’t think there are many experts who would openly support me,” Kaye said. “Certainly not now. The atmosphere is charged.”

“This is all-important with regard to public perception,” Nilson said thoughtfully.

“How?” Cross asked.

“If some group or creed or corporation decides that Kaye is right, we’ll have to deal with that.”

Kaye suddenly felt very exposed, very vulnerable.

Cross picked up a strip of cheese with her fork and examined it. “If Herod’s isn’t a disease, I don’t know how we’d deal with it. We’d be caught between a natural event and an ignorant and terrified public. That makes for horrible politics and nightmarish business.”

Kaye’s mouth went dry. She had no answer to that. It was true.

“If there are no experts who support you,” Cross said thoughtfully, pushing the cheese into her mouth, “how do you make a case?”

“I’ll present the evidence, the theory,” Kaye said.

“By yourself?” Cross asked.

“I could probably find a few others.”

“How many?”

“Four or five.”

Cross ate for a few moments. “Jackson’s an asshole, but he’s brilliant, he’s a recognized expert, and there are hundreds who would agree with his point of view.”

“Thousands,” Kaye said, straining to keep her voice steady. “Against just me and a few crackpots.”

Cross waggled a finger at Kaye. “You’re no crackpot, dear. Laura, one of our companies developed a morning-after pill some years ago.”

“That was in the nineties.”

“Why did we abandon it?”

“Politics and liability issues.”

“We had a name for it…what were we calling it?”

“Some wag code-named it RU-Pentium,” Nilson said.

“I recall that it tested well,” Marge said. “We still have the formulae and samples, I assume.”

“I made an inquiry this afternoon,” Nilson said. “We could bring it back and get production up to speed in a couple of months.”