David Brin - Earth

So, too, when flowering plants arrived some ferns had to retire, but the victors shared their new prosperity with all the crawling, flying, creeping things that came to feed on nectar and pollinate them. Into newborn niches spread a multitude of novel forms… insects, birds, mammals…

Of course, sometimes a species’ invention only benefited itself. Goats developed an ability to eat almost anything, right down to the roots. Goats proliferated. Deserts spread behind them.

Then another creature appeared, one whose originality was unprecedented. Its numbers grew. And in its wake some other types did flourish. The common cat and dog. The rat. Starlings and pigeons. And the cockroach. Meanwhile, opportunity grew sparse for those less able to share the vast new niches — huge expanses of plowed fields and mowed lawns, streets and parking lots…

The coming of the grasses had left its mark indelibly on the history of the world.

So would the Age of Asphalt and Concrete.

Jen Wolling found the Ndebele Rites of Gaia charming. The canton’s Kuwenezi Science Collective pulled out all the stops, sparing nothing to put on a show of their piety. To watch the lavish torchlight celebration under a midnight moon, one might imagine they were commemorating Earth Day itself, and not just a going-away party for one old woman they had known barely a fort-night.

Dancers in traditional costumes capered and whirled before the dignitaries’ dais, stamping bare feet on the beaten ground to the tempo of pounding drums. Feathered anklets flapped like agitated captive birds. Spears thudded on shields as men in bright loincloths leaped in apparent defiance of gravity. Women in colorful dashikis waved bound sheaves of wheat, specially grown in hothouses for this out-of-season observance.

Jen appreciated the dancers’ lithe beauty, taut and powerful as any stallion’s. Perspiration flew in droplets or smeared to coat their dark brown bodies in a gleaming, athletic sheen. Their rhythm and power were mighty, exultory, and marvelously sexual, which brought a smile to Jen’s lips. Although tonight’s purpose was to venerate a gentle metaphoric goddess, the choreography had been co-opted from much older rites having to do with fertility and violence.

“It’s far, far better than in the days of neocolonialism.” the tall ark director said to her. Sitting cross-legged to her left, he had to lean close to be heard over the percussive cadence. “Back then, the Ndebele and other tribes maintained troupes of professional dancers to pander to tourists. But these young men and women practice in their spare time simply for the love of it. Few outsiders ever get to see this now.”

Jen admired the way the torchlight glistened on Director Mugabe’s brow, his tight-coiled hair. “I’m honored,” she said, crossing her arms over her heart and giving a shallow bow. He grinned and returned the gesture. Side by side, they watched rows of young “warriors” take terrific risks, exchanging whirling spears to the delight of clapping women and children.

Venerable and ancient this dance might be, but there was no correlation here with the primitive. Jen had just spent two weeks consulting with Kuwenezi’s experts, learning all about Ndebele Canton’s plans for new animal breeds better able to endure the challenging and ever-changing environment of southern Africa. They, in turn, had listened attentively to her own ideas about macroecological management. After all, Jen had virtually invented the field.

By now of course, it had accumulated all the trappings of a maturing technology, with enough details to leave a solitary dreamer-theoretician like her far behind. Specific analyses she left to younger, quicker minds these days.

Still, she occasionally managed to surprise them all. If Jen ever ceased being able to shock people, it would be time to give up this body’s brief manifestation and feed her meager store of phosphorus back into the Mother’s great mulch pile.

She recalled the expression on that fellow B’Keli’s face when, during her third and final lecture, she had begun talking about… specially designed mammalian chimeras… incorporating camels’ kidneys… birds’ lungs… bear marrow… chimps’ tendon linkages … Even Director Mugabe, who claimed to have read everything she’d written, was staring glassy-eyed by the end of her talk. Her conclusion about… the rough love of viruses … seemed to have been too much even for him.

When the house lights had come on, she was greeted with stunned silence from the packed crowd of brown faces. There was, at first, only one questioner — a very young man whose northern, Yoruba features stood out amid the crowd of Southern Bantu. The boy’s arms and face were bandaged, but he showed no outward sign of pain. All through the talk he had sat quietly in the front row, gently stroking a small baboon and her infant. When Jen called on him, he lowered his hand and spoke with a completely stunning Canadian accent, of all things.

“Doctor… are you sayin’ that — that people might someday be as strong as chimpanzees? Or be able to sleep through winter, like bears?”

Jen noticed indulgent smiles among the audience when the boy spoke, though Mugabe’s expression was one of mixed relief and angst. Anxiety that such an untutored member of their community had been the only one to offer the courtesy of a question. Relief that someone had done so in time.

“Yes. Exactly,” she had replied. “We have the entire human genome fully catalogued. And many other higher mammals. Why not use that knowledge to improve ourselves?

“Now I want to make clear I’m talking about genetic improvement here, and there are limits to how far one can go in that direction. We’re already by far the most plastic of animals, the most adaptable to environmental influences. The real core of any self-improvement campaign must remain in the areas of education and child-rearing and the new psychology, to bring up a generation of saner, more decent people.

“But there really are constraints on that process, laid down by the capabilities and limitations of our bodies and brains. And where did those capabilities and limitations come from? Our past, of course. A haphazard sequence of genetic experiments by trial and error, slowly accumulating favorable mutations generation by generation. Death was the means of our advancement… the deaths of millions of our ancestors. Or, to be more precise, those who failed to become our ancestors.

“Those who did survive to breed passed on new traits, which gradually accumulated into the suite of attributes now at our disposal — our upright stance, our better-than-average vision, our wonderfully dexterous hands. Our bloated brains.

“As for what the latter has done to our skull size, ask any woman who’s given birth…”

At that point the audience had laughed. Jen noticed some of the tension seeping away.

“Other species have meanwhile collected their own, similar catalogues of adaptations. Many of them at least as wonderful as those we’re so arrogantly proud of. But here’s the sad part. With one exception — the inefficient interspecies gene transfer performed by viruses — no animal species can ever profit from another’s hard-won lessons . Until now, each has been in it alone, fending for itself, hoarding what it’s acquired, learning from no one else.

“What I am proposing is to change all that, once and for all. Hell, we’re already doing it! Look at the century-old effort to blend characteristics among plants, to transfer, say, pest resistance from one hardy wild species into another that is a food crop. Take just one such product — legu-corn, which fixes its own nitrogen. How many productive farmlands and aquifers has it saved by eliminating the need for artificial fertilizer? How many people has it saved from starvation?