by Nancy Kress
Jacqui said, “Shots or whatever, why do it?”
Oliver looked up from his drawing of a barbarian girl riding a lion. “Isn’t it obvious?”
Jacqui said, “Not to me.”
Oliver said, “Noah wants to become an alien.”
“No,” Noah said. “I was an alien. Now I’m becoming . . . not one.”
Jacqui’s pitying look said, You need help. Oliver shaded in the lion’s mane. Noah wondered why, of all the Terrans of L7 mitochondrial haplotype, he was stuck with these two. He stood. “I have to study.”
“I wish I had your fluency in Worldese,” Jacqui said. “It would help my work so much.”
So study it. But Noah knew she wouldn’t, not the way he was doing. She wanted the quick harvest of startling data, not . . . whatever it was he wanted.
Becoming an alien. Oliver was more correct than Noah’s flip answer. And yet Noah had been right, too, which was something he could never explain to anyone, least of all his mother. Whom he was supposed to visit this morning, since she could not come to him.
All at once Noah knew that he was not going to keep that appointment. Although he flinched at the thought of hurting Marianne, he was not going to leave the World section of the Embassy. Not now, not ever. He couldn’t account for this feeling, so strong that it seemed to infuse his entire being, like oxygen in the blood. But he had to stay here, where he belonged. Irrational, but—as Evan would have said—there it was, mustn’t grumble, at least it made a change, no use going on about it.
He had never liked Evan.
In his room, Noah took pen and a pad of paper to write a note to his mother. The words did not come easy. All his life he had disappointed her, but not like this.
Dear Mom—I know we were going to get together this afternoon but—
Dear Mom—I wish I could see you as we planned but—
Dear Mom—We need to postpone our visit because Ambassador Smith has asked me if this afternoon I would—
Noah pulled at the skin on his face, realized that was his mother’s gesture, and stopped. He looked longingly at the little cubes that held his language lessons. As the cube spoke Worldese, holofigures in the cube acted out the meaning. After Noah repeated each phrase, it corrected his pronunciation until he got it right.
“My two brothers live with my mother and me in this dwelling,” a smiling girl said in the holocube, in Worldese. Two boys, one younger than she and one much older, appeared beside her with a much older woman behind them, all four with similar features, a shimmering dome behind them.
“My two brothers live with my mother and me in this dwelling,” Noah repeated. The Worldese tenses were tricky; these verbs were the ones for things that not only could change, but could change without the speaker’s having much say about events. A mother could die. The family could be chosen for a space colony. The older brother could marry and move in with his wife’s family.
Sometimes things were beyond your control and you had no real choice.
Dear Mom—I can’t come. I’m sorry. I love you. Noah
MARIANNE
The work—anybody’s work—was not going well.
It seemed to be proceeding at an astonishing pace, but Marianne—and everyone else—knew that was an illusion. She sat in the auditorium for the monthly report, Evan beside her. This time, no Denebs were present—why not? She listened to Terence Manning enumerate what under any other circumstances would have been incredibly rapid triumphs.
“We have succeeded in isolating the virus,” Manning said, “although not in growing it in vitro. After isolation, we amplified it with the usual polymerase processes. The virus has been sequenced and—only a few days ago!—captured on an electromicrograph image, which, as most of you know, can be notoriously difficult. Here it is.”
A graphic appeared on the wall behind Manning: fuzzy concentric circles blending into each other in shades of gray. Manning ran his hand over his head, now completely bald. Had he shaved his last three hairs, Marianne wondered irrelevantly. Or had they just given up and fallen out from stress?
“The virion appears to be related to known paramyxoviruses, although the gene sequence, which we now have, does not exactly match any of them. It is a negative-sense single-stranded RNA virus. Paramyxoviruses, to which it may or may not be directly related, are responsible for a number of human and animal diseases, including parainfluenza, mumps, measles, pneumonia, and canine distemper. This family of viruses jumps species more easily than any other. From what we have determined so far, it most closely resembles both Hendra and Nipah viruses, which are highly contagious and highly virulent.
“The genome follows the paramyxovirus ‘Rule of Six,’ in that the total length of the genome is almost always a multiple of six. The spore virus consists of twenty-one genes with 21,645 base pairs. That makes it a large virus, but by no means the largest we know. Details of sequence, structure, envelope proteins, etc., can be found on the LAN. I want to especially thank Drs. Yu, Sedley, and Lapka for their valuable work in identifying Respirovirus sporii.”
Applause. Marianne still stared at the simple, deadly image behind Manning. An unwelcome thought had seized her: the viral image looked not unlike a fuzzy picture of a not-too-well-preserved trilobite. Trilobites had been the dominant life form on Earth for three million years and comprised more than ten thousand species. All gone now. Humans could be gone, too, after a much briefer reign.
But we survived so much! The Ice Age, terrible predators, the "bottleneck event" of seventy thousand years ago that reduced Homo sapians to mere thousands. . . .
Manning was continuing. This was the bad news. “However, we have made little progress in figuring out how to combat R. sporii. Blood from the infected mice has been checked against known viruses and yielded no seriological positives. None of our small number of antiviral drugs was effective, although there was a slight reaction to ribavirin. That raises a further puzzle, since ribavirin is mostly effective against Lassa fever, which is caused by an arenavirus, not a paramyxovirus.” Manning tried to smile; it was not a success. “So, the mystery deepens. I wish we had more to report.”
Someone asked, “Are the infected mice making antibodies?”
“Yes,” Manning said, “and if we can’t manage to develop a vaccine, this is our best possible path to a post-exposure treatment, following the MB-003 model developed for Ebola. For you astronomers—and please forgive me if I am telling you things you already know—a successful post-exposure treatment for Ebola in nonhuman primates was developed two years ago, using a cocktail of monoclonal antibodies. It was the work of a partnership between American industry and government agencies. When administered an hour after infection, MB-003 yields a one hundred percent survival rate. At forty-eight hours, the survival rate is two-thirds. MB-003 was initially developed in a mouse model and then produced in plants. The work took ten years. It has not, of course, been tested in humans.”
Ten years. The Embassy scientists had less than five months left. Ebola had previously been studied since its first outbreak in 1976. And the biggie: It has not, of course, been tested in humans. In whom it might, for all anyone knew, not even work.
Maybe the Denebs knew faster ways to produce a vaccine from antibodies, exponentially increase production, and distribute the results. But the aliens weren’t even at this meeting. They had surely been given all this information already, but even so—
—How the hell could the aliens be anyplace more important than this?
V: S minus 3.5 months
MARIANNE
Marianne felt ridiculous. She and Evan leaned close over the sink in the lab. Water gushed full-strength from the tap, making noise that, she hoped, covered their words. The autoclave hummed; a Bach concerto played tinnily on the computer’s inadequate speaker. The whole thing felt like a parody of a bad spy movie.
They had never been able to decide if the labs, if everywhere on the Embassy, were bugged. Evan had said yes, of course, don’t be daft. Max
, with the hubris of the young, had said no because his computer skills would have been able to detect any surveillance. Marianne and Gina had said it was irrelevant since both their work and their personal lives were so transparent. In addition, Marianne had disliked the implication that the Denebs were not their full and open partners. Gina had said—
Gina. Shot down, her life ended just as Jason William Jenner’s had begun. And for how long? Would Marianne even get to see her grandson before everything was as over as Gina’s life?
Dangerous to think this way. Their work on the Embassy was a thin bridge laid across a pit of despair, the same despair that had undoubtedly fueled Gina’s killers.
“You know what has to happen,” Marianne whispered. “Nobody’s saying it aloud, but without virus replication in human bodies, we just can’t understand the effect on the immune system and we’re working blindly. Mice aren’t enough. Even if we could have infected monkeys, it wouldn’t be enough. We have to infect volunteers.”
Evan stuck his finger into the flow of water, which spattered in bright drops against the side of the sink. “I know. Everyone knows. The request has been made to the powers that be.”
“How do you know that?”
“I talk to people on the other teams. You know the laws against experimentation on humans unless there have first been proper clinical trials that—”
“Oh, fuck proper trials, this is a crisis situation!”
“Not enough people in power are completely convinced of that. You haven’t been paying attention to the bigger picture, Marianne. The Public Health Service isn’t even gearing up for mass inoculation or protection—Robinson is fighting it with claw and tusk. FEMA is divided and there’s almost anarchy in the ranks. Congress just filibusters on the whole topic. And the president just doesn’t have the votes to get much of anything done. Meanwhile, the masses riot or flee or just pretend the whole thing is some sort of hoax. The farther one gets from New York, the more the conspiracy theorists don’t even believe there are aliens on Earth at all.”
Marianne, still standing, pulled at the skin on her face. “It’s all so frustrating. And the work we’re doing here—you and I and Max and Gina—” her voice faltered “—is pointless. It really is. Identifying members of Smith’s so-called clan? Who cares? I’m going to volunteer myself to be infected.”
“They won’t take you.”
“If—”
“The only way that could happen is in secret. If a subgroup on the Spore Team decided the situation was desperate enough to conduct an unauthorized experiment.”
She studied his face. In the biology department at the university, Evan had always been the one who knew how to obtain travel money for a conference, interviews with Nobel Prize winners, an immediate appointment with the dean. He had the knack, as she did not, for useful connections. She said, “You know something.”
“No. I don’t. Not yet.”
“Find out.”
He nodded and turned off the water. The music crescendoed: Brandenburg Concerto #2, which had gone out into space on the “golden record” inside Voyager 1.
The secret experiment turned out to be not all that secret.
Evan followed the rumors. Within a day he had found a lab tech in the Biology Group who knew a scientist in the Spore Group who referred him, so obliquely that Evan almost missed it, to a security officer. Evan came to Marianne in her room, where she’d gone instead of eating lunch. He stood close to her and murmured in her ear, ending with, “They’ll let us observe. You—what’s that, then?”
The last sentence was said in a normal voice. Evan gazed at the piece of paper in Marianne’s hands. She had been looking at it since she found it under her door.
“Another note from Noah. He isn’t . . . he can’t . . . Evan, I need to go ashore to see my new grandchild.”
Evan blinked. “Your new grandchild?”
“Yes. He’s three months old already and I haven’t even seen him.”
“It’s not safe to leave the Embassy now. You know that.”
“Yes. But I need to go.”
Gently Evan took the note from her and read it. Marianne saw that he didn’t really understand. Young, childless, orphaned . . . how could he? Noah had not forgiven her for never telling him that he was adopted. That must be why he said he might not ever see her again; no other reason made sense. Although maybe he would change his mind. Maybe in time he would forgive her, maybe he would not, maybe the world would end first. Before any of those things happened, Marianne had to see little Jason. She had to affirm what family ties she had, no matter how long she had them. Or anyone had them.
She said, “I need to talk to Ambassador Smith. How do I do that?”
He said, “Do you want me to arrange it?”
“Yes. Please. For today.”
He didn’t mention the backlog of samples in the lab. No one had replaced Gina. As family trees of the L7 haplogroup were traced in the matrilineal line, more and more of Smith’s “clan” were coming aboard the Embassy. Marianne suspected they hoped to be shielded or transported when the spore cloud hit. She also suspected they were right. The Denebs were . . .
. . . were just as insistent on family connections as she was, risking her life to see Ryan, Connie, and the baby.
Well.
A helicopter flew her directly from the large pier outside the Embassy (so that’s what it was for). When Marianne had last been outside, autumn was just ending. Now it was spring, the reluctant Northern spring of tulips and late frosts, cherry blossoms and noisy frogs. The Vermont town where Connie’s parents lived, and to which Ryan had moved his family for safety, was less than twenty miles from the Canadian border. The house was a pleasant brick faux-Colonial set amid bare fields. Marianne noted, but did not comment on, the spiked chain-link fence around the small property, the electronic-surveillance sticker on the front door, and the large Doberman whose collar Ryan held in restraint. He had hastened home from his field work when she phoned that she was coming.
“Mom! Welcome!”
“We’re so glad you’re here, Marianne,” Connie said warmly. “Even though I suspect it isn’t us you came to see!” She grinned and handed over the tiny wrapped bundle.
The baby was asleep. Light-brown fuzz on the top of his head, silky skin lightly flushed with pink, tiny pursed mouth sucking away in an infant dream. He looked so much as Ryan had that tears pricked Marianne’s eyes. Immediately she banished them: no sorrow, neither nostalgic nor catastrophic, was going to mar this occasion.
“He’s beautiful,” she said, inadequately.
“Yes!” Connie was not one of those mothers who felt obliged to disclaim praise of her child.
Marianne held the sleeping baby while coffee was produced. Connie’s parents were away, helping Connie’s sister, whose husband had just left her and whose three-year-old was ill. This was touched on only lightly. Connie kept the conversation superficial, prattling in her pretty voice about Jason, about the dog’s antics, about the weather. Marianne followed suit, keeping to herself the thought that, after all, she had never heard Connie talk about anything but light and cheerful topics. She must have more to her than that, but not in front of her mother-in-law. Ryan said almost nothing, sipping his coffee, listening to his wife.
Finally Connie said, “Oh, I’ve just been monopolizing the conversation! Tell us about life aboard the Embassy. It must be so fascinating!”
Ryan looked directly at Marianne.
She interpreted the look as a request to keep up the superficial tone. Ryan had always been as protective of Connie as of a pretty kitten. Had he deliberately chosen a woman so opposite to his mother because Marianne had always put her work front and center? Had Ryan resented her for that as much as Noah had?
Pushing aside these disturbing thoughts, she chatted about the aliens. Connie asked her to describe them, their clothes, her life there. Did she have her own room? Had she been able to decorate it? Where did the humans eat?
“We’re all humans, Terrans and Denebs,” Marianne said.
“Of course,” Connie said, smiling brilliantly. “Is the food good?”
Talking, talking, talking, but not one question about her work. Nor about the spore cloud, progress toward a vaccine, anything to indicate the size and terror of the coming catastrophe. Ryan did ask about the Embassy, but only polite questions about its least important aspects: how big it was, how it was laid out, what was the routine. Safe topics.
Just before a sense of unreality overwhelmed Marianne, Ryan’s cell rang, and the ringing woke the baby, who promptly threw up all over Marianne.
“Oh, I’m sorry!” Connie said. “Here, give him to me!”
Ryan, making gestures of apology, took his cell into the kitchen and closed the door. Connie reached for a box of Wet Ones and began to wipe Jason’s face. She said, “The bathroom is upstairs to the left, Marianne. If you need to, I can loan you something else to wear.”
“It would have to be one of your maternity dresses,” Marianne said. It came out more sour than she’d intended.
She went upstairs and cleaned baby vomit off her shirt and jeans with a wet towel. The bathroom was decorated in a seaside motif, with hand towels embroidered with sailboats, soap shaped like shells, blue walls painted with green waves and smiling dolphins. On top of the toilet tank, a crocheted cylinder decorated like a buoy held a spare roll of toilet paper.
Keeping chaos at bay with cute domesticity. Good plan. And then: Stop it, Marianne.
Using the toilet, she leafed idly through magazines stacked in a rustic basket. Good Housekeeping, Time, a Macy’s catalogue. She pulled out a loose paper with full-color drawings:
HOW TO TELL PURPLE LOOSESTRIFE FROM NATIVE PLANTS DON’T BE FOOLED BY LOOK-ALIKES!
