Ell Donsaii 13: DNA

by Laurence Dahners

  As soon as Ell, speaking as Virgwald, agreed to go with them, the four Virgies lifted into the air. They had wings like all the other Virgies Ell had seen so far, excepting the swimmers. Some bigger, some smaller, but as one would expect on a world with such low gravity and moderately dense air, it only made sense to fly most places. Up until that point, Virgwald had walked everywhere. Geo had apparently assumed that, because Virgwald had no wings, he couldn’t fly. For a moment, Ell wondered whether there was any reason to keep Virgwald’s ability to fly a secret, then she decided that she really didn’t want to walk the entire distance to wherever they were going. She had Allan lift Virgwald with his air jets and follow the four Virgies.

  After a moment, a flustered appearing Geo appeared in the air beside Virgwald. He clattered, and Allan translated, “How do you fly without wings?!”

  “I forcefully push air downward from under my arms and the bottoms of my feet. That lifts me into the air.” It took several re-translations before Geo seemed to get the idea, but even then, he seemed to have difficulty believing it.

  They flew for a while above the thousands of hexagons that made up Geo’s city, ascending toward one of the high hills above the bay. The hexagons in this region appeared to be slightly taller but of the same horizontal dimensions as Virgie hexagons everywhere else. However, Ell could see that large clusters of them didn’t have space between them for pedestrians. They looked like they were joined together like the ones had been at the market.

  When they landed, Virgwald was conducted inside where large swathes of the hexagons did prove to be merged.

  “So,” Ell said, focusing intently on Roger and Emma, “they took me in to see this Virgie that seemed to be kind of a big boss. It wasn’t that he was bigger, or looked stronger, or seemed a whole lot smarter. He seemed to have some kind of charisma, though how I could recognize charisma across alien species barriers is a mystery to me. You see him in this image, reddish-brown, two legs, four arms, two big eyes on stalks. He’s really not much different from Geo, when you consider how different they all are from one another.”

  Emma attracted Ell’s attention with a wave of a finger. “You’re calling that Virgie a ‘he.’ Do you know it’s a male, or are you just falling into that old sexist pattern of calling everything that’s in doubt a male?”

  Roger snorted, “Here we go again, just like the Teecees.”

  Ell laughed, “Guilty as charged. I have no idea what sex it is, or even if they have sexes.”

  Emma rolled her eyes, “You’re a woman! You shouldn’t fall in that trap!”

  “Okay,” Ell said, “she’s not really all that different from Geo.”

  Emma gave her a grin and a nod, “You go girl.”

  Ell turned back to the screen where Allan had put up another image. She waved at another Virgie on the screen. “The interesting one though, is this old girl here.” Ell winked at Emma, “I also don’t know that she’s actually old, but watching her move I get the impression that she is.” Ell frowned, “I don’t think the old black-striped one is a leader, more of a trusted advisor. Maybe something we would think of as a scientist. Two legs, six arms! Two of the arms are heavy lifters, two of them are daintier like Geo’s, but the two most central ones are positively delicate, as if she uses them for really fine work. Notice, that like Geo she has a large central eye as well as two on stalks, but her middle eye is really big.”

  Roger said, “Do you think the big eye works something like a magnifying glass to allow Striper to look at small objects?”

  Ell shrugged, “Here on earth, big eyes are usually a sign that the animal evolved for low light environments. The Virgies don’t seem to be nocturnal, though I suppose it’s possible that Striper has a night job. I think, however, that it’s more likely that Geo and Striper have a really large lens in their middle eye to provide more magnification. I’m thinking that the retina behind that big eye might not be all that much larger.”

  Roger said, “Every time I think that we could teach them how to do something, for instance make a magnifying glass, I come up against the problem that they don’t even have the basis for making such simple technology. No glass in this case.”

  Ell said thoughtfully, “You know, they’re subjected to really high background radiation. I suspect they must have some way to protect themselves or at least to protect their DNA from radiation damage. DNA seems to be hugely important to them after all. If you guys can think of some simple device we can teach them to make, maybe we could make a kind of ‘technology trade’ where we teach them how to build something from our industrial age and they teach us how to protect our DNA?”

  Roger and Emma both tilted their heads and frowned. Emma said, “Since they apparently use no technology, it seems like it ought to be incredibly easy to teach them to make some kind of a device that they would find useful.” She barked a little laugh, “But when they aren’t even using stone implements…” Emma shook her head helplessly, “Where do we start?” She shrugged, “I’ll keep thinking about it.”

  Ell said, “I’ve been having the same issues.” She waved back at the screen, “Rather than make you listen to all the struggles we went through trying to translate what Red, which is what I’m calling the reddish-brown leader, and Striper said, I’ll just tell you what Allan and I finally worked out.” The video fast forwarded through a lot of hand waving communication. Ell said, “In that section Striper was asking us about DNA. Well, not asking us so much about DNA, as how we knew what it looked like. They have no microscopy at all, much less electron microscopy that might show them something as small as DNA. However, it became apparent that, even though they’ve never seen it, almost every Virgie immediately recognizes our images because they are so familiar with the molecule and what it does. They know that there are four different nucleotides, arranged in pairs across the helix and that groups of them code for the amino acids that make up proteins. Striper, at least, was able to list in order the nucleotides that code for chlorophyll!”

  “From memory?!” Emma exploded; then she thumped her own forehead, “Of course from memory! They don’t have an AI to remember it for them!”

  “Yeah,” Ell said with a little laugh, “Once we’d agreed on what the four nucleotides were, Striper plucked a leaf, crushed it, pointed at the green smear, and started listing nucleotides. I had no idea what he… I mean she was doing, but when she’d gotten a little way into it Allan told me what it was… I should tell you, though, Striper did pull out a little book of what appeared to be thin leather pages with marks on them. There were four different symbols, arranged in clusters of three which fits with DNA. I suspect he hasn’t memorized the DNA for everything. He’s written it down for some things.”

  Roger frowned, “What were the marks made with?”

  Ell laughed, “Hoping for some technology? Unfortunately, they looked like they were punctures made with a thorn or something. Maybe with a little bit of pigment rubbed into them.”

  Emma had been staring off into the distance. Now she turned toward them and said, “Maybe we don’t have to show them how to build a device. Maybe we can just explain how a device works and let them figure out how to make it themselves…”

  Ell frowned, “I’m not sure I follow what you’re saying?”

  “Maybe we can just show Striper a diagram of a microscope and he can figure out how to make lenses and arrange them properly. Rather than making glass lenses mounted in a hard tube, like we would, he might prefer to manipulate DNA to have his body build a magnifying lens… Or even a special eyeball with two lenses, one in front of the other.”

  Ell stared at Emma for a moment, “That… may be a great idea…”

  ***

  Emma sat down next to Ell, “Did you try showing Striper a diagram of a microscope yet?”

  Ell gave a little shudder, “Yes. I tried to make what a lens is clear by using a diagram of an eyeball. I got Manny to draw an eyeball mounted in an eye-stalk so that it would be easier for Striper
to understand that we were talking about an eye. Then I showed her a diagram of a human eyeball cut in section and pointed out the lens. I used one of those diagrams that has little lines showing the light coming into the lens, then getting focused on the retina.”

  Emma nodded, then looking curious, she asked, “Did it look like Striper’d ever seen the inside of an eyeball? I’ve been wondering if they ever do any dissections.”

  Ell gave another little shudder, “You’ll probably find this a little difficult to believe, so I’m just going to have Allan show you a video clip.” She spoke briefly to Allan and Striper appeared on the big screen to their right.

  In the video image, Striper was studying a laser image of eye anatomy that was being displayed on a sheet of leather. Though Emma couldn’t imagine how she got the impression, she felt strongly that Striper was fascinated and curious. Then Striper’s two eye-stalks turned and looked at one another, a motion which was quite amusing to watch. Next, Striper actually reached up and grasped his eye-stalks with his hands, bending them a little bit so that the left one could inspect the right one more easily.

  Then the video went from amusing to stomach turning. Striper extended some sharp appearing claws from one of her medium-sized hands and used them to shear through her right eye-stalk just below the eyeball!

  Horrified, Emma jerked back from the screen in reaction.

  However, Striper showed no evidence of pain or dismay. The stump of the eye-stalk oozed a bit of blood, but that quickly stopped as if Striper had vascular control and could spasm off the vessels.

  By this point, Striper was holding her amputated eye in front of her extra-large central eye and inspecting it closely. Again using the apparently razor-sharp claws on the medium-sized hand, Striper sliced through the eyeball longitudinally to expose a cut surface similar to the one in the diagram Virgwald had been displaying with his laser. Striper flipped the two halves over so she could look at both of them. Feeling a little green still, Emma nonetheless noted that the section of the alien eyeball looked surprisingly similar to the diagram of the human one. Optics working the way they did, she supposed that wasn’t too surprising. Emma turned to Ell, a revolted look still showing on her face, “Geez! That was disgusting!”

  Ell shook her head sympathetically, “Allan and I managed to ask Striper what she would do without an eye and she seemed surprised. Apparently, she can grow another one in just a few days.” Ell waved at the screen, “Keep watching, it’s not over.”

  Striper was now using her third pair of hands, the ones that were very dainty, to inspect the amputated eye. After a moment, Striper plucked the lens out of the eye. The eye hadn’t been transected perfectly in half, so Striper took the lens out of the larger section. She held it up and tried to peer through it, but it appeared to be filled with gelatinous material that was leaking out through the cut edge of the lens. Nonetheless, Striper appeared to be quite excited about whatever she did manage to see through the lens, clattering loudly at the other Virgies who’d gathered there for the session with Virgwald. A few minutes later, she clattered excitedly to one of the other Virgies and that one promptly reached up and snipped one of its own eyes off its eye-stalk! Emma wasn’t quite as horrified this time, but couldn’t keep from wondering if Striper had actually ordered a subordinate to cut off its own eye, or whether a colleague had volunteered to do so.

  Moments later, they were plucking the intact lens out of this additional eye and excitedly passing it around so everyone could peer through it. In only a few minutes they had discovered that tugging or squeezing at the edges of it could change the magnification and focal length.

  Emma looked up at Ell, “You just did that to watch me squirm, didn’t you?”

  Ell said primly, “I only wanted you to be able to experience the depths of the Virgies’ scientific curiosity and the sacrifices they’re willing to make.” She ignored Emma’s snort and continued, “No matter how queasy that made you, Allan and I spent some time translating with them and it became evident that they thought we’d taught them something wonderful. Allan showed them diagrams of dual lens microscopes with objectives and eyepieces and it’s my impression that they’re going to try to grow something like that. It might be that they think they can grow lenses and mount them in some kind of tube, but I think they’re actually planning to grow them within their own bodies. We also tried to explain telescopes to them, but it wasn’t clear to me that they were able to understand that concept.”

  Uncomfortably, Emma said, “Do they have any animals? I mean, I’ve seen all kinds of different Virgies… but everything I’ve seen looks intelligent except the plants. Well, and some of the little things like minnows and bugs.”

  “Yeah, same here,” Ell said, “I get the impression from some things they’ve said—though my comprehension might have been mangled in translation—that they don’t see any reason to keep unintelligent large animals around.”

  “They’ve wiped them out?!”

  Ell pursed her lips, “I think it’s more like they incorporated them into their own genomes. I think the Virgies don’t think of species as important, they think of DNA as important. They try to preserve genes, not complete animals. So they took the genes from animals that they admired or thought were important and incorporated them into the Virgies’ own genomes. The Virgies represent not just their own species, but all of the significant species that have lived on their world. It also seems pretty certain that they’ve incorporated some animal genes into those nodules that form on the plants in the hexagons they live in. The nodules have edible animal type proteins in them.” Ell paused for a moment, then continued in a somewhat hushed voice, “I got the impression that they’d be horrified to find out that we eat animals. Maybe more horrified than you would be to find out they’d wiped out a species.”

  “Oh,” Emma said, taken aback.

  “So, what you were thinking, I suspect, was that they should grow their microscope in what would be their equivalent of a pig or something, right?”

  Emma nodded, “But you’re going to tell me they’d probably think that was sick, whereas they feel the ethical thing to do is to grow it in their own body, yes?”

  It was Ell’s turn to nod.

  Emma said, “Are you still going to ask them about protecting against radiation damage to DNA?”

  “Already did. As we suspected, it looks like they don’t try to protect the DNA from damage. In fact, they seem to be surprised that radiation damage would be a problem. Striper gave me a long speech that I believe was supposed to explain to me how DNA gets repaired after radiation does damage to it. Apparently the same mechanism repairs it after damage from other mutagens as well. I’ve made an appointment to talk to Dr. Hodges, a DNA guru at Duke University. Hopefully he’ll be able to confirm whether that’s what Striper was actually telling me or not.”

  “Are you thinking that we’ll be able to safely import this mechanism for DNA correction from the Virgies?” Emma said, sounding a little apprehensive.

  “I surely don’t know. That’s why I’m talking to an expert. It worries me a lot, just like it’s worrying you. I absolutely don’t want to import any actual DNA from there, but maybe it’ll be possible to understand their correction system and build its components from the underlying DNA code?” Ell shrugged, “I don’t know.”

  ***

  “Yes!” Zage shouted.

  Vanessa looked over his way curiously, then got up to go see what the excitement was all about. “What’s up?”

  Zage looked around excitedly, “My HeLa cells bumped up their expression of Trim28 in response to the peptide!”

  “Really?” Vanessa said doubtfully, nonetheless feeling sick astonishment once again. It had been surprising enough when the kid had designed a peptide, sequenced DNA for it, inserted the plasmid into E. coli, and then been able to purify the peptide he’d set out to make. Though, Vanessa told herself that by now she shouldn’t have been surprised. The kid had proven his technical expertise
over and over. But, to have the peptide he’d designed actually do what he’d hoped… Holy crap! She hadn’t actually tried to follow his reasoning regarding how the peptide might be able to “flip the switch” on Trim28 expression, because she’d been so sure it couldn’t work. It was just a stab in the dark after all, wasn’t it?

  If it were possible for a small peptide to do that, surely some big-name investigator in a major lab somewhere would have seen the possibility and carried out the experiment already. Wouldn’t they?

  She suppressed the sigh that had nearly escaped and said, “Show me your data?”

  Dr. Turner came through after Zage had left. Vanessa said, “Um, Dr. Turner?”

  He stopped and looked her way questioningly.

  “Zage’s peptide… Um, his cell line is expressing high levels of Trim28.”

  Turner gave a small, frustrated shake of his head, then disconsolately said, “I’ll be dipped in shit!” He closed his eyes and tilted his face up toward the ceiling, “Why does that infant get the Midas touch?” Turner said, either rhetorically or to God, Vanessa wasn’t sure which.

  Vanessa didn’t say anything, feeling a little worried that Turner might truly be angry.

  Turner sighed and turned to look at Vanessa, “I’d imagine he wants to order those obese rats?”

  Vanessa nodded…

  ***

  Clarence Hodges stormed into his office, fury writ large on his face. “Alice! Cancel all my appointments! That idiot Rendell sent in his part of the grant application two days before it’s due at NIH, and of course, it’s a complete mess. I’m going to have to spend the entire day rewriting that pile of dog shit!”