The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 13

by Gardner Dozois

  “Please forgive my nephew,” said the old man. “He has watched too much American television and thinks the best way to impress is to use dramatic words, wild gestures, and where possible, a toll-free number.” The nephew bowed his head and slunk to the back of the stall, chastened.

  “May I answer your questions?” the old man asked.

  “If you would be so kind,” said Da, gesturing for the man to continue.

  “Bloodwriting is a good word, and I owe my nephew a debt of gratitude for that. But the actual process is something altogether more mundane. I offer a virus, nothing more. I have taken a hypo-immunogenic strain of adeno-associated virus and added a special code to its DNA.”

  Da said, “The other pilgrims tell me that you can write the Qur’an into their blood.”

  “That I can, sir,” said the old man. “Long ago I learned a trick that would get the adeno-associated virus to write its code into bone marrow stem cells. It made me a rich man. Now I use my gift for Allah’s work. I consider it part of my zakât.”

  Da suppressed a wry smile. Zakât, charitable donation, was one of the five pillars. This old man was so blinded by avarice that he believed selling his invention for small profit was enough to fulfil his obligation to God.

  The old man smiled and raised a small ampoule of red liquid. He continued, “This, my friend, is the virus. I have stripped its core and put the entire text of the Qur’an into its DNA. If you inject it, the virus will write the Qur’an into your myeloid precursor cells, and then your white blood cells will carry the Word of Allah inside them.”

  I put my hand up to catch his attention. “Why not red blood cells?” I asked. “They carry all the oxygen.”

  The old man looked at me as if he noticed me for the first time. “Hello, little one. You are very smart. Red blood cells carry oxygen, but they have no DNA. They cannot carry the Word.”

  It all seemed too complicated to an eleven-year-old girl.

  My father was curious. “DNA codes for amino acid sequences. How can you write the Qur’an in DNA?”

  “DNA is just another alphabet,” said the old man. He handed my father a card. “Here is the crib sheet.”

  My father studied the card for several minutes, and I saw his face change from sceptical to awed. He passed the card to me. It was filled with Arabic squiggles, which I could not understand. The only thing I knew about Arabic was that it was written right-to-left, the reverse of English.

  “I can’t read it,” I said to the man. He made a little spinning gesture with his finger, indicating that I should flip the card over. I flipped the card and saw the same crib sheet, only with Anglicized terms for each Arabic letter. Then he handed me another crib sheet, and said: “This is the sheet for English text.”

  “The Arabic alphabet has 28 letters. Each letter changes form depending on its position in the word. But the rules are rigid, so there is no need to put each variation in the crib sheet. It is enough to know that the letter is aliph or bi, and whether it is at the start, at the end, or in the middle of the word.

  “The stop commands are also left in their usual places. These are the body’s natural commands and they tell ribosomes when to stop making a protein. It only cost three spots and there were plenty to spare, so they stayed in.”

  My father asked, “Do you have an English translation?”

  “Your daughter is looking at the crib sheet for the English language,” the old man explained, “and there are other texts one can write, but not the Qur’an.”

  Thinking rapidly, Da said, “But you could write the Qur’an in English?”

  “If I wanted to pursue secular causes, I could do that,” the old man said. “But I have all the secular things I need. I have copyrighted crib sheets for all the common alphabets, and I make a profit on them. For the Qur’an, however, translations are not acceptable. Only the original words of Mohammed can be trusted. It is one thing for dhimmis to translate it for their own curiosity, but if you are a true believer you must read the word of God in its unsullied form.”

  Da stared at the man. The old man had just claimed that millions of Muslims were false believers because they could not read the original Qur’an. Da shook his head and let the matter go. There were plenty of imams who would agree with the old man.

  “What is the success rate of the inoculation?”

  “Ninety-five per cent of my trial subjects had identifiable Qur’an text in their blood after two weeks, although I cannot guarantee that the entire text survived the insertion in all of those subjects. No peer-reviewed journal would accept the paper.” He handed my father a copy of an article from Modern Gene Techniques. “Not because the science is poor, as you will see for yourself, but because Islam scares them.”

  Da looked serious. “How much are you charging for this?”

  “Aha! The essential question. I would dearly love to give it away, but even a king would grow poor if he gave a grain of rice to every hungry man. I ask enough to cover my costs, and no haggling. It is a hundred U.S. dollars or equivalent.”

  Da looked into the dusty sky, thinking. “I am puzzled,” he said at last. “The Qur’an has one hundred and fourteen suras, which comes to tens of thousands of words. Yet the adeno-associated virus is quite small. Surely it can’t all fit inside the viral coat?”

  At this the old man nodded. “I see you are truly a man of wisdom. It is a patented secret, but I suppose that someday a greedy industrialist will lay hands on my virus and sequence the genome. So, I will tell you on the condition that it goes no further than this stall.”

  Da gave his word.

  “The code is compressed. The original text has enormous redundancy, and with advanced compression, I can reduce the amount of DNA by over 80 per cent. It is still a lot of code.”

  I remember Da’s jaw dropping. “That must mean the viral code is self-extracting. How on Earth do you commandeer the ribosomes?”

  “I think I have given away enough secrets for today,” said the old man.

  “Please forgive me,” said Da. “It was curiosity, not greed, that drove me to ask.” Da changed his mind about the bloodwriter. This truly was fair zakât. Such a wealth of invention for only a hundred U.S. dollars.

  “And the safety?” asked my father.

  The old man handed him a number of papers, which my father read carefully, nodding his head periodically, and humming each time he was impressed by the data.

  “I’ll have a dose,” said Da. “Then no one can accuse me of being a slipshod reviewer.”

  “Sir, I would be honoured to give a complimentary bloodwriting to you and your daughter.”

  “Thank you. I am delighted to accept your gift, but only for me. Not for my daughter. Not until she is of age and can make her own decision.” Da took a red ampoule in his hands and held it up to the light, as if he was looking through an envelope for the letters of the Qur’an. He shook his head at the marvel and handed it back to the old man, who drew it up in a syringe.

  That night, our fellow pilgrims made a fire and gathered around to hear my father talk. As he spoke, four translators whispered their own tongues to the crowd. The scene was like a great theatre from the Arabian Nights. Scores of people wrapped in white robes leaned into my father’s words, drinking up his excitement. It could have been a meeting of princes.

  Whenever Da said something that amazed the gathered masses, you could hear the inbreath of the crowd, first from the English-speakers, and then in patches as the words came out in the other languages. He told them about DNA, and how it told our bodies how to live. He told them about introns, the long stretches of human DNA that are useless to our bodies, but that we carry still from viruses that invaded our distant progenitors, like ancestral scars. He told them about the DNA code, with its triplets of adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine, and he passed around copies of the bloodwriter’s crib sheet. He told them about blood, and the white cells that fought infection. He talked about the adeno-associated virus and how it injecte
d its DNA into humans. He talked about the bloodwriter’s injection and the mild fever it had given him. He told them of the price.

  And he answered questions for an hour.

  The next day, as soon as the morning prayers were over, the blood-writing stall was swamped with customers. The old man ran out of ampoules by mid-morning, and only avoided a riot by promising to bring more the following day.

  I had made friends with another girl. She was two years younger than I was, and we did not share a language, but we still found ways to play together to relieve the boredom.

  One day, I saw her giggling and whispering to her mother, who looked furtively at me and at Da. The mother waved over her companions, and spoke to them in solemn tones. Soon a very angry-looking phalanx of women descended on my unsuspecting father. They stood before him, hands on hips, and the one who spoke English pointed a finger at me.

  “Where is her mother?” asked the woman. She was taller than the others, a weather-beaten woman who looked like she was sixty, but must have been younger because she had a child only two years old. “This is no place for a young girl to be escorted by a man.”

  “Zada’s mother died in a car accident back home. I am her father, and I can escort her without help, thank you.”

  “I think not,” said the woman.

  “What right have you to say such a thing?” asked Da. “I am her father.”

  The woman pointed again. “Ala says she saw your daughter bathing, and she has not had the khitan. Is this true?”

  “It is none of your business,” said Da.

  The woman screamed at him. “I will not allow my daughter to play with harlots. Is it true?”

  “It is none of your business.”

  The woman lurched forward and pulled me by my arm. I squealed and twisted out of her grasp and ran behind my father for protection. I wrapped my arms around his waist and held on tightly.

  “Show us,” demanded the woman. “Prove she is clean enough to travel with this camp.”

  Da refused, which made the woman lose her temper. She slapped him so hard she split his lip. He tasted the blood, but stood resolute. She reached around and tried to unlock my arms from Da’s waist. He pushed her away.

  “She is not fit to share our camp. She should be cut, or else she will be shamed in the sight of Allah,” the woman screamed. The other women were shouting and shaking their fists, but few of them knew English, so it was as much in confusion as anger.

  My father fixed the woman with a vicious glare. “You call my daughter shameful in the sight of Allah? I am a servant of Allah. Prove to me that Allah is shamed and I will do what I can to remove the shame. Fetch a mullah.”

  The woman scowled. “I will fetch a mullah, although I doubt your promise is worth as much as words in the sand.”

  “Make sure the mullah speaks English,” my father demanded as she slipped away. He turned to me and wiped away tears. “Don’t worry, Zada. No harm will come to you.”

  “Will I be allowed to play with Ala?”

  “No. Not with these old vultures hanging around.”

  By the evening, the women had found a mullah gullible enough to mediate the dispute. They tugged his sleeves as he walked towards our camp, hurrying him up. It was obvious that his distaste had grown with every minute in the company of the women, and now he was genuinely reluctant to speak on the matter.

  The weathered woman pointed us out to the mullah and spat some words at him that we did not understand.

  “Sir, I hear that your daughter is uncircumcised. Is this true?”

  “It is none of your business,” said Da.

  The mullah’s face dropped. You could almost see his heart sinking. “Did you not promise . . . ?”

  “I promised to discuss theology with you and that crone. My daughter’s anatomy is not your affair.”

  “Please, sir . . . ”

  Da cut him off abruptly. “Mullah, in your considered opinion, is it necessary for a Muslim girl to be circumcised?”

  “It is the accepted practice,” said the mullah.

  “I do not care about the accepted practice. I ask what Mohammed says.”

  “Well, I’m sure that Mohammed says something on the matter,” said the mullah.

  “Show me where.”

  The mullah coughed, thinking of the fastest way to extract himself. “I did not bring my books with me,” he said.

  Da laughed, not believing that a mullah would travel so far to mediate a theological dispute without a book. “Here, have mine,” Da said as he passed the Qur’an to the mullah. “Show me where Mohammed says such a thing.”

  The mullah’s shoulders slumped. “You know I cannot. It is not in the Qur’an. But it is sunnah.”

  “Sunnah,” said Da, “is very clear on the matter. Circumcision is makrumah for women. It is honourable but not compulsory. There is no requirement for women to be circumcised.”

  “Sir, you are very learned. But there is more to Islam than a strict reading of the Qur’an and sunnah. There have even been occasions when the word of Mohammed has been overturned by later imams. Mohammed himself knew that he was not an expert on all things, and he said that it was the responsibility of future generations to rise above his imperfect knowledge.”

  “So, you are saying that even if it was recorded in the Qur’an, that would not make it compulsory.” Da gave a smile – the little quirk of his lips that he gave every time he had laid a logical trap for someone.

  The mullah looked grim. The trap had snapped shut on his leg, and he was not looking forward to extricating himself.

  “Tell these women so we can go back to our tents and sleep,” said Da.

  The mullah turned to the women and spoke to them. The weathered woman became agitated and started waving her hands wildly. Her voice was an overwrought screech. The mullah turned back to us.

  “She refuses to share camp with you, and insists you leave.”

  Da fixed the mullah with his iron gaze. “Mullah, you are a learned man in a difficult situation, but surely you can see the woman is half-mad. She complains that my daughter has not been mutilated, and would not taint herself with my daughter’s presence. Yet she is tainted herself. Did she tell you that she tried to assault my daughter and strip her naked in public view? Did she tell you that she inflicted this wound on me when I stood between her and my daughter? Did she tell you that I have taken the bloodwriting, so she spilled the Word of God when she drew blood?”

  The mullah looked appalled. He went back to the woman, who started screeching all over again. He cut her off and began berating her. She stopped talking, stunned that the mullah had turned on her. He kept berating her until she showed a sign of humility. When she bowed her head, the mullah stopped his tirade, but as soon as the words stopped she sent a dagger-glance our way.

  That night, three families pulled out of our camp. Many of the others in camp were pleased to see them go. I heard one of the grandmothers mutter “Taliban” under her breath, making a curse of the words.

  The mood in camp lifted, except for mine. “It’s my fault Ala left,” I said.

  “No, it is not your fault,” said Da. “It was her family’s fault. They want the whole world to think the way they think and to do what they do. This is against the teaching of the Qur’an, which says that there shall be no coercion in the matter of faith. I can find the sura if you like.”

  “Am I unclean?”

  “No,” said Da. “You are the most beautiful girl in the world.”

  By morning, the camp had been filled by other families. The faces were more friendly, but Ala was gone. It was my first lesson in intolerance, and it came from my own faith.

  In Sydney, we sat for hours, waiting to be processed. By the third hour, Da finally lost patience and approached the customs officer.

  “We are Australian citizens, you know?” Da said.

  “Please be seated. We are still waiting for cross-checks.”

  “I was born in Brisbane, for crying
out loud! Zada was born in Melbourne. My family is Australian four generations back.”

  His protests made no difference. Ever since the Saladin Outbreak, customs checked all Muslims thoroughly. Fifty residents of Darwin had died from an outbreak of a biological weapon that the Saladins had released. Only a handful of Saladins had survived, and they were all in prison, and it had been years ago, but Australia still treated its Muslims as if every single one of us was a terrorist waiting for the opportunity to go berserk.

  We were insulted, shouted at, and spat on by men and women who then stepped into their exclusive clubs and talked about how uncivilized we were. Once it had been the Aborigines, then it had been the Italian and Greek immigrants; a generation later it was the Asians; now it was our turn. Da thought that we could leave for a while, go on our pilgrimage and return to a more settled nation, but our treatment by the customs officers indicated that little had changed in the year we were away.

  They forced Da to strip for a search, and nearly did the same for me, until Da threatened them with child molestation charges. They took blood samples from both of us. They went through our luggage ruthlessly. They X-rayed our suitcases from so many angles that Da joked they would glow in the dark.

  Then they made us wait, which was the worst punishment of all.

  Da leaned over to me and whispered, “They are worried about my blood. They think that maybe I am carrying a deadly virus like a Saladin. And who knows? Maybe the Qur’an is a deadly virus.” He chuckled.

  “Can they read your blood?” I asked.

  “Yes, but they can’t make sense of it without the code sheet.”

  “If they knew it was just the Qur’an texts, would they let us go?”

  “Probably,” said Da.

  “Why don’t you give it to them, then?”

  He sighed. “Zada, it is hard to understand, but many people hate us for no reason other than our faith. I have never killed or hurt or stolen from anyone in my life, and yet people hate me because I pray in a church with a crescent instead of a cross.”