by Robin Craig
Miriam was intrigued by the difference between his dance style and Amaro’s. Where Amaro was flamboyant and exciting, his partner an independent foil to his own flair, Tagarin was fluid and rhythmic, leading with a gentle but firm hand, his partner an extension of himself. Perhaps a man’s dance style reflected his soul, Miriam thought. In that case, Tagarin was a man who knew what he wanted and why he wanted it; a man used to command. She felt herself rebelling, as she always had if another person assumed the right to command her. She did not resist him, but began to impose her own variations on his leading; he had to either accept it or have their dance lose its grace.
He noticed. He smiled faintly and said ambiguously, “So you like to dance, Ms Hunter? I thought you would.”
With that he imposed his will again, whirling her in a long turn. Then he drew her close and speared her with his black gaze. “Now, Ms Hunter, how am I to interpret your presence here? I sincerely hope this is not harassment. That you have some interest in stem cell research beyond the mythical creature you pursue.”
She returned his gaze openly. “Oh, no, Doctor. I assure you I didn’t expect to see you here. Stem cell science is certainly interesting but the venue is a coincidence: I’m only here because a friend invited me.”
“Really? Then how do you account for your costume – fetching as it is? It seems an even more remarkable coincidence, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Is this why you asked me to dance? To interrogate me?”
“I admit that is true, in part.”
“What is the other part?”
He smiled. “Why Ms Hunter, don’t be so modest. What man would not want to dance with an attractive woman like you? And while grilling you is on the menu if you deserve it, I think you are worth getting to know a little better regardless. However, need I point out that you have avoided my question?”
“Sorry. Yes, I can see how it looks suspicious. But I didn’t choose the costume either; my friend chose that as well simply to match his, and he knows nothing about the case. You don’t need to worry: I’m not working tonight. But why are you here? I had the impression you had become something of a recluse. A ball is the last place I expected to find you.”
“I get invited every year. I don’t often come but sometimes even I crave some lights and glamor, and this is one of the few places where I am assured of a welcome. Many of the people here are my children, in a sense. I suggest you take advantage of the evening, Ms Hunter. Perhaps you will learn that we genetic engineers don’t spend all our time creating monsters. As with most science, improving human life is its real purpose. Look around you if you want proof of what good it can do. Whatever life and happiness you see here would not exist without it.”
“I am sure that is true. I am not your enemy, Dr Tagarin. At least that is not my intent.”
“In that case let us be friends at least for these few minutes, and just enjoy the rest of this dance together.”
A short time later Miriam was quietly enjoying the dance when she felt the nature of Tagarin’s hold on her change; it became softer and more intimate. It was not improperly so, but it surprised her and she glanced up at Tagarin’s face. His eyes were closed and he wore a faint smile, and she realized that he had forgotten her: in his mind he was dancing with someone else. From the nature of his smile Miriam could tell that whoever she was, was long in the past and long lost, and she wondered what tragedy had separated them. She decided not to intrude, to remain the surrogate for his lost love. In their daytime meetings she had unearthed enough past pain; if she could bring back past happiness she would not deny him.
The music began to wind down and Tagarin opened his eyes. She saw him briefly regard the woman in his arms openly, with affection. Then he recognized her, remembered the full reality of the present and the shutters closed once more. He looked around and said with a self-mocking smile, “I’m sorry Ms Hunter, I do believe I have taken up too much of your time. I see a young man over where I met you, holding two glasses and looking in our direction. It is time I returned you to him.”
With that, he swirled her to the edge of the dance floor and let her go as seamlessly as he had gathered her into the dance. He bowed graciously and said, “Well, thank you for the dance, Ms Hunter. Do enjoy the rest of your evening.” She noticed that for once he gave her no bitterness or contempt. He too seemed content to keep this evening insulated from their daytime enmity.
“Thank you, Dr Tagarin. But may I introduce you to my friend? He is a geneticist and I am sure he would be honored to meet you.”
Tagarin gave her a sharp glance but inclined his head in assent. He followed her to where Amaro stood, watching them approach with a mocking grin.
“Ah, the curse of escorting a beautiful woman!” he said, handing Miriam her glass. “Like an electric charge, if left alone she soon gathers company!”
“Amaro, this is Dr Tagarin. Dr Tagarin, this charming rogue is Senor Moreno.”
Tagarin did not offer his hand; he merely inclined his head briefly and said, “Good evening, Senor.”
Amaro raised an eyebrow. “Dr Tagarin? Could that be the Tagarin, the famous genetic engineer?”
Tagarin nodded curtly. “More infamous than famous, I fear, though happily the people in this gathering care more for the latter. And what about you, young man? What is your interest in regenerative cell therapies?”
“I am afraid that it is all somewhat beyond me, Doctor, though I admire those for whom it is not. My own work in genetics is more investigative and forensic than in developing wonder treatments. It is my good fortune to be here because a friend of mine could not come so he gave me his tickets. Though I fear his having them was not a mark of his credentials either, but more a perk of his office.”
“But our other common factor is Miriam here,” he continued, “a far more intriguing subject than I am. She asserts she is a humble apprentice detective, yet the more time I spend with her the more mysterious she becomes. Not only is she entangled in cases so secret she cannot talk about them, I now find her numbering eminent scientists among her friends. How do you happen to know this dangerous lady, sir? Or is it just the cool evening breeze that introduced you?”
Miriam glanced somewhat nervously at Tagarin, but he was no more interested in revelations than she was and simply replied, “Oh, nothing so dramatic I’m afraid. I have occasionally helped the police with some technical aspects of genetics and we’ve run into each other a couple of times.”
“Very public-spirited of you, Doctor,” commented Amaro.
“An efficient police force is in all our interests, wouldn’t you say?” he replied, glancing pointedly at Miriam. “Besides, it is only the more difficult and therefore interesting questions I am sought for. But I am afraid that confidentiality is demanded of all my consultations with the law, so that is all I can tell you.”
After a brief pause he continued, “But I have taken up enough of you young people’s time and I should mingle with the other guests. Good night to you both.”
With that he bowed and walked back into the lights in a manner that forbade recall. A large man whom they had not noticed materialized from the wall nearby and followed him. James, Miriam realized. That is who I glimpsed earlier through the crowd.
Amaro raised his glass to Miriam, “To my favorite woman of mystery!”
Miriam clinked her glass on his and smiled. “I fear I am less mysterious than you make out, though I am pleased to be your favorite something. It comes with certain perks that I enjoy. Slightly.”
“Oh, you are my favorite for many things, including that! But what do you think of the remarkable Dr Tagarin?”
“He’s a strange fellow. Intense. Despite what he said I don’t think he likes the law much, though I’m not sure I can really blame him. I never expected to see him at a party: I more think of him spending his nights brooding in a tower of his Gothic mansion, plotting the flaming downfall of GenInt.”
“So what are these cases he’s helped you wit
h? Anything exciting?” he asked lightly.
Miriam hesitated. She didn’t like to lie, but even if she had been free to talk she wasn’t comfortable confiding in Amaro about this; not given his job. But it would sound suspicious to refuse to tell him anything. “No, not really,” she replied, looking away to study the view. “There was genetics involved and it might have been exciting if it had led anywhere, but Dr Tagarin saved us a lot of time by showing it wasn’t what it seemed.” She looked back at him and smiled innocently. Well, it’s close to the truth, she thought. It might even be true.
Amaro smiled back at her affectionately. Behind the smile was his own thought: you’re a lousy liar, my dear; fortunately for us I am an excellent one.
Then dinner was announced, and they walked arm in arm back inside. The food and wine, as Amaro had promised, were superb. The tales of their fellow guests were illuminating, and Miriam was fascinated to learn about cures for diseases she hadn’t even known existed.
Miriam was feeling happy and full as dinner wound up, when the lights went down a notch and the MC announced, “Well, folks, I hope you all had a fine dinner. Soon we’ll have more dancing so you can work off some of those delectable calories. But first, we promised you a surprise after dinner speaker. And let me tell you, we were surprised ourselves to net him. Please welcome tonight’s speaker, who will be telling us about the history of genetic engineering: one of the greatest pioneers of genetically engineered stem cell therapies. Please welcome Dr Daniel Tagarin!”
This was turning into a night of coincidences, thought Miriam, as she applauded along with the crowd. She wasn’t surprised that he would be invited to speak, especially on such a topic to such a gathering: but she was as surprised as the organizers that he had agreed. She wondered how wrong she had been about him in other ways. Then wondered even more as she watched him talk, enthralled.
The dance floor in the center of the room was now a stage, and Tagarin stood there orchestrating a holographic display that filled the space around him. “It was known for many years,” he started, “that DNA is essentially a simple structure of just four different components called nucleotides, known for brevity by their initials A, C, G and T.” This was accompanied by four chemical structures floating in space. Miriam knew just enough chemistry to know that they were organic molecules; beyond that they all looked much the same to her except two were larger. “But how could such a simple structure explain the amazing properties of DNA, which was already known to be capable of self replication as well as coding for everything that makes your body what it is? In 1953 scientists solved a key part of the puzzle.”
As he spoke, copy after copy of the four chemicals spun off and linked together into two chains that began to wrap around each other as if in a vortex. “Each DNA molecule is two long polymers of those four nucleotides, wound around each other in a double helix. Because of their chemical affinities T always pairs with A and C with G” – in the display, the four lone nucleotides moved into two pairs – “which is what holds the double helix together.” Part of the helix was magnified, showing the pairing at each rung of the ladder. “And it is how DNA is copied faithfully from generation to generation of cells in your body and from parent to child.” The double helix was pulled apart and more nucleotides were recruited to their partners and joined together by enzymes, until where there had been one double helix there now stood two identical to the original. “It is also how the genes that code for proteins are copied into messenger RNA: a molecule similar to DNA which is translated into proteins by the cell.” More enzymes rolled down the strands of DNA, reeling off single stranded RNA copies that were grabbed by yet other molecular machines, which ratcheted along them to churn out proteins.
“And because they are linked in long chains, the number of possible sequences is astronomical: there are more than a trillion possible sequences in a mere chain of 20. This makes everything possible with just those four nucleotides and how they are ordered. Some sequences are recognized by molecules that block transcription into RNA” – in one part of the DNA, a transient structure formed and was bound by a molecule that prevented access by the transcribing enzymes; in another part a different molecule bound directly to a specific sequence with the same effect – “while others initiate transcription” – other interactions opened up the sequence for copying instead of blocking it.
“You have seen how DNA is copied into RNA which encodes proteins. But what is the code, the secret behind that conversion? It is simply the sequence of nucleotides in the RNA that determines what protein it codes for.” A map of triplet sequences appeared linked to twenty different amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. Then the RNA copy drifted away and was grabbed by a molecular machine, a ribosome, churning out a protein according to the encoded sequence, while another RNA with a different sequence churned out a different protein.
“But,” he continued, “nothing is perfect. Sometimes errors occur: the DNA is damaged or there is a copying error. Once an error is there it is copied as faithfully as the rest: the cell’s machinery has no knowledge of what is right or wrong beyond the sequence existing in the DNA itself.” In the display, a mismatch was highlighted in red: then there were two copies, one the same as the original, but the other with that single difference now permanently incorporated. “Those errors cause a lot of problems: genetic diseases, cancer, deterioration of cell function. But without them we wouldn’t be here: some of the changes alter function in a way that is beneficial or neutral, and it is the accumulation of such changes over millions of years that has led to all the diversity of life on earth. Including us.”
“But how?” he asked, raking the audience with a penetrating gaze. “To know how, the first thing we need to know is the sequence of the DNA. That task looked hopeless. Twenty years after the discovery of the double helix, scientists had slowly and painstakingly sequenced short stretches of DNA and RNA. They had worked out the genetic code you saw earlier: how the 64 triplets of nucleotides code for the twenty amino acids proteins are made of and where they start and stop. But the sequence of even a small virus – where ‘small’ is a few thousand nucleotides – seemed out of reach.” The viewpoint in the arena flew away from the double helix to reveal it as a long thin circular string weaving through space. Then the view receded further and a string ten times longer now dominated the view. “This is the DNA of a larger bacterial virus, around 50 thousand nucleotides long.” Then he paused.
“This is the human genome.” Another long double helix wound through the space around his head, then the viewpoint fled rapidly; the double helix grew longer and thinner, wound around itself, millions upon millions of nucleotides, finally wrapping itself up into a dense body, a chromosome; then 22 other chromosomes swam into view. “The human genome – ignoring our having two copies of each chromosome – has three billion nucleotides.”
“Yet the progress in technology for sequencing DNA accelerated so fast that less than fifty years after the double helix was described, a single human genome was sequenced.” The pages of a thick book filled with page after page of four-letter code flipped at a dizzying rate in the air.
“That first genome took ten years and nearly one billion dollars to decode. But within another ten years human genomes were being sequenced in days for mere thousands of dollars, and improvements just kept on coming. A human genome could be sequenced on a chip in a few hours. And not just humans: anything could be sequenced and was: a whole library of people, and a whole library of organisms from bacteria to plants to cats to kangaroos.” A timeline appeared above Tagarin’s head, showing the years and an exponentially growing forest of sequenced genomes organized into evolutionary groups.
A small collection of organisms peeled out of the forest and expanded, showing the organisms and the similarity between their genomes. “You can see that the chimpanzee genome is 98.5% the same as the human; the cat’s is 90% the same. The differences between a chimp, a cat and a man are entirely due to those differences
in their genomes: now we were learning what in the latter caused the former.”
“The genome works to produce an organism in time as well as space.” The view changed to a group of chromosomes much like the one shown earlier, then receded again until a large glowing globe appeared: a single fertilized egg floating in the air. Its chromosomes duplicated, the cell divided, and divided again and again; flashes of color in each cell showed how gene expression varied along gradients in the growing blob. The organism grew and grew, cells migrated, tissues took shape, organs appeared.
It is like a dance of life, thought Miriam, mesmerized by the hypnotic patterns. The replicating helices, the patterns of gene expression, the cell growing into an integrated animal: all a magnificent dance under Tagarin’s command. She wondered what the world had lost, if he had been as great a scientist as he was a speaker: and she knew he had been.
But he did not have to quit, she reminded herself: there was plenty of related research he could have continued in. But what would she have done, she then wondered, if she had given her best to the world: and the world had not only slapped her down but destroyed her creation? Would she have continued working meekly for that world, or would she have said damn you, damn you all, and refused to give them anything more? But if that was his motive, what had he done to his own life? Clothed himself in a fog of bitterness around a shell of cynicism, to come partially alive when presented with a new scientific puzzle and only fully alive when reliving the scientist he had once been? Perhaps in punishing the world he had punished himself more.
On stage the dance went faster and faster; what had formerly been smooth generalities became finer and finer detail; delicate hairs pushed their tips outward from the smooth surface; until at last a fluffy kitten appeared. Then it grew and stretched until a sleek cat filled the arena, staring at them through slitted yellow eyes. Miriam suppressed a gasp. The cat’s predator eyes appeared to be looking straight at her, and she knew in her bones the fear her far ancestors had felt when they met the gaze of a saber-toothed tiger. She wondered if it was an illusion or perhaps just another coincidence. But when she saw Tagarin’s eyes glittering in the shadows she knew he had noted her position in the room, had done it deliberately for her benefit: but whether as acknowledgement, irony or threat she had no way to know. Then she shivered again under that feral gaze, and knew.
