DNA

by Laurence Dahners

  Ell leaned back and frowned up at him, “I’ve got a BC4 meeting this morning.”

  Shan shrugged expansively, “And I’ve got a faculty meeting. We’re blowing them off! It’s not every day your husband wins the Nobel Prize.”

  A little grin lifted the corner of her mouth, “Okay, we’ll play hooky. Who’s going to take Zage to school?”

  “We’ll drop the little beggar off on our way.”

  “Are you going to tell him about your Prize?”

  “Nah, I’m not a braggart. He’ll find out soon enough and be more impressed if I didn’t beat my own drum.”

  Ell snorted, “You’ve been beating your own drum around me!”

  Shan tried to look haughty, “I have to beat my own drum around you, otherwise you’d hardly notice you had a husband…”

  Ell pulled him in for another hug, “I do so notice you… you’re my Nobel prize-winning piece of eye candy.”

  ***

  When Shan got to work after their breakfast out, he’d missed the faculty meeting as expected. Instead, he went directly to teach his first class. When he arrived, with some trepidation he saw Dr. Benson, the department chairman standing outside the classroom door tapping his foot. As Shan approached, Benson said, “You missed the faculty meeting!”

  “Um, yeah, my wife and I…” He trailed off, not wanting to finish by saying, “went out to breakfast instead.”

  “Well, you know the saying.” Dr. Benson said opening the door to the classroom and motioning Shan in, “If you can’t bring Mohammed to the mountain, you must bring the mountain to Mohammed.”

  As Shan stepped into the classroom, thunderous applause broke out. Shan saw almost the entire math faculty standing in the front of the room applauding with the students. “Oh, I guess you already heard…”

  ***

  Harald Wheat walked out of the BC4 meeting at D5R. At first he’d been terribly disappointed that Ell Donsaii wasn’t there, but then the word had excitedly filtered around the room that she’d won another Nobel Prize. He decided that he probably would have skipped the meeting himself.

  Nonetheless, the extraterrestrial biology they were seeing at BC4 was quite exciting, especially in its implications for understanding Earth’s dinosaur age. The gravity on BC4 was a little lower than Earth’s, and that, in combination with its extremely dense air seemed to be what made BC4’s enormous animals possible. At a hundred and eighty-eight atmospheres of pressure, the density of the air on BC4 was almost ¼ the density of water so that the huge animals’ weight was somewhat supported like it would be if they were wading or swimming.

  Earth’s dinosaurs were so huge that it was extremely difficult to reconcile their size with the possibility that they might ambulate. This had been such a problem that for a long time it had been proposed that the big land dinosaurs actually were swamp waders. After all, the biggest animal of all time, the blue whale, supported its weight in water. The pterodactyloid flyers of the dinosaur age were also far too big to fly in Earth’s current gravity and atmospheric density. But all this, in combination with what they’d seen on BC4, really made it appear to be more likely that Earth’s atmospheric density had been much higher back in the time of the dinosaurs.

  Wheat couldn’t help thinking about the possibility of writing papers not only on the biology of BC4, but also on the implications it had for paleontology. He’d been dying to tell Ell about these exciting ideas, but had enjoyed discussing them with the rest of the BC4 team.

  He’d also been hoping to talk to Ell about 61 Virginis, so when she came around the corner as he was leaving, his emotions surged with some hope. “Ell!” Then, remembering what he’d heard this morning, he said, “Congratulations!”

  “Thanks,” she said. “It’s pretty exciting. Sorry I missed the meeting.”

  Wheat thought about what it must be like to win a third Nobel. Well, it must be pretty crazy to win a first one. “I’ve been hoping to talk to you…” He broke off, thinking that if she’d been too busy to attend the meeting, she might not want to talk to him one on one right now either.

  Instead, she smiled at him, “I was hoping to talk to you too. About,” her eyes glanced at someone coming down the hall behind him, “our other issue.”

  Assuming she wanted to talk about 61 Virginis, but didn’t want to say it where anyone else could hear, Wheat said, “That’d be great.”

  A few minutes later, they were in one of D5R’s little conference rooms. Ell said, “So, have you had any other ideas about the Virgies?”

  Wheat shrugged, “I’ve had kind of a crazy idea based on some old science fiction stories I read by David Brin. They were based on the idea of ‘uplift,’ wherein intelligent species purposefully modified less intelligent species to make them intelligent. So, you could imagine that if one species on 61 Virginis had developed intelligence naturally, it might have uplifted other species to intelligence as well.” He waved his hands as if fending off Ell’s incoming objections, “I know, I know. It would be hard to believe that the original intelligent species would uplift so many others, rather than just a few. Also, I have no explanation for how they could have uplifted others when they apparently haven’t developed the technology to do so. You could propose that they had such technology and lost it, but then I don’t see how to deal with the objection that many of those intelligent sub species should have devolved or been outcompeted since they lost that know-how.”

  Ell frowned in intense concentration, then said, “What if… they had a way to ‘uplift’ other species that didn’t require technological sophistication?”

  “What?!” Wheat asked, flabbergasted by the proposition.

  Ell shrugged, “Supposing, that they had some biological ability to do so. Something innate or inborn. Picture them… able to suck out a sample of blood from the other species, modify some of its DNA in an organ they’d evolved, then reinject it with some new genes that increase intelligence.”

  Wheat blinked, “That doesn’t make any sense! Why would they have evolved such an organ in the first place?!”

  “Okay,” Ell said. “How about this idea?” She proceeded to outline the possibility that a species might have evolved the ability to modify its own DNA. This involved crazy ideas like being able to have a sense that allowed them to “taste” DNA molecules and innately know what those molecules would do. Then they would insert snippets of DNA into their own or their offspring’s genomes that would modify their own physical shapes or abilities.

  Wheat’s initial impression that the idea was ridiculous beyond belief foundered on the problem that he certainly had no more plausible explanation. Thinking about Arthur Conan Doyle’s saying that “when you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth,” Harald lifted his hands palm up in a helpless gesture. “Maybe? To tell the truth, it sounds crazy. However, I just don’t have a better explanation.”

  Ell got an expression on her face that Wheat found difficult to interpret. She looked a little bit happy, like you might expect if he’d just supported a favorite hypothesis, and at the same time a little bit irritated, as if he’d supported a hypothesis she didn’t like. He didn’t get to quiz her about it though, she ushered him out promising to tell him when she had any more data. He made a final plea, “If you could get us some samples of DNA from some of those different… looking aliens, we could sequence it to figure out how closely related they actually are.”

  Ell stopped to look at him with some surprise for a moment, then said, “We’re not importing DNA from another world!”

  Startled, Wheat frowned, “Why not?!”

  “I think of DNA as a von Neumann machine. Traveling across the galaxy, populating worlds with viable conditions, replicating itself, and sending out more emissaries. We don’t want to bring back alien DNA that might take over our world.”

  “Oh…” Wheat said, thinking furiously.

  ***

  Vanessa looked up when she heard the door to the
lab open. Zage was there, along with the woman who’d been bringing him most of the time lately. Vanessa missed seeing the boy’s handsome father. However, the chances that a Nobel Prize winner would show up to drop off his son in the lab the day his prize had been announced seemed remote. I can dream though, can’t I?

  Instead of turning immediately to the lab bench like he usually did, Zage walked over to her. “Ms. Jenkins? I’m hoping to ask a favor.”

  Vanessa bent down, “Before we talk about your favor, I wanted to say that, even though it seemed unlikely, I was hoping your dad would bring you in to the lab today so I could congratulate him.”

  Zage blinked at her, “Congratulate my dad?”

  “Yeah, you know, for his Nobel Prize?”

  Zage at first looked stunned, then his eyes narrowed, “What?!”

  Astonished, Vanessa was about to say, “They didn’t tell you?!” But then, realizing that perhaps his parents were trying to keep it a secret for some reason, stumblingly said, “Sorry, just teasing you.”

  But by then, Zage had muttered to his AI and was staring wide-eyed up off into space like he did when he was looking at the HUD in his contact. “With Ell Donsaii!” He breathed, almost sounding like the fact his father was treading ground with Dr. Donsaii impressed him more than the Nobel Prize itself.

  “Sorry,” Vanessa said, “they’re probably trying to surprise you with it. Maybe you could still act surprised when they tell you?”

  “Wow!” Zage said, as if he hadn’t heard. In a hushed tone, he continued, “Maybe I’ll get to meet Ell Donsaii at some kind of ceremony or something.”

  “Maybe you will,” Vanessa said, giving Zage a little fist bump. “Congratulate your dad for me, okay?”

  “Okay…” Zage said, then stood there for a moment, as if uncertain what to do after learning of such a momentous event. His eyes went back to Vanessa, “Um, back to the favor I’d like?”

  Vanessa stood up, thinking that he wanted help with setting up the purification of his peptide. “Your peptide is tagged, right?”

  “Oh,” Zage said glancing back toward the lab bench where he usually worked, “I do need help making sure I set the purification up correctly, but first I wanted to talk to you about something different.”

  Vanessa sat back down, “What’s up?”

  “I’m thinking ahead to when I have my peptide. I’ll need to be able to test it to see if it does what I think it will.”

  Vanessa nodded, wondering what kind of testing he might have in mind.

  “So I’ve ordered an immortal cell line. I wanted to have some cells that will replicate forever so I wouldn’t have to keep harvesting new ones. I figure I can test my peptide against them to see if it’ll increase their expression of Trim28.”

  “Okaaay,” Vanessa said, once again surprised at the sophistication of the kid’s thought processes. Though I don’t know why I feel surprised anymore. “Are you wanting me to show you how to take care of the cells?”

  “Oh, yeah, that would be good. I’ve read a lot about it, but have no hands-on experience so it’d sure be helpful to have you make sure I’m not messing it up.”

  Vanessa suppressed a snort, “But that’s not what you really wanted help with, right?”

  “No, it’s the next step that I don’t think I can do by myself. Assuming the tissue culture step works, I’d like to be able to order some obese rats and see whether the peptide will make them express more Trim28 and… hopefully lose a little weight,” he finished a little wistfully.

  “Ah,” Vanessa said, understanding. “And you can’t apply for an animal care and use protocol, since you’re not officially a student here at the University.”

  “Right. Would you be able to help me?”

  “Those things are a huge pain to fill out. Will your parents pay me for my time doing that?” As soon as she said it, Vanessa felt guilty. After all, they paid for her for lots of hours where she did nothing but work on her own projects while Zage did his thing on the other side of the lab. She shouldn’t begrudge him a few hours working on filling in one of the protocols.

  “Oh,” Zage said. “They’re available online and I’ve already filled one out. I just can’t submit it in my name, so I was hoping you wouldn’t mind submitting it under yours.”

  Vanessa mentally rolled her eyes. Of course you have, she thought.

  Before she said anything though Zage continued, “I don’t think my parents would mind paying you for your time looking it over though. I’m sure you wouldn’t want it submitted in your name if it still had some stupid mistakes in it. I’ll check, if you’d be willing?”

  Vanessa waved dismissively, “They don’t need to pay me. They already pay me for plenty of time when I’m not really doing anything to help you. But I do need to get it approved by Dr. Turner. I can’t do it all by myself since I’m just a grad student.”

  “Oh,” Zage looked a little apprehensive. “That sounds like… a problem.”

  Vanessa shrugged, “It shouldn’t be.”

  “Really?” Zage said, a little wide-eyed, “You think he’d be okay with it?”

  “As long as he thinks the science is reasonable and you have funding for it.”

  “My parents said they’d put some more money in my research fund. Can you check and see if they did? I might have to remind them.”

  Vanessa spoke to her AI and looked up at her HUD. Her eyes widened a little bit. Zage’s account had a new $20,000 deposit in it! “Um, yeah they put more money in,” she said neutrally.

  “So, would you ask Dr. Turner? I think he’s kind of scary.”

  Now Vanessa did snort, “I’ll read your protocol and if I think it’s okay, I’ll ask him, but I’ll bet that he’ll want to talk to you. Don’t worry about it though; he’s a big teddy bear.”

  Finally, Vanessa thought as she finished reading and editing Zage’s protocol, something the kid hasn’t done perfectly. Although, to be honest, it’s probably better than the first one I filled out. He’d answered the questions in the online form in what seemed like a very reasonable fashion, unless you knew about some of the obscure hoops you had to jump through for these protocols. She hadn’t needed to correct anything about the science in his protocol, only things related to animal care.

  She thought about just forwarding it to Dr. Turner, but then decided she’d better talk to him first. Getting up, she went over to knock on his door frame.

  Turner looked up and, seeing Vanessa, said, “Come on in. Did you see that the kid’s dad won the Nobel Prize today?”

  “Um, yeah. Pretty cool.”

  Turner grinned and shrugged, “Guess the kid had to have someone to inherit those smarts from. What’s up?”

  Vanessa shrugged, “Well, it’s about the kid’s research plans…”

  ***

  At dinner that evening Zage said, “Dad?”

  Shan turned to look at his son and lifted his chin interrogatively.

  With the serious air of someone asking a life or death question, Zage said, “Why didn’t you tell me you won the Nobel Prize?”

  Shan leaned back in his seat and gave his son a serious look, “Well, do you know what a braggart is?”

  Zage blinked in surprise, “I’m… not sure. I think it’s someone who tells you how great they are, right?”

  Shan nodded, keeping a serious look on his face. “Has anyone ever bragged to you?”

  “Um…” Zage paused to search his memories, “Yeah, Jimmy told us how good he was at soccer all the time.”

  “And how did that make you feel about Jimmy?”

  “Um… I didn’t like him very much, but neither did anyone else.”

  Shan leaned forward, an intent look on his face, “And, did you ever find out that someone was really, really good at something… something they hadn’t told you about? You found out about it from someone else?”

  Zage nodded, a thoughtful look on his face.

  “I’ll bet you were bunch more impressed with the person who
hadn’t told you than you were with Jimmy, someone who told you all the time, right?”

  Zage nodded again.

  Shan winked at him, “So, I’m hoping my son will think I’m much cooler, because I didn’t brag to him the day I won the Nobel Prize.” He grinned at Zage, “And, I’m also hoping you’ll take a lesson from that.”

  Zage got up out of his chair and walked around to throw his small arms around his dad. In a choked up voice he said, “I’m really proud of you Dad, and I’d like to think I’d be just as proud if you’d told me this morning.” He leaned back and gave his dad a little frown, “And, I wouldn’t have been so embarrassed when Vanessa told me and I didn’t know!”

  “Oops, sorry,” Shan said with a grin, ruffling his hair.

  “Can I go to Stockholm with you? I’d really like to meet Dr. Donsaii now and it seems like that’d probably happen at the ceremonies.”

  “Um,” Shan said glancing at Ell, “your mom and I’ll have to talk it over.”

  “Pleeease!” Zage said, unusually sounding like an ordinary five-year-old begging for a treat of some kind.

  Zage’s mother shrugged and said, “It’ll probably be okay. I’m not going to be able to go to Sweden because of a huge commitment I have for D5R. Amy can go with you guys and she can try to keep Zage out of trouble.”

  Zage excitedly clapped his hands together, then returned to his chair to finish his dinner. A moment later, he paused and looked at his mom. “Really Mom? You can’t get somebody to cover for you on this so you can go to the Nobel ceremony for your own husband?!”

  Ell winced. After a pause she said, “The only two people who can do this thing in December are myself or Dr. Donsaii. She has to go to the ceremony.”

  ***

  Ell rolled over next to Shan, “I talked to Dr. Wheat today…”

  “The exobiologist? What did he think about Zage’s idea?”