Ell Donsaii 13: DNA (17 page)

Shan laughed, “Hell
yes
we are. Think we ought to take the munchkin with us this time?”

Zage came into the kitchen at that moment, “Where are you taking me?”

“Wanna go out to breakfast?”

***

Emma was guiding Virgwald when Geo entered what appeared to be a marketplace. A couple of other Virgies flew in and landed just in front of him. A large group of their living hexagonal structures had been merged together, rather than walled off separately with space between them. There were still vine walls supporting the vegetation of the roof, but they were incomplete so that you could easily walk from one hexagon to another. Virgies seemed to be set up somewhat randomly throughout the structure and all of them had various materials arrayed in front of them. Items that Emma thought might be for sale or trade.

At first, Emma thought everything she saw looked like it had been grown from some member of the plant kingdom. The majority of the sellers actually seemed to be selling plants themselves, some as seeds, some as seedlings, and some as moderate sized plants in substantial pots.

There were, however, some large piles of leaves, some woody stems, and some piles of large nodular things that reminded Emma of the nodules that grew on the inside of Geo’s hex. Musing to herself, Emma said, “I wonder where this stuff came from? Doesn’t look like the same kind of plant that the hexagons are made of…”

Allan, apparently thinking she was asking him, responded, “Leaves and nodules like those were in the field Virgwald flew over right before he first landed. Perhaps fields like that are some kind of farm.”

Emma, having watched that video, said, “That didn’t look like a farm!”

“You are correct in that it didn’t look like the typical monoculture farm field such as would be grown here on earth. However, such monocultures are usually chosen for their advantages in planting and harvesting, especially by machine. The fact that crops have to be rotated in such fields suggests that there may be some advantages to growing multiple different crops in the same field if you are
not
using machine harvesting.”

“And,” Emma said musingly, “if you have a
biological
method to keep one crop from choking another out.”

Geo and Virgwald continued wandering through the market. After a while they came to a vendor who was displaying something that looked like leather. At first, Emma assumed that it must also be a vegetable product of some kind. Something that just
looked
like leather. Then she noticed that the vendor had large folds of excess skin draping off both sides of him. Skin that looked very much like the leather laid out for sale!
Could it actually be growing its own skin and cutting it off for sale?!
Emma reached out with Virgwald’s hand toward the folds of skin hanging from the vendor’s side.

The vendor, who had appeared to be quite startled by Virgwald’s appearance at first, did not look at all discomfited by Virgwald’s interest in his voluminous skin. It made some clatters that Allan translated as, “Do you want this covering?”

“How sure are you of that translation?” she asked Allan.

“‘Covering,’ might actually be ‘skin,’” Allan responded.

“Can you ask what I might give in payment?”

Allan made a clatter, then said to Emma, “I asked what Virgwald might ‘trade,’ I don’t have a word for ‘payment.’”

The alien made a clatter in reply, then reached out gingerly with one hand. Allan said, “He said that he wanted to do something to Virgwald, but exactly what he wants to do, is not clear.”

Emma watched as the alien’s hand approached closer and closer to Virgwald. She glanced at Geo who appeared to be watching curiously. As the alien’s four fingered hand approached, it suddenly developed a fifth digit. The digit seemed to protrude from a fold of skin near where the wrist would have been. It looked damp. For a moment, it hovered near Virgwald’s arm, then it touched the arm, sweeping over it. Allan said, “Geo touched Virgwald with a digit like that when Virgwald and Geo first encountered one another. It didn’t seem to do any damage.”

“Okay,” Emma said, holding still to allow the alien to lick Virgwald with its tongue-like digit as much as it wanted.

The alien made a clatter. Geo clattered in response.

When Allan didn’t produce a translation, Emma said, “What are they saying?”

Allan said, “It’s not clear. The shopkeeper doesn’t seem to be satisfied with whatever it’s getting out of touching Virgwald. I
believe
he’s saying that there’s little or none of whatever he was looking for present on Virgwald’s arm.”

What the hell could it be looking for?
Emma wondered. Then, remembering what Ell had said about Zage’s theory that they modified their own DNA, she wondered,
“Could it be looking for a sample of Virgwald’s DNA? If Zage is right, could DNA be an important trade good for them.”
To Allan, she said, “Ask it if it’s looking for DNA?”

Allan said, “I don’t have a translation vocabulary for ‘DNA.’”

“Um…,” Emma said, thinking. Then, “Use your laser to draw a diagram of the DNA molecule.”

Immediately, a diagram of DNA appeared in red on the smooth surface of one of the vendor’s sheets of leather. Emma pointed to it with Virgwald’s hand and said, “Ask them if this is what they’re looking for?”

Both Geo and the leather seller stared at the red diagram. They looked surprised and interested, but it didn’t look like comprehension was dawning on them. Emma thought to herself,
Well, without technology, I suppose that it would be a little much to expect them to understand the molecular structure of DNA, even if they have organs and instincts for it. Like being surprised that a dog doesn’t know the structure of the molecules present in a smell.
Then she had another thought, “Allan, try some other diagrams for DNA. Simpler and more complex. Ones that show not just the helical ladder, but the individual molecules. Even the individual atoms with their electron clouds. You could even try some electron microscopic images of actual DNA molecules rather than diagrams.”

The laser image of the DNA diagram disappeared, followed by an even simpler drawing, then more and more complex illustrations, then actual photographs of the molecules. The images stayed up for a few seconds each. After a little while, they started to cycle through again. Emma watched the two aliens tilting their eye-stalks from side to side as they looked at the images, reminding her of how people tilted their heads to look at odd images. A great deal of clattering ensued and Emma would have sworn that Geo and the shopkeeper appeared to be getting more and more excited. Allan said, “They say that ‘yes, what Virgwald is showing them in the diagram is in fact what they want.’”

“Wow!” Emma said, feeling stunned.
Even though she’d been the one to tell Allan to show the Virgies the diagrams and the images, she hadn’t seriously believed that they might recognize the images.
How could they have any idea what DNA looks like?! To the best of our knowledge, they don’t even have magnifying glasses or light microscopes, much less anything capable of showing them the structure of DNA! Could they really have degenerated from an ancient technological civilization?
To Allan she said, “I don’t suppose Virgwald actually has any DNA we could give them, does he?”

“No,” Allan responded, “Virgwald was extensively washed and sterilized before being sent out. My research shows that the methods used to clean him should have washed away much of the DNA and the chlorine dioxide and heat sterilization should have fragmented and denatured most of the rest. I suspect, that if they are indeed after DNA, their dissatisfaction may stem from the relatively small amounts of DNA that they are able to retrieve from Virgwald’s surface.”

Stunned, Geo stood staring at her friend Virgwald.

After days together, she had decided that Virgwald didn’t seem to pose a threat. In fact, Virgwald’s activities were completely bizarre. Nothing Virgwald had done so far seemed to be aimed toward garnering a sampling of DNA. As best Geo could tell, Virgwald hadn’t changed herself one bit since arriving, which suggested that either Virgwald thought she was perfect as she was, or that she
couldn’t
really change herself because of her hard metallic exoskeleton.

If that hard outer shell and Virgwald’s massive and powerful limbs were intended to make her a fighter, Geo couldn’t understand why Virgwald hadn’t asked about any fights or wars or the histories of such conflicts. Why would Virgwald have traveled here from somewhere else if not to collect DNA, or to battle for space?

Because of Virgwald’s apparent disinterest in DNA, Geo had begun to entertain the possibility that Virgwald had come from some place so far away that the people there didn’t actually know how to modify their DNA. After all, the legends of the past talked about people who couldn’t modify their DNA. Such people had eventually been wiped out by the Virgies who
could
change themselves. “Wiped out” was perhaps a strong word because the DNA of those ancient peoples had been incorporated into the Virgies’ own DNA—just like the other animals had been.

But, perhaps there were remote locations on the world where those who couldn’t control their DNA still existed?

As the days had passed, Geo had slowly become wedded to the thought that Virgwald was a throwback to those ancient beings who had no DNA control.

But now…

When the leather seller had tried to harvest a sample of DNA from Virgwald, but been frustrated by the meager samples available—just like Geo had been—Virgwald had used her odd language skills to ask if they were looking for something that Virgwald apparently didn’t have a word for. However, Virgwald had then caused a red picture to appear on a piece of leather. At first, neither Geo nor the leather seller had understood the picture, but then Virgwald started changing the picture, each time showing the same twisting spiral but different in the details. The leather seller was the one to recognize that one picture showed the same four icons in various patterns. The icons came in pairs across the two sides of the spiral. The merchant had said hesitantly, “Is that a picture of DNA?!”

Geo’s legs had become weak, not at the thought that Virgwald actually
did
understand DNA, but because, for the first time in her life, Geo might be seeing a picture of the substance that ruled
everyone’s
existence.

It was a life-changing experience…

Emma could hear the two Virgies clattering at one another. More and more Virgies came to crowd around them and the clattering swelled, gradually rising to a crescendo. Geo made some violent movements and Emma heard loud percussive clatters come from its direction. Silence fell over the assembled Virgies.

Geo turned to Virgwald, then lifted a sheet of leather and clattered more quietly.

Allan said, “I believe that he wants to see the picture of DNA again.”

“Go ahead and project it.”

As soon as the diagram appeared on the leather sheet Geo held, the clattering Virgie language exploded around them again. The sound disappeared upon a short sharp blast from Geo, but more and more Virgies crowded around to stare at the image.

Emma said, “Can you burn the image into the leather?”

“Checking,” Allan said. A brilliant red spot appeared at the upper left corner of the piece of leather. A tiny bit of smoke wafted away from the spot. When the laser spot disappeared a black mark remained. “I can,” Allan said.

“Go ahead and do it.”

The entire DNA pattern suddenly coruscated into brilliance, then the light shut off. Another puff of smoke floated upward, leaving the image of the DNA molecule burned into the leather. To Emma, the clatters that interrupted this time sounded almost like moans. There was a thump, and when she turned she saw that one of the aliens had fallen over. It looked unconscious. The rest of the crowd of aliens ignored the one who’d apparently passed out and continued staring at the image of the molecule of life as if it was the most amazing thing they had seen in their entire lives.

“I like it,” Jamieson said, looking around the basement. It had a crappy little old house on top of it, but it was on a huge lot, apparently all that was left of an old farm. It was for rent by the month and, though money wasn’t really an object, it was cheap. The house was furnished, though the furniture was dilapidated. Apparently someone had lived in the basement at some point, because part of the basement had been partitioned off into a small separate bedroom. The other half of the basement still had a bunch of junk in it. He turned to the realtor, “What’s all this crap?”

She looked uncomfortable, “The lady that owned it died and her son’s the one renting it out. That’s why it’s furnished.” She waved at all the junk, “This stuff belonged to her.”

“Is he going to move it out?”

“Um, he doesn’t want to.”

Jamieson frowned, “But a lot of the stuff… it
can’t
be worth keeping!”

She shrugged, “Sentimental value?”

Jamieson suddenly realized it didn’t matter whether the basement was serving as the guy’s storage unit or not. The windowless basement bedroom was really all he cared about. It wouldn’t matter how much noise Donsaii and her kid made, in this basement, in the middle of this huge lot, no one would ever hear it.

Besides, the place had a little barn where they could park several cars. There was a nice network of small country roads providing a variety of routes they could take from the snatch location to this place. That same network could be used to transfer their captives to a handoff site once he’d negotiated the final payment with Wang.

Really, it was perfect. He’d just have to ignore his obsessive-compulsive desire to straighten up the basement.

He turned to Roger, “You okay with this place?” The subtext of the hidden message passing in front of the realtor was,
Do you see a problem with keeping our captives here for a while?

Roger curled his lip as he looked around the messy basement. He shrugged, “We’ll hardly ever be down here I guess. And the price is okay.”

Roger certainly didn’t care about the price, so Jamieson assumed he was saying that everything but the pile of crap in the basement looked fine. Jamieson turned to the realtor, “We’ll take it…”

***

Since a few days earlier, when Emma had had Virgwald burn images of the DNA molecule onto leather sheets for the Virgies, Virgwald appeared to have become somewhat of a celebrity. Initially, the Virgies had turned to look at him when he and Geo went by, appearing curious. Some even dropping out of flight to land beside them. Not curious like you would expect humans to react to an alien in their midst. More like you would expect humans to react to someone you thought was human but very unusual in appearance.

Maybe like someone who’d painted their skin blue or green or was wearing a costume. Ell thought that was because the Virgies were all so different from one another that someone with a magnesium skin, built shorter and thicker than everyone else, just wasn’t
all
that bizarre to them.

However, the story of Virgwald creating images of DNA seemed to have spread far and wide through the Virgies’ community. Virgies everywhere now seemed to know who Virgwald was. When he appeared, they immediately turned toward him. Many of the Virgies they encountered wanted to see demonstrations of his ability to generate images of DNA. Some showed up with scraps of leather, hoping to have an image of DNA burned onto the leather for them.

When they left Geo’s hexagon that morning, four Virgies were waiting immediately outside. Ell got the distinct impression that Geo was not pleased to see them. She also had the feeling that they were leaders of some sort in the Virgies’ community. When they saw Virgwald they immediately approached and one of them began clattering in the Virgies’ language. Allan was getting pretty good at translation, but it still took several repeats and questions before it became obvious that they wanted Virgwald to go somewhere with them. Though Ell could tell Geo felt like they were hijacking Geo’s plans, Ell decided to go along. She felt like it was about time to view the Virgie community from a different perspective than Geo’s.

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.