The Good Doctor's Tales Folio Four (10 page)

“…and in specific, there’s a trade-off working among the
Major Transforms: they’re trading off communicable disease resistance and
poison resistance with increased odds of getting cancer,” Einstein said.  “On
the other hand, cancers are a statistical rather than a chronic or degenerative
disease, you know.  From what I figure, this means that given a large enough
Transform population, you’ll find a few Major Transforms who will live much
much longer than normal humans can live.”

“So what you’re saying is despite the lifespan reduction
expected among Major Transforms, some of them are going to be immortal anyway?”
Autumn said.

Zielinski took off the washcloth over his eyes and sat
up, just in time to see the two of them walk into the break room.

“Hey, Doc, the kid genius here has been trying to fill
me in on the gory details of Transform evolution,” Autumn said.  Einstein
nodded.  “What bugs me is how this ever got started.”

Zielinski turned to Einstein, who shrugged.  “All I know
is it’s a pheromone arms race,” the kid said.  “Beyond that I don’t know
squat.”

Ahh!  An invitation for a lecture.  Perhaps a good
lecture would take his mind off his headache.

“The primary human pheromone system, like any other
mammal, has to involve mating receptiveness,” Hank said.  “Somehow, deep in the
dark early days of humanity, millions of years ago, probably in the population
of Homo Habilis that evolved into Homo Erectus, a mild version of the pheromone
arms race you’re talking about got its start.  This early pheromone arms race
likely began as a side effect of Listeria-produced bacterial meningitis, the
same way polio survivors often end up with neurological damage.  When it first
got started, there was likely just one Transform variant.  We have no idea
which one, of course, and the effects were likely only a tiny bit beneficial,
most likely just a better shot at surviving Listeria and its side effects. 
However, the survivors of the first plague carried a solution within them involving
the rudiments of juice chemistry, all based on a pre-existing brain stress
hormone called corticotrophin, which we know is involved in many obscure brain
functions and dysfunctions, including schizophrenia.”  One of his untested
hypotheses postulated that schizophrenia, a human-only mental disease, arose as
a byproduct or side effect of the Transform gene or genes inside each human
being.  “The process started small, but over many infection cycles, over many
millions of years, the effects produced true transformations, likely without
anything like Major Transforms or the fertility problems associated with
transformations.  When a Transform variant eventually arose with enough juice
to cause problems – secondary transformations into Monsters, or withdrawal
effects – this put an additional pressure on the system, taking something
oriented toward Listeria resistance into something both dangerous and
beneficial on its own.  The transformation effects started to complexify, and
the real pheromone arms race started.

“Ann and the Focus link the pheromone arms race to the
absurdly rapid – in evolutionary terms – cranial development of the human
lineage, especially during the Homo Erectus era.  This cycle of Transform
Sickness will likely do the same, leaving the final survivors with some minor
new cranial developments twenty or thirty generations down the road.”

“So you think the mosaic evolutionary model of Homo
Erectus and Dr. Van Reijn’s fourfold model of Major Transforms is going to put
to rest the Goldschmidt and Hammel explanation of Transform Sickness?” Einstein
said.

Show off.

Autumn blinked in utter non-comprehension.  Jim, hearing
a Zielinski lecture, slid into the room and booted Einstein from his chair.

“Logically incorrect,” Hank said.  “The mosaic
evolutionary model of Homo Erectus is itself just a hypothesis, one we should
consider only as a possibility, not a certainty.  Though it does support the
Chiron – Rizzari theory on the subject.”

“I’m familiar with Hammel,” Jim said.  “He’s the one who
wrote that nearly unreadable book, ‘The Transformation of a Species’, back in
’60, wasn’t he?  Who’s Goldschmidt?”

“Goldschmidt wrote a book back in 1940, before Transforms
were known, titled ‘The Material Basis of Evolution’,” Hank said.  “Goldschmidt
claimed species arose in several ways, one of which involved saltation – sudden
branching – by the production of what he termed ‘hopeful monsters’.  The
community initially rejected Goldschmidt’s ideas as unscientific, but his
hypothesis rose to prominence in the mid ‘50s simply because his theory was the
only one offering any explanation regarding the sudden appearance of the
Transforms.  Hammel adapted and updated Goldschmidt’s theory to incorporate the
discovery of DNA and the early information on Transforms.  I must admit, with
more than a little embarrassment, to being a Hammelite.  At least until Van
Reijn put forth his alternative explanation.  In strict Hammel terminology, the
Listeria variant disease is triggering a single pre-adapted gene to act
abnormally…that is, a gene that arose for a different reason.  The analogy is
to the sickle cell anemia gene, which when only one copy is possessed, provides
a fair amount of malaria resistance, and when two copies is possessed, triggers
a chronic illness.”

“Why does Van Reijn’s work invalidate Hammel and
Goldschmidt?  Also, what the hell is mosaic evolution in Homo Erectus, anyway?”
Jim said.

“Well, Hammel’s model, currently the standard model
explaining the Transformation Sickness, posits only one gene is involved with
all things Transform.  In the Hammel model, the different Transform varieties
are a continuous variation on a theme.  Van Reijn’s hypothesis states the Transform
varieties are discontinuous variations based on at least three factors – sex,
juice abundance, and presence of a metacampus – and his hypothesis requires at
least three separate genes.  That, in and of itself, invalidates Hammel and
Goldschmidt, because triggering three simultaneous pre-adapted genes with this
magnitude of coordinated effects is too improbable to accept.  Van Reijn
hypothesized Transform Sickness is a recurrence of a dormant aspect of
humanity, active since the Homo Erectus era, which developed over time via the
standard slow methods of natural selection, and is linked to the rapid brain
growth seen in the Homo Erectus fossils.  Chiron and Rizzari hypothesize that
outbreaks of Transform Sickness sporadically continued into the Homo Sapiens
era and the modern era, resulting in many of our myths and legends regarding
gods, heroes and monsters.

“The link to the mosaic evolution of Homo Erectus is a
stretch, in my opinion.  The term mosaic evolution is applied to Homo Erectus
because the known Homo Erectus fossils are a mess.  Erectus was the first of
our ancestors to leave the one tiny area of Africa where our previous ancestors
lived.  They spread throughout Eurasia and Africa.  The Erectus fossils show an
extremely complex pattern of evolution, where cranial size and shape rapidly
alters within the species, over the million plus years of its existence.  The
term ‘mosaic’ is used because these fossils hint that many local developments
occurred, in different parts of Eurasia and Africa, which spread throughout the
totality of the Erectus populations like waves through water.  This is not
proven, by the way – it’s just one explanation of many.  However, it does show
what you might expect if Transform Sickness had been active, locally altering
small groups of Erectus, the improvements then slowly spreading out from each
small source area.”

“Strange,” Einstein said.  “You’d think the Transform
benefits are so positive they would never die out.”

“We don’t have a good answer to this question, yet. 
Perhaps the development of agriculture, and increased food abundance, is masking
the major detriment of Transforms.  Transforms eat too much, relatively
speaking, to last too long,” Hank said.  “Before agriculture, being able to get
by on less food was a rather important benefit.  Pre-agriculture Transforms
likely ate out their food supplies and died out.  Only when the strengths of
Transforms outweigh the food detriment problems will a Transform flourish…and
only when the disease trigger is present, as well.”

Sky Comes to Boston to Collect the Freed
Sports

“Master Sky, Master Sky!”

He had been grumpy all week from bad dreams and the fact
his goddamned assigned government housing broom closet now felt far too
cramped. 

Sky had spent too much time in Inferno, too much time
listening to Bill and Tina explain how the Inferno philosophy was naturally
correct.  Government stipends to Transforms meant government control over
Transforms.  In their perfect world every household would be self-supporting
and be able to ally with friends to fight foes – the only way to go.  Stuck in
his broom closet home, he had begun to wonder if perhaps they were correct.

“Yes, May.”  May came up to him and gave him a smooch on
the cheek.

“I’ve got a message for you, Master Sky.”  She reached
down into her brassiere and pulled out a note.  “A Miss Ann Chiron is inviting
you to Boston on Saturday.  She’s even wired plane tickets.  She says there’s
been success.  Does she mean what I think she means?”

“If she wired plane tickets, yes.  Gong and Molson have
been freed.”

“Ooh, ooh, wait ‘til I tell Hennie!  Ooh!”

May ran off, shaking her ample rear end.  “I’m sure
gracious lady Russell will be quite pleased,” Sky shouted after May.

Norm, husband of Nannette, surnamed Normal, stuck his
unshaven fat face out the door across the hall from Sky’s broom closet.  “Shut
the fuck up, you fairy poofta, or I’ll pounda crap outa you.” 

“Me too!” said Nannette Normal, her voice several
octaves above a piccolo screech.  They slammed the door, together, both of the
stormin’ Normals.  They weren’t Transforms, weren’t part of anyone’s household,
and Sky didn’t actually know their real names.  They were just stuck here
because they were too stupid to live anywhere else.

Their presence made an excellent argument for leaving
this dump.

Three weeks, no Lori.  Oh, they exchanged letters, and
Lori apologized profusely, but they had made no progress on the little problem
that lay between them.  He had even suggested to Ann, over the phone, that she
carefully go over the demographics with Lori again, and remind her of the
necessity of Crow fertility.  Ann had told him to stick his dick in his ear and
sharpen it. 

Tina waited for him at the airport.  “What’s wrong?”
Tina said, when she spotted him.

“Uh, uh, wait just a minute.”  Sky staggered into the
men’s room and puked his guts out.  After puking twice more he washed his face
with icy water and staggered back out to where Tina waited. 

“Whatsamatter with you?  Get airsick?  Geeze, Crow,
you’ve certainly got a strange bunch of head problems.” 

“I don’t think Crows were meant for airplanes,” Sky
said, his voice a pale echo of his normal tenor.

“Well, make sure you vomit out the car window.  Sky, you
piece of shit, you’ve messed up the Focus so bad she’s virtually unlivable
whenever you’re about to show up.  You’ve got to find a way to fix the mess
you’ve made.”  The obvious answer was ‘never return’.  He could live with that.

They found Tina’s pickup truck in the snowy parking lot. 
It looked like a puzzle, put together from a half dozen different vehicles,
well seasoned with dried slush and old road salt.  “You like?” Tina said.  “Got
a hydraulic snowplow attachment I’d love to show you.”

Tina was making a pass at him?  He had been positive the
muscular woman was a lesbian.  Learn something new every day.

“You’ve lost the face control thing again, Sky,” she
said as she climbed up into the truck.  “You gotta stop being an open book or
you’re in deep shit.  There’s two other Focuses visiting today, Focus Ackermann
and Focus Biggioni.”

“You want me to go there!” he said, his voice a high
squeak.

Tina leaned over and opened the passenger door for him. 
“Hey, don’t panic, Crow.  I’d just have to stop and hog tie you if you did. 
You’re taking two of those Sports back to Canada with you, remember.”

“On an
airplane!
”  Surely there was a Zen koan
somewhere to meditate on while sitting Zazen regarding airplane travel.

“What else?”

The handoff occurred at Inferno and involved several
hours of mind numbing Focus pleasantries and politics, including an extended
formal dinner in the household dining room.  Focus Ackermann was a perky
overweight nineteen-year-old looking Focus whose vocabulary betrayed the fact she
was really about Sky’s age, while Focus Biggioni was an imperious and
unreadable dark haired Italian prep-school bombshell who stood eye to eye with
Sky in her high heels.  Focus Ackermann was real smooth, augmenting her Focus
charisma with exceptional normal style charisma.  Focus Biggioni exuded
nightmarish magnetic willpower, with oddly mismatched eyes Sky suspected only
he possessed the color sensitivity to spot.  Sky could practically see the
blood dripping from Focus Biggioni’s hands.  He couldn’t focus his metasense on
her for more than five seconds.

Sky recognized Focus Biggioni from long ago.  She had
been the American Focus representative to the little conference in Ottawa when
they hashed out the legal problems regarding the Lost Tribe’s return to
civilization (save Beast, who never returned).  He remembered her soft American
accent and her chilling words, that officially neither he, nor Arm, nor Beast
existed from the point of view of the Focuses in the States.

He stayed starchily polite to both of the politically
important Focuses and kept his dross construct of ‘I’m just a male Transform in
Focus Russell’s household’ up tight and locked down hard.  Neither of the two
Focuses had Focus Rizzari style bodyguards and he barely noticed their
existence.

The name that Inferno had chosen for him was Sam. 
Samuel Horatio Illison, or, as Tina said, Sam H Ill.  He couldn’t figure out
which of the householders thought that one up.  No one would admit to it.  To
Lori, Sky exhibited some old world charm by bowing to her and kissing her hand;
when she bubbled up to him to hug him, he whispered “I’ve missed you, Lori my
love,” in her ear.  Her control held tight, but he suspected the twinkle in her
eye when she answered with a cheery ‘good to have you here again’ would lead to
grief, later.

Sky had met Gong and Molson before, the two Sports he would
be returning to Canada.  Gong was a woman with a minimal metasense and with
anomalously thick nerves running down her arms.  Like a Crow she was a dross
sucker and she had a spectacular sense of touch, something like 300 dots per
centimeter or some such insane measurement.  Molson was a guy – obvious, with a
name like that – a variant on the standard male Transform, save that it took
five women Transforms to support him.  Molson could eat anything, and if you
fed him rich fatty foods, he peed a substance that rivaled whale oil for its
usefulness.  Sky’s suspected Molson was in for a short lifespan, but every
Focus who ran into Molson got big dollar signs in her eyes and took Molson on
anyway.  At least for a while; he ate as much as a Beast.

Luckily both looked human, which turned out not to be
the case for all the Sports.  Eyeless Fred was the worst of the bunch.  The
combination of no eyes, the fishy smell and the electro sensitive strip down
his side gave him a rather appalling sense of inhumanity.  No normal passenger
airline would ever allow Eyeless Fred onboard.

Sky tried to avoid the political undercurrents, but
picked up that Ackermann and Biggioni were trying to talk Lori down, about
something she had done yesterday.  After the huge dinner, Focus Ackermann and
Focus Biggioni left, to Sky’s profound relief, taking several of the Sports
with them.  The airline tickets he held were for tomorrow afternoon and Sky
decided to make himself scarce.