Cav had heard enough. “None of us is. But we all know something. Put our heads together, chances are we’ll be close to the mark. But first things first. You brought the HUBIES?”
“Brought everything.”
“They survived the flight? They’re functional?”
“Will be by tomorrow.”
“Are they awake?”
“They’re warming up.”
“I’d like to see.” He glanced at Gunjita. “Gunjita’s not pleased.”
“Don’t put words in my mouth. They exist. We might as well use them.”
“I agree,” he said. “Let them do what they were meant to do. Fulfill their purpose. Assuage our guilt.”
“I have no guilt,” said Dash. “We were responding to a need.”
“Supposed,” said Gunjita.
“Idealized,” said Cav. “No matter. We took liberties. It’s what we do. Latitude in all things, especially when we wear our research hats. Occupational hazard. Industry standard. You weren’t the only one feeding the machine.”
“You didn’t feel threatened? You weren’t afraid?” Dash couldn’t believe it. The Hoax was a nightmare that touched every corner or the globe.
Gunjita laughed. “Cav? You’re kidding, right? When they filled the skies, and the world was freaking out, he was rubbing his hands, and had a big fat grin on his face. It was a dream come true.”
“You exaggerate.”
“I was visiting my grandparents,” said Dash. “They were scared to death. Everyone was.”
“Not everyone.”
“It was a lesson,” said Cav. “What we will and won’t permit. Playing to our greatest fear.”
“Annihilation,” said Dash.
“Enslavement,” said Gunjita.
“Invasion,” said Cav. “Ironic, considering what we harbor in our own bodies. How many alien species at last count? How many alien cells? At least half of who we are is nonhuman.”
“Your point?” asked Gunjita, who feared a rambling speech.
“We wouldn’t be alive were it not for them. They wouldn’t be alive were it not for us. We should be more tolerant. We’re bigger than we behave. Harmony is woven into our DNA.”
“That’s very beautiful, Cav,” said Dash. “Very eloquent. But you know what they say about harmony.”
“What do they say?”
“It’s like smoke.”
“Who says that?”
“Disharmony does. Second law of thermodynamics. You want it to last, you’ve got to tighten the screws. Recognize threats. Protect and defend. That’s also woven in. Bad things happen when we don’t.”
“A balance, of course. But how sad if we let ignorance and fear govern us. How counterproductive. We could miss the very things we’re looking for. Or could be looking for. Listen to this. Stop me if you’ve already heard.
“Our retrovirome is what? Eight percent of our genome? Sequences inserted randomly, or nonrandomly, as far back as fifty million years ago. A group has excised it in its entirety, piece by piece, and knitted the pieces together. And guess what? The chain is biologically active. It makes a virus of its own. Brand new, never before seen.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Gunjita. “What’s this virus do?”
“It reproduces.”
“That’s it?”
“They’re being very cautious. Very careful.”
“No doubt. Mice?”
He nodded.
“And?”
“The sample size is extremely small.”
“You’re stalling. What’s it do?” she asked.
“Hair on the tongue.”
“Say again?”
“Little tufts. Presumably because mice have little tongues.”
“Human hair?”
He hesitated. “Baboon.”
She was less than impressed. “You know these people?”
“I know the journal.”
“What’s it called?”
It had a long name, sprinkled with the words “Proceedings,” “Archive,” “Academy,” and “Experimental.”
“Never heard of it,” she said, who had heard of everything.
“Radical stuff,” said Cav.
She gave him a look. “Hair on the tongue? You think so? Maybe you want to join forces with them. Work on this radical project. Help them out. No. Wait. I’m sorry. We have our own work. How silly of me. You have a job to do here.”
“She means Gleem,” said Cav. “They’re expecting a miracle.”
“They’ve been more than generous. They deserve one.”
“What they’re doing is a crime. What they deserve is our contempt.”
“Really? In what sense is it a crime?” She hated him when he was like this. Sanctimonious. Naive.
“H82W8 is unnecessary. A waste of resources. In that sense. It’s redundant. Reiterative. What good will it do, and for whom?”
“Not for us to decide. Not as long as they’re paying the bills.”
“How is it redundant?” asked Dash. “You juved.”
“Once.”
“One time or a hundred. The principle’s the same.”
“I disagree.”
“Are you sorry? Do you regret it?”
“No. Not at all. I don’t.”
“Neither do I,” said Dash. “Some things are overrated. I think we’d all agree. Being young isn’t one of them. Look at me. What do you see? A black Viking god, I know. Apart from that.”
“What could we possibly see apart from that?” asked Gunjita, all innocence.
“My apologies. I’m blindingly bright, it’s true. Cover your eyes if you have to. Not you, Cav. Look at me. Look at Gunjita.”
“I know what youth looks like,” said Cav.
“Do you remember how it feels?”
“How can I forget, with the two of you to remind me? It’s a beautiful thing. Truly. I couldn’t be happier for you.”
“Then do it. Juve. What’s stopping you?”
Cav heaved a sigh. He had no ready reply. All he could think of was them—Gunjita, Dashaud—and the worry he was causing.
“I hate the thought of losing you,” he said. “I love you both so much.”
This stopped them in their tracks. Neither of them knew what to say.
Cav welcomed the silence. Then it got to be too much, their speechlessness and abashed, imploding faces yet another responsibility.
He had to distance himself. “You look different,” he told Dash.
Gunjita refused to be sidetracked. “You don’t have to.”
“You don’t,” said Dash.
“Paler. You look paler. Are you ill?”
“Not ill. Lighter-skinned. Just a shade or two.”
Gunjita had noticed at once. She shifted her attention. “Deliberately?”
“No. Why would I do that?”
Inevitably, she thought of his mother. No one prouder of her heritage than Ruby Kincaid, nor as outspoken against racism, which still festered in pockets around the globe, like untreated sewage. Not nearly as bad as it had been. The Hoax, ironically, had united people like never before.
But “not as bad” was not good enough, not by a long shot, not for people like Ruby Kincaid, a tolerant woman except when it came to bigotry and prejudice. Who could be tolerant, much less safe, when certain of humanity’s citizens “remained at war with themselves, drunk on some cockeyed, manufactured pecking order, clucking around like crazy chickens, lacking the decency to keep their mouths shut, and barring that, the common courtesy to have their heads cut off?”[2]
“The enhancement,” said Cav.
Dash nodded.
“Interfered with melaninization.”
Another nod. “More Meissner’s, Merkel’s, and Pacinian’s, less melanocytes. Crowded them out.”
“You took a risk,” said Cav.
“What are you talking about?” asked Gunjita.
Five minutes later, after a spirited lesson that began with mechanoreceptors—pressure and motion detectors—in the skin, and ended with one of them, the Meissner corpuscle, named for its discoverer, an accomplished researcher and illustrator, who studied electric fish, developed a technique to preserve organs for years without putrefaction (thereby advancing by leaps and bounds the science of antisepsis), and loved music, Dash returned to Cav’s comment about risk.
2
From one of Ruby’s, aka Kleptomania’s, performances, for which she dressed as a white Leghorn hen. Gunjita was in the audience. She had been invited by her colleague and friend, Bjorn Mickelson, who was dating Ruby at the time. For Gunjita, it was love at first sight. The spectacle of a beaked and feathered grown woman strutting around and mouthing off had her rolling in the aisle. An eye-popping, mind-blowing, life-altering experience.