Desai said in English, “We await only—Ah, here they are.”
Two much younger men practically blew into the room, clutching headsets. Translators. They looked disheveled and frightened, which made Marianne feel better. She wasn’t the only one battling an almost overwhelming sense of unreality. If only Evan could be here, with his sardonic and unflappable Britishness. “Or so we thought…”
No. Neither she nor Evan had ever thought of this.
“The other permanent members of the Security Council are unfortunately not immediately available,” Desai said. “We will not wait.”
Marianne couldn’t remember who the other permanent members were. The UK, surely, but who else? How many? What were they doing this October dusk that would make them miss first contact with an alien species? Whatever it was, they would regret it the rest of their lives.
Unless, of course, this little delegation never returned—killed or kidnapped or eaten. No, that was ridiculous. She was being hysterical. Desai would not go if there was danger.
Of course he would. Anyone would. Wouldn’t they? Wouldn’t she? Nobody, she suddenly realized, had actually asked her to go on this mission. She’d been ordered to go. What if she flat-out refused?
A door opened at the far end of the small room, voices spoke from the air about clearance and proceeding, and then another elevator. The six people stepped into what had to be the world’s most comfortable and unwarlike submarine, equipped with lounge chairs and gold-braided officers.
A submarine. Well, that made sense, if plans had been put in place to get to the Embassy unobserved by press, tourists, and nut jobs who would blow up the alien base if they could. The Denebs must have agreed to some sort of landing place or entryway, which meant this meeting had been talked of, planned for, long before today. Today was just the moment the aliens had decided to put the plan into practice. Why? Why so hastily?
“Dr. Jenner,” Desai said, “in the short time we have here, please explain your scientific findings to us.”
None of them sat in the lounge chairs. They stood in a circle around Marianne, who felt none of the desire to toy with them as she had with Dr. Curtis at the college. Where were her words going, besides this cramped, luxurious submarine? Was the president of the United States listening, packed into the situation room with whoever else belonged there?
“My paper is nothing startling, Mr. Secretary-General, which is why this is all baffling to me. In simple terms”—she tried to not be distracted by the murmuring of the two translators into their mouthpieces—“all humans alive today are the descendants of one woman who lived about a hundred and fifty thousand years ago. We know this because of mitochondrial DNA, which is not the DNA from the nucleus of the cell but separate DNA found in small organelles called mitochondria. Mitochondria, which exist in every cell of your body, are the powerhouses of the cell, producing energy for cellular functions. Mitochondrial DNA does not undergo recombination and is not found in sperm cells after they reach the egg. So the mitochondrial DNA is passed down unchanged from a mother to all her children.”
Marianne paused, wondering how to explain this simply, but without condescension. “Mitochondrial DNA mutates at a steady rate, about one mutation every ten thousand years in a section called the control region, and about once every thirty-five hundred years in the mitochondrial DNA as a whole. By tracing the number and type of mutations in contemporary humans, we can construct a tree of descent: which group descended from which female ancestor.
“Evolutionary biologists have identified thirty of these haplogroups. I found a new one, L7, by sequencing and comparing DNA samples with a standard human mitochondrial sample, known as the revised Cambridge Reference Sequence.”
“How did you know where to look for this new group?”
“I didn’t. I came across the first sample by chance and then sampled her relatives.”
“Is it very different, then, from the others?”
“No,” Marianne said. “It’s just a branch of the L haplogroup.”
“Why wasn’t it discovered before?”
“It seems to be rare. The line must have mostly died out over time. It’s a very old line, one of the first divergences from Mitochondrial Eve.”
“So there is nothing remarkable about your finding?”
“Not in the least. There may even be more haplogroups out there that we just haven’t discovered yet.” She felt a perfect fool. They all looked at her as if expecting answers—Look! A blinding scientific light illuminates all!—and she had none. She was a workman scientist who had delivered a workmanlike job of fairly routine haplotyping.
“Sir, we have arrived,” said a junior officer. Marianne saw that his dress blues were buttoned wrong. They must have been donned in great haste. The tiny, human mishap made her feel better.
Desai drew a deep, audible breath. Even he, who had lived through war and revolution, was nervous. Commands flew through the air from invisible people. The submarine door opened.
Marianne stepped out into the alien ship.
“Where’s Mom? Did you call her?” Elizabeth demanded.
“Not yet,” Noah said.
“Does she even know you’re in New York?”
“Not yet.” He wanted to tell his sister to stop hammering at him, but he was her guest and so he couldn’t. Not that he’d ever been able to stand up to either of his siblings. His usual ploy had been to get them battering on each other and leave him alone. Maybe he could do that now. Or maybe not.
“Noah, how long have you been in the city?”
“A while.”
“How long a while?”
Noah put his hand in front of his face. “Lizzie, I’m really hungry. I didn’t eat today. Do you think you could—”
“Don’t start your whining-and-helpless routine with me, Noah. It doesn’t work anymore.”
Had it ever? Noah didn’t think so, not with Elizabeth. He tried to pull himself together. “Elizabeth, I haven’t called Mom yet and I am hungry. Please, could we defer this fight until I eat something? Anything, crackers or toast or—”
“There’s sandwich stuff in the fridge. Help yourself. I’m going to call Mom, since at least one of us should let her know the prodigal son has deigned to turn up again. She’s been out of her mind with worry about you.”
Noah doubted that. His mother was the strongest person he knew, followed by Elizabeth and Ryan. Together, the three could have toppled empires. Of course, they seldom were together, since they fought almost every time they met. Odd that they would go on meeting so often, when it produced such bitterness, and all over such inconsequential things. Politics, religion, funding for the arts, isolationism… He rummaged in Elizabeth’s messy refrigerator, full of plastic containers with their lids half off, some with dabs of rotting food stuck to the bottom. God, this one was growing mold. But he found bread, cheese, and some salsa that seemed all right.
Elizabeth’s one-bedroom apartment echoed her fridge, which was another reason she and Mom fought. Unmade bed, dusty stacks of journals and newspapers, a vase of dead flowers probably sent by one of the boyfriends Elizabeth never fell in love with. Mom’s house upstate in Tannersville, and Ryan and Connie’s near hers, were neat and bright. Housecleaners came weekly; food was bought from careful lists; possessions were replaced whenever they got shabby. Noah had no possessions, or at least as few as he could manage.
Elizabeth clutched the phone. She dressed like a female FBI agent—short hair, dark pantsuit, no makeup—and was beautiful without trying. “Come on, Mom, pick up,” she muttered. “It’s a cell, it’s supposed to be portable.”