Hybrids

Ebola came in several strains, named for the locations at which they had been first identified. Ebola-Zaire was by far the most deadly, but it was only transmitted through bodily fluids. In contrast, Ebola-Reston, which doesn’t affect humans, is transmitted through the air. But Ruskin had had no trouble—purely as part of an exercise, of course—in programming the codon writer to swap a few genes, thereby producing a hybrid version that should have Ebola-Zaire’s virulence combined with Ebola-Reston’s ability for airborne transmission.

A few more tweaks cut the modified virus’s incubation time to one-tenth of what it had been in nature, and boosted the kill rate from ninety to better than ninety-nine percent. And one final tweak had changed the genetic markers that specified the virus’s natural reservoir…

The second part of the project had been harder, but Cornelius had taken to it like a dog to a bone; it’s amazing how much a $200,000 consulting fee can motivate someone.

The concept was simple enough on paper: keep the virus from being activated unless the host cell had certain characteristics. Fortunately, when Ambassador Tukana Prat brought ten of the most famous Neanderthals of all with her to the United Nations, they had freely shared much knowledge. One of them, Borl Kadas, had provided all the information that had been gleaned from the sequencing of the Neanderthal genome, which had been completed back in the year Jock knew as 1953. That database had provided the information needed to make sure the virus would kill only those it was supposed to kill.

Now only one problem remained: getting the virus over to the other side. At first, Jock had thought the simplest solution would be to infect himself with it—after all, it would have no effect on a hominid with twenty-three pairs of chromosomes. But the tuned-laser technology used for decontaminating people crossing between worlds would have easily zapped it from his body. Even diplomatic pouches were decontaminated, so simply storing a supply of the virus in one of them wouldn’t work, either.

No, he needed to get an aerosol bomb over in some sort of container that was opaque to the laser pulses used by the Neanderthals’ decontamination equipment. Jock himself had no idea what would do the trick, but his optics team—originally assembled to study the imaging technology in Companion implants, and handpicked from the best Bausch & Lomb, Kodak, and Xerox had to offer—would certainly be able to work it out, especially since the tuned-laser technology was also one of those the Neanderthals had freely shared with Homo sapiens.

Jock picked up the phone on his desk, and dialed an internal extension. “Hello, Kevin,” he said. “It’s Jock. Would you, Frank, and Lilly please come down to my office? I’ve got a little job for you…”

Mary found a simple short-term solution to the problem of working in the same building as Cornelius Ruskin. She would come in late in the day and work on into the evening; Cornelius would leave shortly after she arrived—or, if she was lucky, even before she got in.

Ponter and Adikor came in from Bristol Harbour Village with Mary; they had no way to get around except for having her drive them. But they spent most of their time working on the quantum-computing project with Lonwis Trob, and often with Louise Benoît—although she kept more normal hours, and had already gone home today.

Mary was writing a report for Jock, detailing everything she’d learned from Lurt, Vissan, and others about Neanderthal genetics. The work simultaneously elated and depressed Mary: elated her because she’d learned so much, and depressed her because the Neanderthals were decades beyond her people in this area, meaning so much of the work she’d done in the past was hopelessly obsolete, and—

Massive footfalls—someone ru

“Mare! Mare!”

Adikor had appeared in Mary’s doorway, his broad, round face terrified. “What is it?” Mary asked.

“Lonwis Trob—he’s collapsed! We need medical aid, and—”

And, except for Bandra, who knew the joke about the hunters calling 9-1-1, the Neanderthals had no idea how to summon such a thing; nor could their Companions call anyone on this side of the portal. Mary rose and ran down the corridor to the quantum-computing lab.

Lonwis was flat on his back, his eyelids fluttering. When they opened, they showed only smooth blue-metal spheres; the parts with the mechanical irises had apparently rolled up into his head.

Ponter was kneeling beside Lonwis. He was using the back of one hand, effortlessly it seemed, to compress Lonwis’s chest over and over again—a Neanderthal version of CPR. Meanwhile, Lonwis’s golden Companion was speaking aloud in the Neanderthal language, describing Lonwis’s vital signs.

Mary picked up the phone on one of the desks, dialed 9 for an outside line, then 9-1-1.

“Fire, police, or ambulance?” said the operator.

“Ambulance.”

“What’s wrong?”

“A man having a heart attack,” said Mary. “Hurry!”

The operator, a woman, must have had the address on a screen in front of her, based on the incoming phone number. “I’m dispatching an ambulance now. Do you know how to perform CPR?”

“Yes,” said Mary. “But someone else is already doing that, and—look, I should tell you up front. The man having the heart attack is a Neanderthal.”

“Ma’am, it’s a serious crime to—”

“I’m not joking! ” snapped Mary. “I’m calling from the Synergy Group. We’re a U.S.-government think tank, and we’ve got Neanderthals here.”

Ponter was continuing to compress Lonwis’s chest. Adikor, meanwhile, had opened up Lonwis’s medical belt and was using a compressed-gas injector to pump something into Lonwis’s neck.

“Can I have your name?” said the operator.

“Is the ambulance coming? Have you sent it yet?”

“Yes, ma’am. It’s on its way. Can I have your name?”

“It’s Mary N. Vaughan. That’s V-A-U-G-H-A-N. I’m a geneticist.”

“How old is the patient, Ms. Vaughan?”

“A hundred and eight—and no, I am not joking. It’s Lonwis Trob, one of the Neanderthals who visited the United Nations last month.”

Stan Rasmussen—a geopolitical expert who worked down the hall—had appeared in the doorway. Mary covered the handset and spoke quickly to him. “Lonwis is having a heart attack. Get Jock!” Rasmussen nodded and hurried away.

“I’m going to transfer you to the paramedics,” said the 9-1-1 operator.

A moment later a different female voice came on. “We’re five minutes away,” she said. “Can you describe the patient’s condition?”

“No,” said Mary, “but I’ll put his Companion on.” She picked up the desk set and carried it across the room, setting it down near Lonwis. She then spoke to Lonwis’s implant: “Switch to English, and answer all the questions you hear. Help is on its way…”

Chapter Thirty-five

“And yet, some of us will stay permanently on Mars. Now, in the pages of science and science fiction there have long been notions of terraforming Mars—making it more Earth-like, by enhancing its atmosphere and liberating its frozen water, thus creating a world better suited for human habitation…”

Jock, Ponter, and Adikor had rushed off to Strong Memorial Hospital, along with the still-unconscious Lonwis Trob. There was nothing Mary could do to help, and, at Jock’s urging, she had stayed back at the Synergy Group.

It took Mary a good hour to calm down enough to get back to her work, but finally she did so…only to have it blow up in her face.

One of Mary’s friends back at York had been a Linux evangelist, trying to convince everyone in the genetics department that they should abandon Windows and switch instead to the open-source operating system. Mary tended to stay out of computer wars—she’d remained neutral years before in the Mac-versus-PC skirmishes—but every time her Windows-based PC displayed that blue screen of death, she felt like throwing her support in with the Linux crowd.