Darwin's children

“Found you,” Mitch said. Then he closed his eyes and felt his own lahar wash over him.

33

NEW MEXICO

Dicken's monitor was filled with comparisons of protein expression in embryonic tissues at different stages of development, looking for the elusive retroviral or transposon trigger that might have crept into a complex of developmental genes, promoting the hymen in human females. Even using prior searches and comparisons—incredibly, he had found some in the literature—it looked as if this would take months or years.

Dr. Jurie had shunted Dicken into the safest and least interesting position at Sandia Pathogenics. Putting him in safe, cold storage until needed.

An odd little dance of utility and security. Jurie was keeping Dicken under his thumb, as it were, just to know where he was and what he was up to, and possibly to pick his brain.

But also to confess? To be caught out?

Dicken would not rule out anything where Aram Jurie was concerned.

The man had passed along a list of rambling, long e-mail messages, cryptic, elusive, and a little too evocative for Dicken's comfort. Jurie might be on to something, Dicken thought, a twisted and crazy but undeniably big insight.

Jurie held the belief—not exactly new—that viruses played a substantial but crude role in nearly every stage of embryonic development. But he had some interesting notions about how they did so:

“Genomic viruses want to play in the big game, but as genetic players go, they're simple, constrained, fallen from grace. They can't do the big stuff, so they engage in cryptic little elaborations, and the big game tolerates and then becomes addicted to their subtle plays . . .

“Weak in themselves, endogenous viruses may rely on a very different form of apoptosis, programmed cell suicide. ERVs express at certain times and present antigen on the cell surface. The cell is inspected by the agents of the immune system and killed. By coordinating how and which cells present antigen, genomic viruses can participate crudely in sculpting the embryo, or even the growing body after birth. Of course, they work to increase their numbers and their position in the species, in the extended genome. They work by maintaining a feeble but persistent control in the face of a constant and powerful assault by the immune system.

“And in mammals, they've won. We have surrendered some of the most crucial aspects of our lives to the viruses, just to give our babies time to develop in the womb, rather than in the constraining egg; time to develop more sophisticated nervous systems. A calculated gamble. All our generations are held ransom because of our indebtedness to the viral genes.

“Like getting a loan from the Mafia . . .”

Maggie Fly

“Not really. Why?” Dicken asked, turning in his rolling chair. Fly

“Something's come up. Jurie's off the campus. He tells us to sit tight. I don't think we can. We just aren't prepared.”

“What is it?”

“We need expert advice,” Fly

Dicken stood and stuck his hands in his pants pockets, alert and wary. “What sort of advice?”

“We have a new guest,” Fly

If Maggie Fly

Fly

“You've worked with SHEVA kids,” Fly

“What are you talking about?” Dicken asked.

Fly

Dicken's mind started to race and he saw he was on the edge of screwing up a golden opportunity. You've worked with . . . As the only married female . . .

They're doing it. They've done it.He felt his pulse going up and hoped it did not show.

“Oh,” he said, with a fair imitation of casualness. “Virus children.”

Fly

“Okay,” Dicken said, putting on a mask of professional caution. He pressed his lips together to keep from saying anything revealing or stupid.

“Something's gone wrong at the border, I don't know what. I'm not in that particular loop. Jurie's in Arizona. Turner told me to bring you in before he gets back.” Her smile was fleeting and desperate. “The cat's away.”

It was an in-house conspiracy after all, and not a very convincing one. Fly

“God bless the beasts and children,” Dicken said. “Let's go.”

On the north side of the array of Pathogenics warehouses, a segmented, inflatable silver enclosure perched on a black expanse of parking lot like some huge alien larva. An access tube led from the enclosure into Warehouse Number 5, which contained most of the primate study labs. Dicken noticed two outside compressors and a complicated, freshly assembled sterilization unit on the south end of the sausage.

He didn't realize how big the enclosure was until they were almost upon it. The whole complex was as big as one of the warehouses and covered at least an acre.

They parked the cart and entered Warehouse 5 through the delivery door. Turner met them in a small clinic inside the warehouse—a hospital clinic, obviously equipped for humans and not just for primates. “Glad you could make it, Christopher,” he said. “Jurie's dealing with some mess at the border. A bunch of protesters blocked a lab bus, refused to let it enter Arizona. They had help from the local police, apparently. Jurie had to order up another bus at the last minute and route it around the roadblocks.”

“No surprise,” Fly

“The preparations have been obvious, but Jurie only told us yesterday,” Turner said. Their statements piled together.

“She's a very unhappy girl,” Fly

“I'm not sure we should even have her here,” Turner said.

“She's pregnant,” Fly

“A rape, we're told. Her foster father,” Turner said.

“Oh, God, I didn't know it was rape,” Fly

“They brought her from a school in Arizona,” Fly

“She's pregnant?” Dicken asked, dumbfounded, and then wondered if he had blown his cover.

“That's not generally known even in the clinic,” Turner said. “I'd appreciate some discretion.”