Read Online Insistence of Vision by David Brin - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: David Brin
Tags: Fiction, Science-Fiction, Short Stories (Single Author), Collections & Anthologies, Hard Science Fiction, Alien Contact
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been plotting codes, cataloguing and interpolating most of the likely missing pieces. Without these lost switches, the dormant genes have languished, unused for ages. Till now I have only dared experiment with the switches one at a time, in petri dishes, never in whole animals. And never all at once. Not without a theory to explain what they’re for.
Only now, there’s a theory. A good one, I’m sure of it! Beverly’s blather about life phases made me realize just how far back this new layer of code really goes.
Extrapolate the decay rates and one thing is clear from drift-clock measurements. This second layer of mystery genes goes back not one hundred million years...
...but almost three hundred million! All the way to the early Permian Period, when amphibians were mostly pushed aside by the ancestors of reptiles, birds, dinosaurs and mammals. All of whom gave up the multi-stage style of living. Skipping the larval and pupa phases and spending all their lives as adults.
It’s astonishing. Can the second layer of dormant DNA really come to us from that far back?
It appears to! Which demands the next question. Once you set aside regulatory genes and those donated by viruses, and the ones Beverly and I discovered for regrowth...
...could the remainder be DNA that our lineage used, way back when pre-mammal ancestors did pass through a “larval” stage?
If so, what would a “larval mammal” look like?
My best guess? Look at a frog! Amphibians are the order closest to us that still pass through metamorphosis. The larval tadpole lives one kind of life underwater, then transforms into a frog. But there are frogs and toads who abandoned the first, aquatic phase, dealing with the transformation as we do... inside the embryo....
This is amazing. It all fits! I had prepared retroviruses with the replacement codons weeks ago, but had been holding back, because there was no pattern, no logic. Only now I see it!
I’ve prepared a dozen chrysalis units and Dorothy Aguelles is prepping a rat for each one. I’ll handle the injections myself. It may take a hundred iterations, but they will all be meticulously recorded.
I feel almost reckless with excitement. Is that a side effect of my earlier treatments? Or am I giddy from impressing all those young people with my juggling? Or is it the scientific prospect before me, standing on the verge of discovering something fantastic?
Like, perhaps, the true fountain of youth.
Fat n’ glossy – lucky eater
Many-legged – big survivor
Hunger changes – now compelling
Pick a stem and – hang there eager
Twist and writhe while – glossy sticky
Strands emerge from – surprise places
Nature makes you – spin the strands round
Nature makes you – weave a garment
Tube to transform – into raiment
Into what you – were born meant-for
Lab Notes: George Stimson - 10/12/30
I had that dream again, even more intense than before – of being swaddled in some dark, closed place, drowning. But only part of me was terrified! An unimportant part, fading into insignificance. Palliated and balanced by a rising sense of eagerness.
A growing, tense desire for a return to the womb. For a new womb.
I awoke in sticky sweat. A sheen that took scrubbing to remove, leaving skin that seemed baby-tender. Soft.
This time I gave in to my suspicions and, upon arriving at the lab, I drew some blood to test.
It’s in me.
The latest retrovirus. The one with our most up-to-date cocktail of missing-DNA insertions.
And there are symptoms other than weird dreams. A strange prickling of the skin. A rising sense of exhilaration, almost eagerness, for something barely, vaguely perceived.
And my cancer was gone. The blood lymphoma. The slow prostate tumor. Both of them simply gone!
Or else... I looked closer. The cancers were still there... just no longer wild, voracious, uncooperative. Instead, they were jostling into structured positions with respect to one another – differentiating.
I
Only now, there’s a theory. A good one, I’m sure of it! Beverly’s blather about life phases made me realize just how far back this new layer of code really goes.
Extrapolate the decay rates and one thing is clear from drift-clock measurements. This second layer of mystery genes goes back not one hundred million years...
...but almost three hundred million! All the way to the early Permian Period, when amphibians were mostly pushed aside by the ancestors of reptiles, birds, dinosaurs and mammals. All of whom gave up the multi-stage style of living. Skipping the larval and pupa phases and spending all their lives as adults.
It’s astonishing. Can the second layer of dormant DNA really come to us from that far back?
It appears to! Which demands the next question. Once you set aside regulatory genes and those donated by viruses, and the ones Beverly and I discovered for regrowth...
...could the remainder be DNA that our lineage used, way back when pre-mammal ancestors did pass through a “larval” stage?
If so, what would a “larval mammal” look like?
My best guess? Look at a frog! Amphibians are the order closest to us that still pass through metamorphosis. The larval tadpole lives one kind of life underwater, then transforms into a frog. But there are frogs and toads who abandoned the first, aquatic phase, dealing with the transformation as we do... inside the embryo....
This is amazing. It all fits! I had prepared retroviruses with the replacement codons weeks ago, but had been holding back, because there was no pattern, no logic. Only now I see it!
I’ve prepared a dozen chrysalis units and Dorothy Aguelles is prepping a rat for each one. I’ll handle the injections myself. It may take a hundred iterations, but they will all be meticulously recorded.
I feel almost reckless with excitement. Is that a side effect of my earlier treatments? Or am I giddy from impressing all those young people with my juggling? Or is it the scientific prospect before me, standing on the verge of discovering something fantastic?
Like, perhaps, the true fountain of youth.
Fat n’ glossy – lucky eater
Many-legged – big survivor
Hunger changes – now compelling
Pick a stem and – hang there eager
Twist and writhe while – glossy sticky
Strands emerge from – surprise places
Nature makes you – spin the strands round
Nature makes you – weave a garment
Tube to transform – into raiment
Into what you – were born meant-for
Lab Notes: George Stimson - 10/12/30
I had that dream again, even more intense than before – of being swaddled in some dark, closed place, drowning. But only part of me was terrified! An unimportant part, fading into insignificance. Palliated and balanced by a rising sense of eagerness.
A growing, tense desire for a return to the womb. For a new womb.
I awoke in sticky sweat. A sheen that took scrubbing to remove, leaving skin that seemed baby-tender. Soft.
This time I gave in to my suspicions and, upon arriving at the lab, I drew some blood to test.
It’s in me.
The latest retrovirus. The one with our most up-to-date cocktail of missing-DNA insertions.
And there are symptoms other than weird dreams. A strange prickling of the skin. A rising sense of exhilaration, almost eagerness, for something barely, vaguely perceived.
And my cancer was gone. The blood lymphoma. The slow prostate tumor. Both of them simply gone!
Or else... I looked closer. The cancers were still there... just no longer wild, voracious, uncooperative. Instead, they were jostling into structured positions with respect to one another – differentiating.
I
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