Read Online The Cause of Death by Roger MacBride Allen - Free Book Online
Authors: Roger MacBride Allen
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some bit of genetic code that wouldn't do anything until it was activated, but that would kill or sterilize the life-form when it was activated. Probably the tidiest thing would be to make every living thing susceptible to one of a series of viruses that caused sterility."
"You're almost there," said Hannah, "but suppose species X dies out before it can release the sterilizing viruses?"
Jamie thought. "I don't know exactly what sort of mechanism you'd use to make it work, but you'd have to rig things so that, instead of taking action to wipe out imported life-forms, you'd have to take action to prevent them from being wiped out. If the intelligent xeno species is still around and still running the planet, it can push the 'reset' button every hundred years or so. But if species X collapses or leaves the planet, it won't be there to push the button--and good-bye to the species with the kill switch--and every species that relied on it as a food source. I guess you wouldn't have to kill off all the species directly--just the core species that supplied the main structure of the ecology. Probably mostly plants or their local equivalent."
"Full marks--except for one assumption you made, on account of your not thinking like a member of one of the Elder Races, and a fiddly cultural detail you don't know about the Reqwar Pavlat."
"Okay. I'll bite. What did I miss?"
"Elder Races species take the long view. They rig that 'reset' button to be pushed every ten thousand or hundred thousand years, not just every century. And the Reqwar Pavlat won't or can't do genetic engineering themselves."
"So they hired someone else to do it? Another species?"
"Right. Some species called the Kreflar, if I have that right."
"Never heard of them."
Hannah grinned evilly. "No reason why you should have. They managed to go extinct themselves, about the same time the Neanderthals checked out. But the punch line is that they didn't just do the genetic mods for Reqwar before they died out. They encrypted their work."
Jamie sat bolt upright. " What? Encrypted DNA? Is that even possible?"
"I have no idea. But this isn't DNA--it's whatever genetic code life from the Pavlat home world uses. And encryption must be possible with that genetic material because the Kreflar did it. In effect, you have to know the password before you can reset the clocks on all the kill-genes."
"And the people who know the passwords are all dead."
"And the kill-genes are starting to activate," Hannah said. "Unless or until Georg and his friends manage to decrypt the code and reset the timers, Reqwar's entire terrestrial ecology is going to collapse and die out within one or two human lifetimes.
"In other words," Hannah went on, "the stakes on this case are a lot higher than where one man serves out a prison sentence. The question is whether much of anyone on Reqwar will be alive by the time he finishes serving it."
SIX MIRACLES
Marta Hertzmann stared at the display screen as she slowly and carefully shifted the scan-scope's field of view to the next encoding site. She spotted the telltale encrypt-start sequence and used the marker controls to lock in on it. She glanced down at her status boards. The learning sequencer was following right along with her, recording all her actions. She highlighted the encrypt-start sequence and flagged it, then moved down the gene to the encyprt-stop marker, and repeated the process. That was the last one on that gene--and, praise be, the last encrypt site for that species.
She let out a sigh of relief, saved her work, and lifted her hands away from the controls, being careful not to joggle anything. Delicate work. Delicate, intricate work. Soon, very soon, she hoped, the learning systems would have enough parameters to automate the process.
Marta had custom-designed the scan-scope's gene manipulation system herself, and built most of it by hand. She knew the limitations of the system as well as anyone. It was an excellent machine, but if
"You're almost there," said Hannah, "but suppose species X dies out before it can release the sterilizing viruses?"
Jamie thought. "I don't know exactly what sort of mechanism you'd use to make it work, but you'd have to rig things so that, instead of taking action to wipe out imported life-forms, you'd have to take action to prevent them from being wiped out. If the intelligent xeno species is still around and still running the planet, it can push the 'reset' button every hundred years or so. But if species X collapses or leaves the planet, it won't be there to push the button--and good-bye to the species with the kill switch--and every species that relied on it as a food source. I guess you wouldn't have to kill off all the species directly--just the core species that supplied the main structure of the ecology. Probably mostly plants or their local equivalent."
"Full marks--except for one assumption you made, on account of your not thinking like a member of one of the Elder Races, and a fiddly cultural detail you don't know about the Reqwar Pavlat."
"Okay. I'll bite. What did I miss?"
"Elder Races species take the long view. They rig that 'reset' button to be pushed every ten thousand or hundred thousand years, not just every century. And the Reqwar Pavlat won't or can't do genetic engineering themselves."
"So they hired someone else to do it? Another species?"
"Right. Some species called the Kreflar, if I have that right."
"Never heard of them."
Hannah grinned evilly. "No reason why you should have. They managed to go extinct themselves, about the same time the Neanderthals checked out. But the punch line is that they didn't just do the genetic mods for Reqwar before they died out. They encrypted their work."
Jamie sat bolt upright. " What? Encrypted DNA? Is that even possible?"
"I have no idea. But this isn't DNA--it's whatever genetic code life from the Pavlat home world uses. And encryption must be possible with that genetic material because the Kreflar did it. In effect, you have to know the password before you can reset the clocks on all the kill-genes."
"And the people who know the passwords are all dead."
"And the kill-genes are starting to activate," Hannah said. "Unless or until Georg and his friends manage to decrypt the code and reset the timers, Reqwar's entire terrestrial ecology is going to collapse and die out within one or two human lifetimes.
"In other words," Hannah went on, "the stakes on this case are a lot higher than where one man serves out a prison sentence. The question is whether much of anyone on Reqwar will be alive by the time he finishes serving it."
SIX MIRACLES
Marta Hertzmann stared at the display screen as she slowly and carefully shifted the scan-scope's field of view to the next encoding site. She spotted the telltale encrypt-start sequence and used the marker controls to lock in on it. She glanced down at her status boards. The learning sequencer was following right along with her, recording all her actions. She highlighted the encrypt-start sequence and flagged it, then moved down the gene to the encyprt-stop marker, and repeated the process. That was the last one on that gene--and, praise be, the last encrypt site for that species.
She let out a sigh of relief, saved her work, and lifted her hands away from the controls, being careful not to joggle anything. Delicate work. Delicate, intricate work. Soon, very soon, she hoped, the learning systems would have enough parameters to automate the process.
Marta had custom-designed the scan-scope's gene manipulation system herself, and built most of it by hand. She knew the limitations of the system as well as anyone. It was an excellent machine, but if
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