The Highest Frontier (20 page)

“From Ole Miss.” Howell nodded in a friendly way, his face bronze, with rounded lab-rat shoulders. “Nan does the neuro. I’m the green thumb.” Today, a decade after the Nobel he’d shared with Ng, Howell ran a large neuroplant institute back at his alma mater.

Anouk looked admiringly around the lab, with at least half a dozen unfamiliar forms of apparatus. “Impressive.”

“We’re quite proud of our lab. It held up even through the quake of ninety-seven. Some say another is due.”

Jenny clapped her hands to her head. “No way,” she exclaimed. “I’ve been strangled by vines and strafed by artillery; I will
not
have an earthquake.”

Howell laughed. “Don’t mind our little jokes.”

“No towering inferno? No meltdown? No Godzilla?” Jenny tried to recall all the disasters that might befall a toyworld.

He laughed even harder and slapped his knee. “They’d melt us down, all right, if they knew what we’re up to.”

“No more disasters,” Ng assured her. “Well, just one … let’s get done before that.”

Behind a glass panel grew rows of
Arabidopsis,
the little green leaves poking out just like in Professor Abaynesh’s laboratory. “Rita found the first nerve growth factor,” said Ng. “But Rita’s protein turned out to be one of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of signals controlling nerves. Their effect is a combinatorial problem.”

“Combinatorics—yes!” exclaimed Anouk. “It was all in your paper the professor gave us.” Jenny had made it about halfway through. “Ng and Howell.”

“Growth factors need receptors,” Ng explained. “Receptors made by genes. I engineered a plant with the genes for nerve growth factor receptor. With those receptors, plus nerve growth factor, the plant grew a nervous system.”

“Sounds simple, doesn’t it.” Howell nodded. “Did she mention the combinations?”

A window to one of Ng’s instruments opened in Jenny’s box. Anouk saw it too, and her eyes lit up. “I can do this.”

Jenny felt lost; a t-test was one thing, but combining hundreds of genes was beyond her.

“Remember, Anouk,” said Howell, “you don’t actually find one ‘right’ combination, just select about a thousand plausible sets. Then we’ll transform the plants and grow them all.”

The instrument was running scenarios for each gene, which receptor it made for which kind of neurons, sensory and motor, and so on.

“All right,” said Anouk, “I’ve picked a thousand combinations. Can you grow the plants?”

Behind the glass, the thousand plants sprouted and grew. “Don’t get the wrong idea,” observed Howell. “This part took decades.”

“My hair turned gray,” agreed Ng. “But in the end, look what we found.” She opened a glass panel. Behind the glass, the plant looked just like all the others. But when she touched a leaf, it flexed and curled. “A motor reflex. Your combination of receptor genes produced a reflex arc.”

Jenny stared. “Is that …
Arabidopsis sapiens
?”

“Sapiens came later. Sharon’s work.” Sharon Abaynesh, her own professor.

Anouk’s eyes narrowed. “By the way … Which experiment won the third Nobel?” She hated to admit she’d missed something.

Ng rolled her eyes. “Sharon figures she will someday.”

Howell chuckled. “Sharon was always the uppity New Yorker. Good luck in her lab.”

“Time’s running short.” Ng hurried on. “Uh-oh. What’s this?”

A form appeared, from the National Institutes of Health. A termination notice.

“After your great-grandmother lost reelection, the first Guzmán invaded Antarctica, and all the research labs lost funding.”

In the laboratory, a light went out, then another. At last they were in darkness. Jenny produced her magic torch. In the torchlight, the four faces shone like moons.

“We scraped by—”

“Others didn’t,” put in Howell.

“Scientists ignore politics,” said Ng. “My own postdocs were too busy to vote.”

“I voted,” Howell insisted. “Others—” He shrugged. “After that, the only government funding was for anthrax. Weapons-grade anthrax.”

“To test defense, of course.”

Jenny’s scalp crawled. She couldn’t imagine working in a triple-sealed biodefense lab to make life-forms you never planned to use.

“We turned it into anthradyne,” said Ng.

“That’s
chulo,
” said Jenny. “My mother financed the first anthradyne plant in space. The one that grows anthrax cords for the space lift.”

“Nowadays,” said Howell, “if you lose your grant, you make weapons-grade ultra.”

Jenny’s jaw fell.
“¿Qué?”
Ultraphyte bioweapons?

Ng shook her head. “That’s classified. So tell us, what’s Sharon up to these days?”

Howell added, “They say Sharon gets plants to sing and dance. Even pray in church.”

Despite herself Jenny smiled. Then she realized he wasn’t laughing.

*   *   *

Back on the savannah, Jenny and Anouk found themselves on horseback, wearing chain mail with a helmet, and holding a shield and a jousting pole. Jenny barely noticed the toyworld paraphernalia. “Weapons-grade ultra,” she muttered. “To make cyanide?”

“Americans,” exclaimed Anouk. “They’ll make a weapon out of anything.
Zut,
Jenny—look out!”

Ahead of them, two armored knights guarded a tall gate before a river.

Waving her pole, Anouk trotted up to the knights. “Let us pass,
s’il vous plaît.
” The helmet muffled her words. “What may we give you? Gold coins? Diamonds? Health spells?”

The two knights raised their poles and held them out threateningly.

“If that’s how you want it.” Anouk rode forward and jabbed one of the knights. But he only lifted his shield, and the pole slid aside. Anouk’s horse reared up before running into the other knight. Jenny warily joined Anouk with her pole, with similar result. No jab of the poles could break the knights’ defense.

“Wait,” Jenny called, “look there.” From upriver, two more knights bore down on them, poles pointing forward.

Anouk drew up her pole and stared. “Whose side are they on?”

The two strange knights lost no time attacking the guardian knights. Emboldened by reinforcements, Jenny and Anouk redoubled their own attack, jabbing at the knights’ shields. While Anouk occupied one, Jenny and the two strangers all jabbed at the hapless companion.

At last the one knight was unhorsed. His companion trotted over to help him up, but the incident convinced both to retire in ignominious defeat. As the defeated knights trotted off, the newcomers raised their visors. They were Tom and Charlie.

“¡Hola!”
Jenny pulled off her helmet. “How’d you get here?”

Charlie laughed, his hair tossing. “To the rescue! Huzzah!”

Tom explained, “We knew we’d never beat them on our own, so we tried cooperation.”

“Did you ever get your plants to move?”

Charlie said, “We guessed random numbers. Dr. Ng got annoyed and told us to take a math class. But darned if one plant didn’t move, just a bit.”

Anouk sniffed. “There’s always a false positive. Wait—quiet, everyone. Do you hear that?”

A sound of crying, like a baby. The cries came from ahead somewhere behind the gate. Charlie galloped on ahead, trying to find another entrance. “No way,” he shouted back, “the wall goes clear around.”

Jenny got off her horse, threw off her armor, and rushed to the gate. The gate displayed four rows of disk-shaped imprints. “The genetic code! The coins!”

Each of Levi-Montalcini’s coins had a symbol for a protein building block. Everyone contributed coins, while Jenny fit them in. The unseen baby’s cries rose to shrieks.

As the last coin fell in place, a crack appeared in the gate, and a hinge creaked. Charlie leaned on the gate and pushed it open. Everyone rushed through.

In a basket surrounded by high walls lay the baby, its blanket fallen off, furiously waving its arms and legs. The baby was unclothed except for one badly soiled diaper. Tom already had the fresh diaper out of his inventory and set about changing it, as if he’d had lots of practice.

From behind, a distant trumpet sounded. Through the open gate, an enormous procession appeared. It snaked toward them, with horsemen in lions’ manes and musicians followed by the Queen of Sheba in a canopied chair upon a camel.

In Jenny’s box a window opened. “You finished in time for lunch,” observed Professor Abaynesh. “Grade A.”

Grade A—after all that? Jenny was stunned. In high school, she’d never earned less than A triple plus.

15

Dylan had just confirmed his Friday appointment with Gil Wickett, with ten minutes to spare before his son was to call from Berkeley. But a window popped up; Nora Kwon, dean of students. She had that grim “thought you ought to know” look about her.

“Nora, what’s up? Tell the parents we’re taking care of the mosquitoes—”

“The Pentagon,” she began. “They traced an attack to one of our student accounts. The Chouiref girl.” The Euro minister’s daughter. “Thought you ought to know.”

“Can’t Toy Land turn up security a notch?”

“Zari says no one can fix the holes this student found. Luis never told us she’s compulsive. And a banished criminal.” The sarcasm made him wince. “Admissions accepts these kids, then expects us to deal.”

“A compulsive hacker?”

“It’s a recognized syndrome, listed on the APA. We’ve got Twelve Step, AA, and Taxplayers Rehab, but this one is new to us. We’re all boning up on it, got her in therapy, Zari is on her case, but—”

“I’m sure Clare will help.” A change of pace for Clare. “Now if you’ll excuse me, could we—”

“And the Dyer girl.” The one with the pearls, from Long Beach. “Mary Dyer shows up for just one course, Phil’s seminar, and she spooks people asking them how to exterminate humans. She’s an omniprosthete—yet she can’t use Toynet? Within FERPA, can’t Luis give me more than that?”

An omniprosthete had total body replacement, only a human brain inside somewhere, typically the “chest” region. A few brain cells away from a DIRG. Dylan checked his notes. “She had childhood osteosarcoma that spread. Her doctor’s well known; his clients include the White House.” The vice president had become an omniprosthete after a hunting accident. Only his original head and hands remained. His hands had a habit of creeping away from himself, hence his nickname, the Creep.

“Osteosarcoma,” Nora breathed. “And no parents. What survivors these kids are.”

“I can give you the clinic’s Toynet window.”

“That’s a help. Don’t go yet—”

Dylan let out a breath, willing himself to be patient.

“A young taxplayer at the Mound sold his ticket home, now he’s stranded. We put him up in an empty dorm room. Thought you ought to know.”

“But—a nonstudent, that’s not our problem. And it’s not supposed to happen.” The Mound sponsored taxplayer rehab, of course, the standard 10 percent mandated by the original Ramos bill. But that was down on Earth, in a Dayton facility.

Nora gave him the “whatever you say” look. “The Mound won’t return calls.”

Of course, they couldn’t just leave the kid out in the cold. Bad for Frontera’s family image. “Couldn’t he just wait tables in Mount Gilead until he pays it off?”

“Father of three, a grocery clerk from Peoria.”

Dylan sighed. “Put him in our rehab.” The college ran their own taxplayers rehab; it had long ago surpassed alcohol and eating disorders. At present, an art history professor and a philosopher were in rehab, along with about forty students. “I’ll talk to Bobby.” Bobby Foxtail Forrester, manager of the Mound—their landlord, Dylan reminded himself.

Thankfully that was it. He managed to settle on the couch with Clare, just in time for Fritz to pop into his toybox. They’d originally picked his name because it was least popular in the name book; then that year, all the boys were named Fritz. Dylan had wanted to culture him from Clare, but Clare had wanted him like Dylan, so they’d gone retro, split the genes fifty-fifty. Their son’s mop of hair, fair and wavy like Clare’s, was ringed by a native swastika headband, while his nose and mouth echoed Dylan’s. He looked gorgeous, despite his perpetually serious expression. “Fritz! How are you,
tío
?”

“¿Qué haces?”
added Clare. “What are you saving this week?”

“Groundhogs,” Fritz answered, all business as usual. “
Marmota monax
. They’re endangered—nearly gone.” He stared at Dylan. “What are you going to do about it?”

“Groundhogs?” repeated Dylan halfheartedly. “I’ll have to look up groundhog preservation. Ask Quade—”

Fritz rolled his eyes. “Dad—you know, groundhogs? Groundhog Day, and Punxatawny Phil? Do you realize there are
no
groundhogs left in all of Pennsylvania and Ohio? Doesn’t the
history
loss even bother you?”

Clare said, “Of course it does. A field without groundhogs would be unthinkable. I’m sure you’re holding a benefit.”

“The biggest ever. It will be, but we have to raise funds up front.”

A pitch for funds—that Dylan understood. “Sure,
tío
. How much do you need?”

A look of pain darkened Fritz’s face. “I told you not to call me that.”

Dylan bit his tongue. This was his third term of endearment crossed out, and he was at a loss for another.

“Fritz, you know we’ll send what you need,” added Clare. “Just make sure it’s effective, remember? Effective philanthropy, I always say.”

“Sure, Pop,” said Fritz, “I know what you mean. Just don’t let Reesie hear you use those gender-exclusionary words.”

“Reesie?” Dylan asked. “Do we know Reesie? Caroline was a nice
chica—
”

“Caroline was last week.” A moment’s pause. “Don’t look at me like that, Dad. What do you expect—a man my age to settle down?” He pointed an accusing finger. “Look at your own elite college, a raft full of hedonistic rich kids. Thinking you’ll all outlive spaceship Earth.”

“Okay, okay.” Dylan raised both hands. “Never mind. I love you … son, no matter what.”

Fritz’s brow wrinkled, the way it looked when he would have said “I love you,” if he could. “Babylon,” he muttered. “Your school’s got quite a rep, you know. Everyone knows. Just remember—I’m keeping an eye on you.” A momentary glare, then his tousled head vanished.