Orphan of Creation (35 page)

“It’s been established that we split from gorillas about seven million years ago, and from chimps about five million years ago.” Livingston leaned down and pushed his papers around, stalling for a minute. “Now, needless to say, a lot of people had trouble with these ideas—that our DNA is ninety-nine percent identical to a chimps, and that we shared a common ancestor with chimps—for all practical purposes,
were
chimps—only five million years ago. But that’s nothing. Now people are
really
going to go bananas.” The people around the table laughed, and Livingston looked baffled until he noticed his own unconscious joke and smiled, wanly and awkwardly. The smile didn’t last long. “I’ve been in the M.A. labs at UCLA, watching them run Thursday’s blood proteins, antibodies, and DNA through the same sort of tests—as well as some new ones that were just invented a few months ago.”

Livingston looked around the room, and something in his expression tied Grossington’s stomach into a knot. “The results are that—that she’s human.”

Barbara looked up sharply, suddenly attentive.

Livingston kept talking. “On the molecular level, the measure of DNA similarity—she falls within the range of human values. She is no more different from us than we are from each other.”

“Livingston, that’s ridiculous,” Rupert protested from the far end of the table.

“Maybe so, but it’s also true,” Liv replied unhappily. “Let me see if I can make it a little clearer. Each of us is of course different from one another. Some of that’s environment, and some of it is genetic. There are thousands of micro-mutations that decide whether you’re black or white, what color your eyes will be, that sort of thing. If not for those mutations, we’d all look alike. You might say we’re all mutants. The trouble is, a major mutation can look just like a minor one when you’re down there, looking at the DNA. No one has even made a real start on actually mapping the entire human genetic code, and we still have no idea what the vast majority of DNA sequences actually mean. Crooked pinky fingers run in my family—most of the men have them. Obviously, there’s a sequence somewhere in my DNA for that, but no one know which one it is. At our current state of knowledge, there’s no way to tell it from the sequences that decide how curly my hair is, or the shape of my nose, or the relative sizes of my teeth—or how big my brain is.”

“There are thousands or millions of micro-mutations in each individual’s genes, but each of us has billions or trillions of DNA sequences. Compare the total number of sequences to the number of mutations, and you’ll see that in spite of the many genetic differences between any two human beings, there are far more similarities.

“How can you say Thursday’s DNA is like ours when no one’s mapped human DNA in the first place?” Amanda Banks asked.

“Good question. Let me see if I can explain. When the molecular anthropologists compare two sets of DNA, they don’t go through and compare every codon. If they tried, they’d be at it till doomsday. Too many codons. What they do instead is take strands of DNA from each animal, and divide each strand in half, lengthwise. That’s easier than it sounds—the strands will split under gentle heating. So, let’s say you have the left-hand strand from a human and the right-hand side from a test animal. You drop both of them into a test tube and basic biochemistry says they’ll stick together at each point where the two strands have the same coding—and
not
stick where they are different. Measure the strength of the hybrid strands’ bond and you’ve
directly
measured the overall similarity of the two parent strands. So we can measure similarity without having to read the code itself.

“Now, as I said, all mutations are not equally important, and a little genetic mutation can result in a big change in the organism. It’s just one tiny change or two that causes such drastic disorders as sickle-cell anemia, or Down’s syndrome, or some types of manic-depressive disorders.

“Somewhere in the genetic differences between Thursday and humans are a thousand or two equally tiny mutations that spell out the difference between her and us—but they are hard to find, camouflaged behind the billions or trillions of identical codings and the thousands or millions of unimportant mutations. The point is, there are DNA differences between Thursday and ourselves, but they are so small we can’t spot them easily, and a key coding looks just like a meaningless little blivet of code for earwax consistency. Or else four or five widely separated bits of code could be working in concert to determine intelligence, or manual dexterity—-or toenail toughness.
But we don’t know which are the key micro-mutations
. On a molecular level, the codings that make Thursday’s brain a third the size of yours and mine are probably not much larger, or more important, or more detectable, than the codings that decide that one
human’s
brain will be larger than another human’s.

There was a dead silence in the room.

“There are two other findings,” Livingston said quietly. “In spite of the closeness of the DNA match, there are other means, such as faster-mutating mitochondrial DNA, for dating the split, the time when Thursday’s ancestors split from ours. It was between 2.5 and 3 million years ago, which shouldn’t be much of a surprise. It fits in pretty well with the fossil evidence that has been gathered over the years.

“But the last thing. The last thing is the worst. Needless to say, the molecular anthropology team was bothered by the incredible similarity between australopithecine and human DNA. They expected it to be close, but not close as it was. They ran new tests examining nuclear DNA piece by piece, instead of long strands all at once. They—they found some things in the DNA, long sequences, that aren’t just extremely similar to human DNA—they are
identical
to human DNA. They
are
human. When they did go through, codon by codon for the sections of DNA they
have
mapped, there were
no
unknown codings in those sections of Thursday’s genetic material. If those duplicate zones are factored out, Thursday gets to be a bit less similar to us, to be right where she should be, midway between humans and chimps.

“But those duplicate zones tell us something else.” Livingston paused again for a moment. “Part of the reason there is so little difference between human and australopithecine DNA is that there have been what the M.A. people called human ‘intrusions’ into the australopithecine gene pool. They can’t yet tell if it happened a hundred years ago, or two hundred thousand years back—or both. But it’s happened, very clearly it’s happened.

“Humans, true humans like you and me, have interbred with Thursday’s fairly recent ancestors.”

<>

Jeffery Grossington found himself wandering again that night, lost in thought. Boiseans and humans interbreeding? His whole world was slipping away, again. He walked the grounds of the hospital, and found his steps leading to the outbuilding where Thursday was kept. On impulse, he went in, went upstairs to her room. He went in through the observation room, and looked at her for a long time through the one-way glass.

She was sitting on the floor, playing with one of the manual dexterity tests, putting the right-shaped block in the right-shaped hole. Her movements were smooth, practiced, skilled, and she wore an expression of calm thought.

Grossington opened the door to her room proper and she looked up, a bit startled. “
Hello, Thursday
,” he signed.

“
Hello.
”

“
What are you doing?”
he asked.

She gestured toward the blocks. “
I try learn. Learn blocks.”

Grossington smiled.
“Me too. I try to learn.”

Thursday cocked her head at him and looked puzzled.
“You know all. What you need try learn?”

Grossington shook his head. Suddenly, he remembered a question at that disastrous first press conference. The reporter wanted to know what he would ask a live australopithecine. It occurred to him he
had
never asked it. “
I try learn answer to question. Maybe can you tell me. Thursday—what is a human being? What is a person?”

Thursday stared at him again.
“I not know
.”

Grossington shook his head sadly. “Nobody does,” he said out loud. “Not anymore.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

A PETITION

WHEREAS by their own admission scientists representing the Smithsonian Institution, and by extension, the government and people of the United States, did unlawfully kidnap and detain a person known as Thursday while in the Nation of Gabon, and

WHEREAS these same scientists, with the connivance and assistance of the United States Embassy to Gabon, the United States Air Force, and other United States government agencies, did illegally remove this same Thursday from Gabon to the United States in violation of international law regarding piracy and kidnapping, and

WHEREAS this same person Thursday has been held against her will, with no charges preferred or intended against her, and has been denied her right to legal counsel and representation when such representation was offered to her by the American Civil Liberties Union, the World Wildlife Fund Legal Defense Fund, Greenpeace, and many other worthy organizations, and

WHEREAS Thursday has been the subject of repeated and relentless so-called scientific tests conducted on her person without her consultation or consent and

WHEREAS the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service are charged with enforcing laws involving kidnapping and the illegal abduction of persons into this country,

WE THE UNDERSIGNED hereby petition the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service to assure Thursday the full protection of the law, to free her from her illegal and unjust imprisonment, and to provide her with all lawful assistance, allowing her to choose of her own free will whether to remain here or to return to her native shores, and to investigate and prosecute those responsible for this flagrant violation of federal civil rights laws . . . .

<>

Barbara hesitated before entering Thursday’s room. Was today the day to try the first step? Thursday had made great strides in her signing over the past month, and for that matter, so had Barbara. She had some intelligence all right, but would it be sufficient to get the idea across today? Was Thursday up to understanding enough? Would she ever be?
Forget it
, Barbara thought.
There’ll never be as many answers as questions in this business.
She took a deep breath and opened the door.

There was Thursday, sitting on the edge of her bed, looking with rapt attention at the drawings in a picture book—that she was holding upside down. Another intriguing mystery. It was pretty clear that she could see and understand that a flat picture was a representation of something else. She could see a kitten in a picture of a kitten—if you showed her the picture right side up. But she simply could not see it as the same image when she looked at it upside down. Could not, or perhaps
would
not. Some of the researchers thought there were times when she was just as happy to look at the shapes and colors as abstracts, and choose not to puzzle out a picture’s meaning, whereas a human eye would insist on trying to fit the pictures to a pattern, an image. A human would match the upside-down picture to an upside-down image of a cat, realize the book was the wrong way to, and correct the error. Thursday didn’t work that way. By choice or capacity, to her, one copy of Mother Goose was four equally interesting books—one each right-side up, upside down, and on its side either way.

Barbara made a scuffling noise to get Thursday’s attention without startling her. Thursday looked up from her book, grunted with pleasure, and dropped Mother Goose on the floor. The whole room had long since lost its prison-barracks spareness and developed a sloppy, comfortably lived-in look, with the toys and gadgets used to test Thursday strewn everywhere, and bright-colored blankets and pillows scattered on the floor. It reminded Barbara of her own room as a teen-ager.

“
Hello, Thursday
,” Barbara signed.

“
Hello, Barbara friend,
” Thursday signed back. “
Work learn today?”

“
No, no. Today for rest
,” Barbara replied. It was Sunday, and there was only a skeleton staff on duty. That was all to the good, and part of the reason Barbara had chosen today for this little chat.

“
Rest outside?”
Thursday asked hopefully. “
Go out, see sky?”

“Cold, cold today.”
Barbara cautioned.

“
Thursday good. Thursday put on coat, promise.
”

“
Not take coat off? Promise?”
Barbara asked. This was a breakthrough of sorts. Not only was Thursday volunteering to put the coat on, which was a first—she had made the associational jump between it being cold and having to wear warm clothes. It had taken a month of daily wheedling to get that far. Progress with her was like that—sometimes so tiny and subtle that you could barely notice it. Every day a word or two more, every day the old words used a little better, every day a tiny surprise. And it all helped, it certainly helped. It made Barbara feel she was right, gave some purpose to the risk, focused her attention. It was good therapy for Barbara. She was taking care of herself again, paying attention to how she dressed and looked. That helped, too, gave her the confidence for what she was planning.

“
Promise
,” Thursday said, nodding her head and looking most sincere.

“
Outside, then
.”

<>

They dug Thursday’s coat—an enormous army-surplus trenchcoat with a warm lining—out of the closet and got it on her. Thursday let Barbara fuss with the buttons and zippers, and waited patiently while Barbara buttoned her own coat back up. She watched her friend, and wondered again about her. Barbara was the only real link between her old place and this one. Thursday knew Barbara felt things about her that no one else did, though she did not know why.

Thursday did not understand many things, but that didn’t bother her much. She had an almost fatalistic lack of curiosity about some things, among them why she was here, what this place was, why the people here did such strange things with her. She had never questioned why she had been with the others, the Utaani. That had been part of the natural order of things, the way it had always been. She had managed to transfer that attitude to new circumstances. It never occurred to her to question such matters, any more than she wondered about why the sky was blue or why the air smelled good outside. The world was what it was. It swirled around her, did with her what it would, and it never occurred to her she might have a voice in how it treated her.

Deep inside her the instinct for escape, for freedom was still there. That would be with her no matter where she went, whatever she did. But now, today, being all alone with these strange new ones, and in spite of their sometimes strange and cruel tricks, she was now freer than she had ever been. For the moment, at least, that satisfied her. Besides, the worst of the cruel times here seemed to be over. Barbara and Michael were always there to stop the others from doing things that scared her or hurt her too much.

She followed Barbara through the door, down the hallway, and then down the stairs. Stairs were still a little tricky for her, but she was getting used to them. Another hallway, another door, and they were outside. Thursday stopped on the threshold and closed her eyes, breathing deep, drinking in the cold, crisp, clean air.

<>

Barbara turned to watch her friend, and smiled. Thursday so obviously delighted in the outdoors, the spare beauty of a late-winter day. It must be so different for her, a whole new range of sensations impossible in the jungles. Barbara shivered a bit, and thought once again how the cold didn’t seem to bother Thursday. In some ways, she was better adapted to it, of course. She had a built-in fur coat, for one thing, and her heavily callused feet seemed immune to the cold. That was probably just as well—it would probably be impossible to get Thursday into shoes.

At last, Thursday opened her eyes and looked about herself, at the empty trees and sleeping earth. Barbara reached out and took her hand, and the two of them began to stroll the grounds of the hospital. They made a strange pair, the carefully coifed and elegantly dressed scientist in her trim and stylish jacket, hand in hand with the gawky, ambling barefoot figure in an oversized trenchcoat.

They came to a wooden bench and sat down. Here, away from prying eyes, Barbara hoped she could talk—or sign, rather—to Thursday in private.

“
Thursday, I ask question. Do you wonder why we do the things we do to you?”

Thursday frowned a surprisingly human frown that puckered up her forehead. “
A little. But what is, what is
.” A typically fatalistic answer for Thursday.

“
Let me try and tell,
” Barbara signed.
“Your kind and mine. They are different, are the same. Do you see that? Some ways same, some ways not?”

Thursday nodded enthusiastically
. “Yes, yes. Look same, walk same, hands same. Not
—”she hesitated”—
not make words inside same.”

“
Make words inside—that is called think.”

“
Not think same. Not
do
same.”

“Not do same,”
Barbara agreed.
“That is why we do things to you. To see what we do same and different. Is blood same? Is hair different? Is thinking, making-words-inside, all different, or is some the same?”

“Why must know? Why try you so hard?”
Thursday asked.

Barbara hesitated, trying to find a way to explain, trying to make it clear without frightening her. “
I tell why, but it might scare you. Don’t be scared. I not let them hurt you. Will you be not-scared?

“
Not-scared. Tell why.”

“We need know—are your kind like dog, like cat, like squirrel, like monkey—or like humans, our kind?”
Thank God for flash-cards. Thursday had enjoyed learning the names of animals, and looking at the pictures. “
Those animals—cat, dog, monkey, all others, not think, not make-words-inside at all like our kind.”

Barbara hesitated once again. They had got the idea of rules across to Thursday, but not right or wrong, and of course, they had not even tried to explain law, or justice. Thursday regarded good and bad not as ethical standards, but questions of how a thing tasted or felt. When Barbara needed to say a thing was good or bad, fair or unfair, right or wrong, the best she could do was to tell her what the rules were, and Thursday had a disturbing tendency to a knee-jerk, instinctive obedience to the rules—if there were a chance she would get caught. She would and did break every rule in sight if she could get away with it. So, instead of morality or ethics, Barbara had to explain the situation in terms of authority. It was a most unsatisfactory solution, but the best they could do. “
The rules say that humans can do things to animals that are not-humans. We can make them work hard, we can kill them and eat them, we can do a thing to them first to see if it would hurt humans. It is against the rules to do that with humans. Humans can go places, do things other animals not allowed to do. Those are the rules.”

“If I human, I do many things?”

“Yes, many, many.”

“If they learn I not-human, rules say I be like old ones made me. Word is?”

“
Word is slave.”
That summed it up pretty well. She and the other australopithecines would indeed be what the old ones, the Utaani, had made them—slaves, of one sort of another. Test animals, freak show gimmicks, who knows, maybe even real, honest to God household slaves. Damn it, right or wrong, mad or sane, she would not be a party to that. She would do what she had to, and damn the consequences. “
Yes, but not you. Never, never you. You will never be slave. I promise, like you promise to wear coat. I will stop that, even if I break every rule there is to do it.”
Barbara stopped, got hold of herself. She was signing too fast, and the sentences were too complex. There was no way Thursday could follow it all.
I stop them making you slave. But I cannot protect all your kind. More people visit old ones, take more of your kind. Those others, I cannot break the rules for all of them.

“No. Too many, lots of rules.”

“Are you sad because your kind will be slaves?”

“Sad. Sad-sad.”

“You can help. You make rules that your kind is human.”

“Make rule?”

“Show you like me. Me human, so you human. Against rules for human be slaves.”

Thursday stared at her for a long time, tilting her head this way and that, thinking, puzzling out the logic. “
Yes, yes,
” she signed at last. “
Make me like you. Good. Good.”