Chapter 17: Compromise

As regards live people, the final compromise offer was to allow up to twenty women in cryogenic sleep to travel, subject to finding suitable candidates. The criteria were very strict:

Four of the final twenty were British and Angels two and three were involved in the selection process, or more accurately in the rejection process of thousands of volunteers.

Candidates must have no detectable genetic disorders.

Candidates must have no history of drug use, even if prescribed for any condition.

Candidates must be young (defined somewhat arbitrarily as under thirty, preferably younger).

Preferably candidates must have given birth to one normal child and candidates must have no living close relatives above the age of two years (i.e. their child must preferably have died in an accident if it had been born more then two years earlier, and volunteers’ parents and any siblings must have predeceased them).

The four finally chosen were Rebecca Clarke, Evelyn Taylor, Elizabeth Wells and Danielle West.

Only Elizabeth Wells had anything noteworthy in her history which was as her husband was driving to take her parents home, and their four year old daughter was with them when a drunk driver slammed his fully loaded 10-ton lorry into their car, killing all four of them.

It transpired that many of the volunteers failed at least one of these tests, and when asked to explain specific failures the response was often incomprehensible to the volunteers but hinged on genetic considerations which involved genes unknown to twenty-first century science. Even if those criteria were met, a selection process would test the psychological suitability of the volunteers.

These conditions really set the cat among the pigeons as a vast array of organisations objected to one or more of the criteria, or to letting anyone go with the robots to the future. The addition of viable ova, and to a less extent semen, was also objected to. Men’s organisations yelled discrimination. The definition of ‘psychological suitability’ was also debated seemingly endlessly.

The criteria became much more acceptable to the authorities after one woman was rejected for having a recessive gene leading to possible haemochromatosis problems and well known in the twenty-first century where it was known in this particular variant as gene HFE mutation p.Cys282Tyr though the visitors referred to the gene by number and the mutation by another number, this particular defect causes too much iron to build up in the body. Sometimes it’s called “iron overload” by twenty-first century doctors.

Normally, a body’s intestines absorb just the right amount of iron from the foods it eats. But in haemochromatosis, the body absorbs too much, and it has no way to get rid of it. So, it stores the excess iron in the joints and in organs such as the liver, the heart, or the pancreas. This damages them. If it’s not treated, hemochromatosis can make one or more of these organs stop working. Primary hemochromatosis is hereditary. If a child gets two of the genes that cause it, one from the mother and one from the father, it will have a higher risk of getting the disorder. White people of northern European descent are more likely to get hereditary hemochromatosis. Men are 5 times more likely to get it than women.

Up to half of the people who have hemochromatosis don’t get any symptoms. In men, symptoms tend to show up between ages 30 and 50. Women often don’t show signs of this condition until they’re over 50 or past menopause. That may be because they lose iron when they get their periods and give birth.