Chapter 2: Genetic Determinism

The mag-lev train zipped along its rail noiselessly, Jamie peering out of a nearby window as he watched the landscape fly past. The track was elevated high off the ground, the streets below little more than a blur, the towering spires of the city gradually giving way to sparser buildings as they reached the outskirts. Ahead of him, he could see the complex that housed the clinic, a cluster of hospital and university buildings that formed their own little settlement amongst the surrounding greenery. They were all whitewashed blocks of concrete and steel, the main structures forming a broken ring around a park area in the center of the campus, the green lawns framed by neat rows of trees.

The train slid to a stop in a nearby station, Jamie stepping out through the automatic doors. It was a short walk to the campus, and after checking a nearby information kiosk, he located the gene therapy clinic. The waiting room was much like any upscale hospital lobby, rows of padded benches lining the walls, a few potted plants adding a touch of greenery to the whitewashed surroundings. Jamie announced himself to a secretary who was sitting behind a desk, then took a seat, waiting for his turn to be seen. There were a few patients occupying the benches, each one being sent through before him, until his name was finally called.

The secretary directed him down a short corridor, Jamie pausing to glance through a long window to his left. He could see through into some kind of lab or cleanroom. Everything in there was white, from the walls and ceiling to the lab coats that the occupants were wearing. Large, expensive-looking machinery with white housings occupied most of the surfaces, many of the employees hunched over them, tapping at touch screens and holographic displays. Jamie watched one of them raise a vial of fluid, holding it up to the bright halogen light strips for a moment before inserting it into some kind of centrifuge.

Another man in a lab coat emerged from a door ahead of him, raising a hand in greeting. This must be the doctor. He was an older fellow with a clean-shaven face, his brown hair just starting to turn gray in places. They introduced themselves, the man waving Jamie into an unremarkable office, the two of them taking a seat to either side of a wooden desk.

“I’m told that you’re interested in pursuing fertility treatments with our clinic,” the doctor began, pulling up Jamie’s information on a holographic display that was being projected from a console mounted atop his desk. “When we get clients in your age bracket, it’s usually because they’ve been diagnosed with a condition that makes conception difficult, or they’re in a same-sex relationship. I took the liberty of looking through the medical records that you forwarded, and I couldn’t see anything that stood out to me as unusual in your history. Might I inquire as to what kind of treatment you’re looking for, exactly?”

“I have what may be an ... unusual request,” Jamie began, the doctor peeling his eyes away from the display to peer across the table at him.

“I should warn you that our clinic operates in full compliance with UN law,” he began. “We offer cosmetic gene modification, but no enhancements or other procedures that aren’t deemed medically necessary.”

“Oh, it’s nothing like that,” Jamie insisted. “My partner and I are having problems conceiving because, well, we’re different species.”

“Different species?” the doctor asked, giving Jamie his full attention. He didn’t seem shocked, more intrigued than anything.

“My partner is a Borealan, and we’ve recently started looking into ways to have kids. Adoption, surrogates, and artificial insemination are on the menu, but I wanted to know if there was any hope of us conceiving a child together?”

“This is a first,” the doctor mused, scratching his chin as he considered. “I suppose this kind of thing was bound to come up eventually. With more and more alien species joining the Coalition and interstellar travel becoming more frequent, humans and aliens are ending up in closer and closer proximity. I happen to know that the Borealan genome has been sequenced,” he continued, Jamie’s heart skipping a beat.

“R-really? Does that mean...”

“Unfortunately, just because the DNA has been sequenced doesn’t mean that we know what each individual gene does and how they interact with one another. That will take years of research. I can tell you that humans and Borealans have different numbers of chromosomes, meaning that sexual reproduction is quite impossible. Reproduction in eukaryotes relies on a process called meiosis, where chromosomes from the two parents fuse during fertilization to create a new genome. If the number of chromosomes is abnormal, it results in a condition known as aneuploidy, which in the majority of cases will cause a miscarriage. The baby just wouldn’t develop properly, or at all, because the instructions being given to its cells would be gibberish. Not that fertilization would occur to begin with in this case,” he added, “as the genetic codes of the two parents would be completely incompatible.”

“Why is that?” Jamie asked. “We’re so similar, we both breathe oxygen, we both have skin and hair. If we took the gene that tells Borealan cells to develop into hair follicles, why would it be so different from that of a human?”

“Take a look at this,” the doctor continued, waving a hand through his holographic display. He brought up an animated graphic of a DNA strand, a double-helix that slowly rotated in the air. “This is DNA. As you can see, it’s made up of two chains, which are joined by structures that look like the rungs of a ladder. These are called your base pairs. Think of them like the binary code in a computer, a set of instructions. A gene is a larger segment of that chain, which works kind of like a program, giving the cells their orders. It tells them how to form, how to behave, even when to die.”

He zoomed the image in, the strand unraveling, a long section highlighted in red.

“Humans have around twenty-five thousand genes, though not all of them are active, and some will be superseded by more dominant genes during meiosis. In other species, the order in which they’re arranged, the number of genes, and what those genes do are all totally different. Splicing two completely unrelated genomes together would require perfect knowledge of each gene’s functions, and its interactions with other genes, which can change its function entirely.”

“Then, it’s not impossible in theory,” Jamie said as he examined the floating graphic. “It’s just so complex as to be infeasible.”

“Sequencing a genome is no more difficult than running the data through a sufficiently powerful computer,” the doctor continued, shutting off the display. “The difficult part is figuring out what those genes do, and there’s no method that we know of other than experimentation. If we have a genome that we know is healthy, and one that we know is damaged, we can compare them to find out where the errors are. We can activate genes in a lab environment, deactivate others, then observe the results. There’s no way to fast-track that process, I’m afraid.”

“I see,” Jamie said, his hope fading.

“Sorry we couldn’t be of more help,” the doctor said, Jamie giving him an appreciative nod. “If you’re still looking for artificial insemination or surrogate services, that’s something that we can definitely arrange for you.”

Jamie tried to perk up, reminding himself that he was here for Liz. Even if his dreams of conceiving a child with her had been dashed, there were still other avenues open to them.

“Tell me about artificial insemination,” he began. “My partner says that if we can secure a Borealan donor, the process should be pretty straightforward.”

Jamie arrived back at his apartment to find Liz lounging on the couch, a tablet computer clutched in her furry hands. She was in her usual state of undress, wearing only a pair of tight shorts and a loose-fitting tank top that barely served to preserve her modesty. She didn’t even look up as he entered the room, she was too engrossed in whatever she was reading.

“Hey, Liz,” he called as he tossed his jacket onto the coat rack by the door. “I’m back from the clinic. They basically told me the same thing you did, I don’t know why I got my hopes up like that. Guess it was a pretty stupid suggestion.”

He walked over and sat down on the edge of the cushions, Liz looking up from her work, blinking her green eyes at him as he brandished a handful of colorful pamphlets.

“I made some progress, though. The doctors over there provide both artificial insemination and surrogate services. They can arrange the whole thing, we just have to decide which one we want to go with. They gave me all these leaflets.”

“It wasn’t a stupid suggestion,” Liz shot back, Jamie cocking his head at her. “It was too smart. That was the problem.”

“Huh?” Jamie asked, lowering his pamphlets.

“We can’t splice two unrelated species together because our understanding of genetics and our level of medical technology doesn’t allow it,” she added, waving her tablet as she spoke. She was going a mile a minute, just like she had when they were kids, and she was explaining some lofty concept about xenolinguistics or exobiology to him. He hadn’t seen her so enthusiastic in a long time.

“And?” he asked, wondering where she was going.

“And, there are two species that we know of that are more advanced than humanity, at least in that area. The first are the Brokers, and good luck getting them to share any of their technology without a hefty price tag. I’ve been researching all day, and there’s so little information on them that I can’t even work out what they actually look like.”

“What’s the second?” Jamie asked.

“The Betelgeusians,” she replied, her emerald eyes glinting.

“The Bugs?” Jamie repeated, raising an eyebrow incredulously. “You mean the species of murderous insects we’ve been at war with for our entire lifetimes? The species that raze whole colonies without a shred of remorse?”

“That’s the one,” she replied, turning her attention back to her tablet. She scrolled through an article, the tip of one of her hooked claws covered by a rubber cap to prevent her from scratching up the glass. “Betelgeusian tech is all organic. Even their guns and ships have genetically-engineered components, each one a purpose-built lifeform designed to carry out a specific role. They have an understanding of DNA that transcends even Earth’s most celebrated geneticists. The problem is, capturing their technology for study is extremely difficult. Their equipment literally dies in captivity, and since they tend to fight to the death, obtaining undamaged samples is rare.”

“I’m listening,” Jamie replied, “but I’m having a hard time seeing how that helps us.”

“When we were talking about genetics last night, it got me thinking,” she continued. “Back on Borealis, I’d hang out with Coalition auxiliaries whenever I could, Borealans who had served alongside UNN troops. They were a little more mellow than the other natives, and they knew what it was like to live around humans during their deployments. Anyway,” she added with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Borealans like to share war stories, the bloodier the better, and they’d often get to talking about their experiences in the Navy.” She set down her tablet now, giving him her full attention. “This one time, not long before I made it off-world, I was at a banquet hall where a lot of the auxiliaries liked to hang out. There was a pack there that had just shipped home after finishing a tour, and they were talking about something so unusual that it stuck with me.”

“What was it?” Jamie asked.

“They said that they had been deployed to a planet to root out a Betelgeusian hive that was dug in there, but that the enemy had been ‘inducted’. That stood out as bizarre to me, because Betelgeusians aren’t known to surrender, and inducted is a very Borealan term to use. It refers to forcibly making someone a member of your pack, usually through defeating them in a dominance bout. After a little more prodding, they revealed that when they had extracted, they had left said hive intact.”

“Wait a minute,” Jamie said, her words sparking a memory. “I remember that, it was all over the news a few months back. The talking heads were going crazy about how the Coalition had voted to let a colony of Bugs join the alliance. I don’t really follow politics, but you couldn’t get away from it for weeks. Everyone was talking about it at work.”

“Now you’re on the right track,” she continued, picking up her tablet again. “The planet is called Jarilo, and it’s a rare find. The conditions there are remarkably similar to those of Earth. A UNN fleet was tasked with securing it at all costs and driving out the Betelgeusians who had staked their claim to it.”

“And that’s when they surrendered?” Jamie asked.

“It’s unheard of,” Liz replied, turning her eyes back to her device. “I could find no other recorded instance of a hive fleet surrendering. Not even a retreat. Epsilon Eridani, Kruger, Valbara. They fight to the death every time, like cornered animals, but something about Jarilo was different. Something changed their behavior, made them more amenable. Take a look at this.”

She turned her tablet around, Jamie leaning closer to get a look. A video was playing, showing a strange creature from the shoulders up. It was a Betelgeusian, Jamie had seen enough footage of them to recognize it, but there was something different about this one.

The Drones that served as the foot soldiers in the Bug fleets wore helmets that blended seamlessly with their carapace, sporting a pair of glowing, compound eyes. This specimen had no such helmet. Its eyes were large, expressive, almost mammalian in appearance. The sclera was a vibrant pink in color, the dark pupils drawing him in. In place of the grotesque mandibles of a Drone, there was a pair of small, red lips that were remarkably human. They almost looked like they had been painted on, and upon closer inspection, they didn’t have much range of motion. Its chitin was iridescent, like mother of pearl, shining as it caught the light. Like a mantis disguising itself as an orchid, this Bug seemed to have taken on a more sympathetic form, its face reminding him of a china doll.

Bugs usually had a long horn that protruded from their foreheads, reminiscent of a stag beetle. This one still retained the horn, but as it rose from her head, the thick stem branched out into two swooping projections. They were ornate, symmetrical, giving the impression that she was wearing a tiara. From her head sprouted four feathery antennae, two of them standing erect atop her skull, while the latter hung down her back like a pair of long braids. Around her neck was a large, fluffy ring of white fur, like an Elizabethan ruff made from the fuzz that one might find on a moth.

Jamie quickly realized that he had given the creature a gender, even though he had no idea what it actually was. It had a distinctly feminine appearance. Uncanny, really.

“This is their ambassador,” Liz continued, putting emphasis on that last word. “The hive on Jarilo needed a spokesperson, someone to be their public face, so they just ‘made’ an entirely new life form that was perfectly tailored to that task. It speaks English, it emotes, and it isn’t afraid to give interviews.”

“It kind of looks...”

“Human, right?” Liz added. “Jamie, not only do I think that hybridizing DNA from different species is possible, I think it might already have happened. Just look at this thing, don’t you think it has some human DNA in it?”

“They could have just made it up to look like that,” he replied. “But ... if there really are friendly Bugs out there, if there’s even a small chance that they can help us, we can’t leave it alone. We have to get in contact with them somehow, find out if there’s a way that we can have a kid of our own, made from us.”

“To think that I’m the one with a background in biology, but it took your idea to point me in the right direction,” she said as she gave him a warm smile. “You’re not the dumb jock you think you are, you know.”

“A broken clock is right twice a day,” he replied with a shrug, Liz chuckling at him.

“Now the problem is, how do we get in contact with the people on Jarilo? According to what I was able to find online, the planet has human colonists, and there are several settlements dotted around the planet. The article didn’t mention the hive. Maybe they don’t want to advertise it to the whole Galaxy.”

“I’ve had some experiences with interstellar communications,” Jamie said with a grimace, remembering all of the wasted effort he had expended trying to get in touch with Liz after she had left Earth. “It’s either so slow as to be pointless, or it costs enough to empty the average savings account.”

“Yeah, I don’t think waiting an eternity to get an email through a satellite comms buffer is the best way to go about this,” Liz replied. “You know ... even if we managed to get a message through, and whoever we contacted was able to send a reply, it’s not like they’d ever let a Betelgeusian set foot on Earth. We’d have to find a way to go there to get whatever treatment they might offer.”

“Liz,” Jamie began warily, raising his hands in a gesture for her to slow down. “I can already tell what you’re thinking, but this isn’t the kind of situation where we need to be decisive. There’s a thin line between seizing the moment and being impulsive. We have jobs, responsibilities, we don’t even know anything about Jarilo.”

“If there’s a possibility-”

“That’s all we have right now,” he interrupted, “a possibility. We don’t know what’s waiting for us out there.

“If you’re never willing to gamble, you’ll never win big.”

“But what if it’s dangerous? What if you get hurt?”

“You don’t need to protect me anymore, Jamie,” she said with a smile. “I’m not a scared little girl anymore, I can handle myself.”

“I’ve never even been off Earth,” he protested. “How would we even get there? What would we do about our responsibilities here?”

“This might be our only chance to conceive,” she replied, her tone pleading. “The alternative is staying here, never taking that chance, never knowing if we made the right decision. We go with one of the other options, and we always wonder. Can you live with that?”

Jamie sighed, combing his fingers through his hair. He was arguing against the only option that sat right with him, the only way for them to have a baby together. So what if they had an apartment to take care of, so what if they had jobs? What was an apartment or a job compared to something as profound as this?

“You’re right,” he conceded, Liz’s round ears pricking up. “This might be the most difficult option, but it’s also the best one.”

“When is that ever not the case?” she chuckled. She hooked him with her tail and pulled him into her arms, trapping him in a bear hug as his pamphlets fluttered through the air. She pressed his face into her cleavage through the scant fabric of her top, her warm breath blowing his hair as she nuzzled. “Don’t worry,” she cooed, “this will be an adventure. We’re gonna go out there, we’re gonna make this work, and we’re gonna pop your space cherry.”

“But how will we get there?” he asked, his voice muffled by her boobs.

“Leave that to me,” she replied. “I work at an embassy, remember? I’m in a perfect position to look into it.”

The next day, Jamie could barely contain his excitement as he made his way home from work. It was an odd blend of anticipation and apprehension that made his stomach swarm with butterflies. His hope that he and Liz might have a child together had been renewed, but the prospect of going into space – of visiting an alien planet – filled him with fear. He was what the more traveled denizens of UN space called ‘muddy’ in reference to the terrestrial dirt that they imagined caked the shoes of those who had never been beyond orbit.

Space travel wasn’t fast, cheap, or convenient. Crossing the vast distances between planets could take months, with the passengers trapped in cramped vessels like sardines crammed into a can. Not only that, but he had heard that superlight travel was an uncomfortable experience, the energies that allowed a ship to violate the laws of physics playing merry hell with living nervous systems. It wasn’t something he was particularly excited to experience for himself, but he would brave the ordeal if it meant finding a solution to their problem.

He arrived at his building and entered the lobby, riding an elevator up to his floor. As he stepped through into his apartment, Liz was sitting in her usual place on the couch, her ears swiveling to track him as he entered the room.

“Jamie! You’re finally back,” she said, turning to wave him over. He walked over to the couch and flopped down beside her, still coated in sweat from his jog. She wasted no time thrusting her tablet into his hands, Jamie examining the text on the display. “I spent a good deal of time misappropriating the embassy’s resources today to get info on Jarilo.”

“What did you find out?” he asked.

“Jarilo isn’t like other colonies,” she began. “There are generally two kinds of colonization programs that I could find. The first are supported by the UN. They give citizens of the more populated planets like Earth or Mars a grant to move to a developing colony, and that grant increases based on your qualifications. If you’re a mechanical engineer or a farmer, you can get paid a nice chunk of change to move somewhere like Franklin and start a life there.”

“Makes sense,” Jamie said as he scrolled through the text. “They want to reduce overpopulation and get people with the right skillsets to where they’re most needed.”

“The other kind are corporate ops, usually mining or some kind of resource exploitation. A corporation will ship out colonists to planets like Hades, where they’re then employed to work on-site. On paper, it’s all above-board. The corp offers them lodging, a steady job, and a chance to start fresh. In reality, these corporations have total control over the colonists. They often pay them in scrip, a currency that can only be exchanged at stores owned by the same people who issued it. They sometimes saddle colonists with debt and make them work it off, too, which turns them into indentured servants in all but name. They’re not scrupulous about who they hire, either. It’s a popular way for people to escape debt or criminal charges. They just take a corporate contract and vanish.”

“That one sounds ... grim,” Jamie muttered. “So, which kind of colony is Jarilo?”

“Neither,” she replied. “At least, not exactly. There are grants available to incentivize people to move there, I was able to dig some up, but it looks like all of the applications have to go through the UNN.”

“Why would the Navy have the final say in who gets to settle on a colony?” he wondered, his brow furrowing.

“It must have something to do with the Betelgeusians,” she replied, slamming her fist into her furry palm confidently. “There’s a whole fleet in orbit around the planet, and I can’t figure out if it’s there to protect the hive from the rest of the Galaxy or to protect the rest of the Galaxy from the hive. Either way, they aren’t letting just anybody come in and out.”

“This sounds like it’s turning into some kind of heist movie,” Jamie muttered, eliciting a chuckle from Liz.

“Believe it or not, I was going to suggest that we pose as colonists and hitch a ride on a jump liner, but the Navy presence throws a wrench in that plan.”

“I don’t think we necessarily need to go undercover,” Jamie added. “Maybe they’ll let us through if we just explain what we’re doing there?”

“So ... we tell them we’re seeking treatment, and just see what they say?” Liz asked.

“I don’t see why they’d turn us away,” Jamie replied with a shrug. “We don’t have criminal records, we’re not fugitives. Neither of us are war vets harboring grudges against the Bugs.”

“What if the Navy is there to keep the Betelgeusians completely isolated, to stop anyone from interacting with them at all?” Liz suggested.

“Well, they’re not doing a very good job of it,” he replied. “The Bugs have an ambassador who seems pretty happy to go on newscasts, and there are human colonists sharing the planet with the hive. If the UNN wanted to completely isolate them, surely letting civilians run around on the surface would be counterproductive?”

“I guess that makes sense,” she conceded.

“If they turn us away, ‘then’ we can start doing the spy movie shit,” he added. “Until then, let’s try not to act suspicious, because we aren’t...”

“Hang on,” Liz said, her feline eyes narrowing. “I just had an idea.”

“Does it have anything to do with becoming stowaways?”

“No, no. Back in college, when I was studying xenobiology, there was an organization that would give out university scholarships to promising students. They had us sit a special exam one time. Hand me the tablet,” she added, Jamie passing the device back to her. “Here we are,” she said, tapping at the touch screen. “The United Academy of Sciences. They sponsor all kinds of scientific expeditions, they give out research grants, that kind of thing.”

“What are you getting at?” Jamie asked.

“What we’re planning here is pretty ambitious. It’s never been done before, and if we succeed, the implications for the field of genetics will be huge. What if we contacted the UAS and got them to sponsor us? They’d have a much better chance of getting us through the blockade, and they might cover the travel costs too. I still have some funds left over from my stint on Borealis, but it’s not going to be enough to finance a two-way interplanetary trip.”

“I don’t know if we should be making a circus out of this,” Jamie replied, Liz setting down her tablet on the armrest of the couch as she glanced over at him. “Do we really want starting a family to become some kind of science experiment?”

“It was always going to be a science experiment, Jamie,” Liz sighed. “If not presided over by Bugs or researchers from the UAS, then the doctors who would be performing the fertility treatments we’d need. The stars are aligning here, let’s not pass up this opportunity.”

“There are a lot of what-if’s in this scenario,” he said, rising from the couch to pace back and forth in front of it as he continued. “The UAS might decline, we don’t know if this is even the kind of venture they’d be interested in funding. The Navy might not let us through, the Bugs might not even have the know-how that we assume they do, and nothing would come of it.”

“And what if it all works out the way we want it to?” Liz asked quietly, Jamie stopping his pacing. “Wouldn’t it be worth all of the trouble?”

“I know how much you want this,” he replied, “I’d walk over broken glass to make it happen. I want it too, I just don’t want you to get your hopes up until we know more.”

“I said I wouldn’t railroad you,” Liz added, chewing on the end of her claw as she reined in her enthusiasm for a moment. “We’re a team, not a pack. This isn’t just about what I want, it involves the both of us, and we need to be on the same page if we’re going to go through with this.” She glanced up at him with those green eyes, expectant, hesitant. “So ... what’s the verdict?”

“Come on,” Jamie said, slipping her a smile. “Of course I’m not going to say no. Let’s get in touch with the UAS and see if they’re interested. We’ll go from there.”

Liz beamed back at him, practically bouncing in her seat.

“We’ll make a daddy out of you yet, Jamie.”

Another day passed, and Liz soon got her answer from the United Academy of Sciences, Jamie listening to her read off the email from across the breakfast table as he ate.

“They say they’re interested!” she exclaimed, her eyes scanning her tablet’s display frantically.

“No way. Seriously?” Jamie asked as he set down his spoon. “They’ll do it, just like that?”

“They agreed to fund the trip. They called it ‘an expedition’,” she added with a chuckle. “Their plan is to redirect a UAS survey vessel to take us to Jarilo, and they say they’ll take care of negotiating with the Navy to get us past the blockade. We’re supposed to meet up with one of their scientists on the ground who will guide us from there. Looks like they already have people doing work on Jarilo.”

“They must be studying the Bugs,” Jamie added. “Do you know what this means?”

“That we have our ticket to Jarilo,” she replied with a toothy grin.

“Not just that. If the UAS is willing to fund the whole venture, it means that they must think there’s a chance it could work, that we might really be able to have a baby together. If their experts had thought we were crazy for even suggesting it, they wouldn’t be shelling out to send us there.”

“Holy shit, you’re right,” Liz said, making his cutlery clatter as she slammed her hand on the table. “The UAS works with the best biologists and geneticists in UN space. If anyone would know, it would be them. Maybe they know something that we don’t...”

“Let’s send them a reply,” he said, picking up his fork and spearing a piece of bacon. “We’ll need to know when they want this to happen so that we can make the necessary arrangements. A journey like this will take months, minimum. Maybe a year or more, depending on what we actually do when we get to Jarilo. If we’re not working, we won’t be bringing in any money,” he added as he prodded at a fried egg. “We’d better make sure we have enough savings to cover the cost of rent while we’re away, or we won’t have an apartment to come back to. I’ll talk to the landlord, see if they can’t shut off the utilities while we’re gone.”