Teranesia

Prabir couldn’t read the screen, so he watched her face. Finally she admitted, ‘The synthetic chromosome came through randomised, like the test sequences. Not conserved, like the real one from the pigeon. So the theory hasn’t been falsified.’ She regarded Prabir warily. ‘There might be something missing in the chemistry, though, something we can’t characterise about the natural DNA. It took a long time to understand methylation tags. There could be another modification, even subtler than that.’

Prabir said nothing, but he knew she was clutching at straws, the way he and Grant had when they’d first heard the theory and far too many things had fallen into place. Furtado was right: the gene could look sideways across a virtual family tree and quantify the usefulness of every potential change.

No treatment would ever destroy it. It couldn’t literally foresee Madhusree’s assault with the growth factor blockers and the antisense DNA, but it would always be prepared for whatever she injected, ready to make the best possible choice at the next replication.

It wouldn’t kill him, though. His condition could not be an accident, a random side effect of the gene’s naivety in the body of a man. It had done this to him because it would benefit, somehow.

‘How many tranquilliser darts do you have left?’ he asked.

Madhusree was alarmed. ‘Why? Are you in pain?’

Prabir almost lied, but he said, ‘No.’

He’d sworn he wouldn’t die on the boat. How could he ask her to kill him, knowing what it would do to her?

But this would be different in every way. She would do it by choice, out of love. Not through stupidity and cowardice.

He explained calmly, ‘It wants to change me, Maddy. It wants to take me apart and build something new.’

She stared at him, horrified. ‘I don’t believe that.’

‘It’s making a chrysalis. The covering is there to immobilise me, and it’s started on all the other tissues now. It knows it’s never going to have offspring if it leaves me unchanged, but all that’s done is make it look further for ways to escape. It’s found some kind of human cousin that undergoes metamorphosis. And I doubt there’ll be anything left of me with the power of veto when I emerge as the reproductive stage.’

Madhusree shook her head fiercely. ‘You’re jumping to conclusions! You have a skin condition. An accidental product of the gene. That’s all.’

Prabir said gently, ‘OK. Let’s wait for the next results.’

The fraction of infected cells had almost levelled off for his skin, but it had risen in every other tissue type. The antisense DNA had made no difference.

Madhusree added hurriedly, ‘I’ll give you another dose. I’ll change the lipid package.’

Prabir agreed. ‘Give it one more try.’

As she crouched over him with the vial, struggling to keep her balance on the swaying dinghy, Prabir said, ‘You know, if I’d been alone on the island when they died, I would never have left. I wouldn’t have got away at all, without you to keep me going.’

She said angrily, ‘Don’t talk like that.’

He laughed. ‘Like what?’

‘You know exactly what I mean, you shit.’ Madhusree pulled the empty syringe away, refusing to look at him.

‘You even hooked me up with Felix. I’d never have managed that alone.’

‘Don’t, Prabir.’

‘If I ask you to do this, it’ll be my responsibility. I can’t stop it hurting you, but don’t let it damage you.’

Madhusree met his eyes; her face was burning with resentment.

He said, ‘No one in the world could have done more for me.’

She spat back angrily, ‘How can you say that? You’re already writing off everything I’m trying!’

He shook his head as far as he could; his neck was almost rigid now. ‘It might work, but if it doesn’t, you have to be ready. You’re going to have to be strong for more than this. The gene is going to try to take everything. All it cares about is reproducing. Everything that matters to us: love, honesty, intelligence, reflection – they’re all just accidents. A few freak waves swept them up on to the beach. Now the tide’s coming in, to wash them away again.’

Prabir could see nothing but the cloudless sky. His sense of the heat of the sun was gone, and the motion of the boat had almost receded from consciousness. Fear and claustrophobia came in slower, deeper waves. He wanted more of everything. More knowledge, more friendship, more sex, more music. He wanted to see the revolution, he wanted to see the battle won. His sense of loss merged with the sense of confinement; he was buried alive and he could still see the sky. When the wave retreated he could almost laugh: he had nothing to fear from death now, he’d just been through the worst part of dying. A minute later, this observation was no comfort at all.

Madhusree moved into view. Prabir said, ‘At least it put the adult butterflies into diapause. You’d think it could cook up something for me.’