Calculating God

12

As much as cancer frightened me as a victim, it fascinated me as a biologist.

Proto-oncogenes — the normal genes that have the potential to trigger cancer — exist in all mammals and birds. Indeed, every proto-oncogene identified to date is present in both mammals and birds. Now, birds evolved from dinosaurs which evolved from thecodonts which evolved from primitive diapsids which evolved from captorhinomorphs, the first true reptiles. Meanwhile, mammals evolved from therapsids which evolved from pelycosaurs which evolved from primitive synapsids which also evolved from captorhinomorphs. Since captorhinomorphs, the common ancestor, date back to the Pennsylvanian, almost 300 million years ago, the shared genes must have existed at least that long (and, indeed, we’ve found cancerous fossil bones that confirm that the big C existed at least as far back as the Jurassic).

In a way, it’s not surprising that these genes are shared: proto-oncogenes are related to controlling cell division or organ growth; I suspect we’ll eventually discover that the complete suite of them is common to all vertebrates, and, indeed, possibly to all animals.

The potential for cancer, it seems, is woven into the very fabric of life.

Hollus was intrigued by cladistics the study of how shared features imply common ancestry; it was the principal tool for evolutionary studies on his world. It seemed appropriate, therefore, to show him our hadrosaurs — a clade if ever there was one.

It was Tuesday — the ROM’s slowest day — and it was almost closing time. Hollus disappeared, and I worked my way through the museum over to the Dinosaur Gallery, carrying the holoform projector in my pocket. The gallery consists of two long halls, joined at their far ends; the entrance and the exit are side by side. I went in the exit and headed down. There was no one else present; several P.A. announcements about the imminent closing had moved the patrons out. At the far end of this hall is our hadrosaur room, painted with russet and golden horizontal stripes, representing sandstone from the Alberta badlands. The room contains three terrific wall mounts. I stood in front of the middle one, a duckbill, which the placard still called Kritosaurus even though we’d known for more than a decade that it was probably really a Gryposaurus; maybe my successor would find the time and money to update the gallery’s signage. The specimen, which had been collected by Parks during the ROM’s first field season in 1918, is lovely, with the ribs still in matrix and the stiffening tendons along the tail beautifully ossified.

Hollus wavered into existence, and I started talking about how the bodies of hadrosaurs were virtually indistinguishable from each other and that only the presence or absence of cranial crests, and the shapes of those crests, made it possible to tell the different genera apart. Just as I was working up a head of steam about this, a boy, maybe twelve years old, came into the room. He entered from the opposite side I had, coming out of the dimly lit Cretaceous-seas diorama. The boy was Caucasian but had epicanthic folds and a slack jaw, and his tongue protruded a bit from his mouth. He didn’t say anything; he just kept staring at the Forhilnor.

“Hell” “oh,” said Hollus.

The boy smiled, apparently delighted to hear the alien speak. “Hello,” he said back at us, slowly and deliberately.

A breathless woman rounded the corner, joining us in the Hadrosaur room. She let out a little yelp at the sight of Hollus and hurried over to the boy, taking his soft, chubby hand. “Eddie!” she said. “I’ve been looking all over for you.” She turned to us. “I’m sorry if he was disturbing you.”

Hollus said, “He” “was” “not.”

The P.A. came on. “Ladies and gentlemen, the museum is now closed. Would all patrons please immediately go to the front exit . . .”

The woman pulled Eddie, who kept looking back over his shoulder at us, down through the rest of the Dinosaur Gallery.

Hollus turned to me. “That child was unlike any I have seen.”

“He has Down syndrome,” I said. “It retards mental and physical development.”

“What causes it?”

“The presence of an extra chromosome twenty-one; all chromosomes should come in pairs, but sometimes a third one gets mixed in.”

Hollus’s eyestalks moved. “We have a similar condition, although it is almost always screened for in the womb. In our case, a chromosome pair forms without telomeres at one end; the two strands join at that end, making a chromosome twice as long as normal. The result is a complete loss of linguistic ability, many spatial-perception difficulties, and an early death.” He paused. “Still, the resilience of life amazes me. It is remarkable that something as significant as an entire extra chromosome, or two chromosomes joining into one, does not prevent the organism from functioning.” Hollus was still looking in the direction the child had disappeared. “That boy,” he said. “Will his life be cut short, too?”

“Probably. Down syndrome has that effect.”

“That is sad,” said Hollus.

I was quiet for a time. There was a little alcove to one side of the room in which an ancient slide show was playing about how dinosaur fossils form and are excavated. I’d heard its soundtrack a million times, of course. Finally, though, it ended, and since no one had pushed the big red button to start it again, Hollus and I were alone in the silent gallery, only the skeletons for company.

“Hollus,” I said at last.

The Forhilnor turned his attention back to me. “Yes?”

“How — how long are you planning to stay here? I mean, how much longer will you need my help?”

“I am sorry,” said Hollus. “I have been inconsiderate. If I am taking up too much of your time, merely say so and I shall go.”

“No, no, no. It’s nothing like that. I’m enjoying this immensely, believe me. But . . .” I blew out air.

“Yes?” said the alien.

“I have something to tell you,” I said at last.

“Yes?”

I took another deep breath, then let it out slowly. “I’m telling you this because you have a right to know,” I said, pausing again, wondering how to continue. “I know that when you came to the museum, you simply asked to see a paleontologist — any paleontologist. You didn’t seek me out in particular. Indeed, you could have gone to a different museum — Phil Currie at the Tyrrell or Mike Brett-Surman at the Smithsonian would have loved to have had you show up on their doorsteps.”

I fell silent. Hollus continued to look at me patiently.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I should have told you this earlier.” I inhaled again, held the air in as long as I could. “Hollus, I’m dying.”

The alien repeated the word, as though somehow he’d missed it in his study of English. “Dying?”

“I have incurable cancer. I have only a matter of months to live.”

Hollus went silent for several seconds. Then his left mouth said, “I,” but nothing more came for a time. At last, he started again. “Is it permissible to express regret at such a circumstance?”

I nodded.

“I” “am” “sorry,” said his mouths. He was silent for a few seconds. “My own mother died of cancer; it is a terrible disease.”

I certainly couldn’t argue with that. “I know you still have a lot of research to do,” I said. “If you’d prefer to work with somebody else, I’ll understand.”

“No,” said Hollus. “No. We are a team.”

I felt my chest constricting. “Thank you,” I said.

Hollus looked at me a moment longer, then gestured at the wall-mounted hadrosaurs, the reason we’d come down here. “Please, Tom,” he said. That was the first time he’d ever called me by my first name. “Let us continue with our work.”