Inherit the Earth - Brian Stableford [96]
“It would be more interesting, in a way, if it had come from one of the black smokers,” Damon said, hoping that she would not mind being challenged. “For one planet to be able to produce two different forms of life suggests an authentic creative verve. I always thought panspermia was a rather dull hypothesis, with its suggestion that wherever we might go in the universe we’ll only find more of the same.”
“Sometimes,” Eveline said, “the truth is dull. You can design virtual environments as gaudy and as weird as you like, but the real world will always be the way the real world is.” She looked around as she said it at the scrupulously dull and slavishly imitative VE with which she had surrounded herself.
“Speaking of dull truths,” Damon said, “I suppose you and my late father didn’t really cause the Crash?”
“No, we didn’t,” she answered predictably. “When they find Silas, he’ll put the record straight. He didn’t really say any of those things—it’s all faked. Just another virtual reality, as fantastic and ridiculous as any other. It’s all lies—you know it is.” Her eyes weren’t fixed on his now; if he was reading her correctly, she was dismissing this topic and asking him to move on.
“Do you think there might be a new plague?” he asked mildly. “Might this para-DNA invader throw up something just as nasty as the old meiotic disrupters and chiasmalytic transformers?”
“That’s extremely unlikely,” she answered, just as mildly. “So far as we can tell, para-DNA is entirely harmless. Organisms of this kind will inevitably compete for resources with life as we know it, but there’s no evidence at all of any other kind of dangerous interaction and it would be surprising if there were. Para-DNA is just something which happened to drift into the biosphere from elsewhere—almost certainly from the outer solar system, in my opinion. It’s fascinating, but it’s unlikely to pose any serious threat.”
“Are you absolutely sure of that?” Damon asked, watching the luminous eyes.
“You know perfectly well that there’s no absolute certainty in science, Damon,” Eveline answered equably. “Investigations of this kind have to be carried out very carefully, and we have to wait until we have all the data in place before we draw our ultimate conclusions. All I can say is that there’s no reason at present to believe that para-DNA is or could be dangerous.”
“Of course,” Damon said in a neutral tone. “I do understand that. It’s interesting, though, isn’t it? A whole new basis of life. Who knows what it might have produced, out there in the vast wilderness of space? I asked Karol whether it might be the gateway to a whole set of new biotech tools. Have you had much interest from the corps?”
“A little,” Eveline said, “but I really can’t concern myself with that sort of thing. This isn’t a matter of commerce, Damon—it’s far more important than that. It’s a matter of enlightenment. I really wish you understood that—but you never did care much for enlightenment, did you?”
There had been a time when a dig like that would have stung him, but Damon felt that she was fully entitled. He was even prepared to consider the possibility that she might be right.
“A lot of people will be interested,” he predicted, “even if there are no fortunes to be made. The corps will want to investigate the possibilities themselves. Para-DNA doesn’t actually belong to you, after all. If you’re right about its origins, it’s just one more aspect of the universe—everybody’s business.”
“Yes it is,” she agreed, looking sideways at the window which offered them both a view of the magnificent starfield. “Everybody’s business. Anything we discover will be freely available to anyone and everyone.