Here are a few excerpts from the second edition of Gardeners of the Universe
PROLOGUE
The Torae didn’t think of themselves as gods, the idea of “Gardeners” had always seemed more apt. They’d engineered new life, intelligent life, many times but the results were generally disappointing. The Torae were not omnipresent, but more than any other species, they’d explored the entire universe. With trillions of far-flung probes, Torae could watch events virtually anywhere, but they had neither the time nor inclination to do so. They possessed enormous power, wresting energy directly from stars, quasars, and vacuum itself. They’d been born at first light and would endure until the stars finally flickered out.
In particular, no Gardener had dared the ultimate birthright of a god, to create a new universe. . .
. . . .As Sower’s command ship traversed the broad Oort cloud of comets, eighty additional probes reached Earth. They began to scan every electromagnetic signal, catalog thousands of conversations, and monitor the detailed thoughts of about two hundred individuals–a winnowing process. For those selected, the probes also examined DNA sequences to assess human genetic drift and mutation since Sower’s last visit.
Near the center of her forty-kilometer command ship, Sower activated a special chamber, the incubator for the embryos. Layers of superconducting cloth protected this ovoid from stray electromagnetic fields. Babies were designed there, and refined by teracubes of incoming data from Earth. Sentient machines assembled the new DNA, atom by atom. As with most Torae interventions, the embryos would receive almost pure Sower personality.
“At this moment,” Sower said–a wishful yellow-orange chirp–“these embryos may be the most precious cargo in this galaxy. They’ll be our gift to the humans.”
WINNERS AND LOSERS
They’d talked about the morality of her plan and the long-term effects on humans. Dan simply didn’t buy the inequality argument—the haves and have-nots—advances eventually spread to everyone. Sarah said, “You have the genius to improve humans; you have the responsibility to do it.” Rianne had weighed the risks that inhibited the rest of the scientific and medical community and chose to take on the burden for them all.
She designed her babies to have Dan’s nose, Joti’s skin tone, her father’s humor, Mary’s devotion, Sarah’s special vision and her own hearing. She identified three of the Torae-designed genes, which caused extra brain folds in Dan’s temporal lobes, and included them. Altogether, she changed 1500 genes, about one third as many as the difference between humans and chimps. She assumed half would become active after the fertilization. Dan’s sperm had been sorted only for sex–using the slight gender-dependent size difference.
The fertilized eggs were allowed to divide for a week, until there were 100 cells in each and they became sustainable blastocysts. A graduate student anchored the embryos onto Rianne’s uterus–one girl and one boy. Both became healthy fetuses and were born successfully nine months later. None of the grandparents suspected anything unusual for several months after the birth. The babies appeared normal, which had been one of her key goals, but Rianne had advanced normal human evolution by fifty thousand years.
THE PRIZE
Tina stretched her head out and leaned over the street curb, shivering. People lined both sides of the street as far as she could see–at least five blocks. She quickly slid back into the crowd for protection from both the freezing wind and any surveillance that might be in the area, and then shoved closer to the Concert Hall.
There’s too much to lose now: a husband, good work, and a decent life.I can’t chuck it away on a near miss.
Slinking through the noisy crowds with her dangerous package brought back echoes of the conspiracies, drugs, and wire-lines of her past. She was almost clean now, biochemically and psychologically, but the sensations lingered in a few deep brain folds. The treatments couldn’t wash away the exhilaration or the fear.
She checked forward, looking east up the road toward a rising full moon. Birch trees with branches like skinny fingers reached upward, silhouetted by the dirty yellow moonlight. Stockholm, like other European cities still clung to its real trees while the rest of the world had drifted to a hundred more hardy, beautiful, or prolific engineered species. The place felt old.
She stood on tiptoes to peek over a man’s shoulder. No skimmer headlights were in sight. At 4 p.m., it had been dark for over an hour. Occasionally someone in the crowd would scamper across the boulevard. She clutched her shoulder bag, shoved and weaved closer to the police.
No need to reach the barricade–just get closer–to where the road narrows.Spilling this package now would be a disaster.
Groups with signs and banners had become openly territorial, so she stopped fifty meters from the police, bobbed back toward the street curb, and began to scrutinize the crowd. There’d be others with hidden weapons across the street.
Tina had baked her plastic gun into a loaf of hard bread and wrapped it with metal foil; enough to fool the loose European border scanners, but there was little chance of entering even a third rate hotel with that bundle. She’d taken a room in a private home for the week. The Swedish penalties for carrying a weapon were draconian; if discovered, her respectable new life would be ruined. She avoided anyone who might be walking the crowd with a body scanner.
Headlights turned the corner several blocks up the road, and people waved from the edge of the street. Those with placards started to yell, and skirmishes broke out among rival groups. Swedes normally wouldn’t dream of stepping off the curb, but the jostling for position was intense and a few stumbled onto the road. Tina stayed behind the front row watching the crowd and moving her head between shoulders to keep a clear view. Reaching deep into her satchel, her fingers pushed the aluminum foil aside, crushed through the bread and gripped the gun handle. She waited with her hand hidden in the bag.
Some people screamed obscenities, but most cheered or applauded as the vehicles approached. They didn’t slow where the road narrowed as Tina had expected. In the early 20th century, Nobel Prize winners had been borne by unhurried ornate carriages, with smiles and the tipping of top hats to the crowd, but Tina had only a brief glimpse into the windows of the five skimmer limos that silently floated by. Her heart stopped, and a slow motion image of the boisterous throng and Rianne's profile behind a plane of glass froze in her mind. The most controversial person on the planet had passed the final police barrier unharmed—gone to pick up her second Nobel Prize.
Tina exhaled.