Interzone Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine #223 (8 page)

"I had actually thought pretty much that,” admitted Mullen.

"Lose the preconception, Liebchen! I have a degree in Ad Psych from Saatchi-Berlusconi-Pepsi College London England! I can get inside your mind!"

"A small thing can usually get inside a much larger thing,” admitted Mullen. “But what if incitement to hatred is illegal? How would you sell your Nazi chic in Germany, for example?"

"Total freedom of expression is a state towards which mankind naturally tends. If it's blocked by artificial barriers like man-made laws, it will break them."

"Yes, it would be nice if that were true. But freedom of expression is a state mankind has only been in for a hundred years or so. It is a recent aberration. If you annoy a market enough, your products will be ejected from that market. Would Captain Alencar here, for example, allow you to advertise your product in Brazil with the slogan ‘cut down a tree for Jesus'?"

Alencar stiffened at the suggestion. The buyer, meanwhile, giggled playfully.

"It's an idea, certainly. Theoretically, it would provide excellent product placement—"

He was stopped in mid-sentence by a well-placed elbow from the plastic-faced lady, and looked in the direction she indicated. Alencar was watching him with deadly, unblinking attention, like a crocodile eyeing an antelope.

"I'm a
Doctor
of
proper
psychology, Mr Creative,” said Mullen. “And I believe you just went too far."

Alencar shook her head slowly, as if against pressure.

"I would like to be able to say so, I really would, but I'm afraid sending these ladies and gentlemen away would still contravene my orders, Doctor Mullen, which are to ensure the great deal of public money that has gone into this facility is not wasted. I am afraid you have still so far failed to conclusively prove that Experiment 2308 is intelligent—"

"
That is simply not true
—” said Mullen.

"What is she doing now?” said one of the buyers. “Oooh! That's
pretty!"

2308 had changed. Symbols were flying across her skin like images on a liquid crystal TV. Recognizable symbols; the Roman alphabet. The same four letters, G, C, T, and A.

"That's a set of nucleobases,” said Mullen. “Guanine, Cytosine, Thymine and Adenine. Has she ever been in the room with you while you've been making a presentation?"

"That is not possible,” said De Santana.

"Parrots imitate speech,” said Mullen.

"PARROTS IMITATE SPEECH,” confirmed Polymath.

"And for that reason, they are not normally allowed in Commission research centres,” said Alencar pointedly. “What are we looking at, Doctor De Santana?"

De Santana squinted theatrically. “Well ... G, C, T, and A
are
the principal four bases in the DNA molecule—"

A new set of irregularly shaped blobs resolved themselves on 2308. They seemed to be arranged in pairs, and in a set of ranks and files.

"FORTY-SIX,” shrieked Polymath.

Mullen inhaled in shock.

"I have no idea what those are,” said De Santana.

"Even
I
know what those are,” said Alencar. “How many other organisms have forty-six chromosomes, Doctor Mullen?"

"It's not
just
humans,” said Mullen carefully. “Hares also have forty-six. And some deer. Probably a whole bunch of animals too. And, uh, some plants. And fungi. And bacteria.” She pointed to 2308's flank. “Uh, that does look a whole lot like an X/Y pairing, though. In the right place for a human karyogram."

"So 2308 contains human DNA,” said Alencar; and as she said it, it became fact.

"Ridiculous! We have 2308's genome on record for four generations—"

"You have been using government money to conduct illegal experiments using human genetic material."

"I have no idea where 2308 has obtained these images. It was confined to the laboratory since inception—"

2308's skin changed colour again; a picture swam into view, with apparent difficulty. An eagle in a circular crest, holding, in its claws, a clutch of lightning bolts. Above it, the legend department of defense; beneath it, the legend united states of america. Beneath that, the words top secret and shirpa: semi-human infantryman research project (amazonas).

"That is
amazing
,” said Mullen, holding up a chunk of candied banana to the bars. 2308 shuffled far enough forward to lick the treat out of her hand with a rasplike tongue. “The resolution ... the detail ... your Pacific giant octopus, your chameleon, can do nothing like this..."

"Doctor De Santana,” said Alencar, “would you mind stepping outside and putting yourself into the protective custody of Segundo-tenente Agostinho, please, while we resolve this matter."

"This is ridiculous! We are a civilian research facility!"

"I am sure there is a rational explanation,” said Alencar, with eyes that clearly indicated otherwise. “Ladies and gentlemen, I am afraid this appears to have become an issue of national security. I do apologize that your time has been wasted. No coats of many colours will be made today."

The same limousine was waiting outside. Mullen noticed that its engine had now been converted to hydrogen from biofuel, announced by a large, green, unnecessarily conspicuous
perigo gás de hidrogênio
warning by the filler cap. The chauffeuse, a middle-aged latina, saluted Alencar as the latter carried Mullen's one and only suitcase out to the car. Outside the wire, banners were now being brandished that read
vida longa à josefina!
and
não ao assassinato de um animal inteligente
.

"The press has got hold of much more of the story,” commented Mullen.

"You will be surprised what the Press can get hold of,” said Alencar, “when the Commission lets it. It will be a shame to lose your expertise."

"I can promise I'll be back in a month,” said Mullen. “With research assistants. And funding. Josefina is going to be a star. Your facility here will pay for itself for a good few years to come."

"I am sure you are right.” Alencar handed the suitcase to the chauffeuse. “By the way, I believe I have something of yours. The computer in your room has, of course, a delete utility, but all computers built in Brazil nowadays are built with a publically-inaccessible cache where all deleted files are stored for Commission examination. I was certain, when I saw them, that you had deleted these items accidentally. I printed them out for you from the cache, though I am afraid I have erased the cached copies."

She passed a sheaf of papers into Mullen's hands, which were frozen in shock.

"I have also, as a matter of courtesy, deleted all the footage recorded by the Commission's surveillance devices inside the
estância.
They were terribly boring and no-one would have been interested in them. Who would want to watch a psychologist saying ‘that is simply not true’ over and over again to an experimental subject whilst showing it the same printed sheets over and over again and rewarding it when its skin changes colour with pieces of banana?"

"Josefina likes banana a lot,” said Mullen, her skin crawling as if staked out over an anthill.

"I am sure you are correct. That is why you are a psychologist and I am only a Captain Doctor in the Commission. You must understand of course, that position constrains me in what I can do and say. You are right, however—I do not believe in allowing a weaker creature to be a second class citizen just because of its sex or the colours of its skin. I also, you see, had difficulty entering the
Ensino Médio."

Mullen looked at the papers and nodded weakly.

"I do not think it would be a good idea to return here too quickly, Doctor Mullen. There will be an investigation into Josefina's genome, and the truth will out. But do not worry. Josefina will be fine in the long run. I have already, using my own personal store of banana chunks, managed to get her to passably duplicate the Brazilian flag, which is a very difficult flag to duplicate; such a creature will never be put to death in my country. She will live as long and happy a life as possible. Do you really believe she is intelligent?"

"I have never seen a stronger case for it. The episode with the prime numbers was completely unrehearsed."

"We will prove it. Maybe one day your research assistants will indeed return to help us do so."

The chauffeuse, at a signal from Alencar, wound the limousine window up, and the car purred away down the wire-walled alley, on the other side of which unseen claws scraped forlornly. Mullen removed the cover sheet from the sheaf of papers. The first sheet showed G's, A's, C's and T's. The second, a human karyogram.

"FORTY-SIX,” squawked Polymath mockingly.

The third sheet bore a hastily-downloaded, poorly rendered picture of an eagle grasping the lightning, with the legend department of defense united states of america.

Mullen, ashen-faced, put the cover sheet back in place again as the car emerged out into an avenue of cheers.

Copyright © 2009 Dominic Green

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Interzone
has but a passing interest in Dominic Green the diminutive but promising Peterborough United midfielder; we're indifferent to the various talents of the historian cum jazz guitarist of the same name; and wouldn't waste five minutes on Dominic Greene the faux eco-friendly Bond Villain from
Quantum of Solace
. The Dominic Green you'll meet here is one of
Interzone
's most prolific and accomplished contributors. In the past 13 years the magazine has taken 20 of his stories, his work has been included in several anthologies (
Decalog, Mammoth Book of Best New SF, Year's Best SF
and
Solaris Book of New SF
) and he's received a Hugo nomination. Given these achievements Green is refreshingly honest about his point of entry to the SF genre:

"I never started with the intention of being an SF writer. I had a lot of SF at home: I loved Asimov, Niven and Zelazny. But then I did three years at Cambridge, a university that didn't believe the majority of SF works qualified as English Literature. I don't know what it's like now, but if you wanted to write a dissertation about an American author in the eighties, you had to get special permission. The most laughable thing was that there was a list of honorary Englishmen you were allowed to write about—Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot and so on.

"So I was infected by something of the same sort of prejudice all SF fans suffer. ‘Oh, you write science fiction—robots and spaceships and so forth.’ To which the answer is ‘yes.’ Spaceships and robots are nice. But science fiction is about so much more than spaceships and robots. I could give up spaceships and robots any time I want. I've just got a really keen story about this old guy in a hundred metre tall war droid coming on. If you never saw any eighties cautionary anti-heroin adverts, all this will pass clean over your head, but please stick with me."

I have to stick with him. For one thing Dominic Green is blessed with one of those deep, compelling voices that effortlessly exudes authority and demands attention. And for another, as readers of his short stories will know, he has a terrific knack for resolving meaning from the most complex flights of fancy.

"The thing is, SF allows you to write whatever the hell you want. It allows you to write a Sherlock Holmes pastiche, or an alternative point of view of the conquest of New Spain, or an explanation for the legends of the Yeti, or an African story without a white man in sight where Africans are the heroes
and
the villains.

"A friend of mine, Howard Chalkley, had a number of copies of
Interzone,
and I read them and thought: This is not robots and spaceships. This is licence to write whatever inane bollocks drifts through your fevered brain. And I've always been in favour of that—in favour of
me
being able to do it, that is. Dan Brown should not be allowed to. In fact, he should be killed if he ever goes near a typewriter again."

Green's assertion about the capacity of SF to absorb ‘a story coming on’ and the license it grants the fevered brain is interesting to consider in the light of the stories in
Interzone
#223. I wonder if ‘Coat of Many Colours’ is the result of this kind of fevered imagining: whether the narrative emerged from its striking images of displacement and environmental ruin, or if the setting was unresolved until the basic narrative structure was in place. I ask Green for a clue as to the way the in which the layers of his stories build up.

"The core of ‘Coat of Many Colours’ is a basic intense anger at the convenient belief we continue to have that we are somehow divinely separate from animals, the idea that evolution and extinction don't apply to us. We imagine ourselves standing on the right hand side of the diagram that shows a line of monkeys slowly walking taller, because it's the right thing to do to turn into a man—usually a white man, often wearing a bowler hat just to make it absolutely plain that he's British. But gorillas can be taught to sign, parrots can count, chimps will form plans and hide materials for carrying out escapes from zoos, elephants made to wear bells will plug their bells with mud before stealing into banana plantations at night. Magpies, the most intelligent, good-looking and discriminating of birds, can recognise their own reflections. And the story developed out of that. The rest followed logically.