Kinkajou interviews Di-Eint Haajujurprox
(Alan Dean Foster: Commonwealth Series: Dirge)

Kinkajou:Greetings , oh venerable one. Thank you for granting me a morsel of your precious time.

Di-Eint Haajujurprox: Thank you, friend Kinkajou:   I bring you greetings and taste of friendship from the hive.

Kinkajou: I have asked to talk to you today to discuss social engineering, an art with which the Thranx are masters. Later we will discuss Gene manipulation and control. Tell us about the social engineering aspects of the Pitar tragedy.

Di-Eint Haajujurprox: The human predilection for trust in the Pitar, was  very unfounded. All too often when we see attractive people, we automatically ascribe to them attractive traits. We believe that more attractive people are more trustworthy, better workers and more competent than they really are.

The Pitar exploited this human trait to the full on the planet “TreeTrunk”. They were attractive and hence were trusted. They further enhanced our trust with the appearance of helpfulness and through the giving of gifts such as technology, machinery and resources. There helpfulness enhanced their trust ability.

They were allowed to freely enter and leave human habitats. After all why would you circumscribe the movements of amiable, considerate and congenial friends? Even when their true role became suspected, humans still hesitated to make what might appear to be groundless and unpleasant accusations.

It is only when incontrovertible video evidence became available that the facade of the beautiful, glamorous and estimable Pitar became tarnished with the evidence that they were in fact slaughtering and eviscerating defenceless humans of all ages.

Standing back, looking past the glamorous facade, it can be seen that they were in fact overbearing, aristocratic and full of contempt for humanity and other species.

A quail to think that if we had not confronted these monsters now, how one day might have they come to challenge us all and to drive us to extinction.

Kinkajou: Yes, venerable old one. I see your wisdom. Humanity is indeed fortunate to have found true friends among the Thranx. Friends share a common purpose and common values. Friends help each other, and friends defend each other. It was a truly great day when humanity finally outgrew its bias against insects. The Thranx may have evolved from insects but they are among the truest of humanity’s friends. They are indeed the ones with whom we can share friendship in the eternal night.

Kinkajou: How much of a role does social engineering play in the functioning of the hive?

Di-Eint Haajujurprox: Social engineering lies at the heart of our complex underground cities. From an early age Thranx hatchlings are taught that they have a role and responsibilities within our civilisation. Each person has responsibility to perform essential survival tasks for the hive. The hive in turn has responsibility to provide the basic necessities of survival for its members.

Thranx larvae grow up knowing that a role exists for them within the hive. Contrast the human example. In the United States, the equivalent of our hive (the government) does not guarantee its citizens the basic necessities of life, namely food and shelter. In Australia, the government does guarantee the provision of basic life necessities through the medium of money.

However, there is no recognition that the individuals owe a debt to the group (hive). Many individuals can spend their entire lives without having to work. In the American system, fear of poverty and dependency drives activity.

In the Australian system, there is very little reward for activity. The long-term consequence is that individuals believe that society (the hive) is responsible for their survival, but that they as individuals do not have any obligations to their society. Entrepreneurship is substantially reduced by the expectation of community support.

Thranx Larvae

Social engineering is about mutually beneficial expectations and rewards. The individual requires food and shelter and protection. Society has expectations as well. Society has many tasks that require only the labour and time of dedicated individuals to achieve often quite ordinary tasks necessary to the provision of basic group infrastructure.

The health sector in particular requires the support of many volunteers to provide human infrastructure for healthcare delivery, in a situation where most people accessing healthcare are unable to pay its true cost.

In these examples, both Australia and United States both fail their citizens, but in different ways.

Social engineering aspects of the hive structure also guarantee impartial justice ( everyone gets a fair hearing), a focus on providing benefits to the community (hive) in terms of infrastructure/protection/services and ensures that the hive educates its individuals to be citizens, (sadly something commonly missing in the human Western civilisations).

Kinkajou: The Thranx are also agricultural wizards. Tell us something about the basis of the Thranx capabilities.

Di-Eint Haajujurprox: Much of the Thranx   capabilities are based on our understanding of genes and gene interaction. Our plants, many originating on Hivehom are equally as complex as plants arising from the human domain of planet Earth.

In much the same way that animal evolution via competition has continued for millions of years, competition in the plant world is just as cut-throat. This has resulted in plant species developing many complex adaptations to environment.

The key to understanding is not just knowing the genes. Plants as eukaryotes often have monocistronic  operons, but there are complex interactions occurring between many genes that are active and expressed within the chromosome.

One of the highest callings of Thranx life is a cultivation of plants. In the same way as human artists craft beauty and inspiration on paper with paint, Thranx agricultural artisans craft beauty and inspiration in plants through genetic manipulation and the manipulation of genetic controls.

Our technical civilisation would not be possible in a subterranean environment without being able to modify plants to perform tasks such as temperature control, humidity control, water removal, and the production of foodstuffs at convenient points, often located underground.

One of the most important facets of gene control is understanding the limits of gene action. Environmental factors can be used to substantially alter the expression and function of genes, resulting in changes in plant growth. So it’s not just about changing the genes. It’s about changing the control systems.

I note that you humans have been having substantial problems with managing mental illnesses such as schizophrenia. To date, no gene has been found to be causative for the development of schizophrenia. However there are many environmental factors proposed, which alter the progress of the disease.

I note in  your web article, young Kinkajou,  that you talked about the incredible technological advance represented by the development of herdable sheep and cattle, and of wheat/barley with double seed heads and rachisless stalks.

It is the technology represented by genetic modification of animals and crops which has totally underpinned the development of human civilisation. Without these pieces of technology appearing in the early Sumerian era, there would be no human civilisation.

Kinkajou: What else do you use your bio gene technology for?

Di-Eint Haajujurprox: Bio-waste processing is possibly one of our most significant gene control innovations. We have developed substantial systems which reduce the amount of waste generated in a subterranean world, as well as systems which efficiently recycle many waste products and many complex chemicals generated by technological city based civilisation.

Again, our ability to control gene expression and gene activation means we can selectively process wastes and reduce the capacity for waste build-up.

 

Kinkajou: What do you see as the technological horizon for human beings?

 

Di-Eint Haajujurprox: I think the development of seagoing plants derived from mangrove genetics stock will enable the human population on many human planets to double or even triple. The sea is a hostile environment. Nature has been unable to invent a macro plant organism able to flourish within this hostile environment.

Typically algae are the main form of plant life in many of the oceans of the worlds we know. It will take human symbiosis with plants to conquer this last domain. We  Thranx will work with the human brothers to develop the required genes and the ability to control the genes of these planets.

Another interesting project of which I’ve heard is the scheme to add genes for protein production and vitamin production to banana plants. I think much of this work started in ancient human times with the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. This charity donated money to start scientific work to attempt to develop nutritious banana plants.

The initial project was hamstrung by human’ s inadequate understanding of genetics and of gene control mechanisms. The confluence of Thranx agricultural biotechnology with growing human agricultural skills and genetic technology has possibly allowed a breakthrough in this area to finally occur.

As a bonus, it has been proposed that the stems of the banana plant can be optimised to either be suitable for use as animal feed (e.g. cattle) or that the stems can be made to produce more than one crop per stem. Again this one step closer to making all the food we grow as food able to be used as food.

Kinkajou: I would like to thank Di-Eint Haajujurprox for the frank discussion and for extending the truhand of friendship .  May your larvae acquire wisdom and understanding.

GeneControlTrue.html	Alan Dean Foster	Di-Eint Haajujurprox
SocialEngineeringTrue.html	Alan Dean Foster	Di-Eint Haajujurprox
SocialEngineeringTrue.html	Alan Dean Foster	Di-Eint Haajujurprox

Kinkajou interviews and “Alien” Queen in the depths of her hive.
(Movie and book series, some books by Alan Dean Foster, “Aliens”)

Kinkajou:   Noble Queen, many of us have long wondered about the incredible physical attributes of your species. Acid for blood, the ability to withstand incredible heat or cold, unsurpassable strength and a predatory intelligence makes your species truly incomparable. The only species that comes close to be able to combat you are the “predators”. And even their abilities require technological enhancement.

Queen:  You forget one of the most basic of  our attributes, young Kinkajou:   We have the ability to subsume the genetics of other species and to build favourable aspects into ourselves. This means we are able to mutate as a species and to grow into many biological niches in the galaxy.

We can replace many other superbly adapted species by beating them at their own game. Faster, stronger, more resilient, and stealthier intelligence are aspects which we adapt by incorporating any superior facets present in the species opposing us.

We are capable of unparalleled growth. If you have ever owned a puppy, they can progress from something that can be held in the palm of one hand to a creature requiring two hands to hold in the space of a few weeks. Our species is capable of much faster growth. This ensures our dominance. We are capable of out- breeding  and outgrowing our competitors .

Kinkajou:   Your description gives the impression of an incredible technology and understanding on the functions of genes and of cell growth control.

Queen:  I can see this, young Kinkajou:   But we have not developed these capabilities. They belong to those who came before us and created us. I believe we were developed as a biological weapon to destroy the planet-based infestations of intelligence before they could develop to turn on their creators. We were built to find them, to subdue them and finally to subsume them.

Kinkajou:   Have you heard of the paradise game?

Queen:  Any world is a paradise to us. We are capable of adapting ourselves to any environment using genes from any available local and adapted species. Once a world is penetrated by us, we rapidly progress to total dominance or animal life forms.

It would almost seem as if we were created to destroy the paradise of others.

Kinkajou:   Thank you for your comments noble Queen:

Queen:  You interest me young Kinkajou:   Can you tell me where you may be found so I can discuss with you personally.

Alien Queen

Kinkajou:   I’m afraid my Queen that in your quantum universe I may not exist. Even you may not exist either. That is one of the paradoxes of Sigma Psi quantum communications. Two non-existent entities can communicate between non-existent universes all coexisting together.

Queen:  I shall consider this. Perhaps we may be able to incorporate telepathic and telekinetic genes within our structure.

Kinkajou:   Farewell Queen:

 

GeneControlTrue.html	Aliens	Queen
Paradise Game	Aliens	Queen
CloningCellGrowthControlTrue.html	Aliens	Queen

 

Kinkajou interviews a number of anonymous Sigma Psi facets with consciousness

Kinkajou:   So Boyd Jensen tell me your story. (Presumed excerpt: a Canticle for Leibowitz: Walter M Miller Jr)

Boyd Jensen: I was born on the planet Mars. My parents had arrived on the planet soon after the Holocaust. They had however been exposed to much of the radiation that existed on the earth at that time. As is routine in these cases, a substantial genetic analysis was undertaken.

There was felt to be insufficient damage to the DNA code to exclude them from the Martian civilisation. It was hoped at the time that by separating pure and undamaged DNA from the rampant DNA damage existing to humans on Earth, the race of pure humans could be resurrected.

Unfortunately, as I grew up I found that my DNA sequences had been altered by the radiation on earth. The Damage was minimal. However, it was still in excess of what the Martian authorities prepared to accept. I was extradited from Mars back to earth. I had just begun my studies at this time, and was only a novice at Reading genetic code and identifying genetic damage.

I worked with a human scientist and with human religious authorities in continuing my work. I slowly came face-to-face with the horrid realisation of how much damage had been done to the human genome for the average citizen.

Looking at the genetic DNA codes of my colleagues in particular my supervisor, I came to the conclusion that these people were only nominally human. Although they gave the superficial appearance of being human beings, the genetic code showed devastation in substantial areas.

It was obvious to me that people would have difficulty breeding children with each other. And many of the unusual social adjustments of which I had become aware and in which I had become immersed, began to make sense. It makes no sense for a potentially fertile person to be bound to potentially sterile partners for life.

The church had created a social adjustment to suit the circumstances. People could marry. However, there were often functions or parties where indiscriminate social sex would occur. If by accident, a woman were to discover a partner with the genetic code fairly compatible to hers, children could follow.

The genetic circumstances of the population were dire. So the church insisted that contraception was illegal. They also insisted that abortion were illegal as well. And it made sense. From wherever children may arise, they are all precious because they are alive. The extent of the DNA damage to the population was so extensive, that it would be impossible to tell in what pattern it may stabilise in the future. The best solution was to allow everyone to breed and allow the future to sort itself out.

I began to understand how important it was to be able to understand, process and alter genetic code. For The first time in history, genetic changes could occur by design as much by chance. My own role in understanding the genetic code and being one of the people responsible for the path to the future was important indeed.

I began to look at my colleagues and the people around me in a very different light. They were human. The future is not set. What would develop your on earth, may well be the next step in the evolution of the human race. Genetic purity has no place in evolution.

Ref: ? A Canticle for Leibowitz.

GeneControlTrue.html

Lost Book

X

Post- apocalyptic, bounders, gene mess, sent home from mars

 

GeneControlTrue.html

Rey,Lester del

XA

The Eleventh Commandment

Kinkajou interviews Homei, prime predictor of the Kaiel Hontokae
(Donald Kingsbury: Geta)

Kinkajou:   Thank you Homei for allowing us a glimpse of one of our futures. In my world, we believe that technology changes a people and a destiny. We seek to converse with you about some of the great Kaiel technologies notably your genetics abilities and your social engineering insights.

Homei:  Thank you Kinkajou:   I think you can understand that an obsession with biology and genetics is natural in an environment whose life forms would kill you if you failed to understand them. It is through biology that we obtained our first foothold of understanding on the world. It is through subspecialty adaptation that our people have been able to eke out a living in this tough inhospitable planet.

For example, the Ivieth clan had been bred by their own standard to keep moving no matter what the barriers – mountains or heat or fatigue. It was not uncommon for an Ivieth to pull his or her wagon for seven days and nights without sleep.

Other peoples have made an asset of their ability to tolerate the poisons inherent in our environment. I have visited Nolar encampments where the women were all pregnant and old of the poison.

Often they lived only barely long enough to reproduce themselves. Inbreeding in these clans was thought to be desirable because it was quick to bring out lethal recessives. The children who died would be eaten. So harsh and hostile is our world. However the survivors of this clan had an extraordinarily high “kalothi” rating due to their high tolerance of the natural poisons in the plant life.

Without that they will be nothing – so they clung to the foods that killed them. All priest clans encourage them and brought their women for breeding purposes. Disgusting for some, but a pathway to survival.

The people of my two-wife Teenae, develop mental and mathematical abilities. Teenae had been brought up to please men who built abstract models in their heads and who become upset if these models were found to conform to reality. Now she was dealing with people (us) who create reality.

The women of her clan are prohibited from developing their mathematical abilities. This is of course difficult when the men and women of the clan share the same genes. However, if the mathematical capacity is not developed by puberty, its development later is substantially reduced.

The way of surviving for my own clan (Kaiel) is to organise. Why should the genes of others be allowed to host within Kaiel bodies? They must be proved worthy. The Arant heresy proclaimed that the race was created by machines in the caves of the Wailing Mountains.

For this they (the Arant) were destroyed and our own people colonised here. However, my brothers and I have indeed been born of machines in the Wailing Mountains. But due to our history, those of us brought up like this will only speak obliquely of our inhuman origins.

 

So you can see that biology lies at the basis of our existence and our survival.

My brother told me of a visit to Katheim’s instrument shop. If you need a device to promote crossover in chromosomes, you could have it built. If you needed an organic machine to synthesise gene chains, someone would build it for you.

If you wanted to record from instruments, there were craftsmen who knew the fabrication ritual. From the biological starting point, our people have grown to understand electromagnetic and physical sciences. But biology has been the root of our knowledge.

My brothers and I were all descended from genetic manipulations of chromosomes derived from a past Prime Predictor of our civilisation. We grew up in the crèches. Only one in four survived the crèche culling. You learn early in the crèches that your life is on the line, and that you must develop a skill to stay out of the pot stew.

The discipline of crèche culling is the ultimate arbiter of the success of our genes. In the crèches, a child either demonstrated his ability quickly or was sent to the abattoir. I myself have never been given a second chance nor have I needed one. The unshaken bond of loyalty between my brothers and I, goes back to the crèches. There, quick teamwork was the only road to success and survival.

It is perhaps no surprise that the Kaiel are the best geneticists on Geta.  I have an acquaintance who was a farmer – a breeder of plants. He concentrated on wild plants, not the sacred eight. Many of the profane plants were known to yield edible fractions if they were crushed and dissolved in water, treated and filtered.

But often the expense is too great. My friend grew new varieties and tested them for nourishment and poison content. He was skilled in selecting and breeding the varieties that were easiest to process. However, he would often say to me, “I am just a farmer. But the Kaiel are genetic magicians”.

Kinkajou:   Your world seems very hostile and dangerous.

Homei:  Indeed! Our world is a harsh one and survival is the harshest reality. In good times, a prosperous Getan will fill you with joy. But in hard times, he will suck the joy from your marrow.

This is the reality of our world. People often comment on our cannibalism. Human meat and protein is in fact essential for our survival. Protein is difficult to obtain from any natural food source. The more common Getan belief is that meat is a famine food, given to us by God to enable us to survive.

We have many hostile and difficult rites of passage. We courted our three – wife with the Death Rite. Premature death is a sacrilege to us. It does not take inferior genes with it. To survive you learn to kill, but at the right time and place.

Kinkajou:   If you have courted three – wife with the Death Rite, I somehow suspect you will never be popular with women.

Homei:  It has been said before. There is no safety in always following the Safe Path. My brother Gaet would never gamble with danger even in the temple games. But life has a capacity to test and provoke.

Life has a capacity to create danger. Somewhere, somehow and someplace one must develop the skill to survive. Knowledge of biology, knowledge of genetics and chromosomes, cell growth control and the ability to clone and replicate cells have been essential to us in forging an accommodation with this dangerous and toxic world in which we live.

Kinkajou:   I have heard the Gentle Heretic proclaim that you have insects for ancestors.

Homei:  The proposal that the Maelot is an ancestor is not logical to anyone with a smattering of the understandings of chromosomes and genetics. We are closer to the humble bee than to the Maelot. It is obvious that the wrong amino acids and wrong replication coding exist in this supposed Getan ancestral animal.

The Gentle Heretic supposes the link between us and the maelot is missing because we involved from a cannibalistic form of the maelot that ate its inferior offspring and left no fossils. Such suppositions are blatantly unrealistic.

We recently had an incident when it was found that the Underjaw Beatles were eating wheat but still did not die. An Underjaw Beatle eating wheat, does not have the enzymes to digest the wheat and should die.

We were sent samples of the aberrant Underjaws. Analysis revealed that the Underjaws were manufacturing human enzymes. They were carrying human genes. We believed that this occurred by design, not by accident. It is the ultimate crime. The devolution of human genes into other organisms within our environment compromising our own survival. There can be no mercy for people who would do such a thing.

Kinkajou:   So tell me how you developed your scientific capabilities beyond biology.

Homei:  In the caves of the Wailing Mountains, we found the legacy of many machines belonging to the first ones of us. We were able to back engineer many technological advances from these artefacts. Kathein’s team had invented coherent light beam generators and strange precision optical devices. The resulting apparatus filled half a room and sometimes would even work.

We use this technology to study a single crystal from the first ones that we believed to be encoded with information. Kathein told me that they had discovered the crystal had 4000 layers, alternatively conducting and non-conducting.

The conducting layers have elements in them that go opaque in the presence of electron flow. If the approach ritual did not please God, he responded with blackness. But if the obsecrations are sufficiently servile, one layer may be sensitised. There appear to be 1600 pages to a layer. Kathein’s team could go for days without getting through to God. Then suddenly a patch of 40 pages could appear long enough to be silver graphed.

 

Our knowledge of electricity in electromagnetism developed from our observations and attempt to stimulate cells such as neurons.

Of incredible interest to us were some of the sections of the crystal devoted to biology. We found descriptions of many different plants. We came to the realisation that there are more than eight sacred plants. Could God indeed be telling us to make new sacred plants?

Kinkajou:   Do your people believe in God?

Homei:  Many of our people have wondered where God could come from. The impression I have is that he must come from a very dangerous place, if Geta is truly a refuge is the sacred chants say. We believe that our God stopped talking to us, to let us learn our own way. Why should we doubt the presence of God, because God is silent? Listen to the voice of a baby learning his first word. That is God speaking again the language that he gave us.

Kinkajou:   I believe one of the other great achievements of the Getan people and the Kaiel lie in the social engineering abilities.

Homei:  Our world has forced the adaptations upon us. The Kaiel is an insect species which organises other insects by mimicking their olfactory communication system. The sense and control organs of the eight legged Kaiel insect are contained in an intricate design on their back called hontakae.

The priests of our clan the Kaiel carve a stylised version of the hontokae into their skins, so all will know that they seek to command all. My people conquer by making friends not by destroying. So do we earn our genes the right to host in many bodies? All power to the Kaiel.

 

Our clan has a number of rules to focus our abilities.

1. A Kaiel is to be allowed voting rights only in proportion to the size of his personal constituency.
   
   
2. The constituency of any Kaiel may only consist of loyal friends.
   
   
3. No Kaiel may belong to the constituency of another Kaiel.
   
   
4. No Kaiel can belong to more than one constituency
   
   
5. No one should be forced into a constituency by either fear or place of domicile.
   
6. The councils may challenge any Kaiel at any time to recite the names and pledge members of his constituency and described in detail the concerns of each. Any person he cannot remember is struck from the list.
7. A Kaiel who can summon no friends remains voteless and is required to remain childless or leave the clan.

These rules are the basis of our success. They allow us to build networks which deal with the world around us, utilising the skills of many to help many and all. The Kaiel is responsible for facilitating the group to work together for the common good.

Sometimes the situations can become complex. My brother Gaet never makes an enemy because he gets Josei to do all his dirty work. I believe the making of friends often requires an open smile and a covert hand. I would never turn my back on the man who smiles at me as the Stgal do.

Due to our organisation, there is always someone responsible for someone else. There are no people who are alone. There are no people who are abandoned. Each person is potentially valuable as a constituent. The difficulty is in delivering to each person what is necessary to that person, especially on a hostile world with limited resources. But this challenge has enhanced us and enables us to grow as a people and as a civilisation.

Kinkajou:   I’m told one of your challenges was the incorporation of the Valley of 10,000 Graves into the Kaiel Protectorate.

Homei:  Yes I remember talking to my brothers when we were given the responsibility for this development. I asked, “do you know what the Valley exists as an unconquered sliver in our side? It is because all Kaiel who settled there are murdered.” I believed it would add to our wealth but it would also add to our burdens.

Many had refused such a gift, and in so doing would not rise to power within the Kaiel. However, I on behalf of my brothers accepted the gift, although it was not the Kaiel’s gift to give.

The challenge required us to formulate a strategy to make these people part of our constituency. However, it is our technology which truly gave us the edge. The Ray Voice Tower network enabled us to see the activities and the motivations of our enemies, the sea priests, (the Mnankrei). By understanding the strategies, we were able to subvert them and to win, watching them fail.

The entire affair was complicated by the deployment of mutant Underjaws able to eat wheat, in effect creating a famine. The strategy of the Mnankrei has always been food for control. And they saw nothing wrong with creating the need for food, in the midst of plenty. In exposing their crime, we were able to prevail, and to demand penance from the criminals.

Kinkajou:   I must thank you Homei for your frank and informative discussion. You appear to be in good spirits. As if a tug on your hair would lift off your head at the smile line.

(In Sigma Psi , Kinkajou and Homei held hands, each overlaying the other as Getan friends do before they part. “God see you”, they said to each other).

 

GeneControlTrue.html	Kingsbury, Donald	Hoemei Prime Predictor	Geta
CloningCellGrowthControlTrue.html	Kingsbury, Donald	Hoemei Prime Predictor	Geta
HelpingHopelessTrue.html	Kingsbury, Donald	Hoemei Prime Predictor	Geta
MiniMicroscopeToolsTrue.html	Kingsbury, Donald	Hoemei Prime Predictor	Geta
SocialEngineeringTrue.html	Kingsbury, Donald	Hoemei Prime Predictor	Geta

 

Kinkajou interviews Lavon (micro-citizen) and Dr Chatvieux
(James Blish: Surface Tension)

Kinkajou: Can you tell us somewhat about the nanotechnology involved in gene manipulation and seeding the galaxy with human lifeforms?

Dr Chatvieux: I have been working as a “seed ship” scientist. Our charter was to adapt humans to living in a number of different environments on planets throughout the galaxy. Unfortunately, on our final mission we were marooned on a planet bearing only rudimentary biological organisms.

This considerably challenged our biological engineering expertise. Certainly, we could not crowd a six-foot man into a 2 foot puddle. I decided to make our average colonist approximately 250 µm in length. Some of the other scientists were thinking of making the colonists we designed twice that size. However, I told them that then they would be the biggest animal in their environment, making it difficult for them to develop new skills and difficult for challenges to shape their evolution.

The pantropic techniques don’t work on the body. Many structural characteristics are fixed for you when you are conceived. I had decided in this challenging situation that we should probably make our colonists haploid.

This would give them a very minute cellular structure with nuclei as small as earthly Rickettsia. A number of adaptations needed to be made via the pantropic techniques. Lung structure, size and reorganisation of the water conservation system were priorities. Because our colonists lived in freshwater, the osmotic pressure inside the body was going to be higher than outside.

Consequently they did not require their kidneys to be pumping virtually all the time. Under the circumstances we decided to stop the production of urine by abrogating the antidiuretic function of the pituitary gland.

The necessity for absolutely minute size dictating a haploid structure disappointed many of our scientists. This planet could not maintain our size of life due to the presence only of rudimentary biological lifeforms.

Consequently, we could not combine the DNA of our scientist donors, in effect denying them the comfort of children (of a sort) after our death. All of our colonists would have DNA and heredity traceable to each of us alone.

Paramecium

Lavon: We had long suspected that we were made, not born to our world. We suspected that the men who had made us were caught in some type of disaster, so even though they had to die – the race of men would live on. Our unfitness to live in this world is self-evident. The metal plates that were bequeathed to us by these ancestors helped us to this understanding.

They told us a story about men who are travelling from one place to another in a container that moves itself. The only analogy we could think of was the shallops of diatom shells that our youngsters use to slide on the thermocline. But evidently, what was meant was much bigger.

The picture I held was a huge shallop, closed on all sides, enough to hold many people – maybe 20 or 30. It had to travel for generations through some kind of space where wasn’t any water to breathe, so that the people had to carry their own water and renew it constantly.

There were no seasons; no ice formed on the sky, because there wasn’t any sky in a closed shallop. Then the shallop was wrecked somehow. The people in it knew they were going to die. They made us, and put us here, as if we were there children. Because they had to die, they wrote their story on the plates, to tell us what happened.

We had lost one of the metal plates in a war. The Paramecia were afraid of these metal plates for a long time, afraid that men would learn to understand them and to follow what they say to some secret place. Their fear drove them to take our remaining metal plates away.

Kinkajou: So did you design your spaceship and engine to the stars?

Lavon:  Yes indeed. In spite of the loss of the metal plates. We created a vessel that would take us from one world to another. Our vessel encompassed a large number of biological lifeforms for propulsion, light and ventilation. The first surface we encountered was the bottom.

We then pushed up past the surface tension of the air water interface. We were free. We progressed to find other people in other worlds, people not as fortunate as ourselves. We had organised. Our intelligence allowed us to overcome our enemies and our environment. We began from this day to spread the gift of civilisation.

Kinkajou: Amazing! Come my friends. Join me at my table. Let us plan our own journey to the stars.

 

MiniMicroscopeToolsTrue.html	Blish, James	Dr Chatvieux & Lavon	Surface Tension
Orbital EngineTrue.html	Blish, James	Dr Chatvieux & Lavon	Surface Tension

 

Kinkajou interviews Oar (James Allen Gardner: Ascending)

Kinkajou:   Oar, you are an amazing individual. To human eyes you are as clear and transparent as glass. I know that although you actually do have bone and muscles and an assortment of internal organs, these were bioengineered to be indiscernible when humans look through your skin. How did this come about?

Oar:    It is believed that aliens took a collection of Homo sapiens to the planet Melaquin. These aliens gave the humans a gift. The people’s children were born as strong intelligent glass like humanoids who never grew old or sick and who are tough enough to withstand damage that would kill normal flesh and blood.

Only later did it become apparent that these glass offspring had a flaw. Although their bodies could survive for millennia, their minds were not as long-lasting. Around the age of 50, these people succumb to the so-called “Tired Brains”. They would lose interest in all aspects of existence, often just lying down and never bothering to get up again.

The people could stir themselves if something remarkable happened, but for the most part they remained catatonic down through the centuries. Like lumps of glass: everything invisible and glasslike inside.

Kinkajou:   But surely you can see food travelling through the digestive system?

Oar:    Well no. I’m such a one as absorbs many wavelengths of light outside the visible spectrum. Radio waves, x-rays and gamma rays are like vitamins to me, while infrared and ultraviolet are basic food groups. I can survive quite well on nothing but sunshine, provided I get a little rain as well. This is of course how our elders manage to remain alive with their “Tired Brains” throughout the centuries.

Kinkajou:   So I can see how -you are your genes.

Oar:    I was told by what appeared to be aliens that I was of their species. My genome was 99.999% the same as theirs. They were originally from a colony ship with a supply of fertilised ova. They altered our ancestors DNA just a bit to create a human shaped race.

They’re designed our race to be their children forever. They themselves had lived for 5000 years and they wanted children who were just as long-lived. They told me that External looks are insignificant appeared to what is in your chromosomes and cytoplasm. I had trouble accepting this as it is obvious that I am beautiful glass, and they are so very different in appearance.

 

However I had a friend called Nimbus, who told me that obedience was hardwired into his genes. He told me he would like to dispute it, but that he did not have a choice in the matter. He said that we are all built in ways we would change if we could. We are flawed or damaged or broken by forces beyond our control. In the end we are limited creatures who cannot exceed the boundaries.

I told him no. There is the other half of the truth:  Our boundaries are never where we think they are. You do not have to be so hardwired and obedient. I asked him to prove he was more than he thought, by helping my friend.

Kinkajou:   It is amazing how genetic manipulations and the control of certain growth can lead to organisms with quite substantially different physical characteristics, but with almost the same basic structural program.

So what happened to the other aliens? Why were there only those few who contacted you?

Oar:    The compatriots of these aliens had moved to a higher plane of existence. The aliens I contacted, had simply resisted the change. There was a material which they called honey, which adjusts cellular activity and DNA – especially related to mental capacity. It was reputed to vastly expand your intellectual processes and to open genetic blockages that existed.

Kinkajou:   I think it almost sounds like a biological form of computing elements such Memristors. We are used to thinking of electronic circuits being made of silicon and metal, but it appears possible to code for the same circuit elements in carbon-based molecules. An amazing revelation. Perhaps there really is such a thing as elevating oneself to a higher plane or reengineering one’s body to a different level of existence.

 

GeneControlTrue.html	Gardner, James A	Oar	Ascending
CloningCellGrowthControlTrue.html	Gardner, James A	Oar	Ascending