“So tell me,” said Liz, “..why you came to the conclusion that my friends should be killed.”
“Miss Parker, that won’t do at all. How can you hope to assess the validity of my decision if you haven’t yourself gone through the process? My choice of action wasn’t merely based upon facts. It was also based upon the inductive reasoning generated by those facts, by the extrapolations that were indicated by those facts, the implications of those extrapolations, and finally by my own meager powers to influence those events. Without going through that entire process, your assessment of my decision could hardly be a rational one. Nor could you hope to provide me with any alternatives to my course of action. Indeed, if we were to do it that way, it would inevitably come down to the fact that I made a determination to kill your friends for reasons you did not understand and since you did not understand it you quite simply could not approve of it and we would be left essentially where we are now, Miss Parker, with you not agreeing to my course of action, but with me being left with no other viable course of action. No, no, Miss Parker, if this decision is to be altered, I believe this must be a true partnership, with you being able to find a flaw in my logic, or a viable alternative that I did not believe I had available to me. That is the only way that you can expect to get the decision reversed on your friends. And I expect your total honesty, Miss Parker, your total integrity in the process. That is, after all, how science is supposed to work. In fact, Miss Parker, I’m not sure there is an alternative, if that is also your opinion, I’m afraid we will be stuck with my decision.,” Dr Candler looked again at her with that same strange then smile. “But I have complete trust in you, Miss Parker, to find an alternative if there is one.”
‘He’s totally insane,’ she thought. ‘He actually expects me to agree to him killing Max and the others if he explains to me how he arrived at that conclusion – and the way he’s looking at me … What does he want? What does he really want??’ Still, Liz realized she didn’t have any alternative. If she wanted to save Max and the others, she was going to have to play this lunatic’s game.
“Very well, Dr. Candler. Why don’t you start at the beginning then.”
“The beginning is an excellent place to start, Miss Parker. But the question is, where do you consider the beginning to be?”
“Well, after they were brought here, what did you find out about my friends?”
“Oh dear, Miss Parker, if you are to be my junior partner in the endeavor, you must realize that the beginning started long before your friends were brought here to the breeding facility.”
“The breeding facility??,” repeated Liz. Suddenly her mind was filled with scenes of Max and Tess, Tess and Max…
“Certainly, Miss Parker. Did you not realize that’s what the facility in the canyon is? An endangered species breeding facility, like the one for the wolves back at the end of the road. I thought you probably knew that before you found your way here. I'm sorry, I probably should have told you that at the very beginning...”
Bureaucracy (A semi-short story) Teen complete
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Re: Bureaucracy (A semi-short story) Teen 10/7/2008
Last edited by greywolf on Fri Oct 10, 2008 11:59 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Bureaucracy (A semi-short story) Teen 10/10/2008
The thoughts came unbidden to Liz’s mind. Max and Tess… Tess and Max. ‘Do they already have a child?’ How would she know? It would be less than two years old, and she hadn’t seen into any of the buildings in the compound in the canyon. By now, they might even have several children. She could hardly blame him if that were the case – it was her that had walked away from him, pushing for him to seek his own destiny. Why had she done that?
“Why?” she asked herself softly.
“Why?” repeated Dr. Candler. “How astute of you to ask? We most commonly justify endangered species breeding facilities under the rubric of encouraging biodiversity, which of course makes no sense at all to a scientist. Biodiversity makes sense within a species – it allows the species to have more capability to respond to future challenges – but biodiversity among the different species? It does sort of fly in the face of survival of the fittest. Would it really hurt if some species went extinct? Probably not. Species go extinct all the time, and others are discovered. Did the world suffeer greatly when the New Zealand aborigines ate the last moa? Clearly not. They had been extinct for nearly three hundred years before science ever knew they had even existed. The passenger pigeon became extinct – but other birds took its place. None of us born since 1900 have ever seen a live pigeon – but life goes on.
So why did we save the California Condor? It is certainly an ungainly species, and lesser condors would have easily taken its role. Why are we trying to save other species, even species like polar bears and snow leopards who regard us as nothing but food? In the end, Miss Parker, much of what we do is not biological at all, it is social. It is the way we were raised and the values we hold.
Strictly as a scientist, I probably shouldn’t care whether the human beings are wiped out and replaced by aliens. Darwin would say that if that happens, the aliens are the superior species and deserve the victory,”
Candler looked at Liz and smiled, “… but I am not just a human, I have been raised with the values of my culture. That’s why, I suppose, we choose to rescue such species.”
Doctor Candler’s rambling about philosophy seemed to mean little to Liz, lost in her own private hell where she visualized Tess holding a raven haired little infant that in another reality might have been hers.
“But why a breeding facility for your friends?” Dr. Candler continued. “If that was your question, the motivation was not nearly so altruistic.”
“What do you mean?” asked Liz, the talk of Max and the others somehow cutting through the daydream of Max, Tess, and the child.
“Oh, partly it was simply that if they were going to reinforce the legal fiction that your friends were animals the bureaucracy had to treat them like animals. Were they to keep them in a human prison, it would be more difficult to defend the assertion that the government actually believed they were animals.
But mostly it was because your friends resistance and their power to damage things with their minds had truly impressed the FBI and the military as well. The Department of Fish and Wildlife has long cooperated with such agencies – providing their drug and explosives dogs, – even a program providing the Navy with dolphins to be used for protection of their harbors and ships.
It was clear that the – rough handling – your friends had gotten during their interrogation had been sufficient that they would be unlikely to cooperate, but the bureaucracy can afford take a long viewpoint in these things, Miss Parker. The intention was to breed them, take their offspring away from them before the offspring could become tainted with the quite understandable biases your friends have towards the bureaucracy itself.”
“Steal their babies?” said Liz. “No one deserves to lose their children. How could anyone do something like that?”
“Well, in point of fact, Miss Parker, no one did. I suppose the supreme irony is that my predecessor’s ineptitude actually managed to help preserve the human race. Given all the unwanted teenage pregnancies that occur in this nation, I had supposed that it would take real talent to so offend four fertile teenagers that they refuse even to have sex, just to spite one bureaucrat, but he managed to do that.
Of course, there was a little more to it than that, but we need to get back to our task, Miss Parker – back to the beginning.”
“Why?” she asked herself softly.
“Why?” repeated Dr. Candler. “How astute of you to ask? We most commonly justify endangered species breeding facilities under the rubric of encouraging biodiversity, which of course makes no sense at all to a scientist. Biodiversity makes sense within a species – it allows the species to have more capability to respond to future challenges – but biodiversity among the different species? It does sort of fly in the face of survival of the fittest. Would it really hurt if some species went extinct? Probably not. Species go extinct all the time, and others are discovered. Did the world suffeer greatly when the New Zealand aborigines ate the last moa? Clearly not. They had been extinct for nearly three hundred years before science ever knew they had even existed. The passenger pigeon became extinct – but other birds took its place. None of us born since 1900 have ever seen a live pigeon – but life goes on.
So why did we save the California Condor? It is certainly an ungainly species, and lesser condors would have easily taken its role. Why are we trying to save other species, even species like polar bears and snow leopards who regard us as nothing but food? In the end, Miss Parker, much of what we do is not biological at all, it is social. It is the way we were raised and the values we hold.
Strictly as a scientist, I probably shouldn’t care whether the human beings are wiped out and replaced by aliens. Darwin would say that if that happens, the aliens are the superior species and deserve the victory,”
Candler looked at Liz and smiled, “… but I am not just a human, I have been raised with the values of my culture. That’s why, I suppose, we choose to rescue such species.”
Doctor Candler’s rambling about philosophy seemed to mean little to Liz, lost in her own private hell where she visualized Tess holding a raven haired little infant that in another reality might have been hers.
“But why a breeding facility for your friends?” Dr. Candler continued. “If that was your question, the motivation was not nearly so altruistic.”
“What do you mean?” asked Liz, the talk of Max and the others somehow cutting through the daydream of Max, Tess, and the child.
“Oh, partly it was simply that if they were going to reinforce the legal fiction that your friends were animals the bureaucracy had to treat them like animals. Were they to keep them in a human prison, it would be more difficult to defend the assertion that the government actually believed they were animals.
But mostly it was because your friends resistance and their power to damage things with their minds had truly impressed the FBI and the military as well. The Department of Fish and Wildlife has long cooperated with such agencies – providing their drug and explosives dogs, – even a program providing the Navy with dolphins to be used for protection of their harbors and ships.
It was clear that the – rough handling – your friends had gotten during their interrogation had been sufficient that they would be unlikely to cooperate, but the bureaucracy can afford take a long viewpoint in these things, Miss Parker. The intention was to breed them, take their offspring away from them before the offspring could become tainted with the quite understandable biases your friends have towards the bureaucracy itself.”
“Steal their babies?” said Liz. “No one deserves to lose their children. How could anyone do something like that?”
“Well, in point of fact, Miss Parker, no one did. I suppose the supreme irony is that my predecessor’s ineptitude actually managed to help preserve the human race. Given all the unwanted teenage pregnancies that occur in this nation, I had supposed that it would take real talent to so offend four fertile teenagers that they refuse even to have sex, just to spite one bureaucrat, but he managed to do that.
Of course, there was a little more to it than that, but we need to get back to our task, Miss Parker – back to the beginning.”
Re: Bureaucracy (A semi-short story) Teen 10/13/2008
“They didn’t have sex?” asked Liz, the words finally cutting through her mental images of Max and Tess together.
“Please, Miss Parker – we have a task before us. You have seen this picture, perhaps?” Dr. Candler said, pressing some keys on his notebook. The screen filled with an image Liz had seen before – in fact, seen often – at the UFO museum in Roswell.
“I’m afraid that you have been misled by a hoax, Doctor Candler,”said Liz. “I’ve seen those films and drawings, and they simply don’t make sense. That can’t be a real organism. There are not near enough internal organs to keep the thing alive. It can’t be real.”
“Not an unreasonable analysis, Miss Parker, given the inadequacy of your information. But an erroneous one, nonetheless. I have personally seen the remains of the creature, and have looked at preserved samples as well. The problem, Miss Parker, was that the tools of the early investigators were incomplete. This was 1947 – six years before Watson and Crick would propose a structure for DNA, and almost two decades before we would start to even think seriously about the human genome, let alone an alien genome. By the time these processes developed – well, the military had long since lost interest in the bodies of the crew of the saucer. If they were interested in anything at all, it was the technology of the saucer itself – and as such, they missed the truly remarkable technology, because they had engineers looking at hardware while they should have had molecular biologists looking at the DNA. Here, Miss Parker,” Dr Candler said, pushing another button, is the complete genome of the creature that they dissected.”
“But that’s ridiculous. It only has one chromosome – and it barely has any genes at all. That’s impossible.”
“Miss Parker, “ said Candler, shaking his head slowly in the manner of a professor remonstrating his favorite student, “… it’s clearly possible, because it is in fact true. Now the key thing is to explain how it can be true, and then what it means….”
“But there’s just not enough DNA…”
“Not so, Miss Parker. There is precisely enough DNA .., exactly enough DNA. What does that tell us, Miss Parker?”
“ But it couldn’t have evolved without at least SOME junk DNA,” Liz protested.
“Ahh … the lady gets the prize. But there is in fact NO junk DNA whatsoever – and what does that tell us, Miss Parker?”
“It didn’t evolve – it was engineered…”
“Precisely. It was engineered. It was engineered by someone with far greater capabilities in molecular biology than we had at the time – than we have NOW for that matter. It was a constructed life form, designed and created for the sole purpose of acting as a crewmember of a vehicle such as the flying saucer. It had no extraneous organs – didn’t eat – didn’t drink – didn’t need to urinate –didn’t reproduce itself. It apparently pulled power directly from the engine of the saucer itself. It was constructed for that purpose and that purpose alone, and like the saucer itself, was disposable.”
“Please, Miss Parker – we have a task before us. You have seen this picture, perhaps?” Dr. Candler said, pressing some keys on his notebook. The screen filled with an image Liz had seen before – in fact, seen often – at the UFO museum in Roswell.
“I’m afraid that you have been misled by a hoax, Doctor Candler,”said Liz. “I’ve seen those films and drawings, and they simply don’t make sense. That can’t be a real organism. There are not near enough internal organs to keep the thing alive. It can’t be real.”
“Not an unreasonable analysis, Miss Parker, given the inadequacy of your information. But an erroneous one, nonetheless. I have personally seen the remains of the creature, and have looked at preserved samples as well. The problem, Miss Parker, was that the tools of the early investigators were incomplete. This was 1947 – six years before Watson and Crick would propose a structure for DNA, and almost two decades before we would start to even think seriously about the human genome, let alone an alien genome. By the time these processes developed – well, the military had long since lost interest in the bodies of the crew of the saucer. If they were interested in anything at all, it was the technology of the saucer itself – and as such, they missed the truly remarkable technology, because they had engineers looking at hardware while they should have had molecular biologists looking at the DNA. Here, Miss Parker,” Dr Candler said, pushing another button, is the complete genome of the creature that they dissected.”
“But that’s ridiculous. It only has one chromosome – and it barely has any genes at all. That’s impossible.”
“Miss Parker, “ said Candler, shaking his head slowly in the manner of a professor remonstrating his favorite student, “… it’s clearly possible, because it is in fact true. Now the key thing is to explain how it can be true, and then what it means….”
“But there’s just not enough DNA…”
“Not so, Miss Parker. There is precisely enough DNA .., exactly enough DNA. What does that tell us, Miss Parker?”
“ But it couldn’t have evolved without at least SOME junk DNA,” Liz protested.
“Ahh … the lady gets the prize. But there is in fact NO junk DNA whatsoever – and what does that tell us, Miss Parker?”
“It didn’t evolve – it was engineered…”
“Precisely. It was engineered. It was engineered by someone with far greater capabilities in molecular biology than we had at the time – than we have NOW for that matter. It was a constructed life form, designed and created for the sole purpose of acting as a crewmember of a vehicle such as the flying saucer. It had no extraneous organs – didn’t eat – didn’t drink – didn’t need to urinate –didn’t reproduce itself. It apparently pulled power directly from the engine of the saucer itself. It was constructed for that purpose and that purpose alone, and like the saucer itself, was disposable.”
Re: Bureaucracy (A semi-short story) Teen 10/11/2008
“Disposable? Why would it be …disposable?”
“Economics, Miss Parker, simple economics. You are, I’m sure familiar with the Apollo moon program. It cost – in its day – about $25 billion, nearly $200 billion in today’s dollars, to do what? To put twelve men on the moon, and bring them back. On the moon, Miss Parker, our nearest neighbor – not even out of the gravity well of the Earth. Have you any idea how much more expensive travel outside of the gravity well of the Earth is?
Four decades later, and we have yet to get a manned spacecraft to even the nearest of the planets in our own solar system.
Resources are finite, Miss Parker, even for highly advanced cultures. How much more must it cost to get a space vehicle outside of the gravity well of a star? How much more to travel interstellar space – and how much more to decelerate it – to come to rest within the gravity well of the world you are seeking to conquer?”
“Conquer? But how could they conquer? You said they were dependent upon the engine of the saucer that crashed?”
“They were, Miss Parker. These particular aliens were already dying when the Army found them. The engine of the saucer was used up – or burnt out – or perhaps just empty of fuel. That’s why after over five decades in Area 51, the saucer has produced no great breakthroughs. Just as we have discarded machinery on our Moon in the Apollo program, sent unmanned probes to the planets of our solar system without trying to retrieve them – the saucer and its crew were sent here on a one way mission, the crew no less engineered than the saucer itself specifically for that purpose.”
“But that’s insane. Why would they have brought Max and the others here if they intended to conquer the Earth?”
“The answer to that, Miss Parker, is quite simple. Your friends are the mechanism – or in fairness I should perhaps say, the transport mechanism, by means of which these aliens – let’s call them Antarans, shall we? Your friends are the transport mechanism by means of which these Antarans seek to destroy the human race.”
Liz didn’t believe it. OK, Tess was a little bitch sometimes, but anyone growing up with Nasedo as a role model probably had that coming. But Max – Izzy – Michael? They’d never hurt those they cared for.
“That’s impossible. Max and the others would never…”
“They would never INTEND to destroy the human race, Miss Parker. That’s far different than saying they would never do it. I grant you the nobility of your friend Max’s intentions. He could have let you die that day in the restaurant. He could have just sat there and watched you bleed to death with no risk for himself. By intervening he showed both his basic humanity and his alien abilities – and by doing so he allowed himself and the others to be identified for what they were.
THAT, and that alone, Miss Parker, has enabled me to have a chance of maintaining the human race, at least in the short run – by euthanizing your friends. The future, however, will likely be more problematic.”
“Economics, Miss Parker, simple economics. You are, I’m sure familiar with the Apollo moon program. It cost – in its day – about $25 billion, nearly $200 billion in today’s dollars, to do what? To put twelve men on the moon, and bring them back. On the moon, Miss Parker, our nearest neighbor – not even out of the gravity well of the Earth. Have you any idea how much more expensive travel outside of the gravity well of the Earth is?
Four decades later, and we have yet to get a manned spacecraft to even the nearest of the planets in our own solar system.
Resources are finite, Miss Parker, even for highly advanced cultures. How much more must it cost to get a space vehicle outside of the gravity well of a star? How much more to travel interstellar space – and how much more to decelerate it – to come to rest within the gravity well of the world you are seeking to conquer?”
“Conquer? But how could they conquer? You said they were dependent upon the engine of the saucer that crashed?”
“They were, Miss Parker. These particular aliens were already dying when the Army found them. The engine of the saucer was used up – or burnt out – or perhaps just empty of fuel. That’s why after over five decades in Area 51, the saucer has produced no great breakthroughs. Just as we have discarded machinery on our Moon in the Apollo program, sent unmanned probes to the planets of our solar system without trying to retrieve them – the saucer and its crew were sent here on a one way mission, the crew no less engineered than the saucer itself specifically for that purpose.”
“But that’s insane. Why would they have brought Max and the others here if they intended to conquer the Earth?”
“The answer to that, Miss Parker, is quite simple. Your friends are the mechanism – or in fairness I should perhaps say, the transport mechanism, by means of which these aliens – let’s call them Antarans, shall we? Your friends are the transport mechanism by means of which these Antarans seek to destroy the human race.”
Liz didn’t believe it. OK, Tess was a little bitch sometimes, but anyone growing up with Nasedo as a role model probably had that coming. But Max – Izzy – Michael? They’d never hurt those they cared for.
“That’s impossible. Max and the others would never…”
“They would never INTEND to destroy the human race, Miss Parker. That’s far different than saying they would never do it. I grant you the nobility of your friend Max’s intentions. He could have let you die that day in the restaurant. He could have just sat there and watched you bleed to death with no risk for himself. By intervening he showed both his basic humanity and his alien abilities – and by doing so he allowed himself and the others to be identified for what they were.
THAT, and that alone, Miss Parker, has enabled me to have a chance of maintaining the human race, at least in the short run – by euthanizing your friends. The future, however, will likely be more problematic.”
Re: Bureaucracy (A semi-short story) Teen 10/11/2008
“I don’t believe it,” said Liz. “You’ve proved nothing. You just have a crazy theory.”
“I have a theory backed up by facts, Miss Parker. The saucer and the crew that flew it were expendable. It’s only cargo consisted of the being you call Nasedo, four pods with human zygotes that had been modified with alien DNA, and the supplies and power cells needed to bring those zygotes to adulthood. We have the remains of that ship – the remains of the crew – the remains of Nasedo. Tell me Miss Parker, how do you think a shapeshifting being evolves?”
“Camouflage is important. Lots of creatures are camouflaged…”
“We aren’t talking cosmetics here, Miss Parker, we are talking about changing shape. We are talking about moving around orifices that – in a human at least – are responsible for some important things such as respiration – nutrition. That’s not a capability that any creature on Earth has ever evolved – and indeed, the being you called Nasedo didn’t evolve either. Here is his genome, Miss Parker.”
Liz looked up at the projection, shaking her head, wishing she wasn’t seeing what she knew she was seeing. Dr. Candler was right about Nasedo. The genome was tiny. Had he evolved, there would have been junk DNA – evolutionary leftovers from previous ancestors or perhaps just stray mutations that would one day prove valuable to the species – almost 95% of human DNA was the so-called junk DNA. She’d known Nasedo wasn’t human but she hadn’t really considered that he might be a golem – an artificial being.
“He had no vital organs, Miss Parker,” Candler continued. “That’s how he could change shape – survive an amazing number of gunshots. How he could be reanimated, even after he was clinically dead. His DNA, what little there was of it, was totally alien. But he too was engineered without the ability to reproduce. He had one function and one function only. Guard the hybridized embryos until they were adults and could reproduce. Fortunately, fate interfered with his ability to do that job.”
“I have a theory backed up by facts, Miss Parker. The saucer and the crew that flew it were expendable. It’s only cargo consisted of the being you call Nasedo, four pods with human zygotes that had been modified with alien DNA, and the supplies and power cells needed to bring those zygotes to adulthood. We have the remains of that ship – the remains of the crew – the remains of Nasedo. Tell me Miss Parker, how do you think a shapeshifting being evolves?”
“Camouflage is important. Lots of creatures are camouflaged…”
“We aren’t talking cosmetics here, Miss Parker, we are talking about changing shape. We are talking about moving around orifices that – in a human at least – are responsible for some important things such as respiration – nutrition. That’s not a capability that any creature on Earth has ever evolved – and indeed, the being you called Nasedo didn’t evolve either. Here is his genome, Miss Parker.”
Liz looked up at the projection, shaking her head, wishing she wasn’t seeing what she knew she was seeing. Dr. Candler was right about Nasedo. The genome was tiny. Had he evolved, there would have been junk DNA – evolutionary leftovers from previous ancestors or perhaps just stray mutations that would one day prove valuable to the species – almost 95% of human DNA was the so-called junk DNA. She’d known Nasedo wasn’t human but she hadn’t really considered that he might be a golem – an artificial being.
“He had no vital organs, Miss Parker,” Candler continued. “That’s how he could change shape – survive an amazing number of gunshots. How he could be reanimated, even after he was clinically dead. His DNA, what little there was of it, was totally alien. But he too was engineered without the ability to reproduce. He had one function and one function only. Guard the hybridized embryos until they were adults and could reproduce. Fortunately, fate interfered with his ability to do that job.”
Re: Bureaucracy (A semi-short story) Teen 10/11/2008
“What do you mean, fate interfered?”
“Fate in the form of the 1947 US Army, Miss Parker. It was the US Army that got to the site of the saucer landing so quickly – not in time to keep the being you call Nasedo from getting away with the incubator pods and building a chamber for them - THAT they didn’t prevent. But he didn’t have everything he was supposed to have. But they did stop him from getting all the biological supplies – all the portable power cells that he should have had. They captured him back at the saucer site, Miss Parker – captured him before he managed to get everything that it was planned for him to have.
They also stopped him – at least initially – from activating the incubation pods at all. You were brought from an embryo to a baby in about nine months, Miss Parker. Do you really believe a civilization advanced enough to create artificial life couldn’t have brought your friends to term in LESS than four decades?”
“But they were older when they came from the pods – or at least, larger and more mature.”
“True, but not as large or mature as they should have been. Tell me, Miss Parker. Why were you born when you were?”
“I don’t understand. I was a term baby. It was time for me to be born.”
“Not a scientific answer, Miss Parker. The human being has one of the longest period of immaturity after birth of any animal. You have been alive for eighteen years, and are only now being considered an adult by society. Why not just keep you in utero longer, where you wouldn’t be under foot? The world, after all, can be a dangerous place for little girls.”
“But I would have been too big if I hadn’t been born when I did….”
”Precisely, Miss Parker – and that would have posed a risk for both yourself and your mother. But your friends did not have mothers, they had pods – pods that still had ample space for them – pods that certainly didn’t need forty years to bring them to term – or even to adulthood – to sexual maturity.
THAT is the process that the US Army interrupted. They stopped Nasedo from promptly starting the incubation and held him for years. Even once he escaped – once he finally recovered from the damage done to him in the interrogations and the escape – even once he was able to get back to the pod chamber and activate the incubators almost forty years later – even then, Miss Parker, he lacked the ability to bring them to adulthood, forcing him to release them while they were still immature – still children – still vulnerable. ”
”I don’t understand. I don’t understand any of this.”
“Then THINK, Miss Parker. If you desire to be a scientist, you must THINK – you must form hypotheses and weigh these hypotheses against the facts."
Candler seemed to smile briefly as he continued to look at Liz, and his expression seemed to soften. "In all fairness, Miss Parker, it took me a considerable amount of time to come up with an hypothesis myself. Perhaps it is unfair of me to criticize you so for not coming up with one in ten minutes of questioning.
How about instead we have a little exercise in the Socratic method? I will put forward a thesis, and you critique it. Perhaps THAT would be enlightening for you, and help you along your way to understanding…”
‘Keep him talking, Liz told herself, ‘ if you can just keep him talking – just stall him long enough, maybe you can think of some way to stop him.’
“Let me put forward this thesis,” Miss Parker, “…that I was a race that wanted to rule the universe. How might I go about doing that?”
“Fate in the form of the 1947 US Army, Miss Parker. It was the US Army that got to the site of the saucer landing so quickly – not in time to keep the being you call Nasedo from getting away with the incubator pods and building a chamber for them - THAT they didn’t prevent. But he didn’t have everything he was supposed to have. But they did stop him from getting all the biological supplies – all the portable power cells that he should have had. They captured him back at the saucer site, Miss Parker – captured him before he managed to get everything that it was planned for him to have.
They also stopped him – at least initially – from activating the incubation pods at all. You were brought from an embryo to a baby in about nine months, Miss Parker. Do you really believe a civilization advanced enough to create artificial life couldn’t have brought your friends to term in LESS than four decades?”
“But they were older when they came from the pods – or at least, larger and more mature.”
“True, but not as large or mature as they should have been. Tell me, Miss Parker. Why were you born when you were?”
“I don’t understand. I was a term baby. It was time for me to be born.”
“Not a scientific answer, Miss Parker. The human being has one of the longest period of immaturity after birth of any animal. You have been alive for eighteen years, and are only now being considered an adult by society. Why not just keep you in utero longer, where you wouldn’t be under foot? The world, after all, can be a dangerous place for little girls.”
“But I would have been too big if I hadn’t been born when I did….”
”Precisely, Miss Parker – and that would have posed a risk for both yourself and your mother. But your friends did not have mothers, they had pods – pods that still had ample space for them – pods that certainly didn’t need forty years to bring them to term – or even to adulthood – to sexual maturity.
THAT is the process that the US Army interrupted. They stopped Nasedo from promptly starting the incubation and held him for years. Even once he escaped – once he finally recovered from the damage done to him in the interrogations and the escape – even once he was able to get back to the pod chamber and activate the incubators almost forty years later – even then, Miss Parker, he lacked the ability to bring them to adulthood, forcing him to release them while they were still immature – still children – still vulnerable. ”
”I don’t understand. I don’t understand any of this.”
“Then THINK, Miss Parker. If you desire to be a scientist, you must THINK – you must form hypotheses and weigh these hypotheses against the facts."
Candler seemed to smile briefly as he continued to look at Liz, and his expression seemed to soften. "In all fairness, Miss Parker, it took me a considerable amount of time to come up with an hypothesis myself. Perhaps it is unfair of me to criticize you so for not coming up with one in ten minutes of questioning.
How about instead we have a little exercise in the Socratic method? I will put forward a thesis, and you critique it. Perhaps THAT would be enlightening for you, and help you along your way to understanding…”
‘Keep him talking, Liz told herself, ‘ if you can just keep him talking – just stall him long enough, maybe you can think of some way to stop him.’
“Let me put forward this thesis,” Miss Parker, “…that I was a race that wanted to rule the universe. How might I go about doing that?”
Re: Bureaucracy (A semi-short story) Teen 10/14/2008
“But why … why should you even think that someone might want to do that? Why would they even want to compete with us? Why couldn’t they just want to be our friends?”
“Oh come now, Miss Parker. I might as well ask why any other species would WANT to be our friends? It’s not like we are the most loveable species on the planet. Even among ourselves, there are those groups who have been mass murderers. Have you been so busy enjoying your teenage years that you have not paid attention to the lessons of history? To the Holocaust? To the genocides that have occurred in Armenia, Rwanda, Yugoslavia? And those are only the most modern. Do you believe that Homo Nenderthalenis just quietly went away – or perhaps did we just give him a little push?
You have a brain, Miss Parker, and I suggest that you look past your teenage visions of what you would like the world to be and use it. I have presented you with conclusive evidence that two separate lifeforms were created – created, Miss Parker – as virtual slaves, incapable of even reproduction. The two biological imperatives are to survive and to reproduce. I would suggest, Miss Parker, that the Antarans believe very much in their own survival and reproduction, and that this demonstrates that they have no desire to permit competition. If they will not even allow the existence of an independent race – even of their own creations, Miss Parker, why would one expect them to allow us to continue doing so?”
“You have no proof – no proof at all…”
“The only absolute proof, Miss Parker, would be to let the extinction of our species happen. I’m not that good a scientist, I guess. I simply don’t have THAT much objectivity. I too am a creature of my own cultural upbringing. I too wish OUR species to survive.
Sometimes one must build their hypothesis on incomplete data, Miss Parker, and for right now I ask that you accept my hypothesis – that there exists a race in deep space that desires the destruction of all other competing species. Space is wide, Miss Parker, surely you can accept at least the possibility of that being the case? Or would you rather I simply sent you on your way, and got back to doing what I intended to do before you came through that door?”
Liz shook her head. She had to keep him talking – had to figure a way of stopping him from killing Max and the others. ‘Humor him for now,’ she told herself. ‘Wait for your chance…’
“OK, for purposes of this discussion,” said Liz, “..let’s say I accept your argument….”
“Oh come now, Miss Parker. I might as well ask why any other species would WANT to be our friends? It’s not like we are the most loveable species on the planet. Even among ourselves, there are those groups who have been mass murderers. Have you been so busy enjoying your teenage years that you have not paid attention to the lessons of history? To the Holocaust? To the genocides that have occurred in Armenia, Rwanda, Yugoslavia? And those are only the most modern. Do you believe that Homo Nenderthalenis just quietly went away – or perhaps did we just give him a little push?
You have a brain, Miss Parker, and I suggest that you look past your teenage visions of what you would like the world to be and use it. I have presented you with conclusive evidence that two separate lifeforms were created – created, Miss Parker – as virtual slaves, incapable of even reproduction. The two biological imperatives are to survive and to reproduce. I would suggest, Miss Parker, that the Antarans believe very much in their own survival and reproduction, and that this demonstrates that they have no desire to permit competition. If they will not even allow the existence of an independent race – even of their own creations, Miss Parker, why would one expect them to allow us to continue doing so?”
“You have no proof – no proof at all…”
“The only absolute proof, Miss Parker, would be to let the extinction of our species happen. I’m not that good a scientist, I guess. I simply don’t have THAT much objectivity. I too am a creature of my own cultural upbringing. I too wish OUR species to survive.
Sometimes one must build their hypothesis on incomplete data, Miss Parker, and for right now I ask that you accept my hypothesis – that there exists a race in deep space that desires the destruction of all other competing species. Space is wide, Miss Parker, surely you can accept at least the possibility of that being the case? Or would you rather I simply sent you on your way, and got back to doing what I intended to do before you came through that door?”
Liz shook her head. She had to keep him talking – had to figure a way of stopping him from killing Max and the others. ‘Humor him for now,’ she told herself. ‘Wait for your chance…’
“OK, for purposes of this discussion,” said Liz, “..let’s say I accept your argument….”
Re: Bureaucracy (A semi-short story) Teen 10/14/2008
“Very well then, Miss Parker. Then answer this question; If I were a race that wanted to destroy other races, how would I accomplish that?”
“I imagine you would send out waves of ships – filled with armies to search for and destroy other civilizations.”
“That’s ludicrous, Miss Parker. You have been watching Independence Day far too much. Logistically, what you are saying is practically an impossibility. You must read more than biology books, Miss Parker. You must understand logistics as well. There are at least three problems with your planned invasion. One of them simple geography, one of them logistical, and the other resource-related.
The first is that space is vast. There are billions of stars, but few of them are likely to support life. One could wander forever among the stars and never find the other civilizations you seek to destroy. Come now, Miss Parker – you can do better than that. How are WE looking for alien civilizations?”
“You mean SETI?”
“Yes, Miss Parker, SETI. How does SETI look for other civilizations.”
“It looks for radio waves – signals given off by other civilizations.”
”Precisely, Miss Parker. This planet has been giving off such signals since the early experiments by Marconi in the late 1890s – time enough for radio waves to propagate – but only about fifty light years before 1947. There are not, however, a great many stars within that fifty light-year sphere. It would certainly be possible, but highly unlikely that our radio waves actually reached the home planet of the Antarans.”
“Well, how could they have found us then?”
“In a minute, Miss Parker. But first we need to consider the other two problems with your initial model. How much do you know about finances? I don’t mean making change at a diner, I mean serious project management. Do you understand, for instance, why an invading army over that distance is ludicrous? Have you ever read Rudyard Kipling’s poem, Arithmetic On The Frontier?
The British could not hold their empire together, Miss Parker, because of the difficulties of transporting their troops less than twelve thousand miles – and the expense of supporting those troops – yet you assume that the Antarans will send vast armies over light years to conquer us? Even more, that they have the RESOURCES to send such armies across a huge sphere containing in the end uncountable millions of stars? The Volume of a sphere is 4/3 pi r cubed, Miss Parker. Once the r stretches out to a few hundred light years, the volume become pretty huge, don’t you think?”
“Actually, I didn’t assume they were going to try to conquer us at all, Doctor,” Liz replied testily, “You were the one insisting on this argument.”
“I imagine you would send out waves of ships – filled with armies to search for and destroy other civilizations.”
“That’s ludicrous, Miss Parker. You have been watching Independence Day far too much. Logistically, what you are saying is practically an impossibility. You must read more than biology books, Miss Parker. You must understand logistics as well. There are at least three problems with your planned invasion. One of them simple geography, one of them logistical, and the other resource-related.
The first is that space is vast. There are billions of stars, but few of them are likely to support life. One could wander forever among the stars and never find the other civilizations you seek to destroy. Come now, Miss Parker – you can do better than that. How are WE looking for alien civilizations?”
“You mean SETI?”
“Yes, Miss Parker, SETI. How does SETI look for other civilizations.”
“It looks for radio waves – signals given off by other civilizations.”
”Precisely, Miss Parker. This planet has been giving off such signals since the early experiments by Marconi in the late 1890s – time enough for radio waves to propagate – but only about fifty light years before 1947. There are not, however, a great many stars within that fifty light-year sphere. It would certainly be possible, but highly unlikely that our radio waves actually reached the home planet of the Antarans.”
“Well, how could they have found us then?”
“In a minute, Miss Parker. But first we need to consider the other two problems with your initial model. How much do you know about finances? I don’t mean making change at a diner, I mean serious project management. Do you understand, for instance, why an invading army over that distance is ludicrous? Have you ever read Rudyard Kipling’s poem, Arithmetic On The Frontier?
The British could not hold their empire together, Miss Parker, because of the difficulties of transporting their troops less than twelve thousand miles – and the expense of supporting those troops – yet you assume that the Antarans will send vast armies over light years to conquer us? Even more, that they have the RESOURCES to send such armies across a huge sphere containing in the end uncountable millions of stars? The Volume of a sphere is 4/3 pi r cubed, Miss Parker. Once the r stretches out to a few hundred light years, the volume become pretty huge, don’t you think?”
“Actually, I didn’t assume they were going to try to conquer us at all, Doctor,” Liz replied testily, “You were the one insisting on this argument.”
Re: Bureaucracy (A semi-short story) Teen 10/19/2008
“But it is – after all – an argument that you agreed to accept, I remind you,"said Dr. Candler. "The problem, if I may put it succinctly, is how can one most economically find new technical civilizations – find them first, mind you, while you still have a technological advantage over them – and then use the indigenous resources of that world to do your conquering for you – because you simply can’t afford to export armies from thousands of light years away. Certainly some faster-than-light capability is necessary, but if I might remind you of the example of the Apollo program – very little of what was launched on the Saturn Rocket actually descended to the moon and less yet came back.”
“So you are implying that they send just a few here? That they conquer us by outbreeding us?”
“Indeed, but it is more than that, for first they must discover us. The remains of that saucer, Miss Parker – it was ancient. Of course Carbon-14 dating was out of the question, but it could still be dated by analyzing the neutron emission spectra – determining how long it had been exposed to cosmic rays. It was hundreds of years, Miss Parker, perhaps as many as fourteen hundred. And the primary engine on the saucer was relatively slow – relatively crude. If it was capable of lightspeed at all, the engineers believe it would have been capable of only small multiples of the speed of light. It couldn’t have been more than thirty or forty light years away when it detected our radio emissions, and it came here as quickly as it could. Have you heard of foo-fighters, Miss Parker.”
“Yes. I’m from Roswell, remember. That was what the Army Air Corps guys called flying saucers.”
“Saucer, Miss Parker. There was only one, the one that eventually came to Roswell.
The model I would propose, Miss Parker, would be that this empire of Antar sent out ships over a thousand years ago – sent them out in all directions, like the spines of a sea urchin. Perhaps they had some way to accelerate them other than their own engines – one can only speculate, but they sent them out, for the most part cheap and disposable, with crews of artificial life forms that were essentially pieces of equipment. When they detected evidence of life they homed on those radio signals – orbited, and awoke other specialized crewmembers – your acquaintance Mr. Nasedo – to make contact.
The alien abductions were real, Miss Parker. The people were examined and released – largely unharmed, but the real reason for the abduction was simple theft. Nasedo stole cells from the abductees – stole their DNA. The FBI was able to track down the ‘donor’s of three of your friends with high probability, they may eventually get the fourth as well. They do not have DNA – although they could probably reconstruct that from relatives – since most of these people were grown adults in the early 1940s, but their pictures are identical. The ones you know as Max, Michael, Isabel, and Tess, were cloned from the tissue stolen during these abductions.”
“But what good would that do?”
“There was something found with the incubator pods, Miss Parker. We believe it is something that your Miss Harding spoke about in one of her interrogations. She called it the granolith.”
“Granolith? I guess I don’t understand.”
“The granolith appears to be a faster than light transfer device, Miss Parker. I believe it permitted the samples of human tissue to be transmitted back to the home world of the Antarans where they could be altered .. and then – again using the granolith –returned to the waiting saucer. At that point, everything else was expendable – the saucer – the other crewmen – nothing mattered at that point but to get Nasedo and the incubation pods and supplies somewhere safe – a pod chamber buried in solid rock where the embryos could be incubated into adults. It was there that the plan started to fail. Nasedo was caught returning to the saucer – damaged in the interrogations.
It was years until he could begin the incubation, and even then he didn’t have enough supplies to bring the embryos to adulthood. He was looking desperately for more supplies for the incubators when they ran out of raw material and started to release the embryos – now the physical size of six year old children. Three of them, I believe, were released. He returned as the fourth one - Miss Harding - was released.
The plan was for him to maintain them all in the pods until adulthood but that was now impossible. All he could do was to raise the one he had as best he could, waiting to reunite the four when they were finally sexually mature – when they could breed monsters, and destroy the human race.
It was an incredibly efficient model, Miss Parker. Had it not been for the intervention of the Air Corps and the FBI, well it’s doubtful either of us would be alive today. The four modified embyos would have been sexually mature by the late 1960s and we would all have shortly been dead. Even then, it took the most incredible number of fortuitous events to frustrate the Antarans plan thus far. Even killing your friends, I would estimate, will give us at best a 50% chance of stopping them from taking over this world in the next 200 years.”
“So you are implying that they send just a few here? That they conquer us by outbreeding us?”
“Indeed, but it is more than that, for first they must discover us. The remains of that saucer, Miss Parker – it was ancient. Of course Carbon-14 dating was out of the question, but it could still be dated by analyzing the neutron emission spectra – determining how long it had been exposed to cosmic rays. It was hundreds of years, Miss Parker, perhaps as many as fourteen hundred. And the primary engine on the saucer was relatively slow – relatively crude. If it was capable of lightspeed at all, the engineers believe it would have been capable of only small multiples of the speed of light. It couldn’t have been more than thirty or forty light years away when it detected our radio emissions, and it came here as quickly as it could. Have you heard of foo-fighters, Miss Parker.”
“Yes. I’m from Roswell, remember. That was what the Army Air Corps guys called flying saucers.”
“Saucer, Miss Parker. There was only one, the one that eventually came to Roswell.
The model I would propose, Miss Parker, would be that this empire of Antar sent out ships over a thousand years ago – sent them out in all directions, like the spines of a sea urchin. Perhaps they had some way to accelerate them other than their own engines – one can only speculate, but they sent them out, for the most part cheap and disposable, with crews of artificial life forms that were essentially pieces of equipment. When they detected evidence of life they homed on those radio signals – orbited, and awoke other specialized crewmembers – your acquaintance Mr. Nasedo – to make contact.
The alien abductions were real, Miss Parker. The people were examined and released – largely unharmed, but the real reason for the abduction was simple theft. Nasedo stole cells from the abductees – stole their DNA. The FBI was able to track down the ‘donor’s of three of your friends with high probability, they may eventually get the fourth as well. They do not have DNA – although they could probably reconstruct that from relatives – since most of these people were grown adults in the early 1940s, but their pictures are identical. The ones you know as Max, Michael, Isabel, and Tess, were cloned from the tissue stolen during these abductions.”
“But what good would that do?”
“There was something found with the incubator pods, Miss Parker. We believe it is something that your Miss Harding spoke about in one of her interrogations. She called it the granolith.”
“Granolith? I guess I don’t understand.”
“The granolith appears to be a faster than light transfer device, Miss Parker. I believe it permitted the samples of human tissue to be transmitted back to the home world of the Antarans where they could be altered .. and then – again using the granolith –returned to the waiting saucer. At that point, everything else was expendable – the saucer – the other crewmen – nothing mattered at that point but to get Nasedo and the incubation pods and supplies somewhere safe – a pod chamber buried in solid rock where the embryos could be incubated into adults. It was there that the plan started to fail. Nasedo was caught returning to the saucer – damaged in the interrogations.
It was years until he could begin the incubation, and even then he didn’t have enough supplies to bring the embryos to adulthood. He was looking desperately for more supplies for the incubators when they ran out of raw material and started to release the embryos – now the physical size of six year old children. Three of them, I believe, were released. He returned as the fourth one - Miss Harding - was released.
The plan was for him to maintain them all in the pods until adulthood but that was now impossible. All he could do was to raise the one he had as best he could, waiting to reunite the four when they were finally sexually mature – when they could breed monsters, and destroy the human race.
It was an incredibly efficient model, Miss Parker. Had it not been for the intervention of the Air Corps and the FBI, well it’s doubtful either of us would be alive today. The four modified embyos would have been sexually mature by the late 1960s and we would all have shortly been dead. Even then, it took the most incredible number of fortuitous events to frustrate the Antarans plan thus far. Even killing your friends, I would estimate, will give us at best a 50% chance of stopping them from taking over this world in the next 200 years.”
Re: Bureaucracy (A semi-short story) Teen 10/19/2008
Liz shook her head in disbelief. There could be little doubt that the man was a space case. “That’s one hell of a hypothesis, Doctor Candler, but your evidence supporting it seems meager at best.”
“That is because you have yet to see it in its entirety, Miss Parker. The next evidence actually comes from actions of my predecessor, He was, as I have mentioned, neither a particularly bright individual, nor an individual with any particular scruples. Just as obviously, he had never had children of his own – if Ms. Jefferies reaction to the man’s memory is typical, I doubt that any woman would voluntarily mate with him, and be still less likely to want to actually bear him any offspring.
He certainly had never raised teenagers – the fundamental rule being to never tell them what to do – that’s the kiss of death. One can only, I suppose, make the best case possible for what you would like for them to do, then let them decide for themselves. Eventually that was what I was resigned to doing with my own daughters.
What he did with your friends, however, was to INSTRUCT them to have sex, and provided them with a schedule based upon the menstrual period of the females, Specimens 3 and 4, of what days they should do so.”
“He told them to have sex?”
“Indeed. Moreover he told them specifically NOT to be monogamous, since such a small population size needed all the genetic diversity it could get.”
“He told Max and Isabel to …. Didn’t he realize they were brother and sister?”
“Well since the bureaucracy said they were animals, that undoubtedly wouldn’t have made any difference to my predecessor in any case, but in point of fact, they aren’t biologically related, you see. That was one of the first clues. That and the fact that Nasedo had set up the pods to release specimen 1 … that would be Maxwell, and specimen 3 – Isabel, simultaneously.
Despite the fact that neither were yet adults, once specimen 3’s pod no longer could sustain her, specimen 1 was automatically released. Had they been adults, I believe they likely would have immediately mated. Since they were sexually immature, that did not happen.
Nonetheless, it would appear from the pentothal interviews of your friends that each of the males had an inbred need – possibly due to genetic manipulation – to be attracted to the first available female. Max SHOULD have been raised to adulthood in that cave had everything gone properly, and he should have mated with Isabel and began immediately to produce a monster. The same for Michael and Tess. But still, genetic manipulation for such things is so very difficult – no doubt multiple alleles are involved ….. but I digress.
What actually appears to have happened was that his compulsion to mate with Isabel was overcome by the basic cultural morality of Diane Evans. She raised them as brother and sister, and brother and sister they became – in spirit if not biologically. Apparently Maxwell was able to sublimate this socially unacceptable desire for his sister by transferring these feelings to one of his third grade classmates. Similarly, denied his own intended mate, the one you know as Tess – and isolated for so long in orphanages were the males and females were kept separate from one another, Michael eventually fixated on a female in his high school class, long before Tess ever appeared in Roswell.
So you can understand why my predecessor was somewhat less than successful.
According to the guards who were here at that time all four of your friends, once ordered to mate, revolted against him. In fact, the one called Michael made an exceedingly rude comment about precisely what my predecessor could himself do in the way of coitus – no doubt Ms. Jefferies would have been much happier had he actually done so … as he himself might have been ultimately, come to think of it,” said Candler with a funny smile.
“So they never did mate?”asked Liz.
“Well, actually they did sort of. My predecessor took their eggs and sperm and did in vitro fertilization."
"TOOK THEIR EGGS AND SPERM?"
"It's a common enough technique in veterinary medicine, Miss Parker. Of course it is fairly strenuous for the donors - the females were pretreated with gonadotropins to induce ovulation, then had their eggs harvested by laparoscopy."
Liz winced when she thought of what Isabel - and even Tess had gone through.
"Funny," said Dr. Candler. "Women always wince at that part. Men always wince at the thought of electroejaculation, but of course both were done under general anesthesia.
“That is because you have yet to see it in its entirety, Miss Parker. The next evidence actually comes from actions of my predecessor, He was, as I have mentioned, neither a particularly bright individual, nor an individual with any particular scruples. Just as obviously, he had never had children of his own – if Ms. Jefferies reaction to the man’s memory is typical, I doubt that any woman would voluntarily mate with him, and be still less likely to want to actually bear him any offspring.
He certainly had never raised teenagers – the fundamental rule being to never tell them what to do – that’s the kiss of death. One can only, I suppose, make the best case possible for what you would like for them to do, then let them decide for themselves. Eventually that was what I was resigned to doing with my own daughters.
What he did with your friends, however, was to INSTRUCT them to have sex, and provided them with a schedule based upon the menstrual period of the females, Specimens 3 and 4, of what days they should do so.”
“He told them to have sex?”
“Indeed. Moreover he told them specifically NOT to be monogamous, since such a small population size needed all the genetic diversity it could get.”
“He told Max and Isabel to …. Didn’t he realize they were brother and sister?”
“Well since the bureaucracy said they were animals, that undoubtedly wouldn’t have made any difference to my predecessor in any case, but in point of fact, they aren’t biologically related, you see. That was one of the first clues. That and the fact that Nasedo had set up the pods to release specimen 1 … that would be Maxwell, and specimen 3 – Isabel, simultaneously.
Despite the fact that neither were yet adults, once specimen 3’s pod no longer could sustain her, specimen 1 was automatically released. Had they been adults, I believe they likely would have immediately mated. Since they were sexually immature, that did not happen.
Nonetheless, it would appear from the pentothal interviews of your friends that each of the males had an inbred need – possibly due to genetic manipulation – to be attracted to the first available female. Max SHOULD have been raised to adulthood in that cave had everything gone properly, and he should have mated with Isabel and began immediately to produce a monster. The same for Michael and Tess. But still, genetic manipulation for such things is so very difficult – no doubt multiple alleles are involved ….. but I digress.
What actually appears to have happened was that his compulsion to mate with Isabel was overcome by the basic cultural morality of Diane Evans. She raised them as brother and sister, and brother and sister they became – in spirit if not biologically. Apparently Maxwell was able to sublimate this socially unacceptable desire for his sister by transferring these feelings to one of his third grade classmates. Similarly, denied his own intended mate, the one you know as Tess – and isolated for so long in orphanages were the males and females were kept separate from one another, Michael eventually fixated on a female in his high school class, long before Tess ever appeared in Roswell.
So you can understand why my predecessor was somewhat less than successful.
According to the guards who were here at that time all four of your friends, once ordered to mate, revolted against him. In fact, the one called Michael made an exceedingly rude comment about precisely what my predecessor could himself do in the way of coitus – no doubt Ms. Jefferies would have been much happier had he actually done so … as he himself might have been ultimately, come to think of it,” said Candler with a funny smile.
“So they never did mate?”asked Liz.
“Well, actually they did sort of. My predecessor took their eggs and sperm and did in vitro fertilization."
"TOOK THEIR EGGS AND SPERM?"
"It's a common enough technique in veterinary medicine, Miss Parker. Of course it is fairly strenuous for the donors - the females were pretreated with gonadotropins to induce ovulation, then had their eggs harvested by laparoscopy."
Liz winced when she thought of what Isabel - and even Tess had gone through.
"Funny," said Dr. Candler. "Women always wince at that part. Men always wince at the thought of electroejaculation, but of course both were done under general anesthesia.