They don't like geneticists

Jerri Hiltonen filled his mug with strong green tea and added a scoop of coffee-flavoured blackener.  The result was a completely inadequate substitute for coffee, but at least it had plenty of caffeine and that was the main thing.  It was believed to be less toxic, too; Jerri didn't care about that as such, but it meant there was a lot less tax on green tea, so the department could afford to provide it.  Real coffee was a luxury people had to bring in for themselves individually, lock in desk drawers, and dole out carefully on special occasions.

He sat down at the computer again, took a sip of the tea, and stared into the display tank, which contained a grossly magnified three-dimensional image of a cluster of cells in the lab two floors overhead.  They were mouse cells, mostly; descended from a single cell one of the grad students had microsurgically extracted from a mouse embryo two months before, then fused with another cell line to make them more stable in culture.  There was a little bit of viral DNA in there and some purely synthetic too.

Just staring at them wouldn't really make them transcribe any faster, of course, but he didn't have much else to stare at.  He flipped over to a fluorescence image the system had taken the night before.  That made the cells look like little ghosts, or maybe jellyfish, marked with points of light where the glowing dye had bonded to this or that molecular complex.  The damn thing was that everything in there seemed to be in the right place.  Usually the problem was to stop them from transcribing when that wasn't wanted, so why weren't they doing it now when all the conditions were right?  It wasn't Jerri Hiltonen's problem to solve, really, but as principal investigator he felt some responsibility for anything that might be going wrong with the project, and the launch schedule wouldn't allow extra time for fooling around.  Should he write Markku another email, or just let the kid wrestle with it?

"Dr. Hiltonen?"

He jumped - the tea wasn't doing his nerves any good - and turned and saw Lisa Ford in the doorway, holding a bunch of paperwork.  In the greenish fluorescent light her skin looked about the same colour as the tea.  Not a common sight, an American Black in Helsinki, but if her application got approved, she'd probably be the first of many.  Well, let 'em come.  Jerri needed all the qualified workers he could get.

"Are those ready for me to sign?"

"Yes, sir."

"Excellent."

He read through the documents again, just to make sure.  Not really much point, he'd helped her fill them out earlier anyway and they'd already debated the pros and cons of claiming "Religious Persecution" versus "Political/Risk of Torture" and "Unsafe Environment".  One more check couldn't hurt, though.  Best not to give those bastards in Immigration any excuses to say "no".  He thought of one more thing to correct.

"Is 'Lisa' your actual name?  Not 'Elizabeth'?"

"Yes, it's just 'Lisa'."

He started signing the pages, as the woman stood, fidgeting.

"Here you go.  Good luck."

He bit back a comment about how he'd pray for her to be accepted, thinking that under the circumstances, that might not be so welcome.  An atheist shouldn't have any objection to being prayed for, and of course she knew that he was on her side and would be no matter what laws those other Christians on the other side of the Atlantic had passed; but better to be sensitive about it.

She indicated the tank.  "Are those the cells?  The ones that won't transcribe?"

"Yes.  Where did you hear about that?"

"I was talking to Markku about it.  I hope it was okay that he told me."

"Well, yes, I suppose so.  You're on the team and all.  It's just that I'd rather Management wasn't bothered about it until after we've solved it, if you see what I mean.  So I don't want the details to get spread around."

"Fair enough.  Well, I guess there's not much I can do to help with that.  Totally out of my field; I barely know what 'transcription' means."

"That's okay.  I've got, well, some confidence in Markku.  He's fixed worse problems in less time on other projects.  How is the controller design, though?"

"It's good.  It's good.  I'd have offered to demo the mock-up for you today but I have to go to the Immigration office this afternoon and didn't think I could commit to how long that might take."

"Tomorrow then?"

"Yeah, tomorrow should be fine."

"Okay.  I shan't keep you."

She left, and Jerri stared back into the tank.  Well, that wasn't getting him anywhere, so he got up and paced around the room, stopping to look out the window.  There was a rainstorm brewing out there.  Several kilometers away, but clearly visible because it was so huge, a flashing billboard advertised the PlaxGeo Natal Package.  It cycled between a bewildering array of astrological symbols, stock footage of happy smiling people, and photos of rocket boosters.  He sighed, and turned away.  Whoever said politics made strange bedfellows had obviously never experienced scientific research.

Jerri had a report he was supposed to be writing today, but it could wait at least a little longer and he didn't really have a clear idea of what to write, so better not to start yet.  He wandered out of the lab and headed for Xiau Wong's office.  Maybe they could find some extra time in the launch schedule, somehow, and take the heat off of Markku.

As he entered the office he ducked his head a little to avoid the big rotating model of a PlaxGeo mani/communications satellite hanging over the door.  Even though he knew it was just a hologram, he still couldn't help thinking he'd bump his head on it.  Xiau was a little shorter and could walk through the door without ducking at all and have his head pass a few centimeters below the lowest point on the model.  Right at that moment his head was even lower, because he was on his hands and knees under the desk, fiddling with his computer's network connection.  The computer was displaying a complicated orbital diagram, and playing Internet radio loudly in Cantonese through speakers on either side of its display tank.

"Hey, Xiau."

The rocket scientist emerged from under the desk, smiled "hello" to Jerri, and reached over to turn down the music.  Just at that moment the station started a commercial break, and even though he didn't even speak Cantonese, Jerri Hiltonen recognized enough words and names to know that the commercial was for PlaxGeo services.

"What's up with that, anyway?"

"Uh, how do you mean, Jerri?  What's up with what?"

"Well, I mean the whole active astrology business.  I mean, I know lots of technical details because it's my job to know them, but I just don't get the fundamental concept.  Why do people buy it?  And why are people willing to pay so much for it?"

Xiao was used to getting random questions like that from Jerri; they often used each other as sounding boards, and it was part of the teamwork that had enabled them to complete more than a few difficult studies and projects over the years.  He thought carefully of how to explain it without making the whole business sound like the insanity that ultimately, it probably was.

"Okay, look at it this way, Dr. H. I'm single, see?"

"Yes..."

"I don't want to be.  So what am I supposed to do?"

"I don't know, go hang out in bars?  Join a dating service?"

"Well, there are plenty of things I could do, but, look, I'm still single.  I'm at the point where I start to feel insulted when people offer me suggestions on how to meet women, because I feel, well, don't you think I've already tried that?"

"Oh.  I didn't mean to -"

"No offence taken, I mean in general.  The thing is, there are all these ways I could try to meet women and they make perfect sense that they should work, but they don't.  It just does not happen.  Things that seem like they should work, don't.  So what's the next logical step?"

"I'm the wrong person to ask about that.  I'd tell you to pray to Jesus."

"Right, but if you're in the atheist majority, maybe the next logical step, or maybe okay the next illogical step, is to say okay, I tried the things that make sense, now I'm going to try something that doesn't make sense."

"And that's where Plaxidus Oy comes in?"

"Exactly.  Maybe if I really want to meet a wife, or even just get laid, whatever, you know they have a degree of the Zodiac for everything, then I can save up my money and pay them to transmit my name off one of their satellites for a while, while the satellite lines up with Mercury or Venus or whatever it's supposed to line up with for romance.  They've got a big flashy advertising campaign saying that everybody wants to hire them to do it, right, so maybe it actually works.  Certainly can't hurt, right?"

"I wouldn't have taken you for one of their prospective customers."

"Oh, I'm not, catch me throwing away my money on that, hah.  Not to put too fine a point on it, you can buy a lot of hookers for the price of a Natal Package.  But the point is it's a fine line and I don't think it's at all surprising they get customers.  Besides, why are you complaining?  We get the benefit of cheap rocket launches.  Nobody else can afford to put things in space these days what with the environmental impact levies.  Besides the American government who never signed the treaty, I mean."

"And they don't like geneticists."

"And they don't like geneticists at all.  So you have to choose between the Christians and the astrologers."

Jerri Hiltonen had chosen the astrologers.  He wasn't very happy about it, and he was fully conscious of the irony involved, but the choice hadn't really been difficult.  When he said his prayers he pretty often thanked God that he'd been born in Finland and didn't end up in Lisa Ford's situation, trying to claim refugee status just because the Americans didn't like geneticists, and liked microgravity embryonic geneticists least of all.  Plaxidus Oy didn't tell him how to do his work.

"Well, that wasn't what I wanted to talk about.  I was wondering, how firm is the launch schedule?"

Xiau shook his head.  "You're worried about that transcription thing?"

"Uh, yes."

"You shouldn't be.  I'm sure Markku has it all in hand." As he spoke he was manipulating the computer; in a moment its tank filled with a diagram of the trajectory that the descendants of those cells upstairs, if all went well, would be launched on starting a month into the future.  Icons representing the inner planets and the Sun floated in the tank, with a greenish curve arcing up from Earth, partway to the orbit of Mars, then down to eventually collide with the Sun.

"I know you've seen this a bunch of times, but look, maybe I should go through the actual constraints instead of the overall mission plan.  There are basically two important points the mani is supposed to pass through."

"Here and here?"

"That's right.  The first one is supposed to be Virgo 28 geo, Pisces 28 helio.  In other words, right between the Sun and the Earth on September 20th.  That'll be just after launch, when it's in a transfer orbit getting ready to boost out of Earth orbit into Solar orbit.  The mani is actually supposed to go right across the Solar disc as viewed from Earth, and you bet the client will be watching it with a telescope, so there's no possibility of fudging it."

"Okay, I guess that answers my question.  Not really any chance of delaying the launch."

"No.  They'd delay for an astrological reason if there was a good enough one.  I suppose we could hire a consultant to come up with some alternatives.  For instance, if they were willing to have their geo and helio positions for that first cure point be 90 degrees apart instead of 180, then we could launch almost any time and still hit it." He played with the computer some more, made it display that scenario.  "See, the 180 degree situation is the worst case.  Really, almost anything else would be better.  But I doubt the client would go for it.  Sounds like he's really set on having something he can actually see with the telescope, and that pretty much means the mani has to cross the Sun."

"What about the other cure point?"

"By that time it'll be too far from Earth for a good view."

"No, I meant, what are the customer's constraints for the second cure?  I know that even if we could modify it that wouldn't change the launch, but I was just wondering."

"Well, that one's a little bit vaguer, but it's supposed to be helio Virgo 28 - that is, exactly half an orbit later, as the Sun sees it - geo Scorpio 13.  Or as near as possible.  It turns out there were some problems with acceleration so they'll be a couple degrees off; you can see how the exact point is marked on the diagram and the trajectory only comes sort of close to it."

"What do you suppose is the point of this exercise anyway?"

"Anybody's guess.  The report we got didn't say anything, the liason from Plaxidus isn't saying anything, and I don't know enough astrology to guess at what the client may be trying to accomplish.  Must be something pretty important to justify a launch out of orbit, though."

"Or a very rich client."

"Yeah, I guess.  Must be nice to have that kind of money for such things."

"Okay, well, I guess about all we can do is wait for Markku to do his job.  I just wish there were some way I could help.  Maybe I'll see if I can find budget for that consultant - do you have anyone in mind?"

"No, but I'll make a list and email you."

"Excellent."

Jerri Hiltonen returned to his lab, and started to think about writing the report he was supposed to be writing.  Then, an email came in.  He eyed its blue and yellow Plaxidus Oy header with distaste - never mind that they gave him cheap launches, he still hated dealing with those loony tunes - but it might be something important, so he opened it.  It was a whitepaper, under the chop of the high priest for the extra-terrestrial operations department, entitled "Acceptable elemental contamination levels for Level 3 mani scientific co-operation packages".  Looked like pretty dry stuff.

Dr. Hiltonen had skimmed halfway through the document before he realised what it was actually about, and began fuming.  He poured himself some more tea, re-read the section on "Transition Metals - Disharmonious" and thought about what that meant.  Then he picked up his phone, noting with annoyance that according to its little display, his telephone service at that moment was being routed through transponder 5 of PlaxGeo 236c, and phoned Lisa Ford.  Too late, he remembered that she'd probably be busy in Immigration right now; but in that case she'd have her phone turned off, so no matter.

Surprisingly enough, she answered on the first ring.  "Hello?"

"Hi.  This is Jerri.  Hope I'm not interrupting you."

"No, I'm still waiting to be served.  I took a number, it was 53, they're doing 04 now.  I'll probably be stuck down here late into the evening."

"I see.  Well, something's come up that'll affect your part of the system.  I've got this memo from Plaxidus, really, it has to be seen to be believed, I'll send you a copy but you'll want to read it on a bigger tank."

"What's it about?"

"What it comes down to is that they want the science package built without any copper in it.  That seems like it might be a problem, right?"

"Without any copper in it."

"Right."

"Pretty hard to build anything electronic without at least a little copper wire.  Did they say why they think they want this?"

"Because of copper interfering with the subtle energy dynamics.  There are fifteen pages of gobbledy-gook in here about meridians and psuedo-acupuncture points of the spacecraft assembly and interaction with the heliomagnetic field.  There's also a recommendation in here from the high priest suggesting that they launch without a science package at all, because of the what he calls risk of non-compliance from partner agencies."

"So they won't even trust us to follow the spec."

"Right, and he at least thinks it's worth the extra launch fees for not having any science on board, just to avoid the risk that we might not follow the spec."

"I don't know a whole lot about how this whole business works, but isn't it terrible karma to launch a mani without some kind of project on it for the betterment of humanity?  Beyond just whatever the client's astrological thing is?"

"Yeah, well, your guess is as good as mine.  Maybe they think they can find some other science project."

"Some other science project that doesn't want any electronics in the package?  Not when the mani is going into the Sun at the end of the mission.  There'd be no way of getting the data back without at least some kind of radio."

"Look, I don't want to discuss this in detail over the phone, but maybe they have something against our project in particular."

"Understood.  Well, look, when I get time to work on the design tomorrow, and assuming they don't immediately deport me when they get up to number 53 down here, I'll see what I can do.  Hookup wire, no problem, I can use silver instead.  It's actually better than copper, and just a little more expensive.  The circuit boards, that's going to be tricky, I don't think I can get them fabricated with anything other than copper.  The RF people do use silver circuit boards but it's silver plated on a copper base, so that's no good.  I think I could make them from scratch with silver foil and etch them by hand.  We used to do hand-etched boards back when I was a kid and we couldn't afford mail order.  Not with silver, of course.  I don't know what kind of acid we'd need to etch silver, maybe sulfuric would work.  The big issue is going to be that some components have copper wires built into them and they just don't exist in versions with any other metal.  How close to zero do you think we need to cut it?"

"I don't know, but you can bet that if they allow us to put a package on there at all, they'll be running it through a scanner to make sure it meets whatever spec they demand.  There are numbers here but I'll have to let you look at them; I've no idea just what the total density of copper in a random box of electronics actually is.  I'm worried; this looks like it could be a showstopper."

"Well, this is not the kind of question we normally have to answer.  But don't worry too much yet, we aren't dead yet.  Look, if Markku can work a miracle with that transcription thing, I'll match him by getting all the copper out.  Oh - they will actually allow us to use silver, right?  I don't want to build the world's most complicated piece of jewelry and then find out that that's on the no-no list as well.  I also don't want to find out that at the last minute that they insist we use AC power instead of DC, or only psychic emanations for the telemetry because radio signals annoy the angels, or something silly like that."

"I think silver is okay.  It was listed as 'harmonious' on the same list that had copper as 'disharmonious'.  But really, you have to read the whitepaper.  I'm not doing it justice.  It's, uh, quite a piece of work."

"Okay, well, send it to my phone.  I seem to have plenty of time here."

He sent the document over, thinking that she must be pretty desperate for amusement if she really wanted to read this document on her phone.  But better that she see it as soon as possible.  With some effort he tried to put the whole thing out of his mind while he concentrated on the report he was supposed to be writing.  It worked pretty well, until Markku walked in and distracted him.

"Markku!  Uh, how is the transcription thing?"

The technician shrugged.  "Who knows?  I haven't touched it today."

Jerri tried to restrain himself from blowing up.  It was just Markku's way to assert his independence - he'd be working hard on the sly, always pretending to slack off, until the last moment when he'd unveil the complete finished version of whatever he was working on.  It didn't do much for Jerri's blood pressure, but it had to be tolerated as part of the price of employing someone like Markku.

"So," he said with attempted heartiness, "What's occupying your time these days?"

Markku slapped a paper down on the desk.  "Take a look at this," he said.

Jerri Hiltonen flipped through the document.  It seemed to be a statistical study of birth rates...  correlated to PlaxGeo natal activity.

"Another Acta Ptolemaicus paper?  This is ridiculous psuedoscience, don't waste time on it.  We only subscribe because the Plaxidus representatives like to see it on my shelf when they come to visit."

"This isn't from AP. I ran the numbers myself.  They're all from published impartial sources." Jerri took a closer look.

"What it basically comes down to is that last year Plaxidus Oy did a big promotional thing of trying to help the Queens (or First Ladies as the case may be) of Sweden, Bolivia, and Indonesia conceive children.  Remember that?"

"Yes.  I remember how it was a spectacular failure.  All of them had publicly stated they were trying to get pregnant, none of them did, Plaxidus was all set to take the credit but did a pretty good job of avoiding the blame."

"Indeed.  But what I've got there is the projected versus actual birth rates in those three countries, compared with other places around the world.  There's a statistically significant increase; it's like those three women didn't get pregnant but everybody else, well, not really everybody but too many other women, did."

"Hm."

"It gets worse.  You recall the Zygex pharmaceutical scandal?  Drug gets approved globally, widely prescribed, horrible side effects, kills a bunch of people?"

"Yes."

"Well, it turns out the cell studies that made the difference for Zygex being approved as opposed to not, flew on the mani they launched for the fertility thing."

"This is ridiculous psuedoscience."

"Funny, that's what a lot of people said about the Zygex approval, after the fact, when the board of inquiry dug through the evidence.  But there's more."

"More?"

"Three other science packages were on that same mani.  All of them produced really bizarre results, not replicated by later experiments."

"So there was something wrong with the power supply, or it got damaged by exposure to engine radiation during launch, or any of a million other things."

"Sure.  Or maybe it's because Supernova 2025A happened just as that mani was crossing the helio Gemini cusp.  Down to the second.  Anyway, it kind of makes you wonder who's doing the science and who's doing the psuedoscience, right?  Back home we'd say it's fucked up."

Jerri Hiltonen looked at the table of numbers and thought about what they meant.  He couldn't do an exact p-value calculation in his head, but he didn't need to; it was obvious that they were way different from chance.  Maybe Markku was wrong about what effect he was measuring, but he had to be right that there was some effect of some kind going on.

"Fucked up, huh?  Yes.  Yes, it is.  But I still want you to solve that transcription problem."

"Yes, sir."