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Hunt at a loss for words. The professor cocked his head to one side and regarded him quizzically but
could not contain a slight admission of the amusement that he felt.
"Well. . . Good God, what are they then?" Hunt managed at
last. He realized that in his astonishment he had let his cigarette slip from his fingers and made hasty
efforts to retrieve it from the side of his chair.
Danchekker watched the pantomime in silence, then replied. "Let me see now, to answer directly the
questions that you have just asked would not really convey very much, since they all interrelate. Most of
them follow from the work I have been doing here ever since we got back from Ganymede, which
covers quite a lot of ground. Perhaps it would be simpler if I just start at the beginning and follow it
through from there." Hunt waited while Danchekker leaned back and interlaced his fingers in front of his
chin and contemplated the far wall to collect his thoughts.
At last Danchekker resumed. "Do you recall the piece of research from Utrecht that you brought to my
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attention soon after we got back-concerning the way in which animals manufacture small amounts of
toxins and contaminants to exercise their def ensive systems?"
"The self-immunization process. Yes, I remember. ZORAC picked that one up. Animals possess it but
human beings don't. What about it?"
"I found the subject rather intriguing and spent some time after our discussion following it up, which
included holding some very long and detailed conversations with a Professor Tatham from Cambridge, an
old friend of mine who specializes in that kind of thing. In particular, I wanted to know more about the
genetic codes that are responsible for this self-immunization mechanism forming in the developing
embryo. It seemed to me that if we were going to try to pinpoint the causes for this radical difference
between us and the beasts, this was the level at which we should look for it."
"And. . .
"And, the results were extremely interesting . . . in fact, remarkable." Danchekker's voice fell almost to a
whisper that seemed to accentuate every syllable. "As ZORAC discovered, in virtually all of today's
terrestrial animals, the genetic coding that determines their self-immunization mechanism is closely related
to the coding responsible for another process; you might say that both processes are subsets of the same
program. The other process regulates carbon-dioxide absorption and rejection."
"I see . . ." Hunt nodded slowly. He didn't yet see exactly
where Danchekker was leading, but he was beginning to sense something important.
"You're always telling me you don't like coincidences," Danchekker went on. "I don't either. There was
far too much of a coincidence about this, so Tatham and I started delving a bit deeper. When we
investigated the experiments performed at Pithead and on board Jupiter Five, we came across a second
rather remarkable thing, that tied in with what I have just been talking about-concerning the Oligocene
animals found in the ship there. The Oligocene animals all contain the same genetic coding elements, but
in their case there is a difference. The subprograms that control the two processes I mentioned have
somehow been separated out; they exist as discrete groupings that lie side by side on the same DNA
chain. Now that is very remarkable, wouldn't you say?"
Hunt considered the question for a few seconds.
"You mean that in today's animals both processes are there, but all scrambled up together, but in the
Oligocene species they're separated out."
"Yes."
"All the Oligocene species?" Hunt asked after a moment's further reflection. Danchekker nodded in
satisfaction at seeing that Hunt was on the right track.
"Precisely, Vic. All of them."
"That doesn't really make sense. I mean, the first thing you'd think would be that some kind of mutation
had occurred to change one form into the other-the scrambled-up form and the separated-out form. That
could have happened either way around. In one case the scrambled form could be the 'natural' terrestrial
pattern that became mutated on Minerva; that would explain why the animals from there have it and the
descendants of the ones that were left here don't. Alternatively, you could suppose that twenty-five
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million years ago the separated-out form was standard, which explains of course why the animals from
that time exhibit it, but that in subsequent evolution here on Earth it changed itself into the scrambled
form." He looked across at Danchekker and threw his arms out wide. "But there's one basic flaw in both
those arguments-it happened in lots of different species, all at the same time."
"Quite." Danchekker nodded. "And, by all the principles of selection and evolution that we accept, that
would appear to rule
out the possibility of any kind of mutation-natural mutation, anyway. It would be inconceivable for the
same chance event to occur spontaneously and simultaneously in many distinct and unrelated lines. . .
utterly inconceivable."
"Natural mutation?" Hunt looked puzzled. "What are you saying then?"
"It's perfectly simple. We've just agreed that the difference couldn't be due to ordinary natural mutation,
but nevertheless it's there. The only other explanation possible then is that it was not natural."
Impossible thoughts flashed through Hunt's mind. Danchekker read the expression on his face and
voiced them for him.
"In other words they didn't just happen; they were made to happen. The genetic codings were
deliberately rearranged. We are talking about an artificial mutation."
For a moment Hunt was stunned. The word deliberate denoted conscious volition, which in turn implied
an intelligence.
Danchekker nodded again to confirm his thoughts. "If I may rephrase your question of a minute ago,
what we are really asking is, did the animals that were shipped to Minerva change, or did the animals that
were left on Earth change after the others were shipped? Now add to the equation the further fact that
we have established-that somebody deliberately caused the change to happen-and we are left with only
one choice."
Hunt completed the argument for him. "There hasn't been anybody around on Earth during the last
twenty-five million years that could have done it, so it must have been done on Minerva. That can only
mean. . ." His voice trailed off as the full implication became clear.
"The Ganymeans!" Danchekker said. He allowed some time for this to sink in and then continued. "The
Ganymeans altered the genetic coding of the terrestrial animals that they took back to their own planet. I
am fairly certain that the samples that were recovered from the ship at Pithead were descendants of a
strain that had been mutated in this way and had faithfully carried on the mutation in themselves. This is
the only logical conclusion that can be drawn from the evidence we have reviewed. Also, it is strongly
supported by another interesting piece of evidence."
By now Hunt was ready for anything.
"Oh?" he replied. "What?"
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