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CHAPTER 10

Proxima b

“Dr. Chris, you have to bounce it on the bottom more slowly or you’ll scare them away.” Graggyon Oo’ortava demonstrated the way to work the fishing rig again. Sentell watched carefully as the much younger man, who on Earth would be the typical age of an undergraduate student, demonstrated the finer parts of catching the Fintidierian orange-striped skiezel. As far as Sentell was concerned, they looked like a cross between a large-mouth bass and a sun perch. According to Grag, they tasted just as good as any fish anywhere when fried. Sentell couldn’t wait to find out how they compared to their Terran counterparts.

Sentell tried not to be too overly excited over the simple fact that he might be the first Earther to fish on another planet. That thought rolled over in his mind, amusing and distracting him from the pure relaxation and essence of being on a lake with a fishing rig in his hands. But the vibrations of the line grasped gently between his thumb and forefinger were reassuring and kept his attention on the task at hand—catching fish.

“Got it, Grag. Low and slow.” He focused a bit and worked the tip of his rod up to over a meter and then let it slowly settle back down. “My grandpa used to actually call this ‘bumpin’ the bottom’ fishing. We would catch a fish about like this, called a bass, by dragging a plastic worm on the bottom.”

“Yes, there you have it.” Grag nodded. “Plastic worm? Hmmm, that might work here. We might have to see if we can make such a thing and give it a try.”

“I’ll see if I can print us a few of them.” Sentell leaned back slowly in the seat of the three-person-sized boat. It wasn’t much different from the bass boat he had back on Earth. Well, if you didn’t consider that the boat he had back on Earth was made of a carbon composite material, damned near unsinkable, had sonar, depth gauges, fish finders, cushy seats and compartments, a beer cooler, and an electric motor that would propel the boat to a hundred and thirty kilometers per hour while this boat was made of wood, had Finti plastic seats, no instruments, and the motor was a smelly fossil-fuel-burning outboard contraption like Sentell had only ever seen in old fishing videos and movies. But fishin’ was fishin’ on any planet.

The water was a strange violet in the near dark lighting of the evening sun. There was almost no breeze and the boat gently rocked with the very small waves of the large lake. It was almost as priceless a feeling as he recalled fishing in Guntersville Lake back home. That was the best bass fishing on Earth. When he had told Grag of this, the kid couldn’t stop talking about Gwonura Reservoir and how great the skiezel fishing was there. So, finally, just to get away from the crazy turmoil of the world for a few hours, Sentell had taken the young man up on his offer of a fishing trip to the lake.

“This is the life,” Sentell said.

“The ‘life’?” Grag was saying to himself and Sentell could tell the Fintidierian was trying to translate that in his head and wasn’t quite getting it. He mouthed it again, “…the life…”

Chris couldn’t help but laugh out loud as he watched Grag mouthing the words in deep contemplation. Even though Grag spoke perfect English, slang, euphemisms, metaphors, and similes were mostly still lost on him.

“Sorry, Grag. It means in my language that if I only had to do what I wanted to do, then this would be it. All I would do with my life is to sit here and relax and—HEY! A big one!” The canelike rod in his hands bent straight down. Sentell reacted quickly to set the hook.

“Hold your rod down or he’ll throw the hook!” Grag warned as the skiezel jumped from the water. “Jerk and reel!”

“I’ve got him! Small-mouth do this back home!” Sentell did just as he had hundreds, maybe thousands of times on Earth, fighting the large fish as it cleared the water, shaking its head back and forth, trying to sling the lure from its mouth. The odd illumination from Proxima accentuated the orange stripes on the fish to the point that it appeared to glow like a fluorescent dye. It was beautiful. Sentell fought with the fish and did his best to keep the line taut. “It’s a big one! Get the dip net!”

Grag was already kneeling over the side of the boat with the net as Sentell brought the fish to the edge near the aft end. The rod bent into almost a complete U-shaped curve and he had to struggle to keep the tip out of the water. The net slipped under the fish and then he lifted his pole as Grag lifted the net.

“We got it! It’s female.” Grag lifted the net quickly into the boat and grabbed the fish by the lower lip.

“I bet that thing is twenty-two skeens!” Grag sounded excited.

“I’m guessing five kilos. Can’t convert to your system in my head.”

“She’s full of eggs,” Grag exclaimed excitedly. “Female for sure. The males aren’t as pretty. Wait until you taste the deep-fried fish eggs!”

“We’ll eat well tonight,” Sentell said as he looked at the female fish. The belly was engorged and bloated. The fish population was not having any problems with female fertility. The lifecycle of these fish was only a couple of years.

“If only we could learn from them.” Grag looked sad for a moment. His excitement waning slightly to a more somber tone.

“How d’ya mean, Grag?”

“Why do all the animals thrive, yet we do not?” he asked.

“Well, probably because…” Sentell paused and looked at the fish and then back at the young man. Then he noted several birds circling overhead. He thought of the number of catlike animals and doglike animals that he had seen loose in the city. He also thought of the cattlelike farm animals he’d seen. Then he realized that they had not really looked into that as much as they should have.

“That’s a damned good question, Grag. The animal kingdom seems to have no reproduction problems here, that is, except the humans.” Sentell held up the livewell box lid as Grag plopped the fish into it. The fish banked against the lid and then splashed into the water. It briefly splashed about with the others already in there and then settled down. “A lot of fish to clean and it is getting late, don’t you think?”

“Yes. I agree.” Grag nodded. “We should head back before sundown and start cleaning them.”

“What d’ya say we just hang out and eat the fish and have a few beers. I don’t want to go back to the compound tonight,” Sentell said. “All the guards and stuff are depressing.”

“Great. We can stay at my family’s place. You will be safe there tonight.”

* * *

“Well, Grag, the sex of a zygote, as I explained to you at the lab, is the fertilized egg that forms after sperm fertilizes an egg, is actually chosen by the chromosomes in the sperm cell. The men carry the sex gene,” Sentell mumbled around a mouthful of the skiezel. “For whatever reason it’s the sperm-and-egg combination that seems to be where the problem is…maybe. Can’t be sure. Polkingham thinks it is something else.”

“Again, I was a physics student until you arrived. I am still learning the anatomy and biology. Perhaps my physics will be helpful along the way,” Grag noted and then held up an empty bottle. “Another?”

“Damn right,” Sentell agreed. The Fintidierian beer reminded him of the very bitter pale ales back on Earth. He could only guess that most of the beers were so strong to keep them preserved over longer periods of time. The Fintidierians were only now to the point in their culture and technological advancement that refrigerators with freezers were making it into every home. The Earth historical analog would put them at approximately 1950s-era technology. People were still likely preserving things through canning, smoking, salt, and sugar. The strong beers and wines didn’t spoil as quickly. Hence, the beer was strong and bitter. In fact, he did recall that that was the very reason for the India Pale Ales back on Earth. They had been made extremely hoppy and strong to remain preserved on the long trips from India to Europe.

He watched as the young Fintidierian sat the bottle aside by the firepit. Grag looked over into the black cauldron and appeared to be nodding to himself. He reached into the boiling grease with the long screen ladle and scooped out the remaining of the filets frying there. The popping and sizzling sounds heightened as he stirred them up and withdrew them from the pot. He dumped them out on the tray with the others and then sprinkled them heavily with the spice shaker.

“What spice is that?” Sentell asked. “It’s very good.”

“Yes. It is my great-grandmother’s mixture of sodium and potassium chloride, and a local spice plant…um…like your peppers,” Grag explained as he continued to sprinkle the fish heavily.

“Last of the fish eggs, if you would like?” Grag offered the tray of fresh fried and spiced fish, pointing out the final large fried fish egg sack. Sentell noted how it looked exactly like the ones he’d fried back home. Animal life continued to be an amazement to him around every turn and new exposure or discovery.

“Think I will.” Sentell grabbed the eggs and a couple of the pieces of fish for his plate and sat back down while Grag slid on pan holders, lifted the pot from the firepit, and sat it on the ground a few meters away. He stoked the fire and added a couple of logs, throwing bright orange embers upward against the night sky. Sentell watched them rise gently and then flow with the evening breeze. Grag then pulled a couple of bottles from the ice bucket and handed him one.

“I need to teach you how to make hushpuppies,” Sentell offered around a mouthful of the fish.

“Hushpuppies?” Grag asked. “Quiet canine animals? Sounds gross! You eat dogs on Earth?”

“Of course not!” Sentell almost shouted, but then thought for a moment. “Well, some cultures used to, but it wasn’t widespread where I’m from. In fact, it was against the law where I am from.”

“Then…hushpuppies?”

“Haha! No animals at all in them. Let me tell you all about hushpuppies…”

Several bites and beer swallows later, their conversation returned to biology.

“Let me ask you, Dr. Chris,” Grag said. No matter how many times Sentell had told him to drop the doctor part, he still insisted. He continued as he held out another large brown bottle in Chris’s general direction. “I was wondering if…em…nope…can, yes, the word is can. Can the sex of a baby be determined through any technological methods? I mean, you came from the stars. Certainly, you can choose the sex of a baby on your world?”

“Hmm…yes is the correct answer.” Sentell took the bottle and twisted the top off. The differences in little things interested him. The caps twisted in the same direction. Righty tighty. Lefty loosey. But they were not the type of single-twist caps on beer bottles like back on Earth. They were lids more like those of plastic soda or water bottles that took many turns to remove. He sat the top in the container Grag had nearby to collect them for reuse and reflected on the subtlety briefly. Then he took a long swig from the bitter ale. He liked it more and more with each swallow.

“So, back on Earth, every now and then we do that. People used to do it more, but it never really caught on accept in a few countries where women weren’t considered to be as prized as men. I know it sounds dumb, but it happened at times. That went away a good seventy years ago, though. So, only in a few cases do people still do it. I guess they don’t like the surprises or something. I don’t know. Never had kids.”

“But you can do it?”

“Have kids?” Sentell smiled, shrugged. “Sure. I guess I could, maybe. You know, with the right woman and all.”

“You are joking with me, yes?”

“Yes, Grag. I was pulling your…” Sentell paused, not wanting to get into another explanation of expressions of the Earth languages. “…um, yes. I was joking.”

“Funny.” Grag didn’t sound as if he truly thought it had been funny. “So, can you?”

“Of course. Sometimes a family might have a genetic proclivity for some gender-specific disease, and they will pick the other rather than gamble on the child getting the disease. One of the most common methods for determining the sex of a zygote is through what is known as preimplantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD for short. This process is typically used for medical reasons like I was saying. We can identify if a zygote carries a genetic disorder that is carried on the X or Y chromosome—in other words, sex-linked—or to help couples who are at risk of passing on a genetic disorder to their children.”

“Interesting. How does it work?”

“PGD involves removing one or two cells from an embryo while it is developing. Then we analyze the chromosomes to determine the sex of it. But this is after the fact, and it won’t cause the sex of the baby but will only measure it. It is done in vitro, you see. Once a zygote matching the right sex is generated, then the mother is implanted with the fertilized egg.”

“This is what you have tried already, right?”

“Yes, we have done this but the zygotes we have all are male from you guys. The female zygotes we brought from Earth do implant nicely, though. For whatever reason, we can’t create new ones here,” Sentell explained.

“Yes, but can you choose the sex before fertilization?”

“I’m getting there.” Sentell laughed and took another drink of his beer. “Just be patient.”

“Sorry, Dr. Chris. I will be patient.” The kid seemed hurt or nervous that Sentell was angry with him. Sentell laughed inwardly again at the communication differences. But he didn’t want to get into some long-winded apology conversation either.

“Hey, no worries. We have other methods for determining the sex after the fact, like chorionic villus sampling—CVS for short. We also have noninvasive prenatal testing, which is a blood test that can be done as early as ten weeks in. Believe it or not, the mother carries fetal DNA in her blood stream at levels that are detectable.”

“I believe you,” Grag said seriously. Sentell tried not to laugh at the misunderstood expression as he found it to be continually amusing and an enjoyable interaction. He also thought it could be the beer.

“But to actually, truly determine—or more to the point, what we need here is to shape the sex of the zygote, well, that takes more work. The oldest method we have is to literally sort through the sperm before the zygote is made and separate them based on their X and Y chromosomes. At that point, the sorted sperm is used to fertilize the egg. We do this for in vitro fertilization—IVF—or artificial insemination. People have done it for nonmedical reasons, like I mentioned before, or because they want a boy and a girl or something. Don’t know the motivations really. They vary. But it is done sometimes.”

“I wish we could do it here.”

“Well, back on Earth it would raise ethical concerns. For example, some people argue that using PGD or sperm sorting to select the sex of a child for non-medical reasons is some form of discrimination or some such nonsense. I don’t know, maybe they think it is playing God or something. All that sounds like made-up turmoil to me—like news outlets only telling bad news instead of the good. I dunno. What it could do, though, is lead to a skewed gender ratio in a population. You know, actually, that is exactly what is happening here you see. So that is an example of this gone wrong. We need to figure out what went wrong.”

“Yes, we do.”

“Some people believe that using these methods to prevent the transmission of a genetic disorder is a form of ‘genetic engineering’ that raises ethical concerns too. But me, Hell, again I don’t know. I think in the individual cases it’s peoples’ own damned business. I mean, if a couple wants enough boys for a baseball team or girls for fast-pitch softball team, whatever, that’s their business. But here, well, here the problem is much bigger, and I don’t know what to think.”

“But, if I understand you correctly, we can choose the sex technologically to be male or female based on choice of the parents.”

“Well, back on Earth we could.”

“What if, Dr. Chris, that is what is happening here on purpose, or to some design?” Grag looked more serious than Sentell had ever seen him. “We now know our religion and mythologies are based on actual aliens from another world coming here and doing whatever it was they did.”

“I see where you’re going with this, Grag.”

“Well, if you can select the sperm, couldn’t the ancient ones who left have done something? Left something behind?” Grag asked.

“That is one working speculation. Not sure how to really test it as a hypothesis, though.” Sentell sat his plate aside and stretched. He was full and couldn’t eat another bite. The beer, on the other hand, was a different story. He was enjoying letting go and forgetting about all the craziness and friction between the locals and the Terrans. And the conversation with Grag was interesting and mentally stimulating, even with his brain dulled from the ethanol. But sometimes it was when the brain was relaxed and the stress removed that the breakthroughs happened. After all, Newton was relaxing in his family’s apple orchard when he discovered his Universal Law of Gravitation.

“Hmmm, interesting, but really not sure how to test that idea,” Sentell muttered again before leaning back in the chair and letting the tension flee from his body. He let out a long exhale through his pursed lips, making a motorboat sound—the old-school fossil-fuel kind.

“Not sure? How so? Just look for whatever you would do to cause the problem.” Grag leaned back in his chair, sort of copying Chris’s movements. Then he stretched his feet closer to the fire to warm them. He tilted his head back and looked up at the stars. “You came from out there. Be the ancient ones. You think of how you would do this atrocity on an entire planet with your technology and knowledge. Then, learn how to undo it.”

“Okay, I’ll bite.” Sentell looked up at the stars too. He had no idea which one was Sol or if you could even see it from where they were at that time of night. He was a research physician and biologist not an astronomer.

“There.” Grag pointed. “That one is your star.”

“Thanks. I see it.” Sentell had no idea where the kid was pointing. He activated the star chart app in his contact lenses and let the embedded artificial intelligence find the star for him.

“Very different from our star.”

“In more ways than one,” Sentell agreed. “But similar in some of the best ways. Like fish and beer, for example.”

Sentell nodded to the fish and then held up his bottle in the way he had taught Grag to do.

“Cheers my friend. Thanks for the great day.” Sentell tapped his bottle to Grag.

“Cheers, Dr. Chris. You are very welcome.”



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