The Genome Paradox (3) "Not only did I look, but I believe I have something significant to show you". "Don’t keep me in suspense, John. Tell me what you’ve got". "I can’t Frances, it is something you’ve got to see for yourself, not hear about over the phone. Why don’t we meet as soon as possible at my place". "Definitely not, it’s my turn. Please come to my place for diner. Don’t expect fine cuisine though!". And so the very next day John was showing off with copies of the hard work that he accomplished so far and what he believed to be very positive results. Frances was so impressed that she could not contain her excitement. Frances stared again and again at the copies of the images that John had reproduced. She agreed that those circles, lines and triangles had to have some information content and were possibly part of a coded message. After a quick supper consisting mostly of pizza, she went on discussing John’s findings around a cup of coffee. John was exuberant . They both discussed intensely As they were examining the various figures in the image, a thought crossed his mind. He ran to his well stacked bookshelves where he pulled out the book We Are Not Alone by Walter Sullivan . He flipped though the pages quickly until he found the page containing the picture of a plate that had been sent on both Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecrafts. It contained a descriptive image created by Carl Sagan, his wife Linda Salzman and Frank Drake to be deciphered by any intelligent alien that would capture the Space Craft in its flight through our Galaxy. He showed it to Frances and summarized what the different symbols were meant to represent. They were intended to inform those aliens about the human race, what they were made off and their place in the universe. It did not take Frances very long to make the parallelism with the pictures they had in front of them. She exclaimed, "John, are you starting to agree with me that the rough partial image we have so far might be a story that "someone" is trying to tell us? "Obviously, I am catching up with you!" Forgetting about the dessert, they were now both engrossed in the study of the enigma that was facing them. The big question was how to interpret it. It became quickly apparent that one way or another, the remaining part of the picture had to be brought out of the mysterious code. John took immense interest in this finding. He therefore told Frances that he had to decipher the remaining part of the code, or at least more of it, as this was necessary to make sense of what they were seeing. She realized, as they were working together that her excitement in discussing the figures with John was reciprocated by John and also his love for science fiction added to the "piquant"of the evening-- she could tell him her thoughts about a "creator" behind the Code without feeling embarrassed. That evening was pure delight. Later, Frances had to force herself to leave his place as she knew that if she stayed much longer she could no longer control her emotions. She needed time to analyze those new strong feelings that were slowly overtaking her. Reluctantly she went to the door promising to carry on the research with John until they would both be satisfied with the resolution. John had tremendous urge throughout the evening to take her into his arms -- she was everything he could hope for-- but she had a boyfriend and he had to respect that. As he opened the door to let her out and was moving his head to kiss her on the cheek, she interrupted this motion midway with her own lips and kissed him quickly, but tenderly, on his mouth as she made her exit. John, in a terribly good mood, knew he was too excited to sleep, so he went back to his computer. By now, his pursuit of the problem was becoming an obsession. As he polished the required compression technique step by step, he got more and more of the picture revealed. After more blood sweat and tears, John finally managed to improve the picture to a point of diminishing return. It was time to get back to Frances and work with her on the interpretation " Wait until you see what I’ve got to show you," he said jubilantly over the phone. The next day he invited Frances to his place. After a warm welcome, they both got busy on the project that was getting them so involved John showed Frances the image that was reconstructed to the best of his ability. Apart from very small areas that were still undefined, most of the image was undeniably revealing something. To the lines, circles and triangles that she had noticed previously, she could now distinguish many other symbols. Looking at the picture, they were struck by the complexity of the symbols it contained. Having been exposed to pictograms such as the ones from Sagan and others, John tried to make a mental comparison with them. Nothing was obvious at a cursory glance except , on the upper left hand corner, one of the symbols could be recognized as a creature from outerspace. It could be interpreted to represent a being with one head, one eye a mouth, one arm and two legs. The rest was not so easy. Beside the creature, there were other signs that could be symbolic chemical representations of molecules. Other symbols had no simple interpretation, except, along the bottom of the image, was what seemed to be a duplicate of the creature with the hand and fingers pointing at itself. By now John shared fully Frances’ mystical feeling that this might represent something important. It did not take John long to figure out that some of the symbols represented actual atoms and molecules and long chains of them, the exact nature of which would require some investigation. He also identified a number of star clusters which had configurations close to but not exactly what would be expected if seen from earth. Frances liked the way John’s mind worked. As he talked and pointed out some features of the symbols in front of them, she could not contain her excitement in seeing him reveal information that looked at first meaningless to her. He was so logical. Maybe his interpretations were wrong, but he was so convincing! This got her to move closer and closer to him as she had the excuse of wanting to have a better look at the images. She enjoyed so much the proximity of their bodies that she wanted to be in his arms. She restrained herself as he was, by this time, very serious and intense during the discussion. There were many unanswered responses to their questions and it was evident that it would take quite sometime merely to get the essence of the message. No matter, this gave them both the opportunity to see each other on a continuous basis until their project would be completed. Each time they met, they got a little closer. It was a real meeting of minds. The more Frances saw John the less she thought of her boyfriend. The fact that Frances mentioned her boyfriend less and less when being with John, gave him more encouragement. He was not going to press -- he did not want to say or do anything that might spoil it all. He was having so much fun! In addition to their now frequent meetings, John kept on working on his own. He wanted to please Frances as well as satisfy his insatiable curiosity. In each of these solo episodes, he kept on staring again and again at the cluster of molecules that seemed very familiar . His great knowledge of polymers and his intuition soon allowed him to decode the molecular arrangements, even though they were not presented by symbols commonly used by chemists. With a few adjustments, he could recognize two groups of polymers. One was carbon based and similar to what we know as DNA molecules. The other, was silicon based. He puzzled for a long time not only on the content but the respective position of the various items in the picture. He concentrated on what was most familiar and of special interest to him, leaving out many other parts of the puzzle to be filled later. He painstakingly managed to build a message with some blanks remaining. His surprise was indescribable when he finally deciphered an essential part of the message in the middle of the night. He felt he was almost there, but something important was still missing. He could not wait to show it to Frances next day. He went to bed but could not sleep. His eyes were wide open, his mind racing in all directions, wondering how he had gotten to that state of frenzy. His mind flashed back to when it all began, on that fatidical evening a few months ago... Next day, John was all fired up to tell Frances about his latest finding. Before he could, however, Frances was just as adamant to talk to him first. She wanted to tell him that her relation with her boyfriend was not serious. She felt that until she had told him that, a wall would remain to hinder their relationship. She therefore unfolded all her bottled up emotions in one swoop and went on : "You might have wondered why I have not introduced you to my boyfriend yet." He blurted out, "Since you didn’t talk about him, I was wishing him away and started to believe he did not exist anymore- but I guess I was wrong." "...but you didn’t let me finish" she said nervously. "The only reason I didn’t talk about my boyfriend all this time was that I didn’t think of him that way anymore." Then she went on explaining how her emotions had slowly turned away from her boyfriend to the point that she now wanted to avoid him altogether. As she was talking, she got closer and closer to him, her beautiful eyes reflecting her deep inner feelings for him. John’s color started to come back. His heart was beating strongly, though erratically; his emotions having flipped from excitement to despair and now to exhilaration. His love for her could finally be expressed without reservation. He took her tenderly into his arms and they exchanged the most passionate kiss. After they had consummated their love, John was in seventh heaven and yet he was restless. He thought that to crown the evening, he was going to show Frances his latest findings. After all, it was their project that was the cause for their mutually found happiness. "I am so terribly happy, Frances, that I would like this evening to last forever. I am afraid that this is a dream and that I am going to wake up any time. How would you like to have a quick look at our project to convince me that this evening is for real? "Great mind think alike," Frances said tenderly. "I was just going to suggest it myself. This project is so much a part of us that there would be something missing if we did not have at least a look at it!" "Oh good! I want to review with you the message that we have built up over time, plus the final additions that I have made the last couple of days. We are so close to a solution and yet I feel we are still missing a key part of the message related to the being pointing at itself. First, have a look." She read the message rapidly with the added contribution from John and she was quite impressed with what he had accomplished since their last meeting. "I see what you mean. We are almost there!" she said pensively. After a few moments her face lightened and she went on, "I have an idea. My intuition tells me that there is a parallel between this message and what your project is all about. Didn’t you tell me that you were the originator of the idea to make your microrobots silicon-based creatures that could multiply and adapt through evolution?" "Yes, but what does this have to do with anything?" he said puzzled. "Well don’t you see! If you were to tell some alien what You have done in a pictorial fashion, wouldn’t you also use the trick of pointing to yourself to say ‘I’?" "I guess so." "In this light, let me add a few words to the message." She scribbled rapidly and excitedly. They both looked at the final version and she read aloud: "WE ARE SILICON BASED CREATURES. WE HAD PROBLEMS OF SURVIVAL BECAUSE... SO I DEVELOPED A NEW KIND OF CELL BASED ON CARBON... WE PLACED SOME OF THESE ON A NUMBER OF PLANETS (INCLUDING EARTH) AND ARE FOLLOWING THEIR EVOLUTION BY CONSTANT MONITORING AND HOPE THEY WILL EVOLVE INTO SOMETHING USEFUL TO HELP US COLONIZE THOSE NEW WORLDS..." Then they looked at each other in total silence, full of awe. Frances finally broke the silence. "Good God, we have just met our creator!"
Copyright © 2004 A Waksberg |