“I’ve brought you here for a briefing on Macaria’s experiments,” he said. “She’ll be publishing the results shortly, but I wanted you to hear them first.”
Carlo was relieved; this didn’t sound like a preamble to the termination of his own project. “What’s the work about?”
Macaria said, “I’m in the early stages of an investigation into infrared communication in lizards.”
“Communication?” Amanda had worked with lizards for years; she was entitled to express some skepticism at the claim.
“‘Signaling’ might be a better word,” Tosco suggested. “We’re not talking about a language, in the conventional sense.”
“Ivo found an infrared-sensitive component in lizard skin,” Macaria explained. “So I wondered if it had a specific role—maybe supplementing ordinary vision in some way. But I thought the easiest starting point would be to look for a complementary substance: one that would emit IR to the environment in response to an internal signal. And I found one.”
“Triggered chemically?” Amanda asked.
Macaria said, “No. It responds directly to illumination from pathways in the flesh at the usual wavelengths, but it’s shielded from external visible light by a layer that’s only transparent in infrared.”
“Ah.” Amanda sounded as if she was starting to be won over, but Carlo was still unconvinced; demonstrating an interesting physical property in some goo you’d centrifuged out of lizard skin didn’t prove that that property served a biological function.
“I set up an infrared camera and took exposures of small lizard populations in various circumstances, to see if I could catch the signal being used,” Macaria continued. “Most of the experiments came up blank. A new food source and the appearance of a predator—things that elicit audible calls—didn’t trigger any infrared chatter.”
Carlo said, “But…?”
“When I took two groups that had been bred apart and brought them together for the first time, the paper turned black.” Macaria swept a hand back and forth, as if slathering dye onto a sheet. “I’d been expecting a few gray streaks across the image, but in a two-lapse exposure there was complete saturation wherever a lizard had been in view.”
Carlo understood now what the meeting was about. “So you think this is what carries an influence?”
Tosco said, “We don’t want to rush to any conclusions.”
“No.” But it was a tantalizing possibility. When two unrelated groups of animals came together, they almost always managed to exchange some traits. Lizards had no males, so there was no question of cross-breeding, but in other species even when the groups were kept from making physical contact the next generation of young ended up with traits that could not be explained by ordinary inheritance. The mechanism remained so obscure that biologists still used the vocabulary of folklore: an “influence” passed between the groups. When you had no idea how the traits had actually been disseminated, what else could you say?
“I’m going to test that hypothesis, of course,” Macaria said. “Block the IR or interfere with it, and see if that affects the exchange of traits. But it’s going to take several generations of animals to get meaningful results.”
“In the meantime,” Tosco said, “I think this calls for a collaboration. Carlo and Amanda have experience with their light recorder, capturing the time sequence of internal signals. So I want the three of you to work together, to analyze the structure of these IR signals in the same way.”
Carlo felt a twinge of anxiety returning; Macaria’s discovery was important, but he didn’t want his own work slowed down. “You’re not scaling back our project?”
“No.” Tosco was annoyed by this petty response. “All I’m asking you to do is to find the time to help Macaria become familiar with your techniques. Anything more is up to you—though I would have thought you’d be grateful for the chance to become involved in this work and learn from it yourself.”
Carlo was duly chastened. “Of course.”
And Tosco had a point. The messages that moved within the flesh had proved harder to manipulate than he’d imagined, whereas the signals Macaria had found were out in the open, there for the taking. This might be a chance to watch some kind of concise description of traits moving from group to group, instead of trying to take apart the detailed mechanics of the same traits unfolding within each animal’s body.
He didn’t know whether quadraparous voles were ever influenced by biparous cousins to follow their example. But if they were—and if he could record the transaction that made it happen—how far might that take him?
“I’d be happy to help Macaria,” he said. “And happy to learn from her.”
27
Tamara waited in the visiting room, harnessed to a bench, fidgeting with the three seasoned loaves she’d brought. Patches of red moss glowed from the walls, but the hue looked strange to her, as if it belonged to a different species than the one she was accustomed to. The prison had been built in the middle of a disused engine feed; for most of her life she’d been aware of its existence without ever knowing exactly where it was.
The guard brought Erminio into the room, then withdrew. “Has he gone to fetch Tamaro?” she asked her father.
“Tamaro isn’t coming. He doesn’t need to see you.”
Need? “It’s his choice,” she said. “I thought it would be so boring here that he’d welcome a visit from anyone, but if he’s found a better way to pass the time, good for him.”
She offered one of the loaves to Erminio. He hesitated, then accepted it.
“How Tamaro spends his time isn’t your concern,” Erminio said. “He has someone else to visit him.”
Tamara understood what he was implying. The news took her by surprise, but she did her best not to show it. “As I said, good for him.”
Erminio finished the loaf, then leaned back in his harness and stretched his arms languidly. “I hope you haven’t come to beg for your entitlement back. There’s no chance of that now: it’s well and truly spoken for.”
Tamara buzzed with derision. “What, she’s given birth already?”
Erminio said, “Hardly. But Tamaro’s made a formal agreement. With a co-stead and future children involved, you’ll never get the transfer rescinded.”
“I never expected to,” Tamara said angrily. “I keep my promises.”
“You’ll still be looked after,” Erminio declared magnanimously, as if this were somehow his doing.
Tamara said, “I know the terms of the transfer; I dictated them myself. If Tamaro was here I expect he’d be thanking me for them, but I don’t know why you’ve raised the subject. You’ll be looked after, too.”
“So why did you come here?” Erminio asked coolly. “You survived your trip, so you’ve come to gloat?”
“I’m not sure why I bothered,” Tamara replied. “You’re still my family, I thought I owed you something.”
“There is no family,” Erminio said. “You’ve destroyed it. Tamaro has done the only honorable thing he can, in the circumstances: he’ll salvage the life of a blameless woman who’s lost her co. But the flesh you inherited was wasted on you. You think you’re vindicated, because you gambled with your life and won. But who’ll raise your children now? It would have been better if you’d died in the void.”
“I think I should go. Give Tamaro my regards.” She took hold of the rope behind her and began to pull herself out of the harness.
“Don’t bother coming back,” Erminio said. “I have more than enough visitors to keep me entertained. A lot of people want to show their support. They know our punishment was an injustice.”