The Motion Parallax fizzed into life, an invisible vessel filling up with sound and color. Seeing him now, she was struck by how much clearer in the old man’s broad features were Dallas’s own racial antecedents, for although he and his father had been born in America, they were of Greek descent. She had no idea of just how significant ancestry — her own as well as his — was about to become.
John Dallas smiled benignly at his son and daughter-in-law and leaned across the large walnut desk that his son always remembered whenever he tried to recall an image of his father.
‘Hi there,’ said Dallas.
‘Hello, son. Hello, Aria. Is that my granddaughter you have there?’
Aria nodded and hoped that by the time the real John Dallas saw Caro, there would be some change for the better in the child’s condition.
‘First of all,’ the Motion Parallax was saying, ‘I’d like to thank you both for your patience. I know things haven’t been easy for you of late. It’s taken us a little time to get where we are now. To a position where we can finally say, “Yes, we know what’s the matter with the child.” But you know, modern medicine still has a long way to travel. We have learned so much that’s new that sometimes we forget what we already knew. There are so many modern diseases we can cure today — HIV, P2, St. Petersburg fever, Waugh’s disease, Ebola fever, New Guinea cholera — that sometimes we don’t pay enough attention to some of the more ancient ones.’
‘Is that what this is?’ asked Dallas. ‘An old disease?’
‘Yes. Caro’s suffering from what the peoples of the ancient world used to call “sea fever.” ’
‘But we never swim in the ocean,’ protested Aria. ‘Do we, Dallas?’
‘That’s right,’ he confirmed. ‘People like us just wouldn’t go near it. The ocean’s not much more than a toilet these days. The diseases in the Atlantic are about the only things alive in it.’
Dallas Senior nodded patiently.
‘As I said, it’s merely what the peoples of the ancient world called this disease. That is, the people who lived around the Mediterranean Sea, since most of the early cases originated there. These days, however, we know the disease by a different name. We call it thalassemia. It comes from the Greek words thalassa, “sea,” an, “none,” and haimia, “blood.” ’
‘And this is what Caro’s got?’ asked Aria. ‘Thalassemia?’
‘That’s right, Aria. The thalassemias are a heterogeneous group of inherited disorders characterized by reduced or absent synthesis by one or more globin chain type. This leads to a situation in which body oxygen demands are not met by the circulating blood cell mass, which itself suffers a shortened life span.’
‘How did she get it?’ frowned Aria, who always thought she had been as careful with her child as was humanly possible.
‘Well, in a way, you both gave it to her.’
‘We did?’
‘If you’re at all familiar with Gregor Mendel’s Laws of Independent Assortment, then I’m sure I can explain it.’
Dallas shook his head. ‘I think you’d best try and keep it simple for now.’
‘All right. You are both descended from people who once lived in Mediterranean countries where malaria used to be endemic. Your ancestors, Dallas, came from Greece, while your people, Aria, originally came from Sardinia. That means you each inherited a gene from your parents that gave you some protection against malaria. But only in the heterozygous state, by which I mean a zygote formed by a union of two unlike gametes. The trouble is that you are both homozygous and your union was a union of two similar gametes. And that was unfortunate for Caro, because her illness is caused by these genetically determined abnormalities. It’s what gives her this peculiar blood disorder.’ Dallas Senior shook his head. ‘I’m not making a very good job of keeping it simple I’m afraid. Best just say that it’s the result of a recessive gene, and leave it there, eh?’
‘Wait a minute,’ protested Aria. ‘Before we tried to have children, we were both screened by our blood bank. Why didn’t they pick this up then?’
‘Because they only screen for viruses. Like P2. This is genetic. The screening process wouldn’t have picked this up at all. Wasn’t designed to. Besides, here in the States, it’s extremely rare. During the past fifty-seven years, there has been only one other case like it in this hospital. That’s why we took rather longer to find out what it was. Of course, now it all makes perfect sense. The absence of globin synthesis. The functional anemia. The hepatosplenomegaly, by which I mean her enlarged liver and spleen. The slight skeletal deformities such as the bossing of the skull and the curious maxillary prominence.’
Aria glanced down at the silent baby that lay in her lap. She had grown used to the shape of Caro’s head, and these days, she hardly thought it curious at all. ‘So how do we cure it?’ she asked quietly.
‘We can treat it,’ said the Motion Parallax. ‘But we can’t actually cure it. You can’t cure something that exists at a genetic level. You do see that, don’t you? It would be like trying to cure one of being Greek or Sardinian.’
Aria nodded. ‘But you can treat it.’
‘Yes.’ Dallas Senior’s voice sounded awkward. ‘It can be treated. However, the treatment is very expensive.’
Aria frowned. ‘We’re not poor people,’ she said, controlling the slight irritation she felt at the very suggestion that they might not be able to afford something. Of course this was why the hospital insisted that you bring your own digital thought recording — so that you were more disposed to maintain a calm and friendly interaction with the computer, instead of losing your temper and shouting at it.
‘A hundred years ago, when the disease was a little more common, the treatment was based on regular blood transfusions aimed at maintaining hemoglobin at the kind of level that would meet her body’s oxygen demands and prevent skeletal changes.’ He paused to allow the import of what was said there to sink in. ‘That was before blood became intrinsically valuable. No one would have thought anything of offering the victim of thalassemia a complete change of blood every month or two. Of course, these days things are rather different. Such a course of treatment would be ruinously expensive. Even for people such as yourselves. It would be a simpler matter to be cured of P2. That requires only one complete change of blood. This would require an infinite number of transfusions.’
‘What alternative do we have?’ demanded Aria. ‘She’s our daughter. We can’t just give up on her. Can we, Dallas?’
‘It might be better if you did,’ said Dallas Senior. ‘You know, there are euthanasia programs to help with this kind of situation. And there’s no need for you to feel bad about it. Not these days. Mercy killing is completely normal. And quite painless.’
Aria shook her head numbly. ‘We went through too much to get her just to let her die now,’ she said. ‘Tell me this. Without the transfusions, she’ll die, right?’
‘Oh certainly. From congestive heart failure or complications secondary to repeated pathological fractures of her weakened bones. I’m afraid it’s merely a matter of time.’
‘Then there’s no question but to proceed,’ said Aria.
‘Look, why don’t you both take some time to think about this. Maybe take some advice from your blood bank manager. A few more days won’t make any difference to your daughter.’
Taking her hand in his own, Dallas faced the Motion Parallax of his own father and nodded.
‘I guess you’re right,’ he said.
But it was plain what Aria thought about that.
‘When could she have the first transfusion?’ asked Aria.