Mattson turned to Wilson. “And, Lieutenant?”
Wilson pointed to the body in the crèche, being fussed over by the technicians. “The body is healthy, and so is the brain. The BrainPal is functioning perfectly, which is no surprise. We’ve been able to integrate Boutin’s consciousness pattern into the transfer machinery with surprisingly few problems, and the test runs we’ve done suggest there won’t be a problem with transmission. In theory, we should be able to transfer the consciousness like we do with any consciousness.”
“Your words sound confident, Lieutenant, but your voice doesn’t,” Mattson said.
“There are a lot of uncertainties, General,” Wilson said. “Usually the subject is conscious when he transfers over. That helps with the process. We don’t have that here. We won’t know whether the transfer is successful until we wake up the body. This is the first time we’ve tried a transfer without two brains involved. If it’s not actually Boutin’s consciousness in there, the pattern won’t take. Even if it is Boutin’s consciousness in there, there’s no guarantee it will imprint. We’ve done everything we can to assure a smooth transfer. You’ve read the reports. But there’s still so much involved that we don’t know about. We know all the ways it could go right, but not all the ways it could go wrong.”
“Do you think it will work or don’t you?” Mattson said.
“I think it will work,” Wilson said. “But we need to have a healthy respect for all the things we don’t know about what we’re doing. There’s a lot of room for error. Sir.”
“Robbins?” Mattson said.
“Lieutenant Wilson’s assessment seems right to me, General,” Robbins said.
The technicians finished their assessment and reported to General Szilard, who nodded and walked over to Mattson. “The techs say we’re ready,” Szilard said.
Mattson glanced at Robbins, then Wilson. “Fine,” he said. “Let’s get this over with.”
The Colonial Defense Special Forces build soldiers using a simple recipe: First, start with a human genome. Then subtract.
The human genome comprises roughly twenty thousand genes made from three billion base pairs, spread out over twenty-three chromosomes. Most of the genome is “junk”—portions of the sequence that do not code for anything in the final product of the DNA: a human being. Once nature puts a sequence into DNA it appears reluctant to remove it even if it does nothing at all.
Special Forces scientists are not nearly so precious. With each new body model they build, their first step is to strip out the redundant and switched-off genetic matter. What is left is a lean, mean, streamlined DNA sequence that is completely useless; editing the human genome destroys its chromosomal structure, leaving it unable to reproduce. But this is just a first step. Reassembling and replicating the new genome is several steps away.
The new, small DNA sequence features every gene that makes a human what he or she is, and this simply is not good enough. The human genotype does not allow the human phenotype the plasticity the Special Forces require, which is to say: Our genes can’t make the superhumans Special Forces soldiers need to be. What is left of the human genome is now rent apart, redesigned and reassembled to build the genes that will code for substantially enhanced abilities. This process can require the introduction of additional genes or genetic material. The genes that come from other humans usually present little problem with their incorporation, since the human genome is fundamentally designed to accommodate genetic information from other human genomes (the process by which this is usually, naturally and enthusiastically accomplished is called “sex”). Genetic material from other terrestrial species is also relatively easy to incorporate, seeing as all life on Earth features the same genetic building blocks and are related to each other genetically.
Incorporating genetic material from non-terrestrial species is substantially more difficult. Some planets evolved genetic structures roughly similar to Earth’s, incorporating some if not all the nucleotides involved in terrestrial genetics (perhaps not coincidentally, the intelligent species of these planets have been known to consume humans from time to time; the Rraey, for example, found humans quite tasty). But most alien species have genetic structures and components wildly different from terrestrial creatures. Using their genes is not a simple matter of cutting and pasting.