"They throw darts," said Grego.
"That was my own word for it," said Quara. "I didn't understand that it was speech."
"Because it wasn't speech," said Grego.
"That was five years ago," said Ender. "You said the darts they send out carry the needed genes and then all the viruses that receive the darts revise their own structure to include the new gene. That's hardly language."
"But that isn't the only time they send darts," said Quara. "Those messenger molecules are moving in and out all the time, and most of the time they aren't incorporated into the body at all. They get read by several parts of the descolada and then they're passed on to another one."
"This is language?" asked Grego.
"Not yet," said Quara. "But sometimes after a virus reads one of these darts, it makes a new dart and sends it out. Here's the part that tells me it's a language: The front part of the new dart always begins with a molecular sequence similar to the back tag of the dart that it's answering. It holds the thread of the conversation together."
"Conversation," said Grego scornfully.
"Be quiet or die," said Ela. Even after all these years, Ender realized, Ela's voice still had the power to curb Grego's snottiness--sometimes, at least.
"I've tracked some of these conversations for as many as a hundred statements and answers. Most of them die out much sooner than that. A few of them are incorporated into the main body of the virus. But here's the most interesting thing--it's completely voluntary. Sometimes one virus will pick up that dart and keep it, while most of the others don't. Sometimes most of the viruses will keep a particular dart. But the area where they incorporate these message darts is exactly that area that has been hardest to map. It's hardest to map because it isn't part of their structure, it's their memory, and individuals are all different from each other. They also tend to weed out a few memory fragments when they've taken on too many darts."
"This is all fascinating," said Grego, "but it isn't science. There are plenty of explanations for these darts and the random bonding and shedding--"
"Not random!" said Quara.
"None of this is language," said Grego.
Ender ignored the argument, because Jane was whispering in his ear through the jewel-like transceiver he wore there. She spoke to him more rarely now than in years past. He listened carefully, taking nothing for granted. "She's on to something," Jane said. "I've looked at her research and there's something going on here that doesn't happen with any other subcellular creature. I've run many different analyses on the data, and the more I simulate and test this particular behavior of the descolada, the less it looks like genetic coding and the more it looks like language. At the moment we can't rule out the possibility that it is voluntary."
When Ender turned his attention back to the argument, Grego was speaking. "Why do we have to turn everything we haven't figured out yet into some kind of mystical experience?" Grego closed his eyes and intoned, "I have found new life! I have found new life!"
"Stop it!" shouted Quara.
"This is getting out of hand," said Novinha. "Grego, try to keep this at the level of rational discussion."
"It's hard to, when the whole thing is so irrational. Ate agora quem ja imaginou microbiologista que se torna namorada de uma molecula?" Who ever heard of a microbiologist getting a crush on a molecule?
"Enough!" said Novinha sharply. "Quara is as much a scientist as you are, and--"
"She was," muttered Grego.
"And--if you'll kindly shut up long enough to hear me out--she has a right to be heard." Novinha was quite angry now, but, as usual, Grego seemed unimpressed. "You should know by now, Grego, that it's often the ideas that sound most absurd and counterintuitive at first that later cause fundamental shifts in the way we see the world."
"Do you really think this is one of those basic discoveries?" asked Grego, looking them in the eye, each in turn. "A talking virus? Se Quara sabe tanto, porque ela nao diz o que e que aqueles bichos dizem?" If she knows so much about it, why doesn't she tell us what these little beasts are saying? It was a sign that the discussion was getting out of hand, that he broke into Portuguese instead of speaking in Stark, the language of science--and dipl
omacy.
"Does it matter?" asked Ender.
"Matter!" said Quara.
Ela looked at Ender with consternation. "It's only the difference between curing a dangerous disease and destroying an entire sentient species. I think it matters."
"I meant," said Ender patiently, "does it matter whether we know what they're saying."
"No," said Quara. "We'll probably never understand their language, but that doesn't change the fact that they're sentient. What do viruses and human beings have to say to each other, anyway?"
"How about, 'Please stop trying to kill us'?" said Grego. "If you can figure out how to say that in virus language, then this might be useful."
"But Grego," said Quara, with mock sweetness, "do we say that to them, or do they say that to us?"