"It's a basic human need," said Henshaw. "People need to
stick up for something. Why do you think football is so popular? You see, it's still okay,
up to a point, to stick up for a football team, whereas the idea of sticking up for class,
country, race, creed, sex, age, or species has rightfully been discredited. The problem is
that you and I don't like football. Which is why we sit here, day after day, with vacant
expressions on our faces. With no cause to defend, we're spiritually dispossessed,
alienated from history, flawed as people."
I disagreed. It seemed to me that finding something to stick up for was
merely a process of elimination. Okay, it's narrow-minded and shabby to stick up for
country creed, species, and so on, but broaden your horizons and what do you find?
Fundamental biology. There are 12 says to make life forms based on carbon, and eight based
on silicon. There are also 127 ways of making life-forms based on elements and compounds
that don't occur in this universe, so we won't go into those. Of the 12 carbon-based
life-forms, four are built from a chemical called ANA. They have a life-span measured in
nanoseconds and are unable to reproduce. They crop up from time to time, mostly in
garages. They tell you they'll have your car fixed by Wednesday and then die, leaving no
relatives. If you ever get the car back, there'll be black slime on the steering wheel.
This is the "corpse".
Another four of the carbon-based life-forms - the ones constructed from
BNA - have never mastered the knack of mortality. They live forever, mostly around
volcanic outlets deep beneath the sea, but some of them have confectionery shops in
Nuneaton. You go into one for a box of Orange Matchmakers. They take ages serving you,
just as if they've got all the time in the world, which, of course, they have. The good
thing is you can prod them and they don't mind. Apprentice slaughterhouse workers
sometimes use them for practice.
Another three of the carbon-based
life-forms - the CNA ones - have a dietary problem. Their digestive systems can only
work with food groups that have not yet been invented. All the foodstuffs on which other
life-forms dine - krill, peas, sunlight, toast - are poison to them.
One day, the nourishment they need will be
devised, probably by accident, and they'll take over the Earth, which well be a pity
because they look like bacon and act strict. Until then, they go from peckish to starving
in no time at all.
Which leaves us with the DNA carbon-based life-forms - the group to
which we belong. It is an admirable life-form, capable of reproduction, mutation and
mortality - just the kind of qualities you need in a life-form. Some of the silicon-based
life-forms scoff at tha very idea of mutation, claiming it often results in silliness.
"Look at the beech tree!" they sneer. "Look at the pug!" In response
to which all a carbon-based life-form has to do is remove a bone or twig, char it, draw
pictures with the result, and say, "Can you do that?" It shuts silicon-based
life-forms up damned fast, I can tell you - the old melty-bones.
"You've encountered silicon-based
life-forms, then, have you?" asked Henshaw.
"No," I replied. "I was
merely indulging in conjecture. Luckily, we don't see many silicon-based life-forms on
this planet, and people who do see them usually have beards and live in caravans, because
the Government won't fund proper institutions, so I don't think we've much to worry
about."
"So you reckon it'd be okay to stick up
for DNA-style carbon-based life-forms?"
"Until an oppressed minority of other
life-forms happens along, yes, I do."
The following day, Henshaw had a couple of
T-shirts printed with our new battlecry. "DNA-Style Carbon- Based Life-Forms Are
Pretty Much Okay." We spent most of Tuesday looking at the skies, hoping to find
something to kick the shit out of.
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