Free Nancy Kress by Nothing Human

tumor-suppresser genes, and if the cell starts dividing wildly, they stop it by making it commit suicide. When the tumor-suppresser genes aren’t working right, you get cancer.”
    Cancer. In the last ten years, since the human genome was first mapped, medicine had made some progress toward curing cancer. That is, they could cure some cancers some of the time for some people, which had always pretty much been the situation. Now the success rate was higher, but it was still a long way from even fifty percent.
    Reeder said, “Sertoli and follicular cells regulate sperm and eggs. They knock out all the ones whose DNA isn’t perfect. A five-month-old female fetus has seven million germ cells—sort of pre-eggs. At birth there are only two million. At puberty, less than a million. Only about five hundred will be allowed to mature.”
    Keith said, “So these Sertoli proteins are really good at finding the cells with damaged genes and killing them. And if you could somehow apply that to cancer cells …”
    “Bingo,” Reeder said. Then he let himself get excited. “It’s been thought of before, but the obstacles are huge. But the drawings Hannah did Wednesday and today … I think the pribir are giving us the genetic code to create synthetic proteins that will kill all cancers all the time.”
    “Well, that should certainly counterbalance the first bad impression they made by killing the SkyPower workers.”
    He was surprised at his own cynicism. So, apparently was Reeder, who said stiffly, “That seems a pretty trivializing way to view a cure for our major killer of people over forty.”
    Which only showed how quickly the first impression was being counterbalanced. The pribir obviously knew what they were doing.
     
    Andrews now swarmed with doctors. Keith watched the medvac helicopters airlift terminally ill patients into Malcolm Grow. Three, four a day. It was too big to muffle; the newsnets had it within a week.
     
    PRIBIR CURE CANCER!!!
    ALIENS CHANNEL FORMULAS FOR CANCER CURES THROUGH ‘PRIBIR CHILDREN’
    BENEFACTORS OR CONTROLLERS?
    “OUR LAST HOPE,” SAYS TEARFUL DAUGHTER, BRINGS MOM 300 MILES BY GOLF CART
     
    The drawings continued to flow, one or two a day. Someone in Maryland reported seeing a “tiny rocket” descend from the sky and then break open, presumably scattering pribir molecules, but there was no way to confirm or deny this. Air tests at Andrews continued to turn up nothing anomalous in the air. Neither did radar.
    A school was finally organized. Lillie resumed algebra.
    A few more parents left, forced out by the pressures of ordinary life. Keith had begun spending his free time, of which he had too much, with a psychologist divorcee from Connecticut. Her son was part of the bunch of kids Lillie hung around with. She was warm and funny and pretty, but both of them recognized that the surreal circumstances permitted nothing real to develop between them.
    The day she left to go home, she came by the bungalow to say goodbye. “I’ve left my other son with his father too long, Keith. That bastard’s not fit to take care of a gerbil, and Lenny’s only seven. David is thirteen, he can fend for himself better, and this place cushions the kids more effectively than I’d dare hope.”
    “I’ll keep an eye on him, Jenna.”
    “Thank you. I hoped you say that. You know …”
    “What?”
    She smiled wanly. “Anna Freud said something once about motherhood. She said, ‘A mother’s role is to be left.’ I believe that. But not like this, Keith. Not like this.”
    He kissed her regretfully, not contradicting.
    That night one of the doctors —there were so many that he had trouble keeping them straight—made a formal call on Keith. Lillie was at a basketball game at the youth center.
    “Mr. Anderson, we’d like your permission to do an experiment with Lillie.”
    “An experiment on Lillie?”
    “Not ‘on’ —‘with.’ We asked for volunteers and Lillie immediately raised her hand, but