"Тед Чан. Seventy-Two Letters (72 буквы, Рассказ) (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

form. However, they obtained a peculiar result when working with the
seminal foetuses of humans. After no more than five generations, the male
foetuses held no more spermatozoa, and the females held no more ova. The
line terminated in a sterile generation."
"I imagine that wasnТt entirely unexpected," Stratton said, glancing at
the jellied form. "Each repetition must further attenuate some essence in
the organisms. ItТs only logical that at some point the offspring would be
so feeble that the process would fail."
"That was Dubuisson and GilleТs initial assumption as well," agreed
Fieldhurst, "so they sought to improve their technique. However, they
could find no difference between megafoetuses of succeeding generations in
terms of size or vitality. Nor was there any decline in the number of
spermatozoa or ova; the penultimate generation was fully as fertile as the
first. The transition to sterility was an abrupt one.
"They found another anomaly as well: while some spermatozoa yielded
only four or fewer generations, variation occurred only across samples,
never within a single sample. They evaluated samples from father and son
donors, and in such instances, the fatherТs spermatozoa produced exactly
one more generation than the sonТs. And from what I understand, some of
the donors were aged individuals indeed. While their samples held very few
spermatozoa, they nonetheless held one more generation than those from
sons in the prime of their lives. The progenitive power of the sperm bore
no correlation with the health or vigor of the donor; instead, it
correlated with the generation to which the donor belonged."
Fieldhurst paused and looked at Stratton gravely. "It was at this point
that the Acadщmie contacted me to see if the Royal Society could duplicate
their findings. Together we have obtained the same result using samples
collected from peoples as varied as the Lapps and the Hottentots. We are
in agreement as to the implication of these findings: that the human
species has the potential to exist for only a fixed number of generations,
and we are within five generations of the final one."


* * *


Stratton turned to Ashbourne, half expecting him to confess that it was
all an elaborate hoax, but the elder nomenclator looked entirely solemn.
Stratton looked at the megafoetus again and frowned, absorbing what he had
heard. "If your interpretation is correct, other species must be subject
to a similar limitation. Yet from what I know, the extinction of a species
has never been observed."
Fieldhurst nodded. "That is true. However, we do have the evidence of
the fossil record, which suggests that species remain unchanged for a
period of time, and then are abruptly replaced by new forms.
The Catastrophists hold that violent upheavals caused species to become
extinct. Based on what weТve discovered regarding preformation, it now
appears that extinctions are merely the result of a species reaching the
end of its lifetime. They are natural rather than accidental deaths, in a
manner of speaking." He gestured to the doorway from which they had