“My body knows how, even at this old age.” He laughed. “Doing what comes unnaturally.”

But his personal happiness aside, the picture Anton began to paint looked worse and worse. “His plan was simple enough,” said Anton. “He planned to destroy the human race.”

“Why? That makes no sense. Vengeance?”

“No, no. Destroy and replace. The virus he chose would go straight to the reproductive cells in the body. Every sperm, every ovum. They infest, but they don’t kill. They just snip and replace. All kinds of changes. Strength and speed of an East African. A few changes I don’t understand because nobody’s really mapped that part of the genome—not for function. And some I don’t even know where they fit on the human genome. I’d have to try them out and I can’t do that. That would be real science. Someone else. Later.”

“You’re sidestepping the big change,” said Bean.

“My little key,” said Anton. “His virus turns the key.”

“So he has no cure. No way to switch the key for intellectual ability without also triggering this perpetual growth pattern.”

“If he had it, he’d use it. There’s no advantage not to.”

“So it is a biological weapon.”

“Weapon? Something that affects only your children? Makes them die of giantism before they’re twenty? Oh, that would make armies run in panic.”

“What then?”

“Volescu thinks he’s God. Or at least he’s playing dress-up with God’s clothing. He’s trying to jump the whole human race to the next stage of evolution. Spread this disease so that no normal children can be born, ever again.”

“But that’s insane. Everybody dying so young—”

“No, no, Julian. No, not insane. Why do humans live so long? Mathematicians and poets, they burn out in their mid-twenties anyway. We live so long because of grandchildren. In a difficult world, grandparents can help ensure the survival of their grandchildren. The societies that kept their old people around and listened to them and respected them—that fed them—always do better. But that’s a community on the edge of starvation. Always at risk. Are we at risk so much today?”

“If these wars keep getting worse—”

“Yes, war,” said Anton. “Kill off a whole generation of men, yet the grandfathers keep their sexual potency. They can propagate the next generation even if the young ones are dead. But Volescu thinks we’re ready to move beyond planning for the deaths of young men.”

“So he doesn’t mind having generations that are less than twenty years.”

“Change society’s patterns. When were you ready to assume an adult role, Bean? When was your brain ready to go to work and change the world?”

“Age ten. Earlier, if I’d had good education.”

“So you get good education. All our schools change because children are ready to learn at age three. Age two. By age ten, if Volescu’s gene change takes place, the new generation is completely ready to take over for the old. Marry as early as possible. Breed like bunnies. Become giants. Irresistible in war. Until they keel over from heart attacks. Don’t you see? Instead of spending the young men in violent death, we send the old men—the eighteen-year-olds. While all the work in science, technology, building, planting, everything—all done by the young men. The ten-year-olds. All of them like you.”