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    Blood Music
    Blood Music
    Blood Music
    Ebook344 pages5 hours

    Blood Music

    By Greg Bear

    4/5

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    Nebula Award Finalist: A genetic engineering breakthrough may portend the destruction of humanity in this cyberpunk novel by the author of The Forge of God.

    This Hugo and Nebula Award finalist follows present-day events in which the fears concerning the nuclear annihilation of the world subsided after the Cold War and the fear of chemical warfare spilled over into the empty void it left behind. An amazing breakthrough in genetic engineering made by Vergil Ulam is considered too dangerous for further research, but rather than destroy his work, he injects himself with his creation and walks out of his lab, unaware of just how his actions will change the world. Author Greg Bear’s treatment of the traditional tale of scientific hubris is both suspenseful and a compelling portrait of a new intelligence emerging amongst us, irrevocably changing our world. 
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateApr 1, 2014
    ISBN9781497607446
    Author

    Greg Bear

    Greg Bear was born in San Diego, California. His father was in the US Navy, and by the time he was twelve years old, Greg had lived in Japan, the Philippines, Alaska – where at the age of ten he completed his first short story – and various other parts of the US. He published his first science fiction story aged sixteen. His novels and stories have won prizes and been translated around the world.

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    Reviews for Blood Music

    4/5

    806 ratings24 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Now a classic, I think this is a well-written, very suspenseful novel.
    • 3/5
      “I'm not as nonchalant as I seem. I'm worried, Edward. I'd like to find a better way to control them before they find out about my brain. I mean, think of it. They're in the billions by now, more if they're converting other kinds of cells. Maybe trillions. Each cluster smart. I'm probably the smartest thing on the planet, and they haven't begun to get their act together. I don't want them to take over.” He laughed unpleasantly. “Steal my soul, you know? So think of some treatment to block them. Maybe we can starve the little buggers. Just think on it." He buttoned his shirt. "Give me a call."A selfish and slapdash scientist brings about the end of the world through sheer carelessness . I'm not sure how I feel about this book, but the more far-fetched it got the less I cared about what was happening.
    • 5/5
      The original gray goo apocalypse. These days we're afraid of nanotechnology and cyber-singularities, but apart from a couple is quaint leftovers from the eighties (disk drives, what no Internet?) it's still a fresh as when I first read it.
    • 3/5
      Nanotechnology--molecular-level machines that are capable of self-replication, become self aware and start redefining
    • 4/5
      It is difficult to put into words why I like this book so much. I’ve read it probably 6 or 7 times and I’m still fascinated with the concept of high intelligence at the micro-scale. Yes, it is perhaps too long and quite choppy, but I can forgive that because the ideas in this book are so intriguing. Plus George Guidall’s voice in narration is gentle and dreamlike; adding to the nirvana-like concept of the Noo-Sphere and the Thought Universe. Tantalizing.Like other good science thriller writers, Bear gives us an explanation of the mechanics underlying his story. I both understood it and took it as read; not being a scientist myself I can’t easily verify whether what he says is true. Basically it sounded plausible and so I could go with it as the basis of the novel; that is that the scientist Ulam in working with the natural mechanics of information exchange among cells, accidentally engineered learning cells, which evolved into sentient, intelligent cells. Not so scary until it is explained that they still work like cells; that is in groups. Now we have groups of intelligent cells running amok in the human body.Eventually they figure out how to overcome the rejection syndrome when moving to another human and they spread. They are explorers and consider Ulum and other early hosts as godlike beings. They have no concept of the macro scale, but when they do get it, they bide their time and continue to learn. It seems to me that because of their co-dependent nature they aren’t subject to the same selfish aggression that humans are. Their very natures are rooted in cooperation and co-existence; like the Borg the concept of the individual is difficult for them to understand. Through interaction as peers with their hosts Ulam and Bernard, they realize more and more about what it is to be human and Bernard experiences not only his own memories, but those of others. This is accomplished through something like mitochondrial DNA; a structure within cells that encodes for memory and serves as a long-term storage vault through generations of people. Racial memory for lack of a better term, only it is stored at a cellular level and can be reproduced and replayed; experienced by others. The original story (which I’ve only read once) is more of a cautionary tale a la Frankenstein; casting the scientist as arrogant, irresponsible and destructive. The novel only starts out that way when the changes to humans in the story are thought to be a disease. The “plague” quickly turns to something else in my mind; a salvation. Humanity will surely destroy itself one day, but preserving ourselves (encoding ourselves) as noocytes gives us immortality of a sense. Basically the story changes to one of the next stage in human evolution. A topic Bear seems to like. Eventually every human loses its macro scale and becomes literally dissolved into a mass of living “tissue”. Certain portions of a person’s brain are encoded to retain the whole of the personality, memories, knowledge and experiences. The rest of the body is taken as general building material for this new micro-scale world. The parts that are fully developed noocytes continue to think, feel and become part of the whole; working with peer cell groups from other people. It’s as if all of humanity has become one gigantic organism. Of course the cells encoded with individual personalities continue to change and one can meet up with a version of oneself; one changed and evolved, but yet still containing the essential personality of the original person. It’s all very idealistic and dreamlike.Many hard core science fiction fans hate this idea and would have liked Bear to keep to known territory; the sacred state of humanity and the preservation there of. Some even liken this to a fascist attempt at racial cleansing; to get rid of the old, the ugly, the mentally challenged etc. Bear never goes there though. He wonders at it through a character; are the bad and defective people integrated as well as the geniuses, or are they deleted or altered to shed their negative characteristics? Another character’s relatives explain it to one not immediately assimilated by saying that they ‘fix’ people. And they do, but do they delete people who don’t meet some kind of standard? We readers never know, but we can speculate.The upshot of so many billions of trillions of intelligent beings concentrated in such a small space is the observer effect. That is the premise that mere observation and/or measurement of a phenomenon will affect it in some way. Any set of closely observed phenomena will change and too much change upsets the balance of the physics of the universe. Then the question; does the universe set the mind’s direction or does the mind set the universe’s direction? Bear doesn’t answer because he can’t. We’re left to wonder about it.And a good deal more. One problem of this novel is that of characters created, fussed over and then dropped completely without resolution. He does the same with some ideas and concepts. I would have liked more resolution if only to bring the story to a close, if not to answer scientific queries. Once the noocytes return, what happens? We’re left with a dream-like vignette of Bernard and his first girlfriend and their first date. In actuality, they never had a second and he’s regretted it all his life. Now encoded into the Thought Universe, he has reconnected with the encoded version of this woman and some of each part of them can relive and redirect the past in a new future. All very idealistic and sort of clangs against the hard science of what came before it. I love the idea of it and I think Bear did, too, but it seems he came to it late in the writing of the novel and I think he should have gone back and modified the spirit and execution of the first parts of the story to check up with his change of plans. He also could have killed some story lines that went nowhere, too. It makes for a messy, but strangely satisfying package.
    • 4/5
      An award winning and original book that is not your typical protagonist-slays-enemy story. The book changes direction dramatically mid way through and we are left with an interesting and mostly convincing discussion of biological computing, alternative theories of physics and the reaction of the world to global catastrophe.Good but not stunning, and certainly not for everybody.
    • 2/5
      Highly overrated. I enjoyed this book until Vergil Ulam injects himself with the cells he is working on. What the hell? I lost interest after that and then just sleep walked through the whole book thinking all the while that this could have been so much better.
    • 4/5
      Thought it was about nanotechnology, which was why I decided to read it. Some of the cover blurbs are also, I don't know, perhaps inaccurate is the right word. I shouldn't expect much veracity from blurbs, but to trumpet this book because it is by someone who really knows the underlying science seems beside the point. Maybe he does. The whole idea of biologic was so speculative in 1984, not to mention other stuff. It's like saying that the reason you read Chrichton's books is because he really knows his science. In the book Prey, for example, he could, but it doesn't really matter, because nanomachines taking over your wife's body is still mostly speculative. Does any of that make sense? I guess what I mean is that the science knowledge didn't seem to have anything to do with the book's verisimilitude.The book's ending is a little deceptive, which may account for the nano-designation it gets in some articles. The cells that take over North America recede into a smaller space, exiting the continent entirely. But this has nothing to do with Van Der Waal forces or nano-dimensional stuff. It all takes place (in the novel) through an information-based warping of the space-time continuum, if I understood correctly.
    • 4/5
      Very technical,good ending, didn't wimp out. Very cool idea. Just read the short story a couple years later and that rocked too.
    • 4/5
      I mentally inhaled this in one night without even realising it
    • 3/5
      Although the premise is great, the book falls flat about 2/3 of the way through. I am somewhat biased about the book because I read the short story first and that, in my opinion, was much stronger and the short story should have been left alone. The book is a good read but was disappointing. Worth reading one time I suppose.
    • 4/5
      Another Hugo book read - this time "Blood Music" by Greg Bear. Its one that has been sitting in my shelves for awhile - and I needed a short afternoon read. It was a good choice - not to heady, perfect length, good story.First - I found the first half to be a bit stereotypical - nerdy anti-social scientist running un-ethical experiments at a biotech firm releases a world ending plague of microbes that convert everything to more microbes. Its been done over and over - however, this might be the first story that everybody copied from. The second half of the book is where it shines. It goes from an end of the world scenario to something completely different. Just what are the intelligent microbes doing, and why are they doing it - is the question. The main character (now the handsome scientist/businessman) is still stereotypical. Not a lot of character development. Other characters such as, developmentally challenged Suzy, who was not changed, must survive in a changed world. There are other characters, but they mostly fade out of the story.This book suffers from a lack of depth from the characters, but it shines when it comes to how the intelligent bacteria was handled. Even though this book was written in 1985, it didn't feel dated. Recommended.
    • 4/5
      This is definitely a "whoa" book. Hard sf ages quickly and there are a few visable cracks in this 1985 novel ( video screens and floppy disks to mention a couple), but the ideas behind the story-science gone awry, observation as a force of evolution, etc. etc...do what all good science fiction books should do-THEY MAKE YOU THINK! I really enjoyed it. Granted, the characters get a bit of a bum rush, some storylines just deadend, but the concepts keep the story afloat. I can definitely see the beginnings of Darwin's Radio in this book.
    • 3/5
      Dorris Lessing recommended this in an interview as one of her favorite sci fi reads so I thought I'd give it a whirl. I was groaning through the initial pages of typical adolescent fantasy crap: Allergy prone, four-eyed, socially inept (yet brilliant!) nerd transforms into super-being via laboratory shenanigans and gets laid, but then the story turned into something much more interesting. If you are like me, bored to death by most sci fi, this one might be worth trying out.
    • 4/5
      Unusual. All the way through this I had the odd sensation that I'd read it or something very similar before. It never came to me what it was.The basic premise is something that has definetly been the subject of many novels, but Bear writing in the 80s will have been at the forefront. It has taken a couple of decades for the biotech industry to reach the prevalence in understanding it now holds. This unfortunately means we understand a lot more than we did then, and many of concepts are now out-of-date or just downright impossible. Also seriously dating the novel is the computer technology. Considering it was published '85, Bear did quite well at predicting it's widespread uptake in laboratories et al, but the continued references to VDTs (presumably Visual Display Terminals) grates every single time.Virgil Ulam is your almost stereotypical mad scientist, poor social skills, but technically brilliant. As a sideline to the work he's supposed to be doing for a new BioTech start-up (also a very good prescience from the 80s), he starts looking at introns (non replicating parts of DNA) within simple cells. He manages to get them to replicate, massively increasing the information storage and hence processing capabilities of the cells (this is the bit that's completely impossible) He know's he has suceeded in doing this because they can run mazes just like lab rats. Being a mad scientist however means that he isn't that hot on security, and so he gets found out. Just before he gets canned, he takes the desperate step of injecting hmself with his 'clever' cell lines. Secure in the knoweldge that only he understands, he knows he has a couple of weeks to find an new job in another lab where he can continue to work on the cells. After all they're only cells like any other in his body, and what harm could it do?The rest of the book covers the details of precisely what the consequences can be of not knowing what you are doing. As seen by the very few survivors who happen to be genetically compatible. Annoyingly the tale form his mother's POV is left incomplete. I don't think this is an anti-GM creed in the way that Jurrasic Park might be, but the basic message - Be extremely careful if you don't fully understand what it is you are experimenting with - remains the same. The actual technological suggestions aren't to be taken seriously, the consequences are. Bear doesn't write the most empathic characters going, he is much more ideas orientated, and as such this isn't a particularly gripping novel. But it's readable enough and even though badly dated at times the background principles remain awe inspiring.
    • 4/5
      For some time I've been looking for a copy of Blood Music because I remembered reading a good review of it years ago, and I've come to like Greg Bear. Recently I got hold of a used copy, and I wasn't disappointed. I might have been if I'd special ordered it full price.It actually reads like two, possibly three different novellas strung together. The first is the cautionary Frankensteinesque horror story. The arrogant creator of new life is destroyed by his own creation. Which escapes.The second is the story of the person who figures out what has happened and the risk this new life form poses to the rest of the world, and who sacrifices himself to to prevent complete disaster.The second story is intermixed with the story of the new life itself. What might its goals and desires be? How would it effect the world around it? How would it even perceive that world and the life we know?If anything the last, most speculative part is also the weakest part. Bear does a decent job trying to think and present the completely alien, but I kept being sidetracked by my own inability to accept the basic premise of how his micro-community gestalt mind actually functioned. Knowing *less* biology might have actually made that part easier for me.Still an enjoyable and well written book.
    • 2/5
      Interesting concept with some interesting twists, but just did not keep my attention and some parts just did not make sense.
    • 3/5
      in Natalie Angier's chapter on evolutionary biology in The Canon, she notes that among the attributes of living organisms, cell structure has undergone the least amount of change across millions of years of evolution. So what if some mad scientist tampers with that structure to make "smart" cells? Association item: the Treehouse of Horror episode where Lisa creates an entire civilization from a culture of Bart's snot. Bear writes better SF than Michael Crichton, fwiw.
    • 5/5
      Fast paced and fun to read; enjoyed immensely. If you like sci-fi and body horror, this is your next novel! 9/10
    • 4/5
      What an interesting story. It started a bit rough for me with a bit of the science feeling out of date. But by page 100 the story hit its stride and then it became a delightful read. Very imaginative and well worth reading. Greg Bear was certainly deserving for the accolades he received for this novel. It did have some of the feel of Stephen King’s The Stand but was much more optimistic in outlook.
    • 5/5
      Best sci-fi novel I have read in 20 years. Very well written and thoroughly enjoyable to a satisfying ending.
    • 4/5
      Had read some of his work that he had written in Asimov's Foundation series, enjoyed that so picked this up and really enjoyed this too. Good plot
    • 5/5
      "Blood Music" was a great sci-fi novel. I'd seen it around for years, but never gotten to picking it up and reading it.It begins with a genetic research scientist, Vergil Ulam, and his personal research done at the lab where he works. He's brilliant, but not entirely ethical, although he doesn't see it that way, he feels he's entitled to what he does, for instance, he sees no problem hacking into a university's computer to fake his academic record, because he knows he's capable of the job he's doing, the managers just need a "sound and light show" to go with it.Any coincidence that Vergil's last name is Ulam, the same as the "father" of the hydrogen bomb?Ulam's personal research is into converting individual cells into computers, with memory and processing power. His earlier work, E. Coli cells is successful, but each individual cell has only the brain power of a mouse. Later he uses some of his own white blood cells, and they each end up with the brain power of a monkey.But when his boss finds out about it, and doesn't want anything to become public for fear of hurting the company's IPO, he orders Vergil to destroy his work. Vergil starts to, but then feels like they're his children and instead of destroying all, injects some (a few million cells) back into his body, intending to extract them again once he finds a job in another lab.And that's how his intelligent research gets out of the lab and changes the world...Overall I enjoyed it till the changes towards the end that left me sort of confused.
    • 2/5
      I am having a hard time describing this book, so bear with me. You know that place where an author takes a left turn into crazy-town? It's an easy place to get to and a difficult place to do well. I, personally, prefer when an author takes us to The Land Beyond Reason, also known as Pure Imagination and a suburb of Science Fiction, slowly, so slowly that it feels like a logical progression. This book is not like that. It takes a hard left to crazy-town about a third of the way through when our unlikeable Protagonist 1 (Virgil) is murdered by his dull friend who is just trying to save the world (sortof).

      Protagonist 1 was playing around in the lab and made intelligent cells. He injected himself with them. They proceeded to transform him and, being trillions of intelligent beings with little concept of the scale on which we live, explore the world by getting in the water and being generally unavoidably contagious. Fairly quickly all of North America has succumbed to noocytes and is a wasteland except for 20 or so people who for some reason (even though they had surely destroyed millions of similar people without such reservations) had kept alive until they had learned to work with these people's unusual biochemistry. We follow four of these people. We also follow Bernard, Protagonist 2, who flew off to Europe to have himself quarantined and who is transitioning very slowly. It turns out that the noocytes don't kill everyone. Once they had learned how, they actually assimilate those people who become noocytes.

      There is also another hard left when the noocytes turn North America into some sort of huge biomass and another when they stop nuclear bombs from going off by distorting the rules of the universe temporarily (did I mention that so many information processing beings so densely located are able to affect the very fabric of the universe?) and _another_ when the noocytes transition to existing on a quantum level and _*another*_ when having the noocytes on a quantum level is threatening to rip the earth apart and BAM! the book ends.

      Speaking of the book ending, when you exist on a purely informational level one of the millions of copies of you will spend time a sort of thought holodeck where you will redo your regrets in macro-life.

      After reading this book I was mostly left saying, "huh? Why did I just read this?" It gets two stars instead of one because had I known the nature of the book I would have not read it at all, but knowing the nature of the book I can understand why other people would want to read it.

      1 person found this helpful

    Book preview

    Blood Music - Greg Bear

    Blood Music

    Greg Bear

    Open Road logo

    INTERPHASE

    Each hour, a myriad of trillions of little live things—microbes, bacteria, the peasants of nature—are born and die, not counting for much except in the bulk of their numbers and the accumulation of their tiny lives. They do not perceive deeply, nor do they suffer. A hundred trillion, dying, would not begin to have the same importance as a single human death.

    Within the ranks of magnitude of all creatures, small as microbes or great as humans, there is an equality of elan, just as the branches of a tall tree, gathered together, equal the bulk of the limbs below, and all the limbs equal the bulk of the trunk.

    We believe this as firmly as the kings of France believed in their hierarchy. Which of our generations will come to disagree?

    PROPHASE

    JUNE-SEPTEMBER

    1

    La Jolla, California

    The rectangular slate-black sign stood on a low mound of bright green and clumpy Korean grass, surrounded by irises and sided by a dark, cement-bedded brook filled with koi. Carved into the street side of the sign was the name GENETRON in Times Roman letters of insignia red, and beneath the name the motto, Where Small Things Make Big Changes.

    The Genetron labs and business offices were housed in a U-shaped, bare concrete Bauhaus structure surrounding a rectangular garden court. The main complex had two levels with open-air walkways. Beyond the courtyard and just behind an artificial hummock of earth, not yet filled in with new greenery, was a four-story black glass-sided cube fenced with electrified razor-wire.

    These were the two sides of Genetron; the open labs, where biochip research was conducted, and the defense contracts building, where military applications were investigated.

    Security was strict even in the open labs. All employees wore laser-printed badges and non-employee access to the labs was carefully monitored. The management of Genetron—five Stanford graduates who had founded the company just three years out of school—realized that industrial espionage was even more likely than an intelligence breach in the black cube. Yet the outward atmosphere was serene, and every attempt was made to soft-pedal the security measures.

    A tall, stoop-shouldered man with unruly black hair untangled himself from the interior of a red Volvo sports car and sneezed twice before crossing the employee parking lot. The grasses were tuning up for an early summer orgy of irritation. He casually greeted Walter, the middle-aged and whippet-wiry guard. Walter just as casually confirmed his badge by running it through the laser reader. Not much sleep last night, Mr. Ulam? Walter asked.

    Vergil pursed his lips and shook his head. Parties, Walter. His eyes were red and his nose was swollen from constant rubbing with the handkerchief that now resided, abused and submissive, in his pocket.

    How working men like you can party on a weeknight, I don’t know.

    The ladies demand it, Walter, Vergil said, passing through. Walter grinned and nodded, though he sincerely doubted Vergil was getting much action, parties or no. Unless standards had severely declined since Walter’s day, nobody with a week’s growth of patchy beard was getting much action.

    Ulam was not the most prepossessing figure at Genetron. He stood six feet two inches on very large flat feet. He was twenty-five pounds overweight and at thirty-two years of age, his back hurt him, he had high blood pressure, and he could never shave close enough to eliminate an Emmett Kelly shadow.

    His voice seemed designed not to win friends—harsh, slightly grating, tending toward loudness. Two decades in California had smoothed his Texas accent, but when he became excited or angry, the Panhandle asserted itself with an almost painful edge.

    His sole distinction was an exquisite pair of emerald green eyes, wide and expressive, defended by a luxurious set of lashes. The eyes were more decorative than functional, however; they were covered by a large pair of black-framed glasses. Vergil was near-sighted.

    He ascended the stairs two and three steps at a time, long powerful legs making the concrete and steel steps resound. On the second floor, he walked along the open corridor to the Advanced Biochip Division’s joint equipment room, known as the share lab. His mornings usually began with a check on specimens in one of the five ultracentrifuges. His most recent batch had been rotating for sixty hours at 2ØØØ,ØØØ G’s and was now ready for analysis.

    For such a large man, Vergil had surprisingly delicate and sensitive hands. He removed an expensive black titanium rotor from the ultracentrifuge and slid shut the steel vacuum seal. Placing the rotor on a workbench, one by one he removed and squinted at the five squat plastic tubes suspended in slings beneath its mushroom-like cap. Several well-defined beige layers had formed in each tube.

    Vergil’s heavy black eyebrows arched and drew together behind the thick rims of his glasses. He smiled, revealing teeth spotted brown from a childhood of drinking naturally fluoridated water.

    He was about to suction off the buffer solution and the unwanted layers when the lab phone beeped. He placed the tube in a rack and picked up the receiver. Share lab, Ulam here.

    Vergil, this is Rita. I saw you come in, but you weren’t in your lab.

    Home away from home, Rita. What’s up?

    You asked me—told me—to let you know if a certain gentleman arrived. I think he’s here, Vergil.

    Michael Bernard? Vergil asked, his voice rising.

    I think it’s him. But Vergil—

    I’ll be right down.

    Vergil—

    He hung up and dithered for a moment over the tubes, then left them where they were.

    Genetron’s reception area was a circular extrusion from the ground floor on the east corner, surrounded by picture windows and liberally supplied with aspidistras in chrome ceramic pots. Morning light slanted white and dazzling across the sky-blue carpet as Vergil entered from the lab side. Rita stood up behind her desk as he passed by.

    Vergil—

    Thanks, he said. His eyes were on the distinguished-looking gray-haired man standing by the single lobby couch. There was no doubt about it; Michael Bernard. Vergil recognized him from photos and the cover portrait Time Magazine had printed three years before. Vergil extended his hand and put on an enormous smile. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Bernard.

    Bernard shook Vergil’s hand but appeared confused.

    Gerald T. Harrison stood in the broad double door of Genetron’s fancy for-show office, phone receiver gripped between ear and shoulder. Bernard looked to Harrison for an explanation.

    I’m very glad you got my message … Vergil continued before Harrison’s presence registered.

    Harrison immediately made his farewells on the phone and slammed it on its cradle. Rank hath its privileges, Vergil, he said, smiling too broadly and taking a stance beside Bernard.

    I’m sorry—what message? Bernard asked.

    This is Vergil Ulam, one of our top researchers, Harrison said obsequiously. We’re all very pleased to have you visiting, Mr. Bernard. Vergil, I’ll get back to you later about that matter you wanted to discuss.

    He hadn’t asked to talk to Harrison about anything. Sure, Vergil said. He rankled under the old familiar feeling: being sidestepped, pushed aside.

    Bernard didn’t know him from Adam.

    Later, Vergil, Harrison said pointedly.

    Sure, of course. He backed away, glanced at Bernard pleadingly, then turned and shambled back through the rear door.

    Who was that? Bernard asked.

    A very ambitious fellow, Harrison said darkly. But we have him under control.

    Harrison kept his work office in a ground floor space on the west end of the lab building. The room was surrounded by wooden shelves neatly filled with books. The eye-level shelf behind the desk held familiar black plastic ring-bound books from Cold Spring Harbor. Arranged below were a row of telephone directories—Harrison collected antique phone books—and several shelves of computer science volumes. His graph-ruled black desktop supported a leather-edged blotting pad and a computer monitor.

    Of the Genetron founders, only Harrison and William Yng had stayed long enough to see the labs begin work. Both were more oriented toward business than research, though their doctorates hung on the wood panel wall.

    Harrison leaned back in his chair, arms up and hands clasped behind his neck. Vergil noticed the merest hint of sweat stains in each armpit.

    Vergil, that was very embarrassing, he said. His white-blond hair was artfully arranged to disguise premature thinning.

    Sorry, Vergil said.

    No more than I. So you asked Mr. Bernard to visit our labs.

    Yes.

    Why?

    I thought he would be interested in the work.

    We thought so, too. That’s why we invited him. I don’t believe he even knew about your invitation, Vergil.

    Apparently not.

    You went behind our backs.

    Vergil stood before the desk, looking glumly at the back of the monitor.

    You’ve done a great deal of useful work for us. Rothwild says you’re brilliant, maybe even invaluable. Rothwild was the biochips project supervisor. But others say you can’t be relied upon. And now … This.

    Bernard—

    Not Mr. Bernard, Vergil. This. He swung the monitor around and pressed a button on the keyboard. Vergil’s secret computer file scrolled up on the screen. His eyes widened and his throat constricted, but to his credit he didn’t choke. His reaction was quite controlled. I haven’t read it completely, but it sounds like you’re up to some very suspect things. Possibly unethical. We like to follow the guidelines here at Genetron, especially in light of our upcoming position in the marketplace. But not solely for that reason. I like to believe we run an ethical company here.

    I’m not doing anything unethical, Gerald.

    Oh? Harrison stopped the scrolling. You’re designing new complements of DNA for several NIH-regulated microorganisms. And you’re working on mammalian cells. We don’t do work here on mammalian cells. We aren’t equipped for the biohazards—not in the main labs. But I suppose you could demonstrate to me the safety and innocuous nature of your research. You’re not creating a new plague to sell to Third World revolutionaries, are you?

    No, Vergil said flatly.

    Good. Some of this material is beyond my understanding. It sounds like you might be trying to expand on our MABs project. There could be valuable stuff here. He paused. What in hell are you doing, Vergil?

    Vergil removed his glasses and wiped them with the placket of his lab coat. Abruptly, he sneezed—loud and wet.

    Harrison looked faintly disgusted. We only broke the code yesterday. By accident, almost. Why did you hide it? Is it something you’d rather we didn’t know?

    Without his glasses, Vergil looked owlish and helpless. He began to stammer an answer, then stopped and thrust his jaw forward. His thick black brows knit in painful puzzlement.

    It looks to me like you’ve been doing some work on our gene machine. Unauthorized, of course, but you’ve never been much for authority.

    Vergil’s face was now deep red.

    Are you all right? Harrison asked. He was deriving a perverse pleasure from making Vergil squirm. A grin threatened to break through Harrison’s querying expression.

    I’m fine, Vergil said. I was … am … working on biologics.

    Biologics? I’m not familiar with the term.

    A side branch of the biochips. Autonomous organic computers. The thought of saying anything more was agony. He had written Bernard—without result, apparently—to have him come see the work. He did not want to hand all of it over to Genetron under the provisions of the work-for-hire clause in his contract. It was such a simple idea, even if the work had taken two years—two secret and laborious years.

    I’m intrigued. Harrison turned the monitor around and scrolled through the file. We’re not just talking proteins and amino acids. You’re messing with chromosomes here. Recombining mammalian genes; even, I see, mixing in viral and bacterial genes. The light went out of his eyes. They became rocky gray. You could get Genetron shut down right now, this minute, Vergil. We don’t have the safeguards for this kind of stuff. You’re not even working under P-3 conditions.

    I’m not messing with reproductive genes.

    There’s some other kind? Harrison sat forward abruptly, angry that Vergil would try to bullshit him.

    Introns. Strings that don’t code for protein structure.

    What about them?

    I’m only working in those areas. And … adding more non-reproductive genetic material.

    That sounds like a contradiction in terms to me, Vergil. We have no proof introns don’t code for something.

    Yes, but—

    But— Harrison held up his hand. This is all quite irrelevant. Whatever else you were up to, the fact is, you were prepared to renege on your contract, go behind our backs to Bernard, and try to engage his support for a personal endeavor. True?

    Vergil said nothing.

    I assume you’re not a sophisticated fellow, Vergil. Not in the ways of the business world. Perhaps you didn’t realize the implications.

    Vergil swallowed hard. His face was still plum red. He could feel the blood thudding in his ears, the sick sensation of stress-caused dizziness. He sneezed twice.

    Well, I’ll lay the implications out for you. You are very close to getting your ass canned and sold for bully beef.

    Vergil raised his eyebrows reflexively.

    You’re important to the MABs project. If you weren’t, you would be out of here in a flash and I would personally make sure you never work in a private lab again. But Thornton and Rothwild and the others believe we might be able to redeem you. Yes, Vergil. Redeem you. Save you from yourself. I haven’t consulted with Yng on this. It won’t go any further—if you behave.

    He fixed Vergil with a stare from beneath lowered eyebrows. Stop your extracurricular activities. We’ll keep your file here, but I want all non-MABs experiments terminated and all organisms that have been tampered with destroyed. I’ll personally inspect your lab in two hours. If this hasn’t been done, you’ll be fired. Two hours, Vergil. No exceptions no extensions.

    Yessir.

    That’s all.

    2

    Vergil’s dismissal would not have unduly distressed his fellow employees. In his three years at Genetron, he had committed innumerable breaches of lab etiquette. He seldom washed lab glassware and twice had been accused of not wiping up spills of ethidium bromide—a strong mutagen—on lab counters. He was also not terribly cautious about radionucleides.

    Most of the people he worked with made no show of humility. They were, after all, top young researchers in a very promising field; many expected to be wealthy and in charge of their own companies in a few years. Vergil didn’t fit any of their patterns, however. He worked quietly and intensively during the day, and then worked overtime at night. He was not sociable, though neither was he unfriendly; he simply ignored most people.

    He shared a lab space with Hazel Overton, as meticulous and clean a researcher as could be imagined. Hazel would miss him least of all. Perhaps it was Hazel who had penetrated his file—she was no slouch on the computers and she might have gone looking for something to get him into trouble. But he had no evidence for that, and there was no sense being paranoid.

    The lab was dark as Vergil entered. Hazel was performing a fluorescent scan on a gel electrophoresis matrix with a small UV lamp. Vergil switched on the light. She looked up and removed her goggles, prepared to be irritated.

    You’re late, she said. And your lab looks like an unmade bed. Vergil, it’s—

    Kaput, Vergil finished for her, throwing his smock across a stool.

    You left a bunch of test tubes on the counter in the share lab. I’m afraid they’re ruined.

    Fuck ’em.

    Hazel’s eyes widened. My, aren’t you in a mood.

    I’ve been shut down. I have to clear out all my extracurricular work, give it up, or Harrison will issue my walking papers.

    That’s rather even-handed of them, Hazel said, returning to her scan. Harrison had shut down one of her own extracurricular projects the month before. What did you do?

    If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather be alone. Vergil glowered at her from across the counter. You can finish that in the share lab.

    I could, but—

    If you don’t, Vergil said darkly, I’ll smear your little piece of agarose across the floor with my wingtips.

    Hazel glared at him for a moment and surmised he wasn’t kidding. She shut off the electrodes, picked up her equipment, and headed for the door. My condolences, she said.

    Sure.

    He had to have a plan. Scratching his stubbly chin, he tried to think of some way to cut his losses. He could sacrifice those parts of the experiment that were expendable—the E. coli cultures, for example. He had long since gone beyond them. He had kept them as memorials to his progress, and as a kind of reserve in case work had not gone well in the next steps. The work had gone well, however. It was not complete but it was so close that he could taste success like a cool clean swallow of wine.

    Hazel’s side of the lab was neat and tidy. His was a chaos of equipment and containers of chemicals. One of his few concessions to lab safety, a white absorbent mat to catch spills, hung half-off the black counter, one corner pinned by a jar of detergent.

    Vergil stood before the white idea board, rubbing his stubbly beard, and stared at the cryptic messages he had scrawled there the day before.

    Little engineers. Make the world’s tiniest machines. Better than MABs! Little surgeons. War with tumors. Computers with hu-capac. (Computers=spec tumor HA!) size of volvox.

    Clearly the ravings of a madman, and Hazel would have paid them no attention. Or would she? It was common practice to scribble any wild idea or inspiration or joke on the boards and just be prepared to have it erased by the next hurried genius. Still …

    The notes could have aroused the curiosity of someone as smart as Hazel. Especially since his work on the MABs had been delayed.

    Obviously, he had not been circumspect.

    MABs—Medically Applicable Biochips—were to be the first practical product of the biochip revolution, the incorporation of protein molecular circuitry with silicon electronics. Biochips had been an area of speculation in the literature for years, but Genetron hoped to have the first working samples available for FDA testing and approval within three months.

    They faced intense competition. In what was coming to be known as Enzyme Valley—the biochip equivalent of Silicon Valley—at least six companies had set up facilities in and around La Jolla. Some had started out as pharmaceutical manufacturers hoping to cash in on the products of recombinant DNA research. Nudged out of that area by older and more experienced concerns, they had switched to biochip research. Genetron was the first firm established specifically with biochips in mind.

    Vergil picked up an eraser and rubbed out the notes slowly. Throughout his life, things had always conspired to frustrate him. Often, he brought disaster on himself—he was honest enough to admit that. But not once had he ever been able to carry something through to completion. Not in his work, not in his private life.

    He had never been good at gauging the consequences of his actions.

    He removed four thick spiral-bound notebooks from his locked desk drawer and added them to the growing pile of material to be smuggled out of the lab.

    He could not destroy all the evidence. He had to save the white blood cell cultures—his special lymphocytes. But where could he keep them—what could he do outside the lab?

    Nothing. There was no place he could go. Genetron had all the equipment he needed, and it would take months to establish another lab. During that time, all his work would literally disintegrate.

    Vergil passed through the lab’s rear door into the interior hall and walked past an emergency shower stall. The incubators were kept in a separate room beyond the share lab. Seven refrigerator-sized gray enameled chests stood along one wall, electronic monitors silently and efficiently keeping track of temperatures and CO2 partial pressure in each unit. In the far corner, amid older incubators of all shapes and sizes (gleaned from lab bankruptcy sales), stood a buffed stainless steel and white enamel Forma Scientific model with his name and Sole Use scribbled on a piece of surgical tape affixed to the door. He opened the door and removed a rack of culture dishes.

    Bacteria in each dish had developed uncharacteristic colonies—blobs of orange and green which resembled aerial maps of Paris or Washington DC. Lines radiated from clusters and divided the colonies into sections, each section having its own peculiar texture and—so Vergil surmised—function. Since each bacterium in the cultures had the potential intellectual capacity of a mouse, it was quite possible the cultures had turned into simple societies and the societies had developed functional divisions. He hadn’t been keeping track lately, involved as he had been with altered B-cell Lymphocytes.

    They were like his children, all of them. And they had turned out to be exceptional.

    He felt a rush of guilt and nausea as he turned on a gas burner and applied each dish of altered E. coli to the flame with a pair of tongs.

    He returned to his lab and dropped the culture dishes into a sterilizing bath. That was the limit. He could not destroy anything more. He felt a hatred for Harrison that went beyond any emotion he had ever felt toward another human. Tears of frustration blurred his vision.

    Vergil opened the lab Kelvinator and removed a spinner bottle and a white plastic pallet containing twenty-two test tubes. The spinner bottle was filled with a straw-colored fluid, lymphocytes in a serum medium. He had constructed a custom impeller to stir the medium more effectively, with less cell damage—a rod with several half-helical Teflon sails.

    The test tubes contained saline solution and special concentrated serum nutrients to support the cells while they were examined under a microscope.

    He drew fluid from the spinner bottle and carefully added several drops to four of the tubes on the pallet. He then placed the bottle back on its base. The impeller resumed spinning.

    After warming to room temperature—a process he usually aided with a small fan to gently blow warmed air over the pallet—the lymphocytes in the tubes would become active, resuming their development after being subdued by the refrigerator’s chill.

    They would continue learning, adding new segments to the revised portions of their DNA. And when, in the normal course of cell growth, the new DNA was transcribed to RNA, and the RNA served as a template for production of amino acids, and the amino acids were converted to proteins …

    The proteins would be more than just units of cell structure; other cells would be able to read them. Or RNA itself would be extruded to be absorbed and read by other cells. Or—and this third option had presented itself after Vergil inserted fragments of bacterial DNA into the mammalian chromosomes—segments of DNA itself could be removed and passed along.

    Every time he thought of it, his head whirled with possibilities, thousands of ways for the cells to communicate with each other and develop their intellects.

    The idea

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