Greg Bear - Blood Music

“Vergil is very sick. Physically mentally. He may die.”

“Somehow, I don’t think he’ll die,” Bernard said. “But we’re getting away from the focus.”

“What is the focus?” Edward asked angrily. “I assume you’re working hand-in-glove with Genetron now—you certainly talk like you are. What does Genetron stand to gain?”

Bernard leaned back in his chair. “I can think of a large number of uses for small, super-dense computer elements with a biological base. Can’t you? Genetron has already made breakthroughs, but Vergil’s work is something else again.”

“What do you envision?”

Bernard’s smile was sunny and certifiably false. “I’m not really at liberty to say. It’ll be revolutionary. We’ll have to study him in lab conditions. Animal experiments have to be conducted. We’ll have to start from scratch, of course. Vergil’s…um…colonies can’t be transferred. They’re based on his own cells. We have to develop organisms that won’t trigger immune responses in other animals.”

“Like an infection?” Edward asked.

“I suppose there are similarities.” But Vergil is not infected or ill in the normal uses of the words.”

“My tests indicate he is,” Edward said.

“I don’t think the usual diagnostics are appropriate, do you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Listen,” Bernard said, leaning forward. “I’d like you to come and work with us once Vergil’s settled in. Your expertise might be useful to us.”

Edward almost flinched at the openness of the offer. “How will you benefit from all this?” he asked. “I mean you, personally.”

“Edward, I have always been at the forefront of my profession. I see no reason why I shouldn’t be helping here. With my knowledge of brain and nerve functions, and the research I’ve been conducting in artificial intelligence and neurophysiology—”

“You could help Genetron hold off a government investigation,” Edward said.

“That’s being very blunt Too blunt, and unfair.” For a moment, Edward sensed uncertainty and even a touch of anxiety in Bernard.

“Maybe I am,” Edward said. “And maybe that’s not the worst thing that can happen.”

“I don’t get you,” Bernard said.

“Bad dreams, Mr. Bernard.”

Bernard’s eyes narrowed and his brows lowered. Here was an uncharacteristic expression, not suitable for covers on Time, Mega or Rolling Stone : a puzzled and angry scowl. “Our time is too valuable to be wasted. I’ve made the offer in good faith.”

“Of course,” Edward said. “And of course, I’d like to visit the lab when Vergil’s settled in. If I’m still welcome, bluntness and all.”

“Of course,” Bernard echoed, but his thoughts were almost nakedly apparent: Edward would never be playing on his team. They rose together and Bernard held out his hand. His palm was damp; he was as nervous as Edward.

“I assume you want this all in strict confidence,” Edward said.

“I’m not sure we can require it of you. You’re not under contract.”

“No,” Edward said.

Bernard regarded him for a long moment, then nodded. I’ll escort you out.”

“There’s one more thing,” Edward said. “Do you know anything about a woman named Candice?”

“Vergil mentioned he had a girlfriend by that name.”

“Had, or has?”

“Yes, I see what you mean,” Bernard said. “She could be a security problem.”

“No, that’s not what I mean,” Edward said emphatically. “Not at all what I mean.”

Brenard went through the stapled papers carefully, hand on forehead, lifting the legal-sized pages and folding them back, his frown deepening.

What was going on in the black cube was enough to make his hair stand on end. The information was by no means complete, but his friends in Washington had done a remarkable job. The packet had arrived by special courier just half an hour after Edward Milligan left.

Their conversation had filled him with a biting, defensive shame. He saw a distant version of himself in the young doctor, and the comparison hurt. Had good old famous Michael Bernard been walking around in a fog of capitalistic seduction the last few months?

At first, Genetron’s offer had seemed clean and sweet-minimal participation in the first few months, then status as a father-figure and pioneer, his image to be used to promote the company.

It had taken him entirely too long to realize how close he was to the trigger of the trap.

He looked up at the window and stood to raise the blinds. With a rustling snap, he had a clear view of the mound, the black cube, the wind-swept clouds beyond.

He could smell disaster. The black cube, ironically, would not be involved; but if Vergil Ulam had not triggered things, then the other side of Genetron would have done so eventually.

Ulam had been fired so precipitously, and blackballed so thoroughly, not because he had done sloppy research—but because he had followed so closely on the heels of the defense research division. He had succeeded where they had met frequent setbacks and failure. And even though they had studied his files for months (multiple copies had been made) they could not duplicate his results.

Harrison yesterday had murmured that Ulam’s discoveries must have been largely accidental. It was obvious why he would say that now.

Ulam had come very close to taking his success and leaving Genetron, and the government, in the lurch. The Big Boys could not put up with that, and could not trust Ulam.

He was your basic crackpot. He could never have gotten a security clearance.

So they had tossed him out, and frozen him out.

And then he had come back to haunt . They could not refuse him now.

Bernard read the papers through once more and asked himself how he could back away from the mess with the minimum of damage.

Should he? If they were such fools, wouldn’t his expertise be useful—or at least his clear thinking? He had no doubt he could think more dearly than Harrison and Yng.

But Genetron’s interest in him was largely as a figurehead. How much influence could he have, even now?

He dropped the blinds and twisted the rod to close them. Then he picked up his phone and dialed Harrison’s number. “Yes?”

“Bernard.”

“Certainly, Michael.”

“I’m going to call Ulam now. We’re going to bring him in now. Today. Get your whole team ready, and the defense research people, too.”

“Michael, that’s—”

“We can’t just leave him out there.”

Harrison paused. “Yes. I agree.”

“Then get on it.”

Edward ate lunch at a Jack-in-the-Box and sat in the glass-enclosed eating area after he was finished, arm on a window ledge, staring out at the passing traffic. Something wasn’t right at Genetron. He could always rely on his strongest hunches; some part of his brain reserved for close observation and cataloging of minute details would sometimes put 2 and 2 together and get a disturbing 5, and lo and behold, one of the 2s would really be a 3; he just hadn’t noticed it before.

Bernard and Harrison were hiding a very salient fact. Genetron was doing more than just helping an ex-employee with a work-related problem, more even than just preparing to take advantage of a breakthrough. But they couldn’t act too quickly; that would arouse suspicion. And perhaps they weren’t sure they had the wherewithal.

He scowled, trying to pry loose the chain of reasoning from the clay matrix where it had been pressed and examine it link by link. Security. Bernard had mentioned security in connection with Candice. They might just be concerned with company security, sharing the fear of industrial espionage that had turned every private research company along North Torrey Pines Road into a steel-shell turtle, closed to public scrutiny. But that couldn’t be all.