Gregory Bear - Blood Music

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 clearly 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.

They couldn’t be as stupid and unseeing as Vergil; they had to know that what was happening to Vergil was far too important to be held close to the breast of a single business concern.

Therefore, they had contacted the government. Was that a justified assumption? (Perhaps it was something he should do, whether Genetron had or not.) And the government was acting as quickly as possible—that is, on a timescale of days or weeks—to make its decisions, prepare its plans, take action. In the meanwhile, Vergil was unattended. Genetron didn’t dare do anything against his will; genetic research companies were already regarded with enough suspicion by the public, and a scandal could do much more than disrupt their stock plans.

Vergil was on his own. And Edward knew his old friend well enough to realize that meant no one was watching the store. Vergil was not a responsible person. But he was under self-imposed isolation, staying in the apartment (wasn’t he?) suffering his mental transformation, locked in his psychosis-inducing ecstasy, filled with the results of his brilliance.

With a start, Edward realized he was the only person who could do something.

He was the last responsible individual.

It was time to return to Vergil’s apartment and at least keep track of things until the Big Boys came on the scene.

As he drove, Edward thought about change. There was only so much change a single individual could stand. Innovation, even radical creation, was essential, but the results had to be applied cautiously, with careful forethought. Nothing forced, nothing imposed. That was the ideal. Everyone had the right to stay the same until they decided otherwise.

That was damned naive.

What Vergil had done was the greatest thing in science since—

Since what? There were no comparisons. Vergil Ulam had become a god. Within his flesh he carried hundreds of billions of intelligent beings.

Edward couldn’t handle the thought. “Neo-Luddite,” he murmured to himself, a filthy accusation.

When he pressed the buzzer on the condo security panel,

Vergil answered almost immediately. “Yeah,” he said, sounding exhilarated, very up.

“Edward.”

“Hey, Edward! Come on in. I’m taking a bath. Door’s unlocked.”

Edward entered Vergil’s living room and walked down the hallway to the bathroom. Vergil was in the tub, up to his neck in pinkish water. He smiled vaguely at Edward and splashed his hands. “Looks like I slit my wrists, doesn’t it?” he said, his voice a happy whisper. “Don’t worry. Everything’s fine now. Genetron’s coming over to take me back. Bernard and Harrison and the lab guys, all in a van.” His face was crisscrossed with pale ridges and his hands were covered with white bumps.

“I talked to Bernard this morning,” Edward said, perplexed.

“Hey, they just called,” Vergil said, pointing to his bathroom intercom and phone. “I’ve been in here for an hour, hour and a half. Soaking and thinking.”

Edward sat on the toilet. The quartz lamp stood unplugged next to the linen cabinet.

“You’re sure that’s what you want,” he said, his shoulders slumping.

“Yeah. I’m sure,” Vergil said. “Reunion. Take back the prodigal son, not so prodigal? You know, I never understood what that prodigal bit meant. Does it mean ‘prodigy’? I’m certainly that. I’m going back in style. Everything’s style from here on.”

The pinkish color in the water didn’t look like soap. “Is that bubble bath?” Edward asked. Another thought came to him suddenly and left him weak.

“No,” Vergil said. “It’s coming from my skin. They’re not telling me everything, but I think they’re sending out scouts. Hey! Astronauts! Yeah.” He looked at Edward with an expression that didn’t quite cross over into concern; more like curiosity as to how he’d take it.