Robert Sawyer - Frameshift

“Thanks, Terry,” said a woman’s voice over the pictures. “In 1967, the University of California, Berkeley, was home to the hippie movement, a movement that preached making love not war, a movement that embraced the family of man.”

The image dissolved to modern videotape footage shot from the same angle. “Today, the hippies are gone. Meet the new face of UCB.”

Walking toward the camera was a trim, broad-shouldered white man of forty, wearing a black leather pilot’s jacket with the collar turned up and mirrored aviator sunglasses. Pierre snorted. “Christ, he’s even dressed like a storm trooper.”

The reporter’s voice-over said, “This is Professor Felix Sousa, a geneticist here. There’s no peace in the wake of his research — and no love for him on the part of many of the university’s staff and students, who are branding him a racist.”

The shot changed to Sousa in one of the chemistry labs in Latimer Hall, beakers and flasks spread out on the counter in front of him. Pierre snorted again; he’d never once actually seen Sousa in any lab. “I’ve spent years on this research, Miz Di Maio,” Sousa said. His voice was crisp and cultured, his enunciation meticulous. “It’s hard to reduce it to a few simple statements, but…”

The picture cut to the reporter, an attractive woman with a wide mouth and mounds of dark hair. She nodded encouragingly, urging Sousa to go on. The picture changed back to Sousa. “In simplest terms, my research demonstrates that the three races of humanity emerged at different times.

Blacks appeared as a racially distinct group some two hundred thousand years ago. Whites, on the other hand, first appeared one hundred and ten thousand years ago. And Orientals arrived on the scene forty-one thousand years ago. Well, is it any surprise that the oldest race is the most primitive in terms of brain development?” Sousa spread his hands, palms up, as if asking the audience to use its common sense. “On average, blacks have the smallest brains and the lowest IQs of any of the races. They’ve also got the highest crime rate and the most promiscuity. Orientals, on the other hand, are the brightest, the least prone to criminal activity, and the most restrained sexually. Whites fall right in the middle between the other two groups.”

The picture switched to footage of Sousa lecturing to a class. The students — all white — seemed rapt. “Sousa’s theories don’t stop there,” said the reporter’s voice over this. “He’s even suggesting that the old locker-room myths are true.”

They cut back to the interview tape. “Blacks do have bigger penises than whites, on average,” said Sousa. “And whites are better endowed genitally than Orientals. There’s an inverse relationship between genital size and intelligence.” A pause, and Sousa grinned, showing perfect teeth. “Of course,” he said, “there are always exceptions.”

Wendy Di Maio’s voice-over again: “Much of Sousa’s work echoes older, equally controversial studies, such as the research made public in 1989 by Philippe Rushton [still image of Rushton, a surprisingly handsome white man in his mid-forties], a psychologist at the University of Western Ontario in Canada, and the conclusions in the contentious 1994 best-seller The Bell Curve [slide of the book’s cover].”

An outside shot: Di Maio walking across the campus in the courtyard between Lewis and Hildebrand Halls. “Is it right that such obviously racist research is going on in our publicly funded institutions? We asked the university’s president.”

The camera panned up to what was presumably supposed to be the president’s window, but his office was actually clear across the campus from there. Then it switched to a close-up of the president in an opulent, wood-paneled room. His name and title were superimposed at the bottom of the screen. The elderly man spread his arms. “Professor Sousa has full tenure. That means he has full freedom to pursue any line of intellectual inquiry, without pressure from the administration…”

Molly and Pierre watched the rest of the report, and then Pierre clicked the off button. He shook his head slowly back and forth. “God, that pisses me off,” he said. “With all the quality work going on at the university, they pick crap like that to highlight. And you just know there are going to be people who think Sousa must be right…”

They ate dinner in silence — Stouffer’s lasagna done up in the microwave for them (it was Pierre the gourmet’s turn), and Gerber apple baby food for Amanda. At eight months, she had acquired a very healthy appetite.

Finally, after Molly had put Amanda to bed, they sat at the dining-room table, sipping coffee. Molly, growing concerned by Pierre’s quiet, said, “A penny for your thoughts.”

“I thought you could take them for free,” said Pierre, a little sharply. His expression showed that he immediately regretted it. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. Forgive me. I’m just angry.”

“About… ?”

“Well, Felix Sousa, of course — which got me to thinking about that paper he and Klimus did a few years ago for Science on reproductive technologies. Anyway, thinking about that paper got me thinking about Condor Health Insurance — you know, this business of financially coercing the abortion of imperfect fetuses.” He paused. “If I wasn’t already manifesting symptoms of Huntington’s, I’d cancel my policy in protest.”

Molly made a sympathetic face. “I’m sorry.”

“And that stupid letter Condor sent me — what patronizing crap, from some flack in the PR department. A complete brush-off.”

Molly took a sip of coffee. “Well, there’s one way to get a little more attention. Become a stockholder in Condor. Companies are usually more responsive to their stockholders’ complaints because they know that if they aren’t, the questions might be raised in person at their shareholders’ meetings. I took a course in ethics back at UM; that’s one of the things the prof said.”

“But I don’t want to support a company like that.”

“Well, you wouldn’t invest a lot.”

“You mean buy just one share?”

Molly laughed. “I can see you don’t play the markets much. Shares are normally bought and sold in multiples of a hundred.”

“Oh.”

“I take it you don’t have a broker, right?”

Pierre shook his head.

“You can call mine: Laurie Lee at Davis Adair. She’s great at explaining things.”

Pierre looked at her, startled. “You really think I should do this?”

“Sure. It’ll increase your clout.”

“What would a hundred shares cost?”

“That’s a good question,” said Molly. She headed down to the den, and Pierre followed her, holding carefully to the banister to help keep his balance on the short flight of stairs. Sitting on a desk was a Dell Pentium computer. Molly booted it up, logged on to CompuServe, scurried down a couple of layers of menus, and pointed to the screen. “Condor closed today at eleven and three-eights per share.”

“So a hundred shares would cost — what? — eleven hundred and… and…”

“Eleven hundred and thirty-seven dollars and fifty cents, plus commission.”

“That’s a fair piece of change,” said Pierre.

Molly nodded. “I suppose, but it’ll all be liquid. You should be able to recover almost all of it, if you decide to sell later on. In fact…” She tapped some more keys. “Look at that,” she said, pointing at the table that appeared on screen. “They’ve been climbing steadily. They were at just eight and seven-eighths this time last year.”

Pierre made an impressed face.

“So we might even end up making money when you eventually sell the stock. But, for the time being at least, Condor will have to take you seriously.”