Лео Франковски - Lord Conrad's Crusade

“Well, the Big People, your wenches, and Juma’s people all seem to be able to do the same thing. Is there any similarity between Juma’s DNA and the Big People’s?”

Tom said, “None at all. Our engineered critters don’t use DNA. Instead, they use a much tougher three stranded chemical, that resists mutation. A natural life form has to be able to mutate slowly, so that it can evolve into something more complicated than a slime mold. When you are designing something, you don’t want it to go around changing on you.”

“Then how about going about it from the other end? Do your people have any idea just what this manna stuff is? If we knew what they were looking at, we ought to be able to figure out how they were seeing it.”

“A good thought, but no cigar. We have put the thing through every scientific test anybody has been able to come up with, and it comes out a goose egg. There’s nothing there! Or at least it is not any sort of energy or matter that we know about.”

I said, “Then how do you know that this thing is real?”

“By the results that all three types of critters come up with. Remember when Juma said that they had killed about two hundred people in Conrad’s army because they had bad manna? Well, actually, the real number was five hundred and thirty-one. He rounded downward to spare Conrad’s feelings. But, we have traced the history on every one of those people, and the nicest of them was a multiple felon! In any court of law, every one of them would have been given a maximum sentence, if the truth came out. To my mind, getting it one hundred percent right proves that something is happening.”

“How about those twenty-eight guys without manna that Juma’s people slaughtered?”

“The same thing. Sadists who liked torturing children, mother rapists, mass serial murderers, you name it! Hell, one of them raped his own father! No, Conrad and Juma did the right thing there.”

“I suppose so. I wonder how many thousands of man years of research time this project will take to resolve.”

“More like millions, I imagine, which is wonderful!” Tom said, “These people are academics who just don’t have enough to do, you know. Without something that interests them, too many of them just drink themselves to death. But we’re on to something new here, and that’s just what the organization needs!”

“Yeah. Well, keep me posted, Uncle Tom.”

THE END