Donald Moffitt - Genesis 01

the finish of the quartet’s final section they stood up spontaneously, clapping wildly and cheering. Bram clapped with them till his hands hurt.
    Mim’s face was radiant. “Weren’t they wonderful?” she shouted in his ear. “Didn’t Olan have a marvelous legato?”
    Bram didn’t know what a legato was, but he agreed that the concert had been wonderful. Was this the kind of music the human race had enjoyed thirty-seven million years before? Clearly, human beings were still groping their way toward the legacy of Original Man. How much more still lay neglected in the archives? Tonight’s performance proved that they hadn’t yet assimilated it all.
    At last the audience reluctantly let the musicians go and began to file toward the exits. Mim took Bram by the arm.
    “Come on,” she said. “There’s a reception. The biology department’s supposed to have some sort of surprise. And you’ll have a chance to meet Olan and the others.”
     
    “The first terrestrial life form was the potato,” the portly man in the green toga was saying. “So of course the Nar had considerable experience working with potato genes before going on to attempt the recreation of other earthly organisms. By the time they got around to resurrecting us, a firm foundation was laid.”
    He was holding forth to a considerable audience. His listeners hung on his every word, clustering closely in a semicircle that blocked the way to the long table with the goodies.
    “So,” he continued loftily, “we had several centuries worth of experience to draw on. To this day our beginning agriengineering students generally start with the potato. It’s extremely easy to clone.”
    Bram and Mim edged through the crowd, trying to reach the table. Mim was distracted. She kept looking for the musicians, but they hadn’t put in an appearance yet.
    “Who’s that?” she whispered.
    Bram was surprised at her ignorance. “Willum-frth-willum,” he said. “The overman of the bio department.”
    “Oh,” she said, impressed. Only a handful of humans could claim Nar honorifics in their names. “I know who he is, ” she said defensively. “I just didn’t know that was him. ”
    “He was an associate in the Nar touch group that worked out the nucleotide sequence for the synthetic monofilament virus,” Bram said, showing off his knowledge. Voth’s touch group had been part of the same team. “But he gave it all up to run the human department here in the Compound.”
    “Oh,” she said. “He didn’t turn Schismatist, did he?”
    Bram had no interest in politics. “No, he’s a true-blue Partnerite. I guess he just wanted to be a big wiggler in a small pool.”
    Willum-frth-willum had paused to select some kind of biological artifact from a basket proffered by one of the student helpers. The object was a bright red globe with a little cluster of green tentacles on top.
    “There are plenty to go round,” the overman said. “So help yourselves.”
    “Excuse me, but that doesn’t look like any potato variation I’ve ever seen,” said one of Willum-frth-willum’s admirers, a mauve-dyed woman in a five-pointed yellow cape that made her look like a wilted Nar.
    “It’s not,” the portly man said smugly. “We worked backward from potato genes to create another plant in the same family. The nightshade family, as the archives call it.” He paused for dramatic effect. “We believe it’s a ‘tomato,’ or something very close to it.”
    “Excuse me,” said a worried-looking man with the bent shoulders of a scholar, “but isn’t that “deadly” nightshade?”
    “The ripe fruit’s quite safe, I assure you,” Willum-frth-willum said with a condescending smile. “The alkaloids in this particular family are concentrated in the foliage. In fact, we’ve been isolating medically useful alkaloids from altered leaf protoplasts for several generations— things like atropine and scopolamine and the belladonna that some of the ladies use to make their eyes more beautiful. At present, we’re working to duplicate another potato relative—an herb called tobacco, which seems to have disappeared after the twenty-third century but which some of the earlier literature describes as beneficial.”
    “What did you call it?” somebody called out. “A tomato?”
    “Yes.”
    “Well, whatever it is, we’re all indebted to the bio department,” the mauve-haired woman said firmly. “Any addition to the human diet is welcome. Food seems so