Donald Moffitt - Genesis 01

any. How can I convince you that the Nar aren’t keeping secrets from us? There’s a tremendous amount of data in the archives. Decades and decades worth of transmissions. A lot of it hasn’t been digested yet. But it’s all available. Scholars—both human and Nar—are digging into it all the time.”
    “You said yourself that you sometimes have trouble finding the information you want.”
    “Sure, but that’s because humans have difficulty using the Nar library system. There’s nothing sinister about it. The cultural package is fairly simple, but a lot of the other data was simply packed away till someone could get around to it. There was a codicil to the first cycle of transmission that lasted fourteen years—apparently additional scientific data and an historical update—that’s hardly been more than cataloged.”
    “That’s what we’ve been told, anyway.”
    “Kerthin, there’s generations worth of work there,” Bram said, exasperated. “Anybody who wants to is welcome to track it down, if he wants to spend the time.” Seeing the stubborn look on her face, he poured out the tale of the elusive historical data on the heterochronic gene project. “So you see,” he finished, “a little sniffing around will generally lead you to the file you want. I’m going to ask Voth about it in the morning.”
    She was instantly alert. “Don’t,” she said.
    “Huh?”
    “Don’t ask him about it. Could you get access to Voth’s files without him knowing about it?”
    “Well, sure. Everything’s right out in the open. But I don’t see—”
    “How can anyone as intelligent as you be so dense? If they know you’re after it, they’ll take steps to conceal it.”
    “Don’t be ridiculous.”
    She reached across the rickety eating stand and took his hand. “If I’m wrong, it doesn’t matter, does it? But you have an opportunity to show your loyalty to the whole human species. And if that’s not important to you, do it as a favor to me. Promise?”
    “Kerth, you’re asking me to spy on my own adoptive tutor, the being who brought me up!” Bram exclaimed. Spying was one of the most universal human activities if one could believe fifty centuries of literature, and most of the authors, from Homer to Jarhn Anders, didn’t appear to think too highly of those who practiced it.
    “How can it possibly hurt Voth—unless he’s deceiving you? ”
    “But—”
    She withdrew her hand. “And to think I was considering sharing genes with you!”
    “Don’t be like that, Kerth.”
    “Promise?” she asked.
    “All right,” he said miserably.
    She settled back in her seat. “Let’s have another drink before we go home,” she said. “See if you can catch their eye.”
     
    Voth glided out of his private chamber and headed across the atrium toward the elevators. He paused when he saw the reading light in the human end of the spectrum shining in Bram’s alcove. With a corkscrew swirl of his upper structure, he reversed polarity and retraced his steps.
    “You work late, Bram, my child,” he said. “Everyone else has gone.”
    Bram looked up at the sound of the words. Voth’s voice was becoming deeper; it was almost as deep as a female’s now. The other Nar tiptoed around him with exaggerated deference these days.
    “I … I’m just catching up on a few odds and ends,” Bram said.
    He had been within a hairbreadth of getting up and leaving when Voth had finally decided to call it a day. It had seemed almost providential to Bram that Voth had picked this particular night to linger; Bram had been almost grateful to have an excuse to change his mind.
    “Are you having difficulties?” the old decapod asked. “I can stay to help.”
    “N-no, there aren’t any particular problems. I just want to clear up some work.”
    “Your contribution to the embryonic stem project is causing much favorable comment,” Voth said. “The work goes well in the biocrafting department. Soon, we believe, we will have some good news to pass along. I am proud of you, Bram.”
    “Thank you,” Bram replied, feeling worse than ever. “But you ought not to work so hard. You should be at home to give time to the young woman you contemplate pairing with.”
    How had Voth known that? Of course! The gene coop would have requested records from the Nar reproductive monitors, and Voth—as preoccupied as he was with the approaching change in his own life—still took the trouble to keep up with the lives of his human