Donald Moffitt - Genesis 01

included in the monumental afterthought that was the codicil to Original Man’s great message, and there was no doubt at all that it had to do with new genetic information for the human genome. And that was odd, because the complete recipe for cooking up a human being had already been transmitted fifty years earlier in the first—or hundredth?—cycle of the human message to be intercepted.
    It sat in the center of his screen, a multicolored geometric figure with twenty hexagonal facets, rotating slowly in space to show its three-dimensional structure. A long, hollow tail dangled from it, endlessly flexing as if in search of something.
    Bram knew what it was. He had made simpler versions himself many times for projects to inject new genetic information into food plants and industrial crops. It was the protein overcoat for a synthetic carrier virus. Inside that faceted overcoat was a molecule, or molecules, of infectious DNA.
    Bram knew nothing about the nucleotide sequence of the viral DNA or what receptor sites in what human chromosomes it was meant to attach itself to. But he knew what it did.
    It made human beings immortal.
     
    “You look as if someone just told you that you were going to die!” Kerthin said. “Can’t you act a little more lively?”
    “Sorry,” Bram said.
    She faced him, her hands on her hips. “You’ve been moping around ever since you got back from the biocenter last night. You’re no fun at all! Is something wrong?”
    “No,” he lied.
    She peered at him suspiciously. “You found out something, didn’t you? Something that you don’t want to tell me.”
    “I’m just working late on a project, that’s all.”
    “You don’t want to tell me because you found out that I was right. Your precious Voth-shr-voth has been lying to you.”
    That stung. Bram told himself that Kerthin could not be right. If Voth had been trying deliberately to conceal the existence of a genetic amendment that kept human beings from aging, then he would not have encouraged Bram to keep on searching through the archives, not have lent his assistance. No. The explanation must be that the Nar simply didn’t realize the implications of the uncalled information in their files, and that was why it had lain there undisturbed for half a millennium. The file was simply a dumping ground for all the dangerous data having to do with that unstable dragonfly allele.
    But the fact remained that human beings died after a century or two—and kept on dying, generation after generation, while the Nar lived for a thousand years.
    “The Nar don’t lie,” he said. “It’s physically impossible for them to lie to one another, and they never got into the habit.”
    “Have it your own way.” She tossed her head. “When you decide to join the human race, you can tell me about it. We need all the information we can get to help us in the struggle.”
    A finger of ice traced Bram’s spine. He could imagine what use Kerthin’s Schismatist friends would make of the information that human beings were meant to live forever—and that the Nar had not yet gotten around to conferring this gift upon them. He didn’t want to think about what such poisoned knowledge would do to the human community once it got out.
    He needed more time to think about this, time to decide what to do.
    “There’s nothing to tell, I said. Anyway, I’m not working tonight.” He smiled with an effort. “Why don’t we go to that new repast house you like? And afterward they’re having a singfest down at the bay. It ought to be fun.”
    Kerthin was at the clothes chest, pulling an outdoor tabard over her head, an anonymous gray garment that seemed at odds with her liking for color. “I’m going out tonight. You’ll have to find something yourself to eat. I think there’re some leftover potato cups in the locker. Or you can eat at the bachelors’ lodge.”
    “Where are you going?” Bram said. “It seems to me you’re going out a lot lately.”
    “What do you expect?” She bristled. “You’re gone half the night, and when you are here, you act all grumpy. I didn’t know if you were coming back tonight, and I promised I’d—I’d look at someone’s sculpture.”
    “Go some other time.”
    She belted the tabard. “I can’t. I said I’d be there tonight. Some other people will be at the showing.”
    “I’ll go with you.”
    “No—I mean it’s private. Just for a few artists. They aren’t ready to show it to