Donald Moffitt - Genesis 01

we’re doing.”
    “But then the world always comes into it again.” She propped herself on one elbow and looked at him gravely. “I mean, what if we could just float away and start all over again in a perfect world?”
    “This one isn’t so bad sometimes,” Bram said lazily.
    “You’re too easily satisfied.”
    “Not that easily,” he said, reaching for her.
    She wriggled away. “In a world that was run properly, you’d be a very important person. In a world like this, it’s the Willum-frth-willums that get the credit for everything. When you know a thousand times more about biocrafting than he does.”
    “You’re flattering me.”
    “Maybe you need flattering.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “It means you can’t go on drifting through life. Sometimes you have to make choices.”
    “I make choices all the time,” he said lightly. “I do it every time I flush a cloning tray down the drain or decide to pass it on to the biocrafting department.”
    “For them to take the credit,” she said.
    “That’s not the way it works,” he said uncomfortably. “Biocrafting’s a big enterprise. Everybody does their share.”
    “What’s that stuff you took home with you?”
    Disconcerted, he said, “I told you, I just want to work out a few ideas.”
    “Why can’t you do it at the biocenter? Why don’t you want the Nar to know what you’re up to?”
    “Kerthin …”
    She laughed. “Never mind. It’s good to know you’re showing some spunk.” She rolled partway over to peer at him. “It has something to do with that dragonfly thing, doesn’t it?”
    Bram froze. “What makes you think that?” he asked carefully.
    “Keep your secrets for now, my poor, transparent love. When the time comes, you can share them with those who’ll know how to use them properly.”
    “Like Pite?” he said, and instantly regretted it.
    She patted his hand. “You’re very nice, and you’ll be nicer when you wake up. You need somebody to take you in hand. As Penser says, ‘Discipline is better than consensus.’”
    The Penser quote depressed Bram. “Kerthin, I don’t want you talking to any of those people about what I do.”
    “Of course not.”
    “Don’t humor me. I mean it.”
    “Could you make those dragonfly things with that equipment you’ve got?” she asked, tracing a circle on his chest with her finger.
    “Is that what you think?” he said, then checked himself. “Look, you don’t understand what I’ve been saying. To craft any living organism above the level of a virus is an enormous enterprise that requires lots of different specialists. Synthesizing the DNA is only the start of the job. Then you’ve got to assemble a working cell. Even the simplest bacterium has over a thousand ‘small’ molecules—sugars, amino acids, fatty acids—and another thousand or two thousand macromolecules—the different proteins and other polymeric chains—that are hundreds of times more complex than the subunits. You’ve got to have a functioning cell membrane and, once you get beyond bacteria, a structured nucleus that’s separated from the cytoplasm. The precise three-dimensional configurations are important—the polypeptide chains have to fold up to form the properly shaped catalytic cavities. Oh, why go on?”
    “Poor Bram, now you’re all upset.”
    “Biocrafting is the science of life, not a weapon in some imaginary battle.”
    “Never mind, Bram, sweet. Go to sleep.”
    She turned over and curled up with her back to him. Bram tried to sleep, but he couldn’t.
     
    It was a couple of Tendays later. Bram no longer worked late at the biocenter, except for those nights when he was able to gain access to the facilities of the library annex. Instead, he hurried home to solve protein chains.
    He was getting nowhere. It was not a job for the empirical approach. What he needed was a high-powered computer search program. Eventually, he knew, he would have to enlist a hacker—to kindle somehow the feverish monomania that those strange involute creatures thrived on while concealing the true purpose of the program. In the meantime, he plugged away, gaining experience that might translate into a more successful search technique.
    Hogard, the hairy librarian, was becoming inconveniently curious about Bram’s nighttime researches. Bram fobbed him off with snippets of incidental material that kept him busy collating and cataloging. Once Hogard had buttonholed him and asked, “Did you ever turn