Donald Moffitt - Genesis 01

up anything further on those egg genes, the ones where the historical references just petered out?”
    “No,” Bram had answered, startled and wary. “Why do you ask?”
    Hogard had nodded in the direction of the sallow man from the Ascendist meeting, who was fiddling with one of the reading machines. “Waller over there asked me what you were up to nights. Said he’d be interested in being kept informed.”
    “Waller?”
    Hogard’s curly eyebrows had gone up in surprise. “Don’t you know him?”
    “No.”
    “That’s funny, he seemed to know you. I got the impression you had friends in common.”
    “Who is he? Does he work at the biocenter?”
    “Him? Naw. He’s a clerk over at the laser comm center. Routes commercial traffic and separates out the human messages for decoding and forwarding. He’s a human history nut, though—spends half his life at the annex here poring over The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, the sayings of Mao, the entries on Napoleon and Alexander the Great—things like that. Been a help to me, though. He gets me printouts of the new literary works coming from Juxt One and Next so I can enter them here. I enter ‘em, but I can’t say I understand some of ‘em—like this play, The Interchangeable Man, where all the characters wear masks and the hero begs a tribunal called the ‘control-chorus’ to execute him for what he calls deviation. But I guess you can’t argue with art.”
    “You told him about the uncataloged data?”
    “Sure, him being interested in history and like that. He says he can’t wait till it gets straightened out.”
    Waller had glanced up and seen them looking in his direction, but instead of responding to Hogard’s offhand wave, he had ducked his head and pretended not to notice it. A few minutes later he had switched off his reading machine and, eyes down, left.
    Bram had not returned to the library annex since then, but out of curiosity he had gone back to the drink shop in whose back room the Ascendist meeting had been held. He had lingered over a cold toddy and then, on the pretext of looking for the cloaca, peeped into the meeting room. The rows of seats were gone, there was no sign of a rostrum or political banners, and the lounges and game tables had been restored to their places. Two men playing a game with pasteboards seemed not at all familiar.
    On this night, some days after his conversation with Hogard, Bram had returned home to find Kerthin away, as she was so often. Half an egg, left over from supper the night before, was in the food locker. He cut off a slice and fixed himself a light repast of yolkballs and cold beanfry. He had just finished eating and was settling down to work preparing a batch of ribosomes for the protein synthesizer when the door rattle gave an ugly rasp.
    He got up to answer, thinking that if Kerthin had decided to spend the evening at home, after all, he would quit work. He could put on some music, make drinks.
    The door rattle made another impatient noise. “I’m coming,” Bram called. He opened the oval port and saw Pite standing there with two bulky shadows behind him.
    “Hello, Brammo,” Pite said softly.
    “What do you want?” Bram said, not bothering to conceal his distaste. “Kerthin’s not here.”
    “We didn’t come to see Kerthin, Brammo,” Pite said. “It’s you we want to talk to.”
    Before Bram could do anything about it, Pite pushed his way into the chamber, followed by his two hulking friends. All three were wearing gray monos with the sleeves cut off; it seemed to be an unofficial uniform for Pite’s faction. Bram recognized Fraz: red-faced and scraggly-bearded. The other intruder was equally large and muscular, with a broken nose and a bristly head of hair that had been trimmed close enough to show the bumpy contours of his skull.
    Fraz clumped past Bram without looking at him and stuck his head and wide shoulders into the little work-chamber. “Hey, Pite!” he yelled. “Come take a look at this stuff.”
    Pite stayed where he was, grinning at Bram. “What about it, Brammo? Doing a little private research that the decaboos don’t know about?”
    “None of your business,” Bram said. “Now get out of here.”
    “Is that any way to talk to a gene brother?” Pite said. “Be nice, Brammo.”
    Fraz was rummaging through a basket of Brain’s printouts. He lost interest in them and picked up one of the clay substrates lying next to the protein synthesizer.
    “Leave that