Donald Moffitt - Genesis 01

alone,” Bram said sharply. He started toward the alcove, and the fellow with the close-clipped hair blocked his path. Bram tried to go around him, and a set of thick fingers wrapped themselves around his upper arm.
    “Let go of me,” he said.
    The grip on his arm only tightened, but Pite said lazily, “Let the man go, Spak. We’re all friends here. Fraz, don’t touch anything. We wouldn’t want to disturb Brammo’s work, would we?”
    “Sure, Pite,” Fraz said, replacing the little tablet. “I didn’t hurt anything.”
    Bram, with a glare, moved back the things Fraz had disarranged and pushed the workbench against the wall. “Why are you here?” he said to Pite.
    “It’s like this, Brammo. Time’s running out, and like Penser says, knowledge is power. We want to make sure that our gene brothers who work with the decaboos aren’t holding out on us.”
    “There’s nothing I do here or at my job that would be of any interest to you,” Bram said.
    “That’s not what we hear, Brammo,” Pite said softly. “We hear you’re sticking your nose into a restricted area. We think you’ve come up with something that could give the human race leverage against the Nar. Biological leverage or propaganda leverage. We don’t care which.”
    “Who told you that?” Bram said. “Waller?”
    “Waller?” Fraz said innocently. “We don’t know any Waller. Do we know a Waller, Spak?”
    “Shut up, Fraz,” Pite said. “The point is, Brammo, if you’re not with us, you’re against us.”
    “I’m not against anybody,” Bram said. “I just want to be left alone to do my work.”
    “That’s not possible anymore,” Pite said with a half smile. “When the struggle comes to a head, very soon now, it’ll be too late to choose sides.”
    “There’s no struggle. It’s all in your imagination.”
    “You see, Brammo,” Pite said, ignoring the interruption, “we’re making our lists now. We expect everybody who’s fit to be called a human being to do his part. Especially people like you, who work for the yellowlegs and who’re in a position to keep us informed about what they’re up to.” His lips stretched humorlessly within their fringe of uncombed blond beard. “So do yourself a favor, gene brother, and tell your friends all about it right now. What is this secret from the heritage of man that the yellowlegs are holding back from us? And what does all this scrambling around you’ve been doing lately have to do with it? It has something to do with the origin of eggs, doesn’t it? Where does this dangerous life form come into the picture? Are they dragon eggs?”
    Bram was shocked at the extent of Pite’s information. Garbled though it was, it was uncomfortably close to the truth.
    “How about it, Brammo?”
    They were all looking at him. The fellow with the broken nose and the bumpy skull, Spak, edged a step closer, his oversize arm muscles working like independent creatures, and glanced toward Pite as if waiting for a signal.
    Bram drew a deep breath. Keeping his mouth shut wouldn’t solve the problem now. He had to throw Pite off the trail—concoct some kind of story that would allay Pite’s suspicions. And he didn’t dare stray too far from the facts; he had no idea how much Pite knew or might find out.
    Later, he could face the question of where Pite had heard about “dragons.” Neither Waller nor Hogard could have told him. Kerthin was the only person Bram had confided in. But there was no time to think about that now.
    “No, they’re not dragon eggs,” Bram said. “But they contain a few altered genes from—from the dangerous life form you referred to. All the genes do is keep an egg growing without differentiating, to make it suitable as a food source. A complete genome of the—the other organism doesn’t exist.”
    “Pity,” Pite said. “Could you use the genes you have to construct a chimeric analog of one of these flying dragons?”
    Bram skipped a breath. Pite was not as stupid as he had believed.
    “Dragonfly,” he said automatically. “No, it’s not the kind of job that could be done with the resources available to humans, like backtracking potato genes to make a simple vegetable organism like the tomato. And it’s certainly not anything one man could tackle with the equipment I have in the other room. If it could be done at all, it would need all the resources of the biocenter and dozens of Nar specialists.”
    Pite nodded as if he had heard it before.