Lou nodded but kept his eyes on the nearest workmen, who were busily laying a heavy cable across the floor.
“We brought the logic circuits and the whole memory bank.”
“What about the voice circuits and input software?” Lou shouted.
Marcus lowered his voice a notch. “Um, we didn’t bring the voice circuits or the vocal input units. You’ll have to type your inputs to the computer and get the replies on the viewscreen or printer, just like any ordinary machine.”
“What? How come?”
Marcus avoided Lou’s eyes. “Well, we didn’t have the time or the transportation capacity to take everything. Besides…” his voice lower, so that Lou had to bend down a bit to hear him, “with all these Chinks around as workmen and technicians, if they heard a computer talk they’d probably get scared out of their skulls. They’d think it was devils or something supernatural.”
Lou stared at him. “You’re kidding. Nobody’s…”
Marcus stopped him with an upraised hand. “No, I’m serious. Sure, we’ve got some good people on the technical staff, but the hired hands are straight from the hill country, believe me. My own driver—he’s a great mechanic, don’t get me wrong. But he keeps some powdered bones in a bag around his neck. Claims they keep evil spirits away.”
When they went outside and climbed back into the car, Lou took a careful look. Sure enough, the driver had a thin leather thong tied around the brown skin of his neck, with a tiny bag at the end of it.
They had lunch on the veranda of Marcus’ quarters, a house made of real stone and wood, with a red tile roof that overhung the walls by several feet and made welcome shade against the heat of the sun. The house was atop the hill that overlooked the little blue-water inlet, and the breeze from the ocean made it very pleasant on the veranda. Lou leaned back in a wicker chair, watching the moisture beading on the outside of his iced drink, listening to the songbirds in the flowering bushes that surrounded the house.
“A month ago,” Marcus was saying, “this was the only house on the island. By the end of this week, we’ll have more than a hundred people here—twenty of them scientists, like yourself.”
“I’m not a scientist,” Lou said automatically. “I’m a computer engineer.”
Marcus smiled wanly. “Yes, I know. But anybody who understands this genetics business looks like a scientist to me. I’m a civil engineer, by training. Right now, I guess I’m just a straw boss.”
The young Malay driver served them lunch on a round bamboo table, his little bag of magic dangling between Lou and Marcus whenever he bent over to put something on the table.
“Minister Bernard’s plan,” Marcus said as they ate, “is to carry on the work that was going on at the top genetics labs.”
Lou shook his head. “Twenty men can’t do the work of two thousand. Especially when those two thousand were the best men in their fields.”
Marcus chewed thoughtfully on a mouthful of food. He swallowed and then said, “I know it won’t be easy. We’ve brought some good people here, but you’re perfectly right, they’re not the best. And we couldn’t bring too many of them either, without the government catching on to what we’re trying to do.”
“Just what is it that you are trying to do?”
“Exactly what I told you,” Marcus said, concentrating his gaze on a leaf of salad that was eluding his fork. “We’re going to continue the work you were doing at the Institute. We’re going to complete it, and show the world that we can alter a human embryo deliberately, and safely. Once we’ve announced that news, and told the people that the government tried to prevent this work from being completed, the government will have to relent and allow your friends to return to their homes and their work.”
Lou felt an old excitement tingling through his body. “The next step in evolution,” he said so softly that it was almost a reverent whisper. “Man’s conscious improvement of his own mind and body.”
Marcus leaned back in his chair.
“It’s criminal,” Lou flared, “for the government to stop this work! In a generation or two we could be turning out people who are physically and mentally perfect!”
Smiling, Marcus said, “Yes, we can. And we will, if you can do your part in this job. You realize, don’t you, that you’re the most important human being on Earth?”
12
Lou felt physically staggered. He stared at Marcus, who was smiling easily at him.
“Me? What are you talking about?”
“It’s very simple,” Marcus explained. “All of the world’s top geneticists and biochemists have been put into exile. They’re being shipped up to their satellite prison right now. Of all the top men working on genetic engineering, you’re the only one we’ve been able to save.”
“But…”
“Oh, sure, we’ve rounded up a few of the second-string people, and we’ve brought in a couple of young pups, bright boys, but the ink is still wet on their diplomas. You’re the only experienced top-flight man we have.”
“But I’m only a computer engineer.”
Nodding, “Maybe, but your work is the key to the whole project. You’ve got the computer coding system in your hands. Unless we can get the computer to handle all of the thousand of variables that are involved in any tinkering with the genes, we don’t dare try to do anything. It would be too dangerous.”
Lou agreed, “Yeah … you’ve got to have the computer plot out all the possible side effects of any change you make. Otherwise you’d never know if you were making the zygote better or worse.”
“Right,” Marcus said. “And you’re the only man who was close enough to the geneticists to really understand what the computer coding system must be. We’ve checked all across the world, believe me. None of the other labs were as close to success as your Institute. And none of them had a computer system as sophisticated as yours. So that makes you the key man. The fate of your friends—the fate of the whole world—is in your hands.”
Grinning foolishly, Lou said, “Well… it’s really in Ramo’s hands. Ramo’s got the whole thing wrapped up in his memory banks.”
Marcus tensed in his chair. “The whole thing?”
Lou nodded. “All I’ve got to do is run through the programs and de-bug them. Then we’ll be ready for the first experiments. Take me a few weeks, at most.”
“This is critically important to us,” Marcus said. “I don’t want you to rush it. I want it done right.”
Feeling a little irritated, Lou said, “It’s almost finished. In a few weeks, we’ll be ready.”
“You’ll be able to scan the zygote’s genetic structure, spot any defects, plot out the proper corrective steps, and predict the results?”
“To twenty decimal places,” Lou insisted. “And it’ll all be done in less than a minute of computer time.”
“If you can do that…”
“When we can do that,” Lou corrected, “we’ll be able to mend any genetic defects in the zygote and make each embryo genetically perfect. Ultimately, we’ll be able to produce a race of people with no physical defects and an intelligence level way beyond the genius class.”
“Yes,” Marcus said. “Ultimately.”
Lou sat back, Marcus smiled pleasantly and sipped his drink. Then Lou noticed, through the chirping of the songbirds, the drone of a jet high overhead. Marcus heard it too. He looked up at the silvery speck with its pencil-thin line of white contrail speeding along behind it.
Glancing down at his wristwatch, Marcus said, “That’s our next supply shipment. Your programmer friend should be on that plane.”
“Bonnie?”