Bio-patent

Singu{arities Stories from tfie 1989 Canberra Science :Fiction Society

Sfwrt Story Competition

Bio-Patent by Vcrn Weitzel Her worries all behind her, Lilly's mind wandered across the valley, chequered with tiled roofs all the way to the sea, hazy in the afternoon mist. She smelled the fresh, salty breeze. This was the first time she'd looked - really looked -out the window of her office in three years in that hillside university. No time before. Nor inclination. Behind her not far a way, a machine hummed contentedly. It was a gene sequencer, one of several automated wonders she'd used in her research. The sound it made was hardly audible, though Lilly's mind was tuned to its purr, and the minutes punctuated by the hiss of opening feedlines, each time squirting a few precise micromoles of liquid into a glass column of amber beads. Next to the sequencer sat a nucleic acid extractor, a somewhat smaller oblong structure, recessed where a bank of reagent bottles might be if it were in use. Today. this machine slept quietly under a greying vinyl dust cover. Now she was done. all her efforts condensed into two items: a slim thesis, redolent of binding glue, and a dozen culture plates spaced in a single layer over one rack of the incubator. The gene sequencer and its mechanical companions today served another's needs. And she was free to consider the world again. Yet she was uncomfortable with the sudden change. Was it really a change for the better? Over the last sleepless nights she puzzled over this. At last she decided it was because she was so used to the work, the nine-to-nine and beyond routine. Lilly not only enjoyed the work, she had become tuned to its relentless. inspiring pace. Breaking work habits would be hard to do. Strange, because until now she put everything else out of her mind in anticipation of finishing her thesis and taking a long, well-deserved rest. To this end, she pushed herself interminably. She had enjoyed no social life. took no holidays, had no boyfriends, not really - Rob was more of a friend. She let the easy life wait. She made herself wait until the thesis was done. But now. with the final flurry of submission behind her, there was an uncommon calm. She wasn't used to it, she felt oddly useless. No longer an individual, she had become a creature of her work. Almost one of the machines. How could so much of her life become entrained by the narrowing universe of her expertise? Her thesis. On looking up from her work, the world had taken on an unfamiliar cast. The more she pondered where she'd been, what it meant and where it would ultimately lead, it seemed the less she understood. About herself. About life. Funny. she was thinking, how often the things closest to you can't be put into words. They're so much a part of you that the explaining would unravel you like a big ball of wool. Sensible people leave it twin ed up rightly. Like the machines: one of them broke down a year or so ago. When they opened it. she was overwhelmed by its internal complexity. Yet she had used it. programmed it. tossed chemicals into its bowels. watched the con veyer march a row of tubes through its recesses, and listened to it rattle away all day long and half the nighr while she worked - writing, calculating, annotating, at its side like Don Quixote beside a pudgy, rambling Pancho. Inside that fat. grey freezer-sized container, Pancho was mechanical complexity beyond the narrow focus of her intellect. She used the machines she didn't understand to explore a universe so small that no human eye had ever - would ever - know its beauty.

Lilly was a student of the ropclike molecule called DNA on which genes reside like the musical tracks on a cassette tape. These genes control all the functions of life, at every stage in life. But they are nearly invisible, hidden in the centre of each minute cell in the body. Staining techniques show them grossly; electron microscopy guilds their surface, projecting the image of a tiny thread onto a phosphor screen. None of these methods show how genes work. They are fixed, dead things. Lilly was more concerned with how genes work, and what they did in the salty environment of the body. To her credit. Lilly had discovered and copied a human gene coding for a muscle relaxant. She learned how it was made in life and. having extracted it from the cell and mapped its structure. she then manufactured it and placed this new life in a common bacterium. The gene sequencer tailored a control region suitable for the bacteria, so that once the gene and its operator were tucked away in the heart of the cell, it would work continuously, a never ending recording making an endless stream of muscle relaxing protein. Bacterial colonies exuded this protein; it sat like dew on the surface of each colony. Enough colonies. and drug manufacturers could draw off enough protein to administer to the world. The drug would be useful. But that wasn't why she was here. She was most of all, a scientist unravelling the genetic ball . of twine. At this moment, if someone had asked her about patenting the drug or making money from it. she would have been insulted. She wasn't in it for the money, but for science, for progress, and perhaps because she believed in herself. That was now. In a minute, this would begin to change. Her Pancho hummed monotonously, its inner workings silently manipulating the stuff of life. "Lilly, you're still here?" It was Jackson, her SUF and head of the laboratory. 'Thought you'd be on the beach." Lilly smiled politely, "A little short of money." Jackson nodded. He knew about workaholism - he was a prime example. Passing the incubator. he peeked in. 'Those the new clones - the clean ones?" "Yes. Finished Tuesday." "Good. I'll take a couple of sets over to the other lab. Just to be safe." "Sure. Be my guest." She liked Jackson. He was greying, studious and dedicated: He'd always been helpful without being condescending-- even during the early days when she knew she was out of her depth. At the same time. he was not an easy man to come to know; he didn't get drunk and babbling. His socialising was limited to casual dinner parties. where work and work-related gossip were the main fare. He'd been at the Uni for yonks. and she somehow couldn't see him holding down a regular job. Jackson tapped the cloth cover of her freshly bound thesis. 'That is out of the way. A nd there should be no problem getting through the examiners. You deserve to relax." "I tried. Two days at home. Hated it." Jackson smiled through a rough. heavy beard. "Itchy to get back'r' "Something like that. Any news about the grant?" The beard instantly flattened, 'That's why I came round." Lilly suddenly felt as though a football just started inflated in her stomach. Her jaw froze half open. "You'll let the flies in." Jackson said, pulling up a chair. Lilly didn't move. Something bad was happening. Something _ something she felt she should have expected but didn.'t want to give up the trust she had in Jackson and the Uni. She felt a rush of- she hardly believed herself- betrayal. It came out of nowhere. All of a sudden. Then she pushed it out of the way to be replaced by a sick, jittery-gutted fear. "What's happened'!' she asked. almost stuttering.

Jackson looked not at her but at an in visible speck on the floor. That was a bad sign. "Well," he said and then paused a moment to clean his teeth with the tip of his tongue. Lilly was anxious. Jesus. get on with it! Jackson reclined. The chair creaked loudly. "Your grant fell through. To be fair. quite a few proposals went in this year. But there was a funding cutback. The dollar isn't doing very well on the international market and new equipment costs more to get from overseas and that means new, more costly ' equipment to support ongoing projects. So almost all the new proposals didn't make the cut." "So you can't support the project." "We'd like you to continue your work. We are very impressed with the effort and intellect you've put into this project so far. Only we can't pay you," Jackson's arms folded tightly across his chest. "but of course I want to emphasize you can work. There's nothing stoppmg you from workmg. We can fund the disposables out of petty cash. And naturally you can keep your cubicle here. And you do good work ·- we're all exceedingly proud of you, of your contribution to my team, that is to say, our team_" he trailed off. There was a moment's silence. Jackson's brown saddle-top loafers scraped indifferently at the nonexistent spot. Lilly couldn't think. This was too sudden and coherence was lagg ing miles behind. At length, as the pause became embarrassing, she suggested, "When can we apply again? Maybe there's somep lace else we can go?" . "I tried the School. They're in the red so that's out. So I guess it's next year. We'll submi! agatn. Same proposal- beefed up with what you do till then. That will show them how interested you are. It'll look good on paper if you keep working. Then we mtght get a three year paying job. We just can't pay now. We're broke." The disappointment was impossible to hide. Lilly felt_ angry. No. She felt sorry. So ternbly sorry. Tears welled mto her eyes. She had to wipe them with a Handy Wipe from a lab bench. She saw Jackson's pained expression and that made it all worse. . It was as _if she had failed. Her work wasn't good enough to get the grant She'd fatled. She had ta1led Jackson -· and Goldlieb and Connors and _ and all the others in the School. Her University. She'd failed them all. I can't live with this. It's my fault and it's wrong. "'I'll do better." she said with emphasis. "I want to do better _.. Then it occurred to her. "How am I going to live'!' Jackson shrugged, "Didn't you once waitress? Or maybe welfare. You can get the dole and then yo u'll have more free time to work here. For us. We'd like that. We'd like to see you around."

It took time to settle. Jach:son pulled the rug out with an incredible deftness. and she. like a cartoon figure somehow didn 't want to believe she was falling head over bum onto the hard earth ot unemployment. She'd done so well. Everyone said so. Everyone liked her and lau ded her work. Didn't they'> Or did she have enemies somewhere_ no that couldn't be. no one here was byzantine enough. Or was she just naive. Couldn't sl;e have seen the label on the uni-made box they'd helped her into? Couldn't she have known what were doing all along? Naive and packaged slowly falling to a cold storage academtc basement. No. I can't th ink like that. It isn't fair. They were all nice people. All very good to me. All helpful. But she wondered. She wondered when this sickening, falling feeling 1n her stomach would stop. when she would finally hit bottom. Later that afternoon. Lilly was talking with Goldlieb. He'd been autoclaving a heap of glassware and was as much glad for the help as for the conversation. "I heard about the grant," he said. "You look down in the dumps."

"You know about the grant." she said shamefully. , . ''This is an incestuous place. Everyone knows everybody elses busmess. You know. But I know something else as well," Goldlieb grinned smugly. "What?" "You are to be congratulated." , . ''Thanks." Lilly's eyes lifted. "For what?" says got UpJohn and ''The pharmaceutical people want your bug. Ciba Geigy on a string if the clone is clean. Could be tmportant- mternauonal too. Could mean a lot." "Prestige." , ''That and money. The Uni wants to sell it. You ought to proud. All afternoon Lilly was a lady standing in front of a door wtth a handful of keys. She didn't know which key opened it and she'd tried most of them already. Now . fitted the lock, and turned. And the door opened. "How much do you thmk the Unt wtll make off this - off my clone?" "Don't know. But we are talking big bickies. Why?" She was going to cry - hadn't cried since she was six. Tears welled in her eyes. She didn't want to be seen. Lilly threw off her rubber apron and made for the door. Why? If they're making money from my work - and a lot of money at that - then why can't I get a job! . , . Go ldlieb knew. It wasn't the money. Academtcs don t tlunk about money. Only administrators do and they don't count that much. There were no positions in the University, except for the' people who already occupied positions. It was just the way things were. . Goldlieb scowled in the direction of Lilly's back, then constdered the mound of pyrex in front of him. Without Lilly, he'd be the rest of the day. It wasn't very kind of her to leave, but he understood. She'd just hit bottom.

Two nights later. sunk among the covers in her ancient, slouching bed, Lilly was too sick to be dead. The vodka, gin and Father O'Shea's Irish rotgut had worn off. No need reminding her she wasn't used to drinking. Rob called half a dozen times but she left the phone off the hook. She couldn't talk anyway, not wtth her mouth full of worms. Rob was a good sort. Kind, trusting but a bit thick. She even ht_m a key to the place. And he never took advantage. It aln;tost an.noyed her he ?tdn t thmk of _tt an invitation. But she wasn't sure how she'd react tf he dtd. Anyway, nght now she dtdn t feel especially romantic. . Geiting a busy signal two days in a row, Rob came by, warned. He knocked. No answer. He unlocked the door. It was dark inside. He snapped on the lights. A large white fluorescent lamp fluttered overhead. "My God." He saw Lilly, wrapped in a pink terry cloth dressing gown. draped like a rag over most of the couch. "Shut up. I'm sick." "You look like a dog's dinner." ''Thanks. Get me a Panadol." Rob was a mathematician which, in Lilly's experience, meant he was useless at most things. He took five minutes to find a pack. of Panadol laying in plain view on the kitchen counter. He drew a glass of water; Lilly would have preferred lt m a clean glass. Rob didn't ask why she'd decided to have a binge. That was nice of him. But she reckoned she owed him an explanation. He didn't seem impressed with the extent of her misfortune. That made her angry. Then again. he was sure she was smart enough to guarantee that everything would work out. That made her feel a lot better.

Soon she'd downed a fried egg ond a slice of toast with Vegemite. He'd made a mess in the kitchen. But the place was already a graveyard of unwashed dinnerware. so it didn't matter. He also broke two plates and got the telephone cord tangled in the eggbeater. That almost had her smiling. "So why can't you get a job with a drug company?" ''Too commercial." "So's the landlord." "Don't hassle me." Her face hovered over the plate. She hoped this would stay down. "Do me a favour and talk to me. Anything'll do _ except food or booze." "Sure. How's work?" Lilly groaned and glared. "Don't want to talk about work." ''Then what?" Rob was tall and thin, with a thick bush of hair and an uncomfortably awkward way of moving. He wore an old. tweed suit coat over an older, checked shirt. The colours clashed like a twelve car pile-up. He occupied a small corner of the couch while Lilly took up the rest. She wasn't sure whether his distance was because he thought she needed a bath (God, she smelled mouldy) or because of her obvious bad mood. True, she wasn't the best of company. It was good of him to stay, even if she didn't feel like conversation. Rob crouched low. His long index finger sorted through the magazines shelved under the coffee table. Nothing of interest in the first layer. He dug deeper. Hmm. White sprocketcd paper. He pulled it out. deploying thirty pages of accordion fold in his lap. "What's this?" There was no answer. Lilly was loosening her pajama cord to ease the constriction in her stomach. Rob shuffled th ro ugh the pages, "What's this '- A-G-G-A-T _. business? Some kind of code?" An angry look. "Robert. There are times I think you are incredibly stupid. That's a DNA coding sequence. It's my damned thesis. You've known me all this time and you don't know what I do? you're a jerk." "Never had much biology." Rob pretended a grimace. "So the little letters arc little molecule thingies." "Yeah," s he pushed one foot forcefully into his thigh for emphasis. ''They're all strung in a chain. You put them together in the right way and they make things, polypeptides, enzymes. antibodies, all that shit." "You're a wonder with words. You should teach." He continued through pages of the same four upper case letters. "Boring stuff." He stopped, confronted by a red-penned Picasso. "Why do you have a page with the coding crossed out?" "Heterochromatin." "Who?" "A non-coding segment. It's a jumble. If you look at it, it doesn't make sense. It can't code for anything .•" "... enzymes. antibodies ..." "Urn. Some hererochromatin makes things. It is activated at a particular time in the life cycle of the organism. We'd like to know l1ow it becomes active. That was in my grant proposal." She sighed audibly. "But that stretch of DNA is useless. It can't make anything. I even tried. spent weeks. Jesus. I tried and tried ... but ..." She was on the way to tears. but held out. blinking and sniffing the tears back. "Okay," Rob's sympathy held better than his appreciation for nucleic acid biochem, "I believe you." Rob had never seen Lilly in anything but a serious, confident, bossy mood. This worried him. "Why nor take a short nap. It'll help you digest," he said. Then he did something on the spur of the moment: he put his hand on her knee and stroked it gently. She smiled at him to say he'd done the right thing. then closed her eyes.

When she opened them again it was hours later. She felt better. Well, somewhat. She saw Rob hunched over the coffee table, his pencil precessing like a purposeful top across a spiral notebook. She stirred slightly. The pencil continued scraping the page. A good heave with her foot made him bolt. That got his attention. "How do you feel?'' he said, a little surprised. "Lousy. Stomach's settled, but." "Good, I've got some good news. Solved your problem." "Hand me some of that coffee. Problem?" He passed the cup over. holding it so she could take the handle. "It's stone cold. Your hetero-what's-it." "So long as it's caffeine. What about it?'' "I worked it out. It's a numeric sequence." Lilly drained the cup in two gulps, setting it back with an unsteady clatter. "Sequence like what?" "Like a progression. a times table." He looked earnest enough. but what he was saying didn't make sense. Lilly bought time for the coffee to work. "Make me a fresh cup, then tell me again." "Sure," Rob said bouncily. "I got your coffee maker working. Never used 'em before. They're good." Filling the cup from the urn, he handed it carefully over. "Drink up," he said, watching as she swallowed in long. noisy chug-a-lugs. And then she looked at him over the rim, blue eyes as bright as lightbulbs in the darkness of the room. The look lingered. He felt he was being drawn to her. Absently, or at least without preplanning, he reached out. carefully brushing into place on·e or two loose waves of her soft brown hair. Then he knew he was in love. And so did she. Christ. Down went the cup. Up went her feet so her legs intervened. "This numbers nonsense. Where is it?'' she said in a matter-of-fact tone. A startled Rob crouched/fell back into his corner of the couch. His face reddened. "Yeah." He picked up a handful of paper. "Here it is ... here." He coughed nervously. Lilly thought it cute. "I traded your A's and G's for numbers. You see. You have four letters. If I take two places. that gives you four to the second power possible numbers. That's hexadecimalt' Lilly's eyes flitted from the inscrutable writing to the red flush spreading on the conch of his ear. He really was cute, awkward but cute. "What the hell are you talking about?" "Doesn't matter," he ripped the page out of the notebook, throwing it aside, "because it doesn't work anyway. I finally figured that if you took three letters -" "We call that a codon." "-Okay. You take a codon but forget about the final place, that could still be in hex - a way of counting." "Gotcha." "But it isn't hex. The code only uses half the series." His voice suddenly deepened - was he getting passionate? "this is REALLY AN OCTAL NUMBERING SYSTEM! Isn't that something?" "Are you trying to tell me that someone has slapped a non-coding identifier on my gene? If you are. then it wouldn't be in hexadecimal or octal. We already have a sixtyfour character alphanumeric sequence, using codon triplets, to identify bioengineered organisms. It's also decimal , like in school." Rob was taken aback. but only slightly. "You already have something like this?' "We've been using it for the last three or four years. It's supposed to protect breeders' rights. And it isn't all as simple as you think. The system we use is a degenerate code, some triplets mean two letters or numbers, that's to control the G-C content and limit unwanted methylation. Do you understand?''

"No. Not exactly. In other words, you are using a triplet-based scheme to identify genes. but you're not using one like I've described." ''That's right. It doesn't use all the mathematical s ymbols, and it certainly doesn't use octal notation." "So mine's different. Someone has attached their own messages onto your gene." A faint flush of red. 'No one. Positively no one has screwed with my genetic materialf' "I hope notr' Rob smiled wryly at the double entendre. Lilly didn't get her own joke. She wasn't in a joking mood. "Shut up. I took this frigging gene out of a Melbourne housewife who had a green Morris Mini, two kids, and an inoperable lymphoma. The genome was just like that when I got it and nobodv bloody NOBODY. helped me sequence the miserable thing." · "No one?" "Absolutely. And I did it spot on." "Well," Rob shru·gged, "Then this is a naturally occurring part of the human genome. There seems to be a kind of times table in the genome. Naturally." "Right, Rob." Lilly squinted at the Big Ben clock on the table. "I think I'll take a shower. Freshen up. Can we hash this around later?" A pained expression appeared. "You don't understand." "I understand quite as well as I need to. You are crazy and I smell like a bucket of pig slop and need a bath." "No you don 't, not much anyway. Look." He ripped off another page. ''This is my translation of just under 500 _ ah. codons. If that character is an 'equals' sign, and these mean 'add'. 'subtract' and so on. then we have this sequence." She made herself focus, reading out Rob's scrawl. "One plus one is two; two plus one is three; three plus one is four ..." it continued. "Hang on. Seven and one is not tenf' "It is in octal. Different base. Like if you only had eight fingers to count with instead of ten. You get to eight and start over." "''ll keep my ten pinkies. thanks. Okay. I trust you." "Naturally," he hinted arrogance. Lilly decided to let that lay. She was busy going through the numbers. Four more pages. Short vers ions of the primary school tables: first adding then multiplying and dividing. Then there were fractions. Then. though it was hard to conceptualise. Rob translated a derivation of the value for Pi- roughly. . In the whole coding sequence. only three codons didn't fit the predicted pattern. Wluch meant everything else did. Lil!y didn't know the probabilities, but she was sure the possibility of this sequence being chance was next to nothing. By then even Lilly felt they were on to something. But what? Rob had an aren't-you-impressed grin on his face. "It's easy." Nothing could be that easy. Lilly told herself. "I don't know We did find three mistakes." 'This is a human chromosome, errors may have accumulated over millions of years of evolution. Maybe a platypus or a dog will lack the errors. or maybe the errors in those will differ from those in the human genome. Taken together, we can probably figure out the whole original message." "Original message?" Lilly said indignantly. All right. Two can play this game. She went to the bedroom and returned, launching a folder at him. "How about mice?" After a few minutes, Rob found the beginning of the same sequence. Almost everythmg was the same. He found one new mistake in the mouse code, but two of the three errors of the human code were gone. "Doesn't that prove my point,'' he said with a self-assured little twitter. "those little errors are mutations. Even I know what a mutation is .. I.f. as you say, this type of heterochromatin is unusually resistant to mutation, still over m1lhons of years one or two errors are likely to happen. Most of this sequence has remained unchanged for who knows how many thousands- hundreds of thousands of generations."

"Sure. But." "You're not convinced. What's wrong?" "Look. You're a numbers bo y. That's what you do for a crust. You shove numbers around. But geneticists deal with a machine. The body is a machine. The genetic code makes things-used in the bod y" ''Blood, sweat and cnzvmcs. eh." "Yes, goose." Lilly "This code of yours doesn't make anything. It's like tacking a log table onto a Bunsen burner." . . . . "You said this heterochromatin doesn't do anytlung. It Just sits m the chromosome taking up space. That is what you said. Now you tell me you want to find uses for these things. So I find out it does something after all and you're mad. Jesus,' he growled.. . Lilly cranked up for a fit. but tempered herself. timing her words and enunc1atmg. "Robert, Not all heterochromatin is useless. We SCIENTISTS thmk that most of 1t was once usefuL but somehow lost its function and became degenerate. So what we don't expect to find is Waltzing Matilda or the Lord's Prayer eng:aved in the genome, we .. expect to find structures that m1ght have once built somethmg but have lost that ab1hty, they don't work anymore. So they do nothing but collect mutations - they're useless. But they would look more like an existing gene than the Gettysburg Address. "Look. I did a thesis on this. Being a number isn't good enough. Your code's got to make a protein or it has got to have made a protein in long gone dinosaurs. It has a use." "Sure. I understa nd. Sorry, I'm a Uni student. I was never taught to be useful." ''That is because you are a shithead." Lilly spun into the bathroom. Rob heard the shower hiss. It stayed on for a good fi•:e minutes. Little banks of fog oozed out under the door. Rob's mind during this was a department store of confusion. She is a rational sort of person. Of course. I wouldn't like anyone who wasn't reasonable. And I do like her. I've decided that. But she's not reasonable. Rephrase that. Numbers are always right, my numbers have always been right. I have to be right. But then. Maybe biology is different. Hell, I do know. She's always been level headed, she should know her business. Maybe biologists can't count. Maybe she's right. The water stopped abruptly, echoing into the drain. Lilly burst out, wet and wrapped loosely in a towel. He'd never seen her legs before. Not almost all the way up. That surprised him. Then she flabbergasted him. "Robert. You're absolutely right. It doesn't make anything." "I'm right?" ''There are lots of ways to repeatedly insert (or retroposition) small sequences, SINEs, into the genome." Throw a little jargon at him. How's that! Lilly spoke with authority: deep tone, uttered from the adenoids. jaw tethered, chin soberly tucked into her throat. She used this to effect in her oral exams; time to trot it out again. "There could also be some kind of virus that creates nonsensical code, but in a sequence. Then the virus effects an organism. We've used viruses for years to transfer genetic material between bacteria. You ta ke a virus that codes a little repetitive sequence, maybe gets some kind of giggle in it and before you know it, the thing has created a not accurately repeating sequence, each element in the series being slightly different." Lilly now pushed her chin forward and up, mimicking some toga-clad statue come in from the pouring rain. Rob was·confused. not by the acronymics but .• by the slender thighed legs! Some remnant intellect spoke from him. "It would have to be a rather educated virus. The numbers we find aren't just slight shifts. they fit a discreet numbering system. And wh y does the first set add Jnd the second multipl y --and in base eight? That takes an intellectual effort .•"

Lilly scowled. but her face relaxed within seconds. She realised her anger was over Rob's attitude. not the scientific problem, an area in whic h she had competence. He didn't know anything about her field. He's just too dense to hear how stupid he sounds. But he is cute and worth humouring. "You're probably right. You go find out whoever has been dropping notes into the gcnomes of humans and rats and then we'll talk about it. Right now, I have to dress." Th is relieved Rob. He was afraid she'd notice him staring. Those legs. and the small round breasts. pink and barely covered. His mind lurched back from an impending fantasy. "Well. One problem did come up." ''I'm listening," she shouted from the next room. "Well. I had trouble translating beyond the calculation of Pi. I got a sequence of numbers, some of them fractions but what was after the equals sign wasn't a number." "What was it?" "Nonsense." "But the numbers fit a numeric progression." "What's it supposed to mean." "Haven't a clue. I worked out a sequence. The first six numbers fit. But the funny thing is, one number is missing between numbers four and five and the last number is dead wrong." "SO it doesn't work. I was right the first time. The whole scheme is wrong." "Hell, no." Rob sounded insulted. "Ever ything else works. So should this." "That's the trouble with you. Everything has to be your way." "I was going to sa y the same for you," Rob said. and returnel to his notebook.

She'd primed for a week before the interview. Wo rked herself into a dither, trying to guess what questions a potential employer might ask. They wouldn't be academic questions; those she could handle. The y would be person a l. Though what kind of personal questions, she didn't know. But she was determined to get them right. I need this job. I need this job. Lilly had a serious need of work. Her thesis was done, the Uni had served a notice to vacate Graduate House. (Students have priority. And she wasn't a student.) So for the time being, she shared a crowded flat with four yo ung, boisterous strangers. She had to have money fast. first to pay ghetto rent, but then- Dea r God!- to move like blazes upmarket. awa y from this noisy, public hovel. You get money on the dole. right. Not so. You get hassles. Endless stands in the dole crunch and still not one payment. Administrative problem, it seemed. Probably cleared up in a month or two. So how do I eat? If she hadn't known it before, she did now: life on the outside was a bitch. So she primed and paced the lobby of Central Ph ar maceuticals. I need this blood y job. Rob loped in. carrying a bag lunch and his knapsack. Thank God. A friendly face. "Glad you came. I'm really ner vo us," Lilly said, pegging the carpet unsteadily in her lugh heels. 'No problem," Rob said. But he didn't like ha ving to wear a tie- or a shirt wuh a collar. "Glad you asked me to come." Lilly didn't smile. ''The briefcase. It's old. Will you hold it for me." She pulled out a sheaf of papers and a copy of her thesis to ta ke inside. "Besides, it's brown. Brown's not a good colour for me." · "If you say so." Li!ly sat down into a thickly upho lstered chair. Then got up immediately. This wasn 't her first interview. But it was the firsr since she started the degree. "Got a cigarette?" she asked the receptionist. Lilly 'd quit. but she needed one bad. And Rob didn't smoke.

The girl reached behind the counter, tossing over a P?ck Girly smokes. "Thanks." Lilly would have preferred sometlung With a That 11 do. The girl smiled. Lilly was sure her dress cost two hundred dollars. I cant afford clothes like that. I should have borrowed a few hundred and bought a decent dress. Then agam, who'd give me a loan? . . . . . · Rob scuffed brown bnetcase under Ius arm, perused the brochure rack wtthout real interes;. Across the srreet was a park and a wide riverfront walkway. ''I'll treat you to a tour of the park when you're through." "Dutch treat," said Lilly hurriedly between puffs. "Fine." . "Excuse me," said the girl in the expensive dress, "Mr. Hobnetter w1ll see you now. This way." "Thanks. Rob, wish me luck." "You're so good, you don't need it," Rob He felt that way.. "Hey.. got that code in here," he pointed to the brown case. Ill work on 1t wh1le you re ms1de. "In the top folder. Have fun." . . Lilly walked quickly down the long hallway. I need th1s JOb. Near the end. a secretary showed her into a large office. Mr. Hobnetter confronted her. He was a short man, shorter than her. but wide. He wore a three-p1ece su1t, one s1ze smaller than htm. He seemed polite, almost oily. That worried her a trice: though he .was for a ma.cho man and lacked the overt confidence of the disputatious. By hts greetmg she knew htm to be an Australian. Thank God he's not one of those Yanks with an armful of degrees and years and years experience in everything. He had an ashtray. "Would you like a smoke?' he said, showing her the chair. "No, thanks. I stopped smoking a couple of years She checked the brand, Camels. "Well, maybe one." Hobnetter waited for her to light up. "Nice of you to come. We've heard of your scholastic achievements. We are flattered you'd consider a job with us." "Nice of you to say that," Lilly's cheeks collapsed as she inhaled. Jesus, smoke like a slut! Do you remember how to be ladylike? A wayward thought came mto her head: Whatever gets the job __ She squinted critically at Hobnetter's pale, melonlike face. I'm not that desperate, am I? Hobnetter examined her without emotion. He failed to notice the way she smile amiably at him. "I'll get to the point; we don't have a large research staff. in Australia. We have a major research commitment oversefls, of course, because that IS where our head offices are. Our work here is more in the line of quality control. Workaday matters, probably not the sort of thing someone of yottr skills would be inclined to stick with." Lilly ground out her smoke. Seduction wasn't going to work, but then she tried hard. She considered wssing a winsome look at htm. But no. Out of practiCe. You mean you have nothing to offer ;ne." . "No. Not quite." Setting a pair of bifocals on his nose. Hobnetter opened a mamla folder in his wide lap. "May I speak in confidence?" This startled Lilly, but she'd prepared herself. Not a muscle moved, not even her diaphragm. for a ceaseless instant. "Certainly you may." "\Ve understand you have produced a clone of a certain small, but very useful polypeptide which has the possibility of being manufactured into a drug. This polypeptide is of human origin. is it nof1" "Yes. Would you like to examine a copy of my thesis?" She offered the volume, but Hobnetter did not move towards it.

'That's not necessary. We have some knowledge of your work already. Do you know that we have negotiated with your School for manufacturing rights for the material?" "I've heard something about that." 'Then you know we are fairly interested in obtaining the material. And if we were that fortunate," he added with a pleasant but quite artificial smile, "we would certainly consider continuing research on the product within this country. Probably right here in Adelaide." He examined the top page in the folder. "You are from Adelaide, aren't you?" The conversation was going like a jet in a certain. not so familiar, direction. Lilly found this difficult to believe. Hobnetter was about to make an offer-- on the face of it, · an unethical one. Was he going to ask her to steal the clone? Become an industrial saboteur? Do I need this job? This wasn't real. It was more like a movie. No rmal people don't talk like this_ Or maybe they do and I've been on Mars. "Excuse me, sir, are you interested in obtaining a copy of the clone?" · . "We would be delighted to examine the ma{erial -in detail, as it were." "I see. In detail." Yes. she did see. This bastard wanted her to undercut the Uni, sell the clone out from under them. They were offering her a job as well, at least that was a fair inference. Do I need this job? She thought very hard for what must have been twenty seconds but seemed more like an hour. "If you did get the contract, I would be very pleased to work with you on the project." That was a safe answer. Play them along. See what happens. · "Of course," Hobnetter's hands drew together anxiously. His palms were wet. Christ. He's nervous! As nervous as me. I have an edge. It was a new world. A test of gamesmanship. It seemed she held a card. Could she play it? Hobnetter said. "Well. there is some question about our obtai ning that material. wonder if you could help us?" Lilly touched her lip thoughtfully, then looked directly into Hobnetter's eyes without flinching. She stared at him. His eyes were brown, liquid and mellow. They melted before her. He turned away. I'll play. "Yes," Lilly agreed. "I might be able to help you. But I'd like to be sure a job is available." "Naturally." Lilly knew, re turning down the long corridor, that a vile force had emerged from deep inside her. Something selfish. Was she suddenly interested in money? Had she developed a facility for greed in the last fortnight of impending poverty? Or was it there all along, just hidden beneath her preoccupations. She made an instant decision. It was easier than she expected. Then her world became a kind of game. Striding through the lobby she unloaded her papers in Rob's arms. "Let's go." He shoved everything into the case and followed. "To the river, then. We'll gawk at the birds and you can tell me the names of all the plants." "I don't feel scientific." she confessed. "I feel more like Rupert Murdoch." Rob had to work to keep up. "What the Hell's that mean?" "Nothing, all right. Come on, the river." Rob soon realized Lilly wasn't totally there. She managed three words (grunt, urn and bumph) in the first thirty minutes they were together. He was used to a far larger vocabulary. "Will you tell me what's wrong." "No." "Yes. What is it?" "I sold out. I mean I'm about to. They want me to sell them the clone." Rob looked surprised. "You go for a job and they make you a spy? You're kidding."

"It's a different world. I think I can sell them the clone in return for work." 'Td check the fine print. You going through with it?" Lilly shook her bead,"[ don't think so. I owe it to the School. Don't I?" "Don't ask me. I have a job." . . They found a quiet place along the shore. It was planted m young, thm-stemmed red gum. They lay on their open jackets under the t_rees, listening to the leaves rustle a cool, green waterfall overhead. No one said anythmg for a long time. Rob thought 1t best to wait. Lilly appreciated that. He was dozino when she turned on her elbow. He felt her shadow and gave her a closed-eye smile. She" smiled back. "I don't know what got into me today. It was such an incredible feeling." "Explain it to me." . "It was surreal. I never imagined anyone outside of a movte would ever ask me to sell my work for _.. . . . .. ''The word is profit. not that I know much about that side of hfe etther. . "It was just so unbelievable. I felt I was performing or like ir. a, game. One: 1 knew that - Christ it was odd - I wasn't nervous any more. Because tt dtdn t seem real. "But it was." "Yes," Lilly nodded thoughtfully. "It certainly was. My imagination has limits when it comes to things like that, anyway." Rob stroked her arm lightly. "What kinds of things do you imagine?" "Stupid things. Mostly biochemical diagrams. I once dreamt I'd shrunk was stuck, wrapped inside a glycoprotein molecule, with a shoal of trypsm commg to digest me. The result of a bad week at the office, probably." "Did you get out." "Don't know. Woke up." "I had a funny dream the other day. One I haven't had since I was a kid. I dreamt the world was a big blue kite. I tied a string to a big gum tree then floated away in the air, paying out line. The more I paid out, the further away I got. Until I could see the whole World curving underneath me. "I kept dropping line until I was a long way back. Where the Sun should be. . Because the Earth was circling around my string. The World was all mme because- thts is silly, isn't it- be-cause it was on my string, circumscribing my circle, its long, white tail tracing out its orbit. I reckon I was just thinking back, to what I felt like when I was ten or twelve. When you're a kid you own the World and there's nobody to take tt away from all you because it's all in your head. So I owned the world. From. where I was, I could nine planets, nicely spaced. one outside the other. in mathematical order; I must have JUSt read about Bode's Law." "Who held the kite strings for the other planets?" Lilly interjected playfully. "Don't remember. Maybe they were yours. Tell you what, I'll give them to you." "Best gift ever," Lilly kissed him on the cheek so lightly he it, but_ it made him blush. He wasn't too embarrassed. He kissed her back qutckly, but thts kiss lasted a long. savoured minute. When it was done. Lilly said "So you like kites and you , know about astronomy. You've been holding out." "Mathematics is an abstraction of everything. I'd say it is more perfect. Bode's Law, for instance._" Oh, Jesus Rob. Can it. Don't spoil the mood. ".- the orbital distances of all the planers. except Neptune and Pluto, fit a mathematical formula. But there's one planet missing between Mars and Jupiter. Bode predicted a planet in that orbit. A couple of hundred years later, astronomers found thousands of asteroids where Bode's planet should have been. How's that grab you?" "Like a cold shower." she said meltingly. ''The asteroids could be the remains of a planet that exploded before there was life on earth. But Bode's Law works. It just didn't work the way people expected._"

Rob's voice choked in mid phrase. For a moment he was gone, staring into the clear blue sky, lost in a universe of the abstract. Numbers flitted through his mind, calculating out with the fluidity of a computer. He then returned. "Lilly, I've got it! That sequence in the gene. It's the solar system! Bode's Law minus the asteroids- where there isn't a planet, just big rocks -plus the misplacemcnt of Neptune. Neptune doesn't fit Bode's Law. Your genetic code is a map of the solar systemr' Lilly blinked. She was having a very unusual day. "Rob. We were having a nice time. I was just unwinding. Do you have to come up with this garbage? Now?" Rob already had the paper out, hurriedly translating. ""It is correct," he said without looking up. "Distances and designations. Names? That part of the code that wasn't a number, it has to be a name. These are words. This is some kind of document. telling us what the solar system looks like. Maybe it's a kind of Trademark." "Rob." "Lilly. This is a message. Your gene is carrying a message." "Rob. Look at me." She guided his chin away from the paper. "Why in the Hell would there be messages in the living material? How could there be?.. How could a message evolve in a piece of DNA?'" "How should I know. You're the biology person. But the message is there, isn't it. Some kind of written language. A sign post. A Voyager plaque. But it is there." "You mean somebody came along and inserted a map of the solar system into genes and then stuck them into living bodies?" "Why not?" Rob said almost casually, though its meaning struck both of them immediately, and like a brick. "Isn't that what you do? Don't your synthesizers put DNA molecules together. Well, then. what would have stopped someone else, sometime in the past?" "What you are saying is that all living things on earth somehow evolved from genes that got here from another planet -Christ- it could have been ages ago. Because this gene is in a rat and a human both. It would have had to be present in the ancestors e>f both. at least seventy million years ago. Not only that, whoever genetically engineered these organisms. left its calling card." "Neat. eh." Rob's head bounced like a jack-in-the-box. "It would identify this star system from planetary differences. That way, wherever terrestrial organisms wound up in the universe -say, the Sun went nova and blew the Earth all over the sky- they would still know where our genes came from. by looking for this identifier. It's a kind of Patent." "A prior patent on MY gene?" Lilly said drily, "I don't like the sound of that. Besides, if this nonsense were true, the theory of evolution would be out the window." . . "No it wouldn't. It just means there's somebody out there. Making·- manufacturing - ltvmg organtsms and seedmg them in planetary systems throughout the universe. Life, eventually intelligent life, evolves from that seed. God. What a glorious conceptf' "You don't think it would be a long wait for a chat." "Meaning?" "I m_ean it might take hundreds of millions of years to evolve an intelligent life form out of protozoans. to read the message. Because you can only read it when you have developed the technology for biological engineering." ''The same technology that they used to make these organisms in the first place. These creatures created or modified life. They gave us life. Maybe that's why they left us these messages. They're trying to help us continue their work." Lillv s mirked. "A kind of cosmic chain letter."

"Yeah. Maybe we are supposed to put life around the stars that f?rmed since they, made us. There may be more messages. There may be a lot m'?n!. Are.n t some orgamsm s chromosomes mostly beterochromatin?- we're talking about btlhons o! base pmrs. Just think, there could be encyclopaedias inside chromosomesr' "You know Rob. I do not believe you:· adding as a joke "maybe I'm too educated."' How true.

The closer things are to us. the less we understand them. The more they part of us. the harder it is to see them clearly. But now and then. m a moment of msptratwn, wheri we uncoil a thread of our existence just enough, we see the universe transform like a magician's trick. Some of us wait our entire lives just for this to happen once. For Lilly. it happened twice in the same day. She had samp led the world outstde.the umverstty, and as well, seen a glimpse of what lay within the nucleus of each cell. Tlus day brought an unexpected sense of even greater wonder, greater pleasure than she had known m her ivory tower. Lilly got her job. thanks to the clone early one morning. No one even missed it. True. the School patented the bug. scl hng tt at a fractiOnal pnce to a competitor. Fractional because Central Pharmaceuticals, with its ?wn prior patent, was already in production and the competitor, eve11 backed by the Umverstty, would have to sue if it were to see the bacteria frothing in their own stainless steel vats. The sui•, however, fa iled on several counts: First, because Central already supplied most of the Australian market by the time the case came to court (an injunction against Central's manufacturing of the drug was blocked on humanitarian Central claimed that they would lose a fortune, not to mention clients, if their existing distributorships were cancelled. Second, since the School had virtually no security system, they could not prove the material was stolen. And third. there was a small difference between the production clone used by Central Pharmaceuticals and the one supplied by the School. The School clone was, as requested, clean DNA. Only the drug's code and an activator sequence were found in the bacteria. Central's clone had something else, though only a select few knew liS secret. Tagged onto the end of this gene were a few hundred bases of heterochromatin, Rob's solar system map and the trade mark of the first patent holder. As the case was dropped, so the School .severed all links with Lilly; they even tried. tho ugh unsuccessfully, to squash her PhD. Neither Professor Jackson nor his colleagues ever again spoke with her. at meetings or socia lly. After a while, that no longer bothered her. She had a new job. She had begun a lo11g and fruitful study of heterochromatin, much of which remained for years outside learned journals. Lilly found a pharmacopoeia of chemicals, held in stasis over aeons, unused by the creatures owning those genes. though useful in other contexts, for other beings. They were drugs for the future. placed there by the makers to be moulded by evolution as needed. But. as omened by the map. drugs soon became a sidelight, Lilly's office employed two linguists. and one clumsy but rather nice mathematician to decipher complete texts. Once the 'Rosetta gene" was found in a scarab beetle. and even faster gene analysers became available. the Predecessor's bibliography began to build behind the closed doors of Central Pharmaceuticals. Adelaide.

The first discovery was a small volume 011 astrophysics found in the horseshoe crab. But that was on ly the start. Cc11tral Pharmaceutical's business took off literally like a rocket-- they diversified. first in to bio-electric products and then into fusion drives for certain space applications. from information reta in ed in the chromosomes of a common fly. Only fifteen years on, Lilly won a Nobel Prize for developments in biologically produced co nstruction materials. the essential information for this being extracted from the chromosomes of sloths and an teaters. Soon most people lived in houses grown from microorganisms developed in Central Pharmaceuticals' labs or by a spinoff called LilliRob Holdings which wi thin a few months streaked into the Dow-Jones top hundred stocks. It was many years before a raiding party, organized by a consortium of drug companies, universities and plywood manufacturers penetrated the secur'ity of Central Pharmaceuticals, obtaining the secret of heterochromatin. But they didn't believe it. A crude, even idiotic cover, they thought. And so their opportunity evaporated; Central and Lilli-Rob remained a commercial monopoly for a quarter of a century. Lilly often regretted the necessity of keeping the truth from the scientific community. Money assuaged the guilt to a small extent. But her heart's reasoning was more subtle. She knew people needed time to accept that the artifacts of an alien civilisation exist and multipl y within us. half a billion vears after those who fashioned us were extinguished by virulent microbes of their own Perhaps as well, a good business sense prompted this decision. Some things are best left alone.

References: Beckman,J. and M. Bar-Joseph. The use of Synthetic DNA probes in Breeders' Rights Protection: A proposal to Superimpose an Alpha-Numerical Code on DNA. Trends in Biotechnology 4(9):230 (1986) Deininger.P. and G. Daniels. Recent Evolution of Mammalian Repetitive DNA Elements. Trends in Genetics 2(3):76 (1986)