The Altian Plague by DM Arnold (best book club books for discussion .TXT) 📖

counter like the one we discovered in the virus. Of course, nothing like that appears in nature. My conclusion was someone had been tampering with the lentil genome. Hanri was so conservative, so doctrinaire -- he kept telling me it wasn't possible -- but, I couldn't let it go.”

“Among her other traits,” Nyk remarked, “Senta is tenacious.”

“Hanri had developed the first resequencer and we had a prototype in the lab. I helped him program it. One night I let myself into the lab and began reprogramming it with the lentil genome. After a few nights I had proved my finding -- and, I was convinced of a conspiracy.

“I showed Hanri what I had done and he scolded me for using the resequencer without authorization. He said my programming had disrupted his work, and he told me if I used it again, I'd be disciplined. He refused to look at my work -- worthless, he called it. But, I knew I was right.”

“Why was Hanri so skeptical of your results?” Nyk asked.

“It was academic hubris,” Senta replied. “Sometimes a scientist -- especially one of high standing -- develops such an investment in the status quo... He can't accept his students discovering something novel.”

Suki nodded. “I saw it all the time in my career.”

“Your career?” Senta asked.

“Yes -- I was an assistant professor at Pace University in New York before coming here.”

“A professor?”

“Suki has a doctorate in ancient Earth history,” Nyk replied, “from a university that's as prestigious there as FCU is here.”

“And, as full of academic hubris,” Suki added. “If some student discovers something that pushes back a timeline by a thousand years, the established scientists will reject it.”

“Students are guilty until proven innocent...” said Senta.

“...wrong until proven right...” Suki added.

“...stupid until proven smart.” Senta looked up at Suki, smiled and nodded. “Sometime after this settles down, you and I should sit and discuss Earth and Floran higher education.”

“From what I see at Sudal -- they're about the same.” Senta patted the back of Suki's hand. “What happened next?”

“What happened next wouldn't have without Nykkyo. Few appreciate his role in solving the Ricin plot.”

“Nykkyo?” Suki looked at him. “I didn't know you were involved.”

“My involvement extended only to my acquaintance with Dyomann Hasse. He was the assistant production manager for the agridomes and took over after my dad died. I asked him to arrange a meeting with the head of plant breeding.”

“He was skeptical at first, too,” Senta continued. “After a day of sequencing diagrams and comparing live genomes to models, he became convinced the lentils were genetically tainted. He ordered a recall of the entire crop. Of course, something like that can't be kept from the public. Once word leaked out, there was a panic.

“I published a paper on what I found. Hanri was furious -- because I had stolen his recognition. Now I was the celebrity at FCU, and he was derided as some reactionary naysayer. He tried to block my degree, but the university had no choice but to grant it to me.

“Eventually Hanri and I reconciled and we worked together on reports for the Food Service and the High Legislature. Internal Affairs rounded up a half dozen culprits. I was called as an expert witness at the trial. They were convicted, though I have my doubts about their guilt.”

“What happened to them?”

“They were hanged.”

“Hanged?”

“Yes,” Nyk replied. “This sort of terrorist conspiracy is the only capital crime on our books. They were hanged in the Central Square -- the first executions in more than twenty generations. I remember the blood circus -- I could hear the crowds cheering as each one was dropped. Senta was awarded the Chancellor's Medallion.”

“Where is it? May I see it?”

“It's at the apartment in Floran City,” Senta replied. “I hate looking at it. It reminds me of those condemned men and women.”

“Tell Suki about your boon.”

“Yes -- the Food Service asked me what procedures could be put into place to prevent such an incident from happening again. I sketched out a design for the sequencing labs. They also granted me a boon.”

“What did you request?” Suki asked.

“I told them I wouldn't have confidence in the sequencing labs unless I ran them.”

“So,” Nyk added, “they created a new division inside the Food Service and named Senta as its director. It's how she got to where she is today.”

Senta set down her spoon and looked at the empty tray. She pressed her hand against her stomach. “I hadn't realized how hungry I was. I feel much better now.”

“Maybe you won't need the sedative.”

“I'll use it anyway.” She picked up the cartridge and injector and headed toward the guest room. “See you in the morning.”

“Let's go check on Andra,” Suki suggested.

Nyk walked with her out onto the bluff and helped her down the rocks to where Andra sat staring at the sea.

“Are you worried about Lexal?” Nyk asked.

“Of course I am.”

“Andra,” Suki said, “Nykkyo and I are going to bed. Why don't you join us?”

Nyk brewed some green tea and poured cups for Suki and Andra. He sat at the table and opened a breakfast cake. Senta emerged from the guest room and shook out her hair. She stepped to the storage room, returned with an injector cartridge, lifted the hem of her tunic and drove the needle into her thigh.

Nyk regarded her. “You're using stimulants in the morning as well as sedatives at night?”

“I have to keep going somehow. We're already two days behind schedule.”

“You're going to be so strung out by the end of this,” Andra said.

“I don't have a choice.”

“How's it going?” Nyk asked.

“It's going slowly -- too slowly. It's not that we're not making progress. We are -- we have the first phase nearly licked. Whoever devised this genome didn't make it easy for us. It's a work of genius -- twisted but genius nonetheless.”

“Do your reprogrammed sequencers help?”

“It would be impossible without them.” She wolfed down a breakfast cake and gulped a cup of tea. “Back to the labs...”

Nyk watched Senta head down the stairs. “I have a renewed admiration for that woman,” he said.

“She has a renewed admiration for you,” Andra replied.

Nyk dropped his breakfast utensils into the waste reprocessor. He paced around the Residence's middle level. “Andra -- will you need your groundcar today?”

“Since she's been working on the virus, Senta has had no time for our project,” she replied. “I have no reason to go to the lab, so you might as well use it. Where are you going?”

“I'm tired of waiting around while Senta and Helsyn work on the vaccine. Senta's right. We won't have it in time at this rate. I'm going to the sequencing lab and see if I can help.”

“You? Nyk -- you don't know anything about biomolecular modeling.”

“Neither did Senta at one point in her life. There must be some way I can help. If I don't do something productive -- I'll go crazy.” He headed down the stairs and opened the groundcar.

The groundcar parked itself in a lot adjacent to a squat polymer concrete building resembling most in Sudal. The heavy storm shutters were up, exposing a wall of windows. The building was located north of the city. Behind it were a row of pilot domes and in the distance Nyk could see the production agridomes.

He walked through a door etched with the Food Service emblem of stylized dome in a wreath of wheat stalks. Ahead was a circular desk occupied by a receptionist and behind her lay the sequencing labs. Through a transparent wall he could see technicians in hooded coveralls feeding samples of peas, lentils, wheat and rice into analyzers.

To his right was a corridor leading toward the research labs. He headed in that direction. The door was locked.

“May I help you?” the receptionist called to him.

He turned around. “I'd like to see Dr Senta Kyhan ... Dr Tibran.”

“I'm sorry -- she's left strict orders that she is to be disturbed by no one.”

“Tell her...”

“No one. Nobody. Not even you.”

“Please tell her husband ... her ex-husband is here.”

The receptionist looked up at him. “Her orders were explicit. She did not identify any exceptions.”

“I need to see her, and I'll stand here and breathe down your neck until you inform her...”

“All right...” She poked the vidisplay. “What is your name?”

“Nykkyo.”

She poked a vidisplay. “I'm sorry to disturb you Dr Tibran, but there's a Nykkyo someone insisting on...” She looked up. “She'll be right out.”

He sat on a bench in the lab lobby. Senta breezed through the corridor door. “Nyk! Do you have something from Kronta?”

“No. I thought I'd come here and see if there's something I can do to help.”

She rolled her eyes and nodded toward the door. “You might as well come back with me. We really can't talk here.” He followed her down the corridor. She scanned her wrist and gestured him into a lab.

Inside were banks of vidisplays connected to cabinets of equipment. Senta sat at one and began poking it. “I don't know how you can help,” she said. “I appreciate the gesture, but...”

“What is it you're doing?”

“This is a genetic re-sequencer.”

“It doesn't look like the sequencer you had me running at the lab in Floran City.”

“That was a sequence analyzer. This is a re-sequencer.”

“What does it do?”

“This device predicts how genomes change and modify through the generations. We use it to identify which genes will be passed on as crops are bred. I have modified its programming to work with viral reproduction strategies -- in particular, the strategy of our virus.” She poked the screen and swiveled her chair to another display.

“Then, what do you do?”

“Once we've predicted the details of the next generation genome, we feed that data into this processor. This one is programmed to generate molecular models of the protein templates the DNA produces.”

“Those go to the replication plants, right?”

“Wrong. Those get matched to molecular models of proteins resequenced from the DNA patterns in the Agency viral database. When we have a match, we look up the corresponding antibodies.”

“And, the antibody models go into the vaccine.”

She turned to face him. “Nyk -- I can either answer your questions or do my work. I can't do both. Since answering your questions won't make a vaccine and doing my work will, I think my time is better spent doing my work. Don't you?”

“I suppose...” He wandered around the equipment.

“Please don't touch anything.”

“I won't.” He stood behind her looking over her shoulder. “Senta -- isn't there SOMETHING I can do to help?”

She looked around the lab. “Yes -- that cart is in my way. Why don't you push it into the storage room down the hall?”

“I'd be happy to.” He grabbed the cart and rolled it through the door and to the storeroom. When he returned he found the door to the lab closed and latched.

He pressed actuator. He pressed it again. He pressed the chime and pressed it again. “Senta!” he yelled, pounding on the door. “SENTA! Let me in!” Through the window he could see her sitting at a console, her back to the door. He pounded more. “SENTA!” he yelled. “SENTAAA!”

She stood, stepped to the door and opened it a crack. “That wasn't nice,” he said.

“Nyk -- you really are slowing me down... Oh, come on in.” She pulled the door open and stepped aside.

He paced around the lab as she returned to the display. “Senta -- there must be something I can do. Maybe my head's no good for this kind of work, but what about my hands?”

She rested her chin on her fist. “Yes, Nyk -- there is something. We're working on the second phase of the virus -- the one that attacks the immune system. It would help if you could query the Agency database and isolate the genome sequences of viruses known to do that.”

He sat at a vidisplay and stared at the screen. “How do I do this?”

“It's just like looking up anything in the database. Press New query. He pressed the screen and a query form was displayed. “It's self- prompting -- designed so even a bureaucrat can do it.”

He began formulating his query. “You want viruses known to attack the human immune system.”

“Yes.”

“I found five.”

“Five?” She stood and looked at his screen. “Move these patterns over to the protein synthesizer... like this.” Her fingers flew over the screen. “Now -- which of these most closely resemble the protein from our virus?”

“This one?”

“Or is it that one?” She pointed. “Something in between.”

“Why are we looking for matching proteins?” he asked.

“They're the starting points for our vaccine elements. If we can modify an existing molecular model, we'll save time... Yes! I think that does it. Now, if we use the inverse sequencer ... to get our antibody... There -- that wraps up variation four of phase two. Four down and fifty-five to