Free Ell Donsaii 13: DNA by Laurence Dahners Page B

seemed to be more of them in the areas she thought of as cities, she never saw what she thought of as crowds.
    In fact, she never saw large numbers of any kinds of animals that looked similar to one another. No herds of meat animals, no congregations of beings that might be meeting in conclave because of their intelligence. She had the distinct impression that she was looking at an ancient city, overgrown with vegetation, and populated by the animals its masters had once kept as pets or food. She couldn’t help wondering what had happened to the people who built the city. Or could it be that one of the “animals” I’m looking at is the race that built this city? And, of course, that they happen to like having all their buildings covered with vegetation.
    There weren’t going to be any answers looking down on this world from orbit. I’m going to have to land as a waldo and get in amongst these… animals before I can decide whether they’re intelligent or not, she decided. To Allan she said, “Are the waldoes in orbit yet?”
    “It’ll be ten more days,” Allan responded.
    But I want to go down now! Ell grinned at her own impatience. To Allan, she said, “Okay, between now and then, please keep looking for any big assemblies of animals that might suggest intelligence. I know you’re relatively certain you haven’t seen any machines, so if they are intelligent their technological savvy must still be pretty primitive, but even primitives tend to have get-togethers.”
    Allan said, “Are you including assemblies of different kinds of animals?”
    “Yeah, any kinds of assemblies. I should at least look at them.”
     
    ***
     
    Vanessa looked up at a knock from the lab’s doorway. Zage and his handsome father were there. “Hi,” she said, eyes on Zage’s dad, “come on in. Did Zage tell you what he’s wanting to do?”
    “Well, yeah, but it’s pretty far out of my area of expertise,” Kinrais said with a grin. “Do you think what he’s proposing is at all reasonable?”
    Vanessa narrowed her eyes a little, “He told you that he wants to sequence the DNA in some of his cells, looking for genes that might have been left behind by an adenovirus?”
    Kinrais nodded, “And that he thinks those viral genes might be expressing peptides that are causing his obesity... Is that even possible?”
    Vanessa shrugged, “Crazier things have been hypothesized. Most of them don’t pan out though.”
    “No harm in his trying though, right?”
    “Um, it might harm your budget?”
    Kinrais blinked, then grinned again. He looked at his son, “How about if I set him up with a ‘grant’ of two thousand dollars to do some sequencing with.” He looked back up at Vanessa, “If he wants to spend more than that, he’ll need to write up a report on what he’s done so far.” Kinrais stared back down at his son, “In language I can understand.” He looked back at Vanessa, “Would that be okay? I can just send the money to your research account if you’ll give me the number.”
    Vanessa blinked. They must pay these math professors better than I thought if he’s so willing to lay out two grand for his son’s whims! she thought. “Um, and you’d still be paying me for… supervising him?”
    “Of course.”
     
    ***
     
    Jamieson leaned back in his chair to think. His AI had just finished showing him all the clips of people coming and going from the house to the south of Donsaii’s. His research had determined that the house was owned by a Shannon Kinrais and his wife Raquel. Interestingly enough, Kinrais had actually written a paper with Donsaii. Even more interesting, Raquel was the same height as Donsaii though she had darker coloring, brunette hair, and a slightly bigger nose.
    The bitch’s disguised herself, gotten married, moved into the house next door, and had a kid! And nobody seems to know about it!
    Jamieson told his AI to arrange a meeting with Wang.
     
    ***
     
    Wang sat on the bench in the park