Free Xeno Sapiens by Victor Allen

fifteen thousands rpm’s. That thing comes
whizzing off that tub, you’d better duck pretty quick or you’ll be
looking for your head with your hands. We’ve never had any
problems, though.”
    “ Things run pretty smoothly, do
they?”
    “ Jon sees to that. He may look like
Santa Claus but he acts like Ebeneezer Scrooge. He’s already put
your nose to the grindstone.” He smiled tiredly.
    Ingrid thought she was seeing the real
Alex for the first time.
    “ I’m glad you stopped by,” Ingrid
said. “Maybe you can help me.”
    “ Give it a rest for tonight, Ingrid.
We can go over it in the morning meeting.” Clifton’s voice was
liberally laced with weariness. “I’m too pooped to talk
shop.”
    “ Maybe I should.” Ingrid sensed that
dark circles were popping up under her eyes. They felt puffy. “I
should have met you when you were tired. You’re a lot more
civil.”
    “ What you met was Alex Clifton, G-Man.
Now I’m just plain old Alex.” He reached into his pocket and pulled
out a Kent. He lit it while Ingrid rearranged her papers into neat
piles. She had never cared much for smokers, but on Alex it seemed
right.
    “ You keep up with that,” Ingrid said,
“we’ll have to cut out a lung.”
    Clifton grinned. “No problem. We’re an
RNA lab. We’ll just grow a new one.” He spoke hesitantly. “The
commissary’s closed, but we could pick up a couple of cups of
coffee from the vending machines. How about that? My mother always
said coffee was no good without a cigarette. Did your mother ever
pass any tidbits like that on to you?”
    “ My mother died when I was
seven.”
    Clifton looked apologetic. “You’re
right. I knew that. I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry.”
    “ No need to be. You still want that
cup of coffee?” Ingrid could have made it right in her apartment,
but she wanted to get out of there.
    “ Sure.”
    ********************
     
    They sat at one of the little folding
card tables common to almost all refreshment areas. A Styrofoam cup
of steaming coffee sat before each of them. Clifton poured a pack
of powdered creamer into his coffee and stirred it.
    “ You,” he asked, proffering another
pack to Ingrid.
    She made a face. “No thanks. I’ll take
it black.”
    “ Are you going back to work,” Clifton
asked.
    Ingrid thought about it. “Nah, I think
I’ll call it a night, too. I’m beat.”
    “ How did you get into genetics.”
Clifton put his forearms on the table and leaned
forward.
    “ For the same reason a lot of people
go into medicine. My mother died when I was very young, of course.
You know that. My mother’s illness and death left a deep mark on
me. Even worse than that three ring circus I went through a few
years ago.”
    “ You decided to become a doctor to
avenge your mother’s death?”
    Ingrid pulled her eyebrows together,
thinking. “Not exactly to avenge it. Maybe I felt like I might
learn to forestall it. How’s that for out in the
stratosphere?”
    “ Do you think it was a good reason,
and a good choice?”
    “ Aside from a couple of setbacks, yes.
I’ve had few regrets.”
    She slurped down the last of the bitter
coffee and stood to get another cup. While her back was to Clifton,
she said, “what brought you into this?” She turned around and sat
back down.
    “ Not much to my story,” he shrugged.
“I always wanted to be a doctor. I hated watching people get old
and useless for no good reason I could understand. The body is self
maintaining and self repairing. Why should it break down, or age? I
watched my own father die at age fifty-three. He just ran out of
life. The night he died, I was sitting by his bed and he asked me
to read a little to him from his bible. The book of Jeremiah, his
favorite. It always seemed very gloomy to me, but I can see now why
a dying man could see hope in it.
    “ In med school, I got into a special
cytology class that taught me about inborn, genetic limiting
factors. Predisposition to disease, all that.