Ministry.
“We’ve identified the culprit,” said Murgatroyd, cheerfully. “As we said, there’s nothing to worry about—nothing at all. Within forty-eight hours, everything will be back to normal.”
“In the meantime,” Dr. Jauregy put in, “just as a precaution, don’t use the nursery systems—the main system is perfectly safe.”
Morusaki nodded in agreement, smiling as he did so. There was something extraordinarily infuriating about the way they all looked. It wasn’t just that they were carefully refusing to say exactly what it was they had found—each of them seemed to be possessed by a glow of private pleasure, which suggested that they were extremely pleased about their discovery. Rick glanced at Rosa, who was reluctantly holding the baby, and at Dieter; he could see that they were aware of it too.
“I think we’re entitled to an explanation,” he said, testily, to the doctor. “Don’t you?”
Dr. Jauregy looked at Officer Morusaki, who looked at Mr. Murgatroyd, who looked dubious.
“If we really were the target of some new Gaian terror-weapon,” said Rick, combatively, “I think we should be told—even if it wasn’t aimed specifically at us.”
“It’s nothing like that,” said Mr. Murgatroyd, swiftly. “I told you—my being called in was purely a matter of routine. It’s nothing like that at all—but we’re living in such interesting times, you see. The defense of the realm has become something of a nightmare, with so many viruses around, organic and inorganic. We have to be very careful. Plague wars aren’t like the old heavy metal wars, you know; nobody bothers to declare them, and the weapons are very difficult to spot.”
“But this isn’t a new plague war, is it?” said Rosa, flatly.
“No,” Mr. Murgatroyd confirmed, evidently quite glad about the fact. “It isn’t. It’s something very different. Not war, not terrorism…more like creation, really. The birth of a new kind of nature. Heaven only knows what the Gaians will make of it.”
“Are you sure…?” Morusaki began, but Murgatroyd silenced him with a gesture.
“It won’t hurt to explain,” he said, although he let loose a slight sigh, which signified that he would probably rather not have been asked to do so. “You see, there have already been a number of reports of newly-evolved dr-DNA viruses. Perhaps newly-devolved dr-DNA viruses would be a better way of putting it, because we think they emerge by the mutation of chromosomal fragments displaced from the nuclei of dr-cells. There have also been suggestions that one or two of our very own laevo-rotatory nuisance-organisms are taking aboard dextro-rotatory biochemical apparatus so as to become facultative hybrids. A whole new phase of evolution is starting up…our artificial biotechnologies are beginning to spawn their own mutational progeny. I think that’s very exciting, don’t you?”
“But the whole point of making artifacts from dr-DNA is that they’re immune to disease and decay,” objected Rosa, stubbornly. “If they’ve started giving birth to their own diseases, that’s terrible.”
“I said it had to have weapon potential,” said Dieter, in a tone of profound satisfaction. “What you’re saying is that our house—our house—has accidentally spawned a mutant virus that’s capable of messing up half the world’s property. That’s why you’re so smug, isn’t it? The next Plague War might not have begun today, but you think you’ve just got one step ahead in the arms race, don’t you?”
“Of course not,” said Mr. Murgatroyd. “What we’ve found is certainly a dr-virus, and it certainly seems to have arisen by spontaneous mutation, but it’s not the doomsday weapon. Seen from one point of view, it’s just the first of many minor nuisances that will soon be cropping up here, there, and everywhere. There’s so much dextro-rotatory structural material around nowadays that it was only a matter of time before new bugs evolved to feed on it. It’s been a wide-open ecological niche just begging to be colonized.”
“The Gaians aren’t going to like it,” said Rick, vindictively trying to puncture Mr. Murgatroyd’s good-humor. “It adds a whole new dimension of meaning to the idea of technology running wild.”
“On the contrary,” said Dr. Jauregy, who had now finished attending to his battle-scars. “They’ll probably see it as Mother Nature hitting back, defying us in our quest for perfect order. Your brand-new dr-virus might become a hero of the Counter-Revolution…or do I mean the Counter-Evolution.” She grinned at her joke, though it seemed feeble enough to Rick, and nobody else laughed.
“Hey,” said Dieter. “Is there anything in this for us? I mean, this is our house—we ought to have patent rights, or something!”
“I’m afraid not,” said Officer Morusaki, smoothly. “There can be no patent rights in a spontaneous product of mutation unless the mutagenic process is deliberately induced.”
“What about rights of discovery, then?” said Dieter. “We discovered it, didn’t we?”
I was the one who discovered it, thought Rick. There’s no “we” about it.
“You observed a sick rose,” said Mr. Murgatroyd. “You could hardly be said to have discovered the invisible worm that sickened it. That honor, I fear, belongs to Dr. Jauregy, Officer Morusaki, and myself. But if it makes you feel any better, there is no way in which any of us can profit personally from the discovery, because we are all here in our official capacities. Your house will share with our names the credit of a dozen footnotes in scientific journals and reference books, but none of us will make a penny.”
“Except for me,” Dr. Jauregy said, with polite regret. “I’m afraid I’ll still have to bill you for the consultation and the treatment—and for the replacement of the screen downstairs, if you want me to see to that too.”
Dieter’s resentful stare switched from Mr. Murgatroyd to Rick, who simply looked away, pointedly refusing any comment.
“You mustn’t be distressed,” said Murgatroyd, amiably. “It really is best to look at it my way. This is a significant moment in the history of life on earth—the beginning of a new evolutionary sequence—and it began in your nursery.
“It’s a kind of miracle, in a way: a happy gift of providence. Who knows what dextro-rotatory DNA might eventually produce, in the fullness of time, now that it has taken its first small step towards independence from the shaping hand of man? Let’s try to rise above mere matters of commerce, and fix our minds on that. Your nursery had a bad turn, and your cellar got flooded…but that wasn’t what really happened here today. What really happened is that something new revealed itself to the world…something really new, and alive.”
Rick was still mad at everyone, and his hands still hurt like hell, but he suddenly saw what Murgatroyd was getting at, and he saw that Murgatroyd was right. At the molecular level, something significant had happened…something far more important than a cut hand, or a fit of panic that might or might not have been too stupid for words.
A miracle. A happy gift of providence.
“Where is it now?” he asked, soberly. “If you’re going to cure the house, how are you going to preserve the virus?”
Mr. Murgatroyd opened his case, and took out a plastic bag—probably one of several that he had in there. The sealed bag contained a single rose plucked from the nursery wall. As yet, it didn’t look sick.
They all stared at it for a few seconds: all seven of them.
Then Mr. Murgatroyd put the rose back in his case, fastened it up, and headed for the door. It opened for him with what seemed to Rick to be craven servility. The doctor and the IBI man followed.
* * * *
When they had gone, Rosa came over to Rick, and dumped Steven into his lap.
“Well,” she said. “That’s that. I’ve got a counseling session in five minutes.”
“Oh corruption,”