“Biological warfare?” Walt asked. “Using recombinant DNA to make nasty new
viruses?”
“Maybe that, too,” Lem said. “But germ warfare doesn’t have anything to do with
this case, and I’m only going to tell you about the research that’s related to
our problems here.”
The windows were fogging. Walt started the car. There was no air conditioning,
and the fog on the windows continued to spread, but even the vague, moist, warm
breeze from the vents was welcome.
Lem said, “They were working on several research programs under the heading of
the Francis Project. Named for Saint Francis of Assisi.”
Blinking in surprise, Walt said, “They’d name a warfare-related project after a
saint?’
“It’s apt,” Lem assured him. “Saint Francis could talk to birds and animals. And
at Banodyne, Dr. Davis Weatherby was in charge of a project aimed at making
human-animal communication possible.”
“Learning the language of porpoises—that sort of thing?”
“No. The idea was to apply the very latest knowledge in genetic engineering to
the creation of animals with a much higher order of intelligence, animals
capable of nearly human-level thought, animals with whom we might be able to
Communicate.”
Walt stared at him in openmouthed disbelief.
Lem said, “There’ve been several scientific teams working on very different
experiments under the umbrella label of the Francis Project, all of which have
been funded for at least five years. For one thing, there were Davis Weatherby’s
dogs . .
Dr. Weatherby had been working with the sperm and ova of golden retrievers,
which he had chosen because the dogs had been bred with ever greater refinement
for more than a hundred years. For one thing, this refinement meant that, in the
purest of the breed, all diseases and afflictions of an inheritable nature had
been pretty much excised from the animal’s genetic code, which insured Weatherby
of healthy and bright subjects for his experiments. Then, if the experimental
pups were born with abnormalities of any kind, Weatherby could more easily
distinguish those mutations of a natural type from those that were an unintended
side effect of his own sly tampering with the animal’s genetic heritage, and he
would be able to learn from his own mistakes.
Over the years, seeking solely to increase the intelligence of the breed without
causing a change in its physical appearance, Davis Weatherby had fertilized
hundreds of genetically altered retriever ova in vitro, then had transferred the
fertile eggs to the wombs of bitches who served as surrogate mothers. The
bitches carried the test-tube pups to full term, and Weatherby studied these
young dogs for indications of increased intelligence.
“There were a hell of a lot of failures,” Lem said. “Grotesque physical
mutations that had to be destroyed. Stillborn pups. Pups that looked normal but
were less intelligent than usual. Weatherby was doing cross-species engineering,
after all, so you can figure that some pretty horrible possibilities were
realized.”
Walt stared at the windshield, now entirely opaqued. Then he frowned at Lem.
“Cross-species? What do you mean?”
“Well, you see, he was isolating those genetic determinants of intelligence in
species that were brighter than the retriever—”
“Like apes? They’d be brighter than dogs, wouldn’t they?”
“Yeah. Apes. . . and human beings.”
“Jesus,” Walt said.
Lem adjusted a dashboard vent to direct the flow of tepid air into his face.
“Weatherby was inserting that foreign genetic material into the retriever’s
genetic code, simultaneously editing out the dog’s own genes that limited its
intelligence to that of a dog.”
Walt rebelled. “That’s not possible! This genetic material, as you call it,
surely it can’t be passed from one species to another.”
“It happens in nature all the time,” Lem said. “Genetic material is transferred
from one species to another, and the carrier is usually a virus. Let’s say a
virus thrives in rhesus monkeys. While in the monkey, it acquires genetic
material from the monkey’s cells. These acquired monkey genes become a part of
the virus itself. Later, upon infecting a human host, that virus has the
capability of leaving the monkey’s genetic material in its human host. Consider
the AIDS virus, for instance. It’s believed AIDS was a disease carried by
certain monkeys and by human beings for decades, though neither species was