Perfect People Read Online Free PDF

two hundred or so of the options they’d covered so far. This was their second morning on the ship, and their third session with Dr Dettore. The sea was calm and her seasickness had all but gone. Today she was able to concentrate better.
    It was hot outside, but the air conditioning in this office seemed to be turned up higher than yesterday, and wearing just a light cotton top over her jeans today, Naomi felt cold. Her discomfort was increased by a steady dull ache in her right thigh where, earlier this morning, the nurse had given her the first of fifteen daily fertility-booster injections with a needle that looked like it had been designed to anaesthetize elephants.
    ‘A baby who only sleeps two hours a night would be a nightmare,’ she said. ‘You’ve had children – surely you—?’
    Dettore, beside her on the sofa, raised a hand. ‘Absolutely! That would be a total nightmare, Naomi, I totally agree. But this would not be a problem you’d have to worry about as a parent. Your child would have normal sleep patterns until mid-teens, then it would be a gradual process from around fifteen years old until eighteen. His whole sleep system would start benefiting him at the crucial period of his studies, enabling him to hit the real world with maximum advantage over his peers.’
    Naomi glanced around the stateroom for some moments, thinking, toying with her watch band. Ten to eleven. At the rate they were progressing it was going to take them months to work all the way through the list. ‘Isn’t it dangerous to tamper with people’s sleeping rhythms? How can you be sure that you’re not going to cause him psychological problems?’ she asked.
    ‘Sleep deprivation can lead to psychological problems, sure, Naomi. This is different – two hours’ sleep for your son would be the equivalent of eight for anyone else. Now, if you do the calculations, say against someone who routinely needs eight hours’ sleep, over a normal human lifespan you will effectively be gaining your son an extra fifteen years of conscious existence. That’s quite a gift for a parent to give a child. Think how much more he would be able to read, learn, accomplish.’
    Naomi glanced at John but was unable to glean anything from his expression. Then she turned back to the geneticist. ‘Nothing we’ve ticked so far will make him a freak. We’ve taken decisions about his height in the hope he will be six foot tall like John, rather than a shortie like me, because for a man there are definite advantages in being tall. Other than that, all we’ve done is to try to eliminate the horrible disease genes. We’re not interested in designing the shape of his nose or the colour of his eyes or his hair. We’re happy to leave things like that to chance.’
    John, making a note on his BlackBerry memo pad, nodded.
    Dettore topped up his glass of mineral water. ‘Park the sleep issue for now – we’ll come back to it later. We’ll move on to the next group on the list – these relate to the clusters of muscular, skeletal and neural genes that will affect his athletic abilities. We can redesign some of these groups to enhance your son’s hand-eye coordination. That will help him at sports like tennis, squash, baseball and golf.’
    John turned to Naomi. ‘I think that’s interesting. It’s not something that could do him any harm.’
    ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m not comfortable about that at all. Why would you want to do that?’
    ‘Neither of us are particularly good at sport,’ John said. ‘Why not give him a little help? It would be like coaching him before he’s born.’
    ‘Before he’s conceived,’ she corrected him, tartly. ‘I’ll tell you what my problem is: if we make him an absolute whizz at these sports, he could end up so much better than all his friends that he won’t have anyone to play with. I’m not interested in creating some sporting superman – I just want my son to be healthy and normal.’
    After some moments John