The Egyptian Read Online Free PDF Page B

manipulating a pencil-like instrument around the slide. “Clara is vacuuming the bovine DNA out of the oocyte.” He pointed to a narrow-faced Indian man seated two tables over from Clara. “After Clara finishes vacuuming, she’ll immobilize the oocytes with suction, and Ravi will deposit a single human skin cell into the cytoplasm. We’ll give our little girl a jolt of electricity to help her accept the transfer, and then spray her to trick her into believing she’s been fertilized. It’s hard, you know—it’s hard to get the procedure to take. And the odds that the embryo will survive the nine or ten days it takes to reach the blastocyst stage—let’s just say that before a few days ago, we weren’t sure it was possible.”
    He prodded them towards a corner of the lab where a projector had been set up. On the screen was the outline of a small, geometrically perfect circle filled in with a bubbling, gelatinous mass. He stopped, hand on his hips, and grinned again. “There she is.”
    Grey took a long look at the image on the projector. A visceral shudder ran through him, an involuntary reaction to the impersonal mannerisms of the scientists as they performed interspecies genetic manipulation. Grey had never had a problem with stem cell research, but he couldn’t deny that a somberness overtook him, a feeling of culpability that his people—his species—had perhaps committed a divine trespass here, had poked into a secret corner of life and death that should not have been disturbed. That the scientists in this suburban basement had taken a bite from a modern-day forbidden apple.
    Veronica stared at the image on the projector, mesmerized. She said without turning her head, “What happens next?”
    “Right now, nothing,” Dr. East said. “There’s an injunction in place, and the court will decide her fate by tomorrow. I expect that… I expect that at best, we’ll be ordered to freeze her. It’s all silly, you know—she of course can’t develop into a viable fetus. We only want to harvest her embryonic stem cells, or study her effect on transgenic theory. We don’t even know if it’s possible, or if the embryonic stem cells harvested from an interspecies blastocyst will be viable for humans. But, if it is, imagine the possibilities. The ethical problems with this type of work stem from the use of human oocytes. If we can circumvent that with the use of bovine oocytes…”
    Grey said, “Sorry to interrupt, Doctor, but I think I’ve seen enough of the lab. Before I move on, let me ask you something. If you were worried about a threat to your security from a competitor or a hate group, who might you be concerned with?”
    Veronica swished her hair and looked at Grey.
    Dr. East looked confused, and Grey said, “My job is to assess potential security threats, no matter how attenuated. We can’t have a bomb going off at or near a diplomatic visit. If there were someone you wouldn’t turn your back on, who would it be?”
    Grey’s eyes flicked to Veronica again, now eying him curiously. It was time to wrap this up.
    Dr. East’s eyes moved to the projector, where his creation hovered above the room in an ironic reversal of physical size. “I’m sorry, I don’t really know. If I had to pick one, I suppose I’d say Army for Life.”
    Grey left Veronica and Dr. East discussing the challenges presented by interspecies somatic cell nuclear transfer. He finished sweeping the facility, seeing nothing else of interest. A pair of policemen escorted him through the crowd to the street.
    •  •  •
    Grey was surprised to find Veronica waiting at the end of the drive, in a three-quarter length red coat. His surprise soured as she stepped towards him. She touched his arm and smiled. “Do you have a few minutes?”
    “Sorry, I don’t.”
    He kept walking. When he rounded the wall he cursed. The crowd on the back side had swelled to cover the entire street. He pushed his way through the rear of the roiling