The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh, Volume One Read Online Free PDF Page A

him; despite their close association since the late sixties, her enigmatic employer could still be maddeningly tight-lipped at times.
    “Perhaps, Ms. Lincoln,” he replied. Concern weighed down his words and deepened the solemn lines of his face. “According to these classified reports, the Russians have misplaced several of their top geneticists and biochemists. Pavlinko, Lozinak, Malinowycz ... close to a half-dozen of the top Soviet researchers in the field have gone missing in the last year or so.”
    “Maybe they defected?” Roberta suggested.
    “Possibly, but to whom? I know for a fact that none of the missing scientists have been recruited by the Americans or any of the other major Western powers.” Seven eyed Roberta gravely. “Unfortunately, these latest disappearances are only part of a much larger and more ominous picture. Many of the world’s top scientists, particularly those specializing in applied genetic engineering, have seemingly dropped off the face of the Earth.”
    Seven paused to let Roberta assimilate what she had just heard. Genetic engineering? she wondered. She was familiar with the basic idea, from newspaper articles and the occasional sci-fi novel, but she’d thought that modern science was still years away from actually being able to tamper with anybody’s DNA. Then again, most people didn’t know about extraterrestrial social workers or instantaneous matter transmission either. “So what do you think this is all about?” she asked Seven apprehensively, not entirely sure she wanted to hear the answer.
    [23] “It’s unclear whether the missing scientists have been abducted or if they have vanished of their own free will,” Seven stated, “but I have to assume that some form of ambitious genetic-engineering project is in the works.” The worry lines on his craggy face deepened noticeably. “This could have very disturbing consequences. Your people are nowhere near ready for that sort of control over your own genetic makeup.”
    How come whenever the human race screws up, they’re suddenly “my” people? Roberta thought, not for the first time. Seven had an annoying tendency to forget that he was human, too, even if he and all his ancestors had been raised on some weird alien planet somewhere. She couldn’t resist the temptation to tweak Seven a little. “Correct me if I’m wrong,” she began, “but aren’t you the product of generations of selective breeding and fancy genetic tinkering?”
    Her pointed observation did not faze Seven; heck, it didn’t even scratch the surface of his preternatural composure. “That’s an entirely different situation,” he replied with complete conviction. Self-doubt was not numbered among Gary Seven’s personal failings. “My sponsors know what they are doing.”
    “ As opposed to us primitive, twentieth-century Earthlings?” Roberta asked, trying to muster up a show of righteous indignation on behalf of the rest of the human race. She crossed her arms semi-belligerently and beamed a no-nonsense stare in her boss’s direction.
    “Exactly,” he confirmed matter-of-factly.
    There was a time, back when she first hooked up with Seven, when she might have accepted an answer like that, deferring to Seven’s superior knowledge of such matters, but not anymore. “No way,” she objected. “You have to do better than that. Why shouldn’t we humans improve our chromosomes if we feel like it? What’s the big crime?”
    To her satisfaction, and mild surprise, Seven appeared to give her pestering questions serious consideration. “The problem, and the danger, Ms. Lincoln, is genocide, of one form or another, and the very real possibility of genetic warfare. Galactic history teaches us that once a species succeeds in creating a ‘superior’ version of themselves, it’s then one very short step to viewing the rest of the species as unworthy, [24] obsolete, and, ultimately, disposable. Just as their baseline contemporaries often regard