* * *
Kir had accepted the assignment at the Institute for only one reason—the chance to work with Diam. He had received a great deal of attention after his presentation at the yearly conference, but waited patiently until the Institute came calling, then jumped at their offer. But he found that Diam was not like the others at the Institute. She did not linger after lunch to talk to her colleagues. She did not pause in the hallways to join their conversations. She went to and from her lab, head down, walking quickly, obviously trying to avoid any interaction with her fellow scientists.
Kir asked the Director about possibly joining her team, but was told that her assistants had been with her for years, and she had no interest in replacing any of them.
After three months, Kir was beyond frustrated.
“She’s the reason I came here,” he griped to Ferro, one of the few other members that he had become friendly with. They were drinking joad together, and Kir was feeling the effects.
Ferro snorted. “She’s the reason most of us came here. To work with the first person in history to actually create a life form? Who doesn’t want to work with her? But she’s impossible to get to. She practically lives in her lab, and even the Director has to make an appointment to see her.”
“So, let’s just go. Knock on her door,” Kir said, feeling brave and reckless. He gulped down the rest of him joad. “Come with me.”
Ferro laughed and shook his head. “You’re under the influence, Kir. You’ll make a fool of yourself.”
“Or, I’ll get in to see the lab of the most important scientist of all time,” Kir countered.
Ferro closed his eyes tightly, then opened them, drank down the rest of his joad, and stood up. “Let’s go.”
Her lab was on the other side of the compound. The two men walked quickly, joking, until they reached the looming, windowless building that was her lab.
Ferro glanced around nervously. “Do we knock?”
Kir pushed the door, and it opened easily. “No.”
They walked into the silent vestibule and scanned their ID cards. The inner door opened, revealing a long, dim-lit corridor.
“What if she’s not here?” Ferro whispered.
“She’s always here,” Kir said, and they walked forward.
There were doors on either side of the corridor, steel, windowless doors, with black writing above each doorknob. They passed a few of these when Kir stopped, turned a knob of Project #127, and went in.
It was a brightly lit room with hundreds of small, clear tanks sitting on shelves. On the front of every tank was written a series of letters and numbers. Ferro examined one of the tanks, then grinned excitedly.
“These are compounds. She’s trying to create life by combining chemicals in various solutions.” He glanced around. ‘There must be hundreds in here.”
“Six hundred and thirty two,” said a quiet voice behind them.
They turned quickly. Diam was a tiny woman, thin and frail looking, with straight, gray hair and pale, blue eyes behind large glasses.
“You are trespassing,” she said.
“There was no sign,” Kir pointed out.
She smiled. “True. I never needed one before. Most people are too intimidated to come in here.”
Kir smiled easily. “My curiosity won out,” he said. “That, and joad.”
She laughed. “Yes, joad will do that to you.” She tilted her head. “Who are you?”
Kir introduced himself and Ferro quickly, adding, “From BioLab HH3.”
She raised her eyebrows. “You are doing some very interesting things over there.”
“Not as interesting as what you’re doing,” Ferro said.
She smiled again. “Would you like to see?”
Project #144 was a series of jipmar hearts, each lying in a different solution, pierced by a tiny electrode.
“Jipmar, as you know, have a very short life cycle,” she explained. “We raise them out back, and have a constant supply of new hearts without ever having to actually kill one of them.”
Project #45 was like a sculpture, thousands, possibly millions of tiny pinpricks of light, each with it’s own brightness. They hung in complete darkness behind a thick layer of mizsa. Ferro pressed his nose against the mizsa and stared.
“They’re moving,” he whispered.
“Yes, some of them are,” Diam said.
“Why the barrier?” Kir asked.
“It’s in a vacuum. We’ve been growing it for years now, and several patterns have evolved.” Diam explained. “This is one of my favorite projects. I don’t think anything will come of it, but I like to sit here sometimes and watch.”
Kir was squinting. “Wouldn’t it be easier to observe in the light?” He reached back and touched the switch on the wall, but as soon as the light came on, Diam hit the switch again, returning them to darkness.
“No lights,” she said. “But we have another, similar project, all under lights, if you’d care to see.”
Project #176 was almost the same, but the brightness of the room took away the beauty of #45.
“Interesting,” Kir said. “There is not the same dynamic between the particles.”
“No, there’s not,” Diam said. “This is very inactive. No clusters have formed. The particles are generally uniform in size and color. No…movement. But let’s go back down to the second floor. There’s something very promising going on.”
They stayed all night. Diam seemed tireless. Kir and Ferro both felt exhausted by the morning, but exhilarated as well. They had seen the master at work.
“If you should ever need more assistants,” Kir said as they were leaving, “please keep us in mind.”
She folded her arms across her chest. “You have no moral problem with working with me? Some say I’m comparing myself to the Mother.”
Ferro shrugged. “I find nothing wrong with what you’re doing. It’s brilliant.”
Kir nodded in agreement. “It would be an honor for me to wash the floors in any of your workrooms.”
She smiled. “I’ll think about it, gentlemen.” Then she closed the door of her lab.
Kir and Ferro stared at each other, then both grinned.
“Amazing,” Kir whispered.
“I know. And she said she’d think about it.” Ferro threw back his head and whooped with laughter. “Oh, My Mother, could you imagine?”
“No, I can’t,” Kir said. “And now, I need lots of temir. I’m so tired I could sleep standing up.”
They began walking back to the Center, Kir shaking his head.
“Amazing,” he said, over and over.
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