The Eyes of Heisenberg by Frank Herbert Read Free Book Online

don’t want to interfere too much yet,” Potter said.
    â€œOf course,” Svengaard said. “Whatever happens, it was inspired surgery.”
    Inspired surgery! Potter thought. What would this dolt say if I told him what I have here? A totally viable embryo! A total. Kill it, he’d say. It’ll need no enzyme prescription and it can breed true. It hasn’t a defect … not one. Kill it, he’d say. He’s a dutiful slave. The whole sorry history of gene shaping could be justified by this one embryo. But the minute they see this tape at Central, the embryo will be destroyed.
    Eliminate it, they’ll say … because they don’t like to use words too close to kill or death.
    Potter bent to the scope. How lovely the embryo was in its own terrifying way.

    He risked another glance at the computer nurse. She turned, mask down, met his gaze, smiled. It was a knowing, secretive smile, the smile of a conspirator. Now, she reached up to mop the perspiration from her face. Her sleeve brushed a switch. A rasping, whirring scream came from the computer board. She whirled to it, grated, “Oh, my God!” Her hands sped over the board, but tape continued to hiss through the transponder plates. She turned, tried to wrestle the transparent cover from the recording console. The big reels whirled madly under the cover plate.
    â€œIt’s running wild!” she shouted.
    â€œIt’s locked on Erase!” Svengaard yelled. He jumped to her side, tried to get the cover plate off. It jammed in its tracks.
    Potter watched like a man in a trance as the last of the tape flashed through the heads, began whipping on the take-up reels.
    â€œOh, Doctor, we’ve lost it!” the computer nurse wailed.
    Potter focused on the little monitor screen at the computer nurse’s station. Did she watch the operation closely? he asked himself . Sometimes they follow the cut move by move … and computer nurses are a savvy lot. If she watched, she’ll have a good idea what we achieved. At the very least, she’ll suspect. Was that tape erasure really an accident? Do I dare?
    She turned, met his gaze. “Oh, Doctor, I’m so sorry,” she said.
    â€œIt’s all right, nurse,” Potter said. “There’s nothing very special about this embryo now, aside from the fact that it will live.”
    â€œWe missed it, eh?” Svengaard asked. “Must’ve been the mutagens.”
    â€œYes,” Potter said. “But without them it’d have died.”
    Potter stared at the nurse. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he saw a profound relief wash over her features.
    â€œI’ll cut a verbal tape of the operation,” Potter said. “That should be enough on this embryo.”
    And he thought, When does a conspiracy begin? Was this such a beginning?

    There was still so much this conspiracy required. No knowledgeable eye could ever again look at this embryo through the microscope without being a part of the conspiracy … or a traitor.
    â€œWe still have the protein synthesis tape,” Svengaard said. “That’ll give us the chemical factors by reference—and the timing.”
    Potter thought about the protein synthesis tape. Was there danger in it? No, it was only a reference for what had been used in the operation … not how anything had been used.
    â€œSo it will,” Potter said. “So it will.” He gestured to the monitor screen. “Operation’s finished. You can cut the direct circuit and escort the parents to the reception room. I’m very sorry we achieved no more than we did, but this’ll be a healthy human.”
    â€œSterrie?” Svengaard asked.
    â€œToo soon to guess,” Potter said. He looked at the computer nurse. She had managed to get the cover off at last and had stopped the tapes. “Any idea how that happened?”
    â€œProbably solonoid failure,” Svengaard