Ell Donsaii 13: DNA (16 page)

Startled, Wheat frowned, “Why not?!”

“I think of DNA as a von Neumann machine. Traveling across the galaxy, populating worlds with viable conditions, replicating itself, and sending out more emissaries. We don’t want to bring back alien DNA that might take over our world.”

“Oh…” Wheat said, thinking furiously.

***

Vanessa looked up when she heard the door to the lab open. Zage was there, along with the woman who’d been bringing him most of the time lately. Vanessa missed seeing the boy’s handsome father. However, the chances that a Nobel Prize winner would show up to drop off his son in the lab the day his prize had been announced seemed remote.
I can dream though, can’t I?

Instead of turning immediately to the lab bench like he usually did, Zage walked over to her. “Ms. Jenkins? I’m hoping to ask a favor.”

Vanessa bent down, “Before we talk about your favor, I wanted to say that, even though it seemed unlikely, I was hoping your dad would bring you in to the lab today so I could congratulate him.”

Zage blinked at her, “Congratulate my dad?”

“Yeah, you know, for his Nobel Prize?”

Zage at first looked stunned, then his eyes narrowed, “What?!”

Astonished, Vanessa was about to say, “They didn’t tell you?!” But then, realizing that perhaps his parents were trying to keep it a secret for some reason, stumblingly said, “Sorry, just teasing you.”

But by then, Zage had muttered to his AI and was staring wide-eyed up off into space like he did when he was looking at the HUD in his contact. “With Ell Donsaii!” He breathed, almost sounding like the fact his father was treading ground with Dr. Donsaii impressed him more than the Nobel Prize itself.

“Sorry,” Vanessa said, “they’re probably trying to surprise you with it. Maybe you could still
act
surprised when they tell you?”

“Wow!” Zage said, as if he hadn’t heard. In a hushed tone, he continued, “Maybe I’ll get to meet Ell Donsaii at some kind of ceremony or something.”

“Maybe you will,” Vanessa said, giving Zage a little fist bump. “Congratulate your dad for me, okay?”

“Okay…” Zage said, then stood there for a moment, as if uncertain what to do after learning of such a momentous event. His eyes went back to Vanessa, “Um, back to the favor I’d like?”

Vanessa stood up, thinking that he wanted help with setting up the purification of his peptide. “Your peptide is tagged, right?”

“Oh,” Zage said glancing back toward the lab bench where he usually worked, “I do need help making sure I set the purification up correctly, but first I wanted to talk to you about something different.”

Vanessa sat back down, “What’s up?”

“I’m thinking ahead to when I have my peptide. I’ll need to be able to test it to see if it does what I think it will.”

Vanessa nodded, wondering what kind of testing he might have in mind.

“So I’ve ordered an immortal cell line. I wanted to have some cells that will replicate forever so I wouldn’t have to keep harvesting new ones. I figure I can test my peptide against them to see if it’ll increase their expression of Trim28.”

“Okaaay,” Vanessa said, once again surprised at the sophistication of the kid’s thought processes.
Though I don’t know why I feel surprised anymore.
“Are you wanting me to show you how to take care of the cells?”

“Oh, yeah, that would be good. I’ve read a lot about it, but have no hands-on experience so it’d sure be helpful to have you make sure I’m not messing it up.”

Vanessa suppressed a snort, “But that’s not what you really wanted help with, right?”

“No, it’s the next step that I don’t think I can do by myself. Assuming the tissue culture step works, I’d like to be able to order some obese rats and see whether the peptide will make them express more Trim28 and… hopefully lose a little weight,” he finished a little wistfully.

“Ah,” Vanessa said, understanding. “And you can’t apply for an animal care and use protocol, since you’re not officially a student here at the University.”

“Right. Would you be able to help me?”

“Those things are a huge pain to fill out. Will your parents pay me for my time doing that?” As soon as she said it, Vanessa felt guilty. After all, they paid for her for lots of hours where she did nothing but work on her own projects while Zage did his thing on the other side of the lab. She shouldn’t begrudge him a few hours working on filling in one of the protocols.

“Oh,” Zage said. “They’re available online and I’ve already filled one out. I just can’t submit it in my name, so I was hoping you wouldn’t mind submitting it under yours.”

Vanessa mentally rolled her eyes
. Of course you have,
she thought.

Before she said anything though Zage continued, “I don’t think my parents would mind paying you for your time looking it over though. I’m sure you wouldn’t want it submitted in your name if it still had some stupid mistakes in it. I’ll check, if you’d be willing?”

Vanessa waved dismissively, “They don’t need to pay me. They already pay me for plenty of time when I’m not really doing anything to help you. But I do need to get it approved by Dr. Turner. I can’t do it all by myself since I’m just a grad student.”

“Oh,” Zage looked a little apprehensive. “That sounds like… a problem.”

Vanessa shrugged, “It shouldn’t be.”

“Really?” Zage said, a little wide-eyed, “You think he’d be okay with it?”

“As long as he thinks the science is reasonable and you have funding for it.”

“My parents said they’d put some more money in my research fund. Can you check and see if they did? I might have to remind them.”

Vanessa spoke to her AI and looked up at her HUD. Her eyes widened a little bit. Zage’s account had a new $20,000 deposit in it! “Um, yeah they put more money in,” she said neutrally.

“So, would you ask Dr. Turner?
I
think he’s kind of scary.”

Now Vanessa did snort, “I’ll read your protocol and if I think it’s okay, I’ll ask him, but I’ll bet that he’ll want to talk to
you
. Don’t worry about it though; he’s a big teddy bear.”

Finally,
Vanessa thought as she finished reading and editing Zage’s protocol
, something the kid hasn’t done perfectly. Although, to be honest, it’s probably better than the first one I filled out.
He’d answered the questions in the online form in what seemed like a very reasonable fashion, unless you knew about some of the obscure hoops you had to jump through for these protocols. She hadn’t needed to correct anything about the science in his protocol, only things related to animal care.

She thought about just forwarding it to Dr. Turner, but then decided she’d better talk to him first. Getting up, she went over to knock on his door frame.

Turner looked up and, seeing Vanessa, said, “Come on in. Did you see that the kid’s dad won the Nobel Prize today?”

“Um, yeah. Pretty cool.”

Turner grinned and shrugged, “Guess the kid had to have
someone
to inherit those smarts from. What’s up?”

Vanessa shrugged, “Well, it’s about the kid’s research plans…”

***

At dinner that evening Zage said, “Dad?”

Shan turned to look at his son and lifted his chin interrogatively.

With the serious air of someone asking a life or death question, Zage said, “Why didn’t you tell me you won the Nobel Prize?”

Shan leaned back in his seat and gave his son a serious look, “Well, do you know what a braggart is?”

Zage blinked in surprise, “I’m… not sure. I think it’s someone who tells you how great they are, right?”

Shan nodded, keeping a serious look on his face. “Has anyone ever bragged to you?”

“Um…” Zage paused to search his memories, “Yeah, Jimmy told us how good he was at soccer all the time.”

“And how did that make you feel about Jimmy?”

“Um… I didn’t like him very much, but neither did anyone else.”

Shan leaned forward, an intent look on his face, “And, did you ever find out that someone was really, really good at something… something they
hadn’t
told you about? You found out about it from someone else?”

Zage nodded, a thoughtful look on his face.

“I’ll bet you were bunch more impressed with the person who
hadn’t
told you than you were with Jimmy, someone who told you all the time, right?”

Zage nodded again.

Shan winked at him, “So, I’m hoping my son will think I’m much cooler, because I didn’t brag to him the day I won the Nobel Prize.” He grinned at Zage, “And, I’m
also
hoping you’ll take a lesson from that.”

Zage got up out of his chair and walked around to throw his small arms around his dad. In a choked up voice he said, “I’m
really
proud of you Dad, and I’d like to think I’d be just as proud if you’d told me this morning.” He leaned back and gave his dad a little frown, “
And
, I wouldn’t have been so embarrassed when Vanessa told me and I didn’t know!”

“Oops, sorry,” Shan said with a grin, ruffling his hair.

“Can I go to Stockholm with you? I’d
really
like to meet Dr. Donsaii now and it seems like that’d probably happen at the ceremonies.”

“Um,” Shan said glancing at Ell, “your mom and I’ll have to talk it over.”

“Pleeease!” Zage said, unusually sounding like an ordinary five-year-old begging for a treat of some kind.

Zage’s mother shrugged and said, “It’ll probably be okay. I’m not going to be able to go to Sweden because of a huge commitment I have for D5R. Amy can go with you guys and
she
can try to keep Zage out of trouble.”

Zage excitedly clapped his hands together, then returned to his chair to finish his dinner. A moment later, he paused and looked at his mom. “Really Mom? You can’t get somebody to cover for you on this so you can go to the Nobel ceremony for your own husband?!”

Ell winced. After a pause she said, “The only two people who can do this thing in December are myself or Dr. Donsaii. She
has
to go to the ceremony.”

***

Ell rolled over next to Shan, “I talked to Dr. Wheat today…”

“The exobiologist? What did he think about Zage’s idea?”

Ell chewed her lip, “He thought it was crazy. However, he thought it was better than any of the other ideas he’s heard… or thought of himself.”

***

Shan sat down at the breakfast table across from Ell. She was having cereal this morning like he was. He lifted his spoon at her, “Well, it’s kind of a letdown, going back to eating my cereal in the morning instead of going out for breakfast to celebrate.”

Ell grinned at him, “You can’t win a Nobel Prize
every
day, you know?”

“I don’t know why not, I could go for eating…”

Shan had paused when his AI spoke in his ear, “You have a call from Jacob Knudsen in Stockholm.”

A spike of disappointment shot through him. He thought,
They made a mistake when they made the announcement yesterday!
Aloud, he said, “I’ll take it… Hello, this is Shannon Kinrais.”

The man said, “Hello, this is Jacob Knudsen. Is this the Dr. Kinrais who published on the optimization of carbon allotrope formation?”

Stunned by the implication of the question, Shan found it difficult to speak. After a moment he said, “Um, yes sir.”

“Then I have the honor of informing you that the committee has selected you and your co-authors to receive the Nobel Prize in chemistry.”

“Um…” Shan paused for a moment, then, thinking that he was crazy to look a gift horse in the mouth, said, “Are you aware that I and Dr. Donsaii got the same call from the physics committee yesterday?”

“Yes, the committees became aware that they’d nominated the same people for the two awards a few days ago. However, they had arrived at their decisions completely independently and they decided there was no justification not to proceed.” Knudsen cleared his throat, “I assume you don’t
object
to receiving both awards?”

“No! No we’re greatly honored. I mean
I’m
very honored… And I’m sure that my co-authors will be as well.”

“I’m sure, having gotten a similar call yesterday, you’re aware that formal notification will arrive both electronically and by standard mail in the next few days?”

“Yes sir.”

“Then, I’ll let you go and I’ll make my calls to Dr. Donsaii and Dr. Pace.”

Once Knudsen had signed off, Shan turned wide eyed to stare at Ell.

She lifted an eyebrow, “We goin’ out to breakfast again?”