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“I wouldn’t-since I don’t know the first thing about crown galls.”
“Then take my word for it. There are two kinds of living cells: eukaryotic and prokaryotic. A eukaryotic cell is nucleated; that is, its nucleus walls in its chromosomes. A prokaryotic cell is less organized; that is, its chromosomes drift freely in the cytoplasm, in among the organelles. Enter Agrobacter-short for Agrobacterium tumefaciens. Agrobacter’s i
Dr. Urth paused a moment for breath and-Davenport thought-for dramatic effect.
“Now I come to the point of all this. The insidious parasite Agrobacter causes a tumorous swelling-a crown gall.” Dr. Urth’s voice rose in wrath. “Can you imagine? That nasty procedure was Flammersfeld’s elaborate way of fitting his poor little intelligent hybrid King Cole with a crown!”
Davenport gazed upon the image, saw only a rotted cabbage, and tried to picture it as it had been in life-a being with reasoning power, and therefore memory and foresight; with feelings, and therefore the need to love and hate. It would have been mostly head, the face framed in leaves. He shivered. For a flash he visualized its round face superimposed upon Dr. Urth’s round face, another bud of Buddha. He glanced at Dr. Urth.
Dr. Urth looked melancholy. It hit Davenport that Dr. Urth had been a child prodigy. Dr. Urth would have fellow feeling for freaks of any kind. Dr. Urth must have felt his look and sensed his thoughts, for Dr. Urth met his gaze and smiled sadly.
“We all-ourselves and our matrix-are interference patterns. So it comes natural to think of crossing this with that. It’s the nature of the beast-meaning the universe. All in all, it’s just as well Flammersfeld and his creature died when they did-if not as they did. We humans need a minimum of levity; there can be too much gravity. But Flammersfeld went too far, interfered too much.” His brow darkened. “ And meant to go on interfering. Remember his last requisition-for swine embryo and eagle eggs? And remember the line from Lewis Carroll-’whether pigs have wings’? We humans need a minimum amount of gravity; there can be too much levity.” His face closed. “That’s it, then.”
Davenport put the holograms away and got up to go. “Thanks for your help, Dr. Urth.”
Dr. Urth waved that away. He bounced to his feet and shook hands.
His voice halted Davenport on the threshold. “Inspector.”
Davenport turned around. “Yes, Dr. Urth?”
“About my fee…”
Davenport smiled. “I wondered when that would come.”
“Now you know. It comes now. A few trifles.”
“You know I’ll do my best. They are?”
“First, two bits of information to satisfy my curiosity. When you get back to New Washington, kindly stop by Near-earth, Ltd., and retrieve the file on Terrarium Nine. See if you can find out from Flammersfeld’s requisitions, and other documents, the genetic history of the cabbage and of the hemophiliac blood.” He smiled. “I’ve a mind bet that the cabbage was a savoy cabbage and that the blood came from a descendant of the House of Savoy.”
Davenport blinked. “Savoy? Why would Flammersfeld have specified savoy cabbage and Savoy blood?”
“For the same reason that impelled James Joyce to frame a view of Cork in cork-the sense of fitness.”
Davenport thought about that, then shook his head.
“If you don’t mind my saying so, the sense of fitness can carryover into madness.”
Dr. Urth hooded his mouth with a pudgy hand. “You take my point so exactly that I almost hesitate to name the balance of my fee.”
Davenport eyed him warily but felt compelled to say, “Name it.”
“Arrange for the researcher who has taken over Terrarium Nine to cross tortoise with cricket.”
Davenport tried to imagine what that would look like. “What on earth for?”
“So when I lose my eyeglasses a frame made of the shell will lead me to them-by the chirp.”