Year's Best Scifi 3 Part 35

She glanced over at Percy, floating cheerfully on his back a few meters away, anddecided, screw that. She pulled herself up the rope. Let him pull himself up.

Oh, well. After all, it had been a good day for science, and the scientists' guild ought to be justifiably proud, she reflected. She had verified beyond any possible scientific objections a theory that had been hithertofore only a conjecture.

With the help of her beautiful but scatterbrained a.s.sistant, of course.

Chapter 20- The Mendelian Lamp Case by Paul.

Levinson Paul Levinson runs an online cla.s.sroom system, and combines the skills of communications with a philosophical rigor. He edits the Journal of Social and Evolutionary Systems and in 1997 he published a science nonfiction book, The Soft Edge. He has been publis.h.i.+ng short fiction for several years now, and is proud to be a member of the a.n.a.log Mafia, an aggregation of writers most identified with Stanley Schmidt's magazine-this story is from a.n.a.log. Last year Levinson cut loose with several fine stories, including tales in the continuing saga of Phil D'Amato, of which this is one. "The Mendelian Lamp Case" is filled with the kind of surprises I use to find and value in the stories of Robert A. Heinlein, wonders that make me rethink what I thought were solved problems or conventional solutions. At its best, this story is outrageously inventive. Years ago, the Seminoles went to ground in the Everglades with their sewing machines and came out years later with Seminole Patchwork, a previously unknown mathematical tiling. This story is about what is happening in rural Pennsylvania.

Most people think of California, or the midwest, when they think of farm country. I'll take Pennsylvania, and the deep greens on its red earth, any time. Small patches of tomatoes and corn, clothes snapping brightly on a line, and a farmhouse always attached to some corner. The scale is human...

Jenna was in England for a conference, my weekend calendar was clear, so I took Mo up on a visit to Lancaster. Over the GW Bridge, coughing down the Turnpike, over another bridge, down yet another highway stained and pitted then off on a side road where I can roll down my windows and breathe.

Mo and his wife and two girls w.ere good people. He was a rarity for a forensic scientist. Maybe it was the pace of criminal science in this part of the country-lots of the people around here were Amish, and Amish are non-violent-or maybe it was his steady diet of those deep greens that quieted his soul. But Mo had none of the grit, none of the cynicism, that comes to most of us who traverse the territory of the dead and the maimed. No, Mo had an innocence, a delight, in the lights of science and people and their possibilities.

"Phil." He clapped me on die back with one hand and took my bag with another."Phil, how are you?" his wife Corinne yoo-hooed from inside. "Hi Phil!" his elder daughter Laurie, probably sixteen already, chimed in from the window, a quick splash of strawberry blond in a crystal frame.

"Hi-" I started to say, but Mo put my bag on the porch and ushered me toward his car.

"You got here early, good," he said, in that schoolboy conspiratorial whisper I'd heard him go into every time he came across some inviting new avenue of science.

ESP, UFOs, Mayan ruins in unexpected places-these were all catnip to Mo. But the power of quiet nature, the hidden wisdom of the farmer, this was his special domain. "A little present I want to pick up for Laurie," he whispered even more, though she was well out of earshot. "And something I want to show you. You too tired for a quick drive?"

"Ah, no, I'm okay-"

"Great, let's go then," he said. "I came across some Amish techniques-well, you'll see for yourself, you're gonna love it."

Strasburg is fifteen minutes down Rt. 30 from Lancaster. All Dairy Queens and 7-Elevens till you get there, but when you turn off and travel a half a mile in any direction you're back a hundred years or more in time. The air itself says it all. High mixture of pollen and horse manure that smells so surprisingly good, so real, it makes your eyes tear with pleasure. You don't even mind a few flies flitting around.

We turned down Northstar Road. "Jacob Stoltzfus's farm is down there on the right," Mo said.

I nodded. "Beautiful." The sun looked about five minutes to setting. The sky was the color of a robin's belly against the browns and greens of the farm. "He won't mind that we're coming here by, uh-"

"By car? Nah, of course not," Mo said. "The Amish have no problem with non-Amish driving. And Jacob, as you'll see, is more open-minded than most."

I thought I could see him now, off to the right at the end of the road that had turned to dirt, gray-white head of hair and beard bending over the gnarled bark of a fruit tree. He wore plain black overalls and a deep purple s.h.i.+rt.

"That Jacob?" I asked.

"I think so," Mo replied. "I'm not sure."

We pulled the car over near the tree, and got out. A soft autumn rain suddenly started falling.

"You have business here?" The man by the tree turned to address us. His tone was far from friendly.

"Uh, yes," Mo said, clearly taken aback. "I'm sorry to intrude. Jacob-Jacob Stoltzfus-said it would be okay if we came by-"

"You had business with Jacob?" the man demanded again. His eyes looked red and watery-though that could've been from the rain."Well, yes," Mo said. "But if this isn't a good time-"

"My brother is dead," the man said. "My name is Isaac. This is a bad time for our family."

"Dead?" Mo nearly shouted. "I mean... what happened? I just saw your brother yesterday."

"We're not sure," Isaac said. "Heart attack, maybe. I think you should leave now.

Family are coming soon."

"Yes, yes, of course," Mo said. He looked beyond Isaac at a barn that I noticed for the first time. Its doors were slightly open, and weak light flickered inside.

Mo took a step in the direction of the barn. Isaac put up a restraining arm.

"Please," he said. "It's better if you go."

"Yes, of course," Mo said again, and I led him to the car.

"You all right?" I said when we were both in the car, and Mo had started the engine.

He shook his head. "Couldn't be a heart attack. Not at a time like this."

"Heart attacks don't usually ask for appointments," I said.

Mo was still shaking his head, turning back on to Northstar Road. "I think someone killed him."

Now forensic scientists are p.r.o.ne to see murder in a ninety-year old woman dying peacefully in her sleep, but this was unusual from Mo.

"Tell me about it," I said, reluctantly. Just what I needed-death turning my visit into a busman's holiday.

"Never mind," he muttered. "I babbled too much already."

"Babbled? You haven't told me a thing."

Mo drove on in brooding silence. He looked like a different person, wearing a mask that used to be him.

"You're trying to protect me from something, is that it?" I ventured. "You know better than that."

Mo said nothing.

"What's the point?" I prodded. "We'll be back with Corinne and the girls in five minutes. They'll take one look at you, and know something happened. What are you going to tell them?"

Mo swerved suddenly onto a side road, bringing my kidney into sticking contact with the inside door handle. "Well, I guess you're right about that," he said. He punched in a code in his car phone-I hadn't noticed it before.

"h.e.l.lo?" Corinne answered.

"Bad news, honey," Mo said matter of factly, though it sounded put on to me.No doubt his wife would see through it too. "Something came up in the project, and we're going to have to go to Philadelphia tonight."

"You and Phil? Everything okay?"

"Yeah, the two of us," Mo said. "Not to worry. I'll call you again when we get there."

"I love you," Corinne said.

"Me too," Mo said. "Kiss the girls good night for me."

He hung up and turned to me.

"Philadelphia?" I asked.

"Better that I don't give them too many details," he said. "I never do in my cases.

Only would worry them."

"She's worried anyway," I said. "Sure sign she's worried when she didn't even scream at you for missing dinner. Now that you bring it up, I'm a little worried now too. What's going on?"

Mo said nothing. Then he turned the car again-mercifully more gently this time-onto a road with a sign that advised that the Pennsylvania Turnpike was up ahead.

I rolled up the window as our speed increased. The night had suddenly gone damp and cold.

"You going to give me a clue as to where we're going, or just kidnap me to Philadelphia?" I asked.

"I'll let you off at the Thirtieth Street Station," Mo said. "You can get a bite to eat on the train and be back in New York in an hour."

"You left my bag on your porch, remember?" I said. "Not to mention my car."

Mo just scowled and drove on.

"I wonder if Amos knows?" he said more to himself than me a few moments later.

"Amos is a friend of Jacob's?" I asked.

"His son," Mo said.

"Well I guess you can't very well call him on your car phone," I said.

Mo shook his head, frowned. "Most people misunderstand the Amish-think they're some sort of Luddites, against all technology. But that's not really it at all.

They struggle with technology, agonize over whether to reject or accept it, and if they accept it, in what ways, so as not to compromise their independence and self-sufficiency. They're not completely against phones-just against phones in their homes-because the phone intrudes on everything you're doing."

I snorted. "Yeah, many's the time a call from the Captain pulled me out of the sack."Mo flashed his smile, for the first time since we'd left Jacob Stoltzfus's farm. It was good to see.

"So where do Amish keep their phones?" I might as well press my advantage, and the chance it would get Mo to talk.

"Well, that's another misconception," Mo said. "There's not one monolithic Amish viewpoint. There are many Amish groups, many different ways of dealing with technology. Some allow phone shacks on the edges of their property, so they can make calls when they want to, but not be disturbed by them in the sanct.i.ty of their homes."

"Does Amos have a phone shack?" I asked.

"Dunno," Mo said, like he was beginning to think about something else.

"But you said his family was more open than most," I said.

Mo swiveled his head to stare at me for a second, then turned his eyes back on the road. "Open-minded, yes. But not really about communications."

"About what, then?"

"Medicine," Mo said.

"Medicine?" I asked.

"Whatdo you know about allergies?"

My nose itched-maybe it was the remnants of the sweet pollen near Strasburg.

"I have hay fever," I said. "Cantaloupe sometimes makes my mouth burn. I've seen a few strange deaths in my time due to allergic reactions. You think Jacob Stoltzfus died from something like that?"

"No," Mo said. "I think he was killed because he was trying to prevent people from dying from things like that."

"Okay," I said. "Last time you said that and I asked you to explain you said never mind. Should I ask again or let it slide?"

Mo sighed. "You know, genetic engineering goes back well before the double helix."

"Come again?"

"Breeding plants to make new combinations probably dates almost to the origins of our species," Mo said. "Darwin understood that-he called it 'artificial selection.'

Mendel doped out the first laws of genetics breeding peas. Luther Burbank developed way many more new varieties of fruit and vegetables than have yet to come out of our gene-splicing labs."

"And the connection to the Amish is what-they breed new vegetables now too?"

I asked.

"More than that," Mo said. "They have whole insides of houses lit by special kinds of fireflies, altruistic manure permeated by slugs that seek out the roots ofplants to die there and give them nourishment-all deliberately bred to be that way, and the public knows nothing about it. It's biotechnology of the highest order, without the technology."

"And your friend Jacob was working on this?"

Mo nodded. "Techno-allergists-our conventional researchers-have recently been investigating how some foods act as catalysts to other allergies. Cantaloupe tingles in your mouth in hay fever season, right?-because it's really exacerbating the hay fever allergy. Watermelon does the same, and so does the pollen of mums.

Jacob and his people have known this for fifty years-and .they've gone much further. They're trying to breed a new kind of food, some kind of tomato thing, which would act as an anti-catalyst for allergies-would reduce their histamic effect to nothing."

"Like an organic Hismanol?" I asked.

"Better than that," Mo said. "This would trump any pharmaceutical."