Analog SFF, December 2005 by Dell Magazine Authors

Author:Dell Magazine Authors
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Science Fiction
Publisher: Dell Magazines
Published: 2010-12-15T07:07:20.025000+00:00

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Do Neanderthals Know?

by Robert J. Howe

We already know that information can be hidden is surprising places. And those who find the keys ...

I was there when Pinky Sills became a proteus. Maybe not at the exact moment—perhaps even Pinky couldn't say when that was—but I was there at the beginning.

We were eating lunch in the fifth floor cafeteria of Ihinger-Ibex's Minnesota campus. It was April, but there was still enough winter in the air to keep us from venturing outside the corporate park. It was our regular threesome for lunch: me, Pinky, and Joyce Gannet, my wife and boss of the Composite Materials Group. We were sitting in the open section of the cafeteria, even though we all had executive-level badges and could have used the dining room with the suits, when Pinky pulled out a plastic zip-lock bag full of lettuce and set it on the table.

Joy and I looked at each other—Pinky was like a lot of geniuses in that he was developmentally arrested at about age eight, and he often did things to get a rise out of us. Pinky took a couple of leaves out of the baggie and placed them neatly between his hamburger patty and bun.

“Tell me,” Joy said, “tell me that you're not brown-bagging your own lettuce."

“Nuh-huh,” he said. “It's from the lab. It's an African plant, Brassica; cabbage family. We're looking at it as an anti-fungal. He took a tidy bite from the burger and chewed it carefully. “Tastes neat."

Joy took a leaf from the baggie and sniffed it.

“Try some, it's fresh,” Pinky said, his mouth full of food.

Joy broke off two pieces and handed me one. The leaves were crisp, with a slight bitterness about them. At least they had a taste, which was more than I could say for the bland iceberg salads the cafeteria usually served.

“It also seems to be a mild hallucinogen,” Pinky offered.

“What?” I spit out the remainder into my napkin. “Lunatic."

“Oh, stop,” he said. “I wouldn't let you eat anything that I hadn't tried myself. You probably wouldn't notice anything unless I mentioned it. The only thing is that I had really vivid daydreams after I ate it."

“Have you tried this out on anyone else?” Joy wanted to know. She looked like she was trying not to laugh.

“Herman, you know him,” Pinky gestured to me, “from FDA applications? He ate a bunch of it one day—he's on that diet, you know, and he'd eat ratshit on toast—he polished off a small bag of it."

“Anything happen to him?” I asked, trying to not be annoyed with Pinky.

“No, I told you. He made a salad out of it with some tomatoes Marybeth had in the break room. Never noticed a thing,” Pinky said.

“All you guys in pharmaceuticals are head cases,” Joy said. “Too much product testing, I think.” She loaded her empty wrappers and juice container onto her tray. “Well, I've got a one o'clock meeting. And I'm going to call you first if I notice any of the guys turning into lizards or anything,” she said to Pinky.

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