The soldiers fire their guns. The young men live happily ever after.
This is biology.
"Where the hell is everybody?"
"Itтs Thursday," Stefan Fabbre said, adding, "Damn!" as the figures on
the computer screen jumped and flickered. He was wearing his topcoat over
sweater and scarf, since the biology laboratory was heated only by a space
heater that shorted out the computer circuit if they were on at the same time.
"There are programs that could do this in two seconds," he said, jabbing
morosely at the keyboard.
Avelin came up and glanced at the screen. "What is it?"
"The RNA comparison count. I could do it faster on my fingers."
Avelin, a bald, spruce, pale, dark-eyed man of 40, roamed the
laboratory, looked restlessly through a folder of reports. "Canтt run a
university with this going on," he said. "Iтd have thought youтd be down
there."
Fabbre entered a new set of figures and said, "Why?"
"Youтre an idealist."
"Am l?" Fabbre leaned back, rolled his head to get the cricks out. "I try
hard not to be," he said.
"Realists are born, not made." The younger man sat down on a lab
stool and stared at the scarred, stained counter. "Itтs coming apart," he said.
"You think so? Seriously?"
Avelin nodded. "You heard that report from Prague."
Fabbre nodded.
"Last week . . . this week . . . next year--yes. An earthquake. The
stones come apart--it falls apart--there was a building, now thereтs not.
History is made. So, I donтt understand why youтre here, not there."
"Seriously, you donтt understand?"
Avelin smiled and said, "Seriously."
"All right." Fabbre stood up and began walking up and down the long
room as he spoke. He was a slight gray-haired man with youthfully intense,
controlled movements. "Science or political activity, either/or: Choose. Right?
Choice is responsibility, right? So I chose my responsibility responsibly. I
chose science and abjured all action but the acts of science. The acts of a
responsible science. Out there, they can change the rules; in here, they canтt
change the rules; when they try to, I resist. This is my resistance." He slapped
the laboratory bench as he turned round. "Iтm lecturing. I walk up and down
like this when I lecture. So. Background of the choice. Iтm from the northeast.
