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Yet this was no mutated cell or virus from Earth; it was a new disease, completely different from all others. It was one where all Earth's centuries of experience with bacteria would be valueless the first Martian disease. Unless this was simply some accidental contamination of his culture, not common to the other samples.
Was there some hidden tendency to mutation, which, ordinarily weak, was strengthened in my cultures by some unknown influence? Was the observed mutation to be explained by a common cause with the other cases recorded by field-observations? To answer this question I had only to continue my experiment, excluding the mutated individuals from any intercrossing with their brethren.
But so far none had any difficulty in proving their human origin. The Lani, conceivably, could have been descendants of one of these groups, which probably explained the extreme care the Brotherhood courts had taken with their case. But they had failed the test, and were declared animals. Yet it was possible that they had mutated beyond genetic compatibility.
He thought of how he had importuned her, this stoic wife of his, to drive him to the hospital, of her obdurate refusals even when she had been the perpetrator of his broken arm and spintered clavical, and how it was from guilt his silent recriminations had mutated to hate in that taxi ride to Siriaj Hospital, that hospital that in youth they had gone to be with the abused dead of the anatomical museum.
The grandchildren of those cubs were now in the ship's cages, their mutated senses alert, ready for the slightest chance of escape. Sent to Topaz as eyes and ears for less keenly endowed humans, they were not completely under the domination of man.
Survey teams had early discovered the advantage of using mutated and highly trained Terran animals as assistants in the exploration of strange worlds. From the biological laboratories and breeding farms on Terra came a trickle of specialized aides-de-camp to accompany man into space. Some were fighters, silent, more deadly than weapons a man wore at his belt or carried in his hands.
The cattle were native to the planet, heavy-bodied unicorns the size of a Gram bisonoid or one of the slightly mutated Terran carabaos on Tanith, with long hair like a Terran yak. He had detailed a dozen of the Nemesis ground-fighters who had been vaqueros on his Traskon ranches to collect a score of cows and four likely bulls, with enough fodder to last them on the voyage.
The real nature of this state of the hereditary qualities is as yet wholly unknown. It would not be safe to formulate further conclusions before the evidence offered by the evening-primroses is considered. Thirdly, the question arises, whether the mutation is complete, not only as to the morphologic character, but also as to the hereditary constitution of the mutated individuals.
Neither the driver nor Brion had spoken a word since they left. A switch snapped and the instrument lights came on. In their dim glow Brion could just make out the other man's hawklike profile. When he moved, Brion saw that his figure was cruelly shortened. Either accident or a mutated gene had warped his spine, hunching him forward in eternally bent supplication.
Others hold that, under no circumstances, should a boy or girl be taught to sing before the age of puberty, before the voice has mutated.
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