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"Why don't you give us your ideas first, Hidey," Bert said. "You've probably got more to say about a
possible project than the rest of us anyway."
Everyone seemed agreeable to this. Hidey leaned forward. "I should say a few preliminary things first.
Whatever kind of project we undertake is just going to mean more work for everybody here, at least for
a while. We all have pretty full schedules right now and even if we can get a grant, we'll still be
overworked. I don't mind that myself, I'm used to sleeping in my office and working on weekends, but
some of you may feel like having more time to yourselves." He paused to light a cigarette. "I know," he
went on, "that none of you here are used to working on any kind of crucial research project. All you've
done is improved on what was done thirty years ago, refined some techniques; that's all the moratorium
has let us do. We always know in advance what we'll come up with. Now there's no reason why we
have to do anything else. The university would be just as happy to let us go our own way and the park
service will keep giving us grants to clone endangered species at least until they finish setting up their own
facilities. If any of you want to keep on with what you're doing, just say so, and we can all go home."
Cesar Gomez gestured with his cigar. "I'm just speaking for myself," the small dark man said, "but I was
trained to do research and so was everyone else here. We haven't been able to do a damn thing with our
training. I enjoy teaching, but I'd enjoy it a lot more if I was training students to do something more than
develop what we already know. Everybody knows what a disaster that moratorium was, even if they
don't want to admit it. We've lost a lot of the best students over the years. They knew they wouldn't be
able to achieve anything, that they would be little more than technicians. The rest of us have just been
hanging on like damn fools, waiting for the day when we might really be able to work again, and
wondering if it would ever come. We haven't even been able to teach, really, we've just been
indoctrinating students in a static field. It's going to be years before we can get some of those minds we
lost replaced as it is. I say we go ahead."
"Same here," Ike Jefferson drawled. "I'm mighty tired of arousing the curiosity of students and then having
to tell them they can't try to answer certain questions. It violates the spirit of free inquiry and everything
else we should stand for." The others nodded.
Hidey smiled and seemed to relax. "There's another problem that might be easier to resolve, a political
one. You all know how a lot of people, even now, feel about me. I was accused of grandstanding in the
past." Kira saw Kurt Schultz's blue eyes drift in her direction. "No matter what we undertake, a lot of
people are going to be watching me. You may make your work easier if you let me retire. I've got my
pension and I could probably find something to do. The only reason I've been here this long is by
threatening to take the university to court if they force me to retire, and every old person around, even the
ones that hate me, would be on my side there. No one wants forced retirement established again."
"No," Kurt said, running his hand over his short silvery blond hair. "You stay. If you go, Kira will have to
go also. We would get just as much interference from those who might wonder what kind of project a
clone might work on, considering that she was the result of one of the last projects before this
moratorium. We cannot concern ourselves with such matters. Besides, I doubt that we could think up a
reason for getting rid of Kira. We would be obligated to help find her a new position and then we would
have to find two replacements for you both. That would not be easy, given the lack of talent in the field at
the moment."
"Let me get to the point," Jonis said. "Without Hidey, I doubt that any of us could agree on anything. He's
the only one who's kept us from getting into time-wasting feuds. I don't want us to be like the chemistry
department or anthropology. I don't think those people could agree on what model coffee machine to
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