鈥淚 have a proposition.鈥� Parn leant forward and put his hand on Malik Wood鈥檚 knee.
鈥淥h yes?鈥�
Parn sat back again. 鈥楧id you know I fund a palaeoanthropology research programme? It鈥檚 attached to the University of London. They do top genetic work. Looking at old bones. Sequencing the genome of Homo vannesiensis. That kind of thing. I know people there. In the labs. I have access.鈥�
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鈥淚 bet.鈥�
鈥淵ou know all that work they did in Leipzig a few years back. The Max Planck people. Putting together genomes from scraps of forty-thousand-year-old bone. Brilliant stuff. But those PCR machines they used, they鈥檙e pretty old now. We have better kit.鈥�
鈥淎苍诲?鈥�
Lukas Parn鈥檚 voice had lost all trace of the Outback. 鈥淚鈥檓 interested in hybrids. What they can tell us about ourselves. How we got to be the way we are. The inexplicable leap. The 鈥榮altation鈥�, as you call it.鈥�
鈥淢y God. You鈥檙e not a creationist, are you? You鈥檙e not going to try to prove that Homo sapiens was put together all in one go by God?鈥�
鈥淣o.鈥� Parn laughed. 鈥淣o, I鈥檓 not a creationist. But I鈥檓 an exceptionalist. I believe that the superiority of Homo sapiens hasn鈥檛 yet been explained.鈥�
鈥淵ou鈥檙e saying Darwin was wrong?鈥�
鈥淪ure. He was wrong about a lot of things. Women. Genetics.鈥�
鈥淏ut by the standards of what was known at the time, he鈥斺��
鈥淓xactly. 鈥楾he time鈥� was 1850-something. Getting on for two hundred years ago. Anyway, it鈥檚 not about a Victorian with a beard. It鈥檚 about genetics, a word unknown to Darwin.鈥�
鈥淗ow am I involved in this?鈥�
鈥淵our lab. Your touch.鈥�
Dr Wood drank some wine. 鈥淚鈥檒l need to know more.鈥�
鈥淵ou will. In due course. But can I take it that you would be interested in having your salary increased. And a one-off bonus of, let鈥檚 say, five times salary on successful completion?鈥�
鈥淚t depends on what I need to do.鈥�
鈥淪omething well within your capabilities. I want you to make a substitution in the course of our new IVF research partnership with the NHS.鈥�
鈥淎 substitution?鈥�
鈥淎 simple switch. One guy鈥檚 sperm for another. Before it hits the egg.鈥�
鈥淭hat鈥檚 ethically鈥斺��
鈥淓xtremely important is what it is,鈥� said Parn. 鈥淔rom a scientific point of view. We鈥檙e looking at a human hybrid.鈥�
Extract taken from by Sebastian Faulks (Hutchinson Heinemann, out now), the latest pick for the 快猫短视频聽Book Club. Sign up and read along with us聽here
