The Golden Fleece by Brian Stableford

hesitated, apparently wondering whether he might have gone too far—but self-doubt wasn’t in his emotional repertoire. “Not saying that you can work a miracle, mind,” the industrialist added, cautiously, “and I won’t hold it against you if you can’t—but the mere possibility justifies the price of your hire...metaphorically speaking, of course. You up to date now?”
     
    Adrian blinked several times, then nodded.
     
    “We’re on the same page?” Jarndyke added, wanting to be sure.
     
    Adrian nodded again.
     
    “Good—now get on with making me trillions. Concentrate on your own colors, until you get the call. Okay.”
     
    “Okay,” said Adrian, feeing that the nodding was becoming too repetitive, and not wanting to be mistaken for an automaton.
     
    “Champion “ said Jarndyke, and passed on.
     
    Word that the conversation in question had taken place went round the labs and offices like wildfire, although no one knew exactly what had been said or why. Rumor inevitably took wing.
     
    “Made quite an impression on Mrs. Jarndyke, I hear,” Chester Hu said to him, when an opportunity arose. “I told you to be careful, didn’t I? Don’t be fooled by Jayjay’s easygoing manner. If he gets jealous, he won’t settle for firing you. He’s a Yorkshireman. Next worst thing to a Singaporean, when it comes to matters of the heart.”
     
    The Koreans, Taiwanese, and even the Scots, made similar comparisons, causing Adrian to realize that every nation on Earth thought that it had a privileged relationship with jealousy and pride. He brushed it all off—which didn’t fan the rumors, but didn’t extinguish them either. He now felt that it wasn’t just Jayjay’s beady eyes that were on him, but those of the entire organization.
     
    Mercifully, he had his routines, and a heroic capacity to absorb himself in his work. That was what he did, accelerating the progress of his gene-designing, gene-manufacturing and gene-implanting experiments, looking forward to the day when he could actually begin field-testing. For the moment, he was working almost entirely in cyberspace and headspace, where the hitches rarely showed up, but he did contrive to get half a dozen new pigment genes—all patent-protected—into organic form, and to incorporate them into cultures of both wool and silk. Within a further ten days, he saw the first flecks of color born in his Petri-dishes, and knew that the foundations had been laid for a great ideative and industrial enterprise.
     
    He allowed himself to feel a small thrill of triumph, but not to celebrate. The time for celebration was still a long way off.
     
    For the moment, it looked as if his greens and blues were ahead of his golds, but he wasn’t upset by that. The golds would come through, in time; so would the blacks...and the reds too. Only splodges in dishes to begin with, but in time...maybe he could even produce Hellfire, if there turned out to a market for it. His progress was frustratingly slow, because his ambitions were so large, but he knew that Jason Jarndyke was right. Rome hadn’t been built in a day, and the Romans hadn’t made as great a job of it as they might have done, although the Goths and Vandals certainly hadn’t helped with its preservation. He had to be patient.
     
    He was. He worked with relentless efficiency, by no means tirelessly but always effectively. He ate well. He cycled up and down the moors, enjoying the sun light and the subtle shades of coloration that the mosses and the heather presented, as the season slowly wore on. Everything went like clockwork, uninterrupted by superfluous cuckoos. He had plenty to think about without philosophizing, and he made the most of his opportunities. His head was full of molecules.
     
    Eventually, though, the summons came. Jarndyke dropped round to his computer-station as if for a routine check-in, but added, before turning away: “Can you come to dinner Sunday? Angie has a few things she’d