“Why don't you read off a long sequence, brew it up and venter it, and see what you get?”
Smith shrugged. Whole-genome shotgun sequencing struck him as slipshod, but it was certainly faster. Reading small bits of single-stranded DNA, called expressed sequence tags, had quickly identified most of the genes on the human genome; but it had missed some, and it ignored even the regulatory DNA sequences controlling the protein-coding portion of the genes, not to mention the so-called junk DNA itself, filling long stretches between the more clearly meaningful sequences.
Smith expressed his doubts to Frank, who nodded, but said, “It isn't the same now that the mapping is so complete. You've got so many reference points you can't get confused where your bits are on the big sequence. Just plug what you've got into the LanderWaterman, then do the finishing with the Kohl variations, and even if there are massive repetitions, you'll still be okay. And with the bits you've got, well they're almost like ests anyway, they're so degraded. So you might as well give it a try.”
Smith nodded.
That night he and Selena trammed home together. “What do you think of the possibility of shotgun sequencing in vitro copies of what I've got?” he asked her shyly.
“Sloppy,” she said. “Double jeopardy.”
A new schedule evolved. He worked, swam, took the tram home. Usually Selena wasn't there. Often their answering machine held messages for her from Mark, talking about their work. Or messages from her to Smith, telling him that she would be home late. As it was happening so often, he sometimes went out for dinner with Frank and other lane mates, after the evening workouts. One time at a beach restaurant they ordered several pitchers of beer, and then went out for a walk on the beach, and ended up running out into the shallows of the bay and swimming around in the warm dark water, so different from their pool, splashing each other and laughing hard. It was a good time.
But when he got home that night, there was another message on the answering machine from Selena, saying that she and Mark were working on their paper after getting a bite to eat, and that she would be home extra late.
She wasn't kidding; at two o'clock in the morning she was still out. In the long minutes following the timeslip Smith realized that no one stayed out so late working on a paper without calling home. This was therefore a message of a different kind.
Pain and anger swept through him, first one then the other. The indirection of it struck him as cowardly. He deserved at least a revelation—a confession—a scene. As the long minutes passed he got angrier and angrier; then frightened for a moment, that she might have been hurt or something. But she hadn't. She was out there somewhere fooling around. Suddenly he was furious.
He pulled cardboard boxes out of their closet and yanked open her drawers, and threw all her clothes in heaps into the boxes, crushing them in so they would all fit. But they gave off their characteristic scent of laundry soap and her, and smelling it he groaned and sat down on the bed, knees weak. If he carried through with this he would never again see her putting on and taking off these clothes, and just as an animal he groaned at the thought.
But men are not animals. He finished throwing her things into boxes, took them outside the front door, and dropped them there.
She came back at three. He heard her kick into the boxes and make some muffled exclamation.
He hurled open the door and stepped out.
“What's this?” She had been startled out of whatever scenario she had planned, and now was getting angry. Her, angry! It made him furious all over again.
“You know what it is.”
“What!”
“You and Mark.”
She eyed him.
“Now you notice,” she said at last. “A year after it started. And this is your first response.” Gesturing down at the boxes.
He hit her in the face."Get away"—striking him off with wild blows, crying and shouting, “Get away, get away"—frightened—"you bastard, you miserable bastard, what do you, don't you dare hit me!” in a near shriek, though she kept her voice down too, aware still of the apartment complex around them. Hands held to her face.
Immediately he crouched at her side and helped her sit up, saying, “Oh God Selena I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to,” he had only thought to slap her for her contempt, contempt that he had not noticed her betrayal earlier, “I can't believe I—”
“I'm sorry, Selena. I'm very very sorry, I was angry at what you said but I know that isn't, that doesn't . . . I'm sorry.” By now he was as angry at himself as he had been at her—what could he have been thinking, why had he given her the moral high ground like this, it was she who had broken their bond, it was she who should be in the wrong! She who was now sobbing—turning away—suddenly walking off into the night. Lights went on in a couple of windows nearby. Smith stood staring down at the boxes of her lovely clothes, his right knuckles throbbing.