{"id":2322,"date":"2022-01-10T23:31:17","date_gmt":"2022-01-10T23:31:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=2322"},"modified":"2022-01-10T23:31:20","modified_gmt":"2022-01-10T23:31:20","slug":"blood-music-by-greg-bear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=2322","title":{"rendered":"Blood Music by Greg Bear"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Blood Music<\/em><\/strong> by Greg Bear1<\/sup> (Analog<\/em>, June 1983) opens (after a short and essentially irrelevant passage) with a doctor called Edward meeting an old university friend called Vergil, an odd-ball whiz kid who, among other japes, \u201cwired door knobs, [and] gave us punch that turned our piss blue\u201d. After some social chit-chat, and discussion of some of Vergil\u2019s changed physical characteristics (he\u2019s fitter and more tanned), Edward learns that his friend has been working for a company called Genetron developing medical microchips. Edward also learns that Vergil was fired, but has been continuing his research outside the lab. Virgil then tells Edward he wants him to put him through a thorough physical exam.
When Edward conducts the examination, he finds that Vergil has a lot of very odd physical characteristics:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLook at my spine,\u201d he said. I rotated the image in the video frame. Buckminster Fuller, I thought. It was fantastic. A cage of triangular projections, all interlocking in ways I couldn\u2019t begin to follow, much less understand. I reached around and tried to feel his spine with my fingers. He lifted his arms and looked off at the ceiling.
\u201cI can\u2019t find it,\u201d I said. \u201cIt\u2019s all smooth back there.\u201d I let go of him and looked at his chest, then prodded his ribs. They were sheathed in something tough and flexible. The harder I pressed, the tougher it became. Then I noticed another change.
\u201cHey,\u201d I said. \u201cYou don\u2019t have nipples.\u201d There were tiny pigment patches, but no nipple formations at all.
\u201cSee?\u201d Vergil asked, shrugging on the white robe. \u201cI\u2019m being rebuilt from the inside out.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Vergil explains that the changes are a result of his work with Genetron which, essentially, was to do with designing nano-biotechnology (although this phrase isn\u2019t used). He explains how he injected the company\u2019s smart proteins into bacteria, which could then repair themselves, compare memories, and evolve:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBy God, you should have seen some of the cultures a week later! It was amazing. They were evolving all on their own, like little cities. I destroyed them all. I think one of the Petri dishes would have grown legs and walked out of the incubator if I\u2019d kept feeding it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

So far, so Microcosmic God<\/em>,2<\/sup> and Vergil goes on to explain that, by the time he exponentially improved his cell cultures, the company had discovered what he was doing and forced him to destroy his work. Before that Vergil injected himself with some of his own altered white blood cells, and they have since been modifying his body. Vergil then tells Edward he is worried that the cells will eventually cross the blood-brain barrier and \u201cfind him\u201d\u2014so he wants them destroyed.
The rest of the story (spoiler) sees Edward run more tests but, by the time visits Vergil a few days later, his friend says he can hear the cells talking to him\u2014\u201c<\/span>blood music\u201d. By this time they know who he is, that they are inside his body, and they are trying to understand the concept of space. On a later visit Edward finds out that Vergil has been examined a second time by a Dr Bernard, an associate of Vergil\u2019s old company, and also that Vergil\u2019s physical changes have become more pronounced. Edwards asks Vergil to tell the cells to slow down the changes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re . . . you can talk to them, tell them to slow down,\u201d I said, aware how ridiculous that sounded.
\u201cYes, indeed I can, but they don\u2019t necessarily listen.\u201d
\u201cI thought you were their god or something.\u201d
\u201cThe ones hooked up to my neurons aren\u2019t the big wheels. They\u2019re researchers, or at least serve the same function. They know I\u2019m here, what I am, but that doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019ve convinced the upper levels of the hierarchy.\u201d
\u201cThey\u2019re arguing?\u201d
\u201cSomething like that. It\u2019s not all that bad. If the lab is reopened, I have a home, a place to work.\u201d He glanced out the window, as if looking for someone. \u201cI don\u2019t have anything left but them. They aren\u2019t afraid, Edward. I\u2019ve never felt so close to anything before.\u201d Again the beatific smile. \u201cI\u2019m responsible for them. Mother to them all.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Edward thinks Vergil is more of a host than a mother (or \u201csuper-mother\u201d as Vergil later refers to himself) and arranges to meet Dr Bernard to see if he can help.
When Edward next visits Vergil he finds him sitting in a bath tinged pink with his blood\u2014\u201castronauts\u201d sent out by the cells to explore the exterior environment. When Vergil goes to pull the plug and release them the world, Edwards ends his agonising about the threat that Vergil poses (this dilemma has played out in parallel to the above in scenes where Edward has been sleeping\u2014\u201cVergil Ulam is turning himself into a galaxy\u201d\u2014or with his wife), and he throws an electric sunlamp into the bath killing Virgil and the cells.
The last act of the story sees Edward go home. He and his wife subsequently fall ill, and Edward deduces that Dr Bernard infected him (from the damp handshake he received). The white cells take over Edward and his wife\u2019s bodies, communicate with them, and then meld the pair together biologically. The organism created then grows to fill the apartment, and spreads out beyond it: mankind is doomed.<\/span>
This is a very good piece of work which manages a tour de force combination of several SF tropes including scientist-as-God\/messiah, alien body horror, the end of mankind, and, ultimately, the Fermi Paradox (why is there no sign of other intelligent life in the Universe?) The last two transform the story from one that begins on a microscopic level to one that eventually has cosmic implications.
****+ (Very good to Excellent). 8,750 words.

1. This was expanded into a novel of the same name published in 1985.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Microcosmic God<\/em> by Theodore Sturgeon (Astounding Science-Fiction<\/em>, April 1941) is reviewed here<\/a>.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blood Music by Greg Bear1 (Analog, June 1983) opens (after a short and essentially irrelevant passage) with a doctor called Edward meeting an old university friend called Vergil, an odd-ball whiz kid who, among other japes, \u201cwired door knobs, [and] gave us punch that turned our piss blue\u201d. After some social chit-chat, and discussion of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[621],"tags":[562,300,33,619,616,620,617,7,618],"class_list":["post-2322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-greg-bear","tag-562","tag-4-5","tag-analog","tag-extinction-of-humankind","tag-greg-bear","tag-human-mutation","tag-nanotechnology","tag-novelette","tag-scientist-as-god"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2322"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2346,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2322\/revisions\/2346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}