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brother?”
    “Forty-three.”
    “Okay, let’s talk about Kogene a bit. You mentioned that you made enough money to help Jacob found it— was that a long-standing dream of his?”
    “Not exactly, no. Scientists don’t really think in terms of making money. They just do research, and when they’re done doing it, they do more research.”
    “So the company was your idea?”
    “Primarily, yes. But Jacob is very happy with it, of course. He has more freedom this way.”
    “How many employees do you have?”
    “About fifty, I think.” Fifty! Genentech had several hundred and it was a lot smaller than Cetus.
    “You see, Mr. Haas, we’ve deliberately kept ourselves small. At the moment we are primarily a research firm, and our research is very specific.”
    “Oh?”
    Again the smile-cousin. “We hope to have a product on the market within a couple of years. A very, very important product.”
    I’d read that some gene-splicer or other had already whipped up bacterial insulin, and there were a few other offerings in the health field, as well as schemes to invent new plants that would fertilize themselves and maybe grow in salt water. But the potential product with the most razzle-dazzle was biosynthetic interferon, a protein that might or might not cure cancer, and maybe the common cold and herpes as well. If anyone could make it do any of those things, he’d have a very important product indeed. But every scientist in the field was trying to do that. Surely if that’s what the Koehlers were on to, Steve would have said so. Just in case, I gave him another chance.
    “Interferon?”
    This time he smiled a real smile. I’d said something that made him happy. “No. Oh, we’re working with it— everyone is— but the product I mean is something else. Unfortunately, I’m afraid I’m not currently at liberty to tell you what it is. I can tell you, though, that we’ll be making an announcement in the very near future. We also plan to make a public stock offering soon.”
    “How soon?”
    “Within about three months, I should say. Possibly in September.”
    “And how much stock will you offer?”
    “Something in the neighborhood of $250 million.”
    I almost said, “You gotta be kidding!” But I remembered my manners in time. I didn’t say anything.
    “Does that surprise you, Mr. Haas?”
    “I can’t say that it doesn’t. Cetus offered about half that when they were ten years old and already had several products to sell.”
    “Our stock is going to be worth a great deal more than theirs.”
    “Forgive me if I ask you why you say that.”
    “Of course. And I’d like nothing more than to tell you, but the time isn’t right.”
    “Why all the mystery?”
    “We’re just not ready to make the announcement, that’s all. If you’ve finished your coffee, maybe you’d like to look around the plant.”
    “Sure.”
    He picked up the phone and gave orders. “Young John Reid will show you around,” he said. “I don’t know much about gene-splicing myself— he’ll explain it much better than I could.”
    “Do I have to wear a lab coat or anything?”
    Koehler laughed. “Nobody else does. In fact, why don’t you leave your coat here? You’re a bit overdressed for Kogene.”
    I shed it gratefully. I had a sweater underneath and the day was getting warm.
    In a moment John Reid appeared. He looked about twenty-five, wore faded jeans, and had the build of a tennis player— in other words, nothing like my idea of a scientist. As we went through what Koehler called the “plant,” I was forced to revise my stereotype— the scientists were all like Reid, except for the women, who had breasts.
    Their labs were decorated with photos of their most recent camping trips and each lab blared a different rock station, except for one that went in for country and western.
    The equipment wasn’t impressive at all, even the thing called the gene machine. The place looked as if it could have been on a college