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THE MENDELIAN LAMP CASE

by Paul Levinson


[novelette originaly published in _Analog_, April 1997;
to be reprinted in Year's Best SF #3, edited by David Hartwell,
HarperPrism, 1998]

Copyright (c) 1997 by Paul Levinson; all rights reserved.


Most people think of California, or the midwest, when they
think of farm country. I'll take Pennsylvania, and the deep
greens on its red earth, any time. Small patches of tomatoes
and corn, clothes snapping brightly on a line, and a farmhouse
always attached to some corner. The scale is human...
Jenna was in England for a conference, my weekend calendar
was clear, so I took Mo up on a visit to Lancaster. Over the GW
Bridge, coughing down the Turnpike, over another bridge, down
yet another highway stained and pitted then off on a side road
where I can roll down my windows and breathe.
Mo and his wife and two girls were good people. He was a
rarity for a forensic scientist. Maybe it was the pace of
criminal science in this part of the country -- lots of the
people around here were Amish, and Amish are non-violent -- or
maybe it was his steady diet of those deep greens that quieted
his soul. But Mo had none of the grit, none of the cynicism,
that comes to most of us who traverse the territory of the dead
and the maimed. No, Mo had an innocence, a delight, in the
lights of science and people and their possibilities.
"Phil." He clapped me on the back with one hand and took my
bag with another. "Phil, how are you?" his wife Corinne
yoo-hooed from inside. "Hi Phil!" his elder daughter Laurie,
probably 16 already, chimed in from the window, a quick splash
of strawberry blond in a crystal frame.
"Hi--" I started to say, but Mo put my bag on the porch and
ushered me towards his car.
"You got here early, good," he said, in that schoolboy
conspiratorial whisper I'd heard him go into every time he came
across some inviting new avenue of science. ESP, UFOs, Mayan
ruins in unexpected places -- these were all catnip to Mo. But
the power of quiet nature, the hidden wisdom of the farmer, this
was his special domain. "A little present I want to pick up for
Laurie," he whispered even more, though she was well out of
earshot. "And something I want to show you. You too tired for a
quick drive?"
"Ah, no, I'm ok--"
"Great, let's go then," he said. "I came across some Amish
techniques -- well, you'll see for yourself, you're gonna love