"The diplomatic mission from Earth to World ended in disaster, as the Earth's scientists discovered that the Worlders were not the scientifically advanced culture they believed. Though they brought a limited quantity of the vaccine against the deadly spore cloud, there was no way to make enough to vaccinate more than a few dozen, and the Earth scientists and surviving diplomats fled back to Earth. Once home, after the twenty-eight-year gap caused...

"The twenty-first century, it's often remarked, will transform our knowledge of biology, in the same way that the twentieth century transformed physics. With knowledge of course, comes application. And with the application of all we are learning about genetic engineering come social and ethical questions, some of them knotty. This is where science fiction enters, stage left. Scientific laboratories are where the new technologies are rehearsed. Science...