eighty percent of the breeding against twenty percent for the smaller males."

Gamay leaned forward with her brow furrowed. “It would even- tually be a disaster for the wild population.”

“Worse than a disaster. More like a catastrophe. If you had one transgenic fish in a population of 100,000, GM fish would become fifty percent of the population within sixteen generations.”

“Which isn't long in fish terms,” Gamay commented.

Throckmorton nodded. “You can cut that time even further. Com- puter models show that if you introduced sixty DNA-altered fish into a population of sixty thousand, it would take only forty genera- tions to pollute the gene pool to extinction.”

“You said there was a second study.” Throckmorton rubbed his hands together.

“Oh yes, it gets even better. The researchers at universities in Al- abama and California gave salmon growth-promoter genes to some Channel catfish. They found that these transgenic fish were better at avoiding predators than were their natural counterparts.”

“To put it succinctly, you think one of these superfish might get into the wild, where it would outbreed and outlive the natural species, quickly driving them to extinction.”

“That's it.” Paul shook his head in disbelief. “Given what you've just told us,” he said, “why would any government or company be fooling around with genetic dynamite like this?”

“I understand what you're saying, but in the hands of a profes- sional, dynamite can be extremely useful.” Throckmorton rose from his chair. “Come see, Dr. Frankenstein's workbench is right this way.”

He led them to the other side of the lab. The fish swimming in the tanks ranged in size from finger-length to a couple of feet long. He stopped in front of one of the larger tanks. A silver-scaled fish with a dark ridge along its spine was swimming slowly from one end of the tank to the other.

“Well, what do you think of our latest genetically modified mon- ster?”

Gamay leaned close so that her nose was inches from the glass. “Looks like any other well-fed salmon you might see swimming in the Atlantic Ocean. Maybe a little more girth around the middle than normal.”

“Appearances can be deceiving. How old would you say this hand- some fellow is?”

“I'd guess it's about a year old.”

“Actually, only a few weeks ago, it was a mere egg.”

“Impossible.” “I would agree with you if I hadn't played midwife at its birth. What you're looking at is an eating machine. We've managed to soup up its metabolism. If that creature were placed in the wild, it would quickly out-eat the native stocks. Its little brain shouts one message over and over. 'Feed me, I'm hungry!' Watch.”

Throckmorton opened a cooler, extracted a bucket of small bait fish and threw a handful into the tank. The salmon pounced on the fish, and within moments it had devoured its meal. Then it devoured the floating shreds.