It involved walking down La Jolla Shores and turning onto La Jolla Farms Road and heading out onto the bluff of land owned by the university a squarish plateau between two canyons running down to the beach, ending in a steep three-hundred-and-fifty-foot cliff over the sea. This land had been left in its natural state, more or less there were some old World War Two bunkers melting away on it and as they had found seven-thousand-year-old graves on it, likely to stay forever protected in the UC Natural Reserve system. A superb prospect and one of Frank’s favorite places on Earth. He had lived on it, sleeping out there every night and using the old gym as his bathroom; he had had romantic encounters out there; and he had often dropped down the steep surfer’s trail that descended to the beach right at Blacks Canyon.

When he got to the cliff’s edge he found a sign announcing that the route down was closed due to erosion of the cliff, and it was hard to argue, as the old trail was now a kind of gully down the edge of a sandstone buttress. But he still wanted to do it, and he strolled south along the cliff’s edge, looking out at the Pacific and feeling the onshore wind blow through him. The view was just as mind-boggling as ever, despite the gray cloud layer; as often happened, the clouds seemed to accentuate the great distances to the horizon, the two plates of ocean and sky converging at such a very slight angle toward each other. California, the edge of history it was a stupid idea, and totally untrue in all senses of the word, except for this physical one, and the reach beyond to a metaphorical landscape: it did appear to be the edge of something.

An awesome spot. And the tighter, steeper canyon on the south side of the empty bluff had an alternative trail down that Frank was willing to break the rules and take. No one but a few cronies of his had ever used this one, because the initial drop was a scarily exposed knife-edge of a buttress, the gritty sandstone eroding in the wind to steep gullies on both sides. The drop into the gully to the left was similarly hairy. The trick was to descend fast and boldly and so Frank did that, skidding out as he turned into the gully, and sliding onto his side and down; but against the other wall of the gully he stopped, and was able to hop down after that very quickly and uneventfully.

Down to the salt roar of the beach, the surf louder here because of the tall cliff leaping up from the back of the beach. He walked north down the strand, enjoying yet another familiar place. Blacks Beach, the UCSD surfers’ home away from home.

The ascent to Torrey Pines Generique reversed the problems of the descent, in that here all the problems were right down on the beach. A hanging gully dripped over a hard sill some forty feet up, and he had to free climb the grit to the right of the green algal spill; then just scramble up that gully, to the clifftop near the hang-glider port. At the top he discovered a sign that declared this climb too had been illegal.

Oh well. He had loved it. He felt refreshed, awake for the first time in weeks somehow. This was what it meant to be home. He could brush his hands through his slightly sweaty and seaspray-dampened hair, and walk in and see what happened.

Onto the parklike grounds of Torrey Pines Generique, through the newly beefed-up security gates. The place was looking empty, he thought as he entered the main building and walked down its halls to Derek’s office. They had definitely let a lot of people go; several labs he passed stood empty and unused.

Frank entered the reception room and greeted Derek’s secretary, Susan, who buzzed him in. Derek got up from his broad desk to shake hands.

“Good to see you again, how are you?”

“Fine, and you?”

“Oh, getting by, getting by.”

His office looked the same as the last time Frank had visited: window view of the Pacific; framed copy of Derek’s cover portrait on a U.S. News World Report; skiing photos.

“So, what’s new with the great bureaucrats of science?”

“They call themselves technocrats, actually.”

“Oh I’m sure it’s a big difference.” Derek shook his head. “I never understood why you went out there. I suppose you made good use of your time.”

“Yes.”

“And now you’re almost back.”

“Yes. I’m almost done.” Frank paused. “But look, like I said to you on the phone, I did see something interesting come in from someone who has worked here.”

“Right, I looked into it. We could still hire him full-time, I’m pretty sure. He’s on soft money up at Caltech.”

“Good. Because I thought it was a very interesting idea.”

“So NSF funded it?”

“No, the panel wasn’t as impressed as I was. And they might have been right it was a bit undercooked. But the thing is, if it did work, you could test genes by computer simulation, and identify proteins you wanted, even down to specific ligands, so you could get better attachments to cells in vivo. It would really speed the process. Sharpen it.”

Derek regarded him closely. “You know we don’t really have any funds for new people.”

“Yeah I know. But this guy is a postdoc, right? And a mathematician. He was only asking NSF for some computer time really. You could hire him full-time for a starter salary, and put him on the case, and it would hardly cost you a thing. I mean, if you can’t afford that…Anyway, it could be interesting.”

“What do you mean, ‘interesting’?”

“I just told you. Hire him full-time, and get him to sign the usual contract concerning intellectual property rights and all. Really secure those.”

“I get that, but ‘interesting’ how?”

Frank sighed. “In the sense that it might be the way to solve your targeted delivery problem. If his methods work and you get a patent, then the potential for licensing income might be really considerable. Really.”

Derek was silent. He knew that Frank knew the company was nearly on life support. That being the case, Frank would not bother him with trifles, or even with big deals that needed capital and time to get going. He had to be offering a fix of some kind.

“Why did he send this grant proposal to NSF?”

“Beats me. Maybe he was turned down by one of your guys when he was here. Maybe his advisor at Caltech told him to do it. It doesn’t matter. But have your people working on the delivery problem take a look at it. After you get this guy hired.”

“Why don’t you talk to them? Go talk to Leo Mulhouse about this.”

“Well…” Frank thought it over. “Okay. I’ll go talk to them and see how things are going. You get this Pierzinski back on board. Call him today. We’ll see what happens from there.”

Derek nodded, still not happy. “You know, Frank, what we really need here is you. Like I said before. Things haven’t been the same in the labs since you left. Maybe when you get back here we could rehire you at whatever level UCSD will allow.”

“I thought you just said you didn’t have any money for hires.”

“Well that’s true, but for you we could try to work something out, right?”

“Maybe. But let’s not talk about that now. I need to get out of NSF first, and see what the blind trust has done with my stock. I used to have some options here.”

“You sure did. Hell, we could bury you in those, Frank, I’d love to do that.”

Giving people options to buy stock cost a company nothing. They were feel-good gestures, unless everything went right with the company and the market; and with NASDAQ having been in the tank for so long, they were not often seen as real compensation anymore. More a kind of speculation. And in fact Frank expressing interest in them had cheered Derek up, as it was a sign of confidence in the future of Torrey Pines Generique. Also a sign of Frank’s interest in taking part in it, on his return.

“Do what you can to get some funding to tide you over a bit longer,” Frank suggested as he got up to leave.