"It is theoretically impossible, of course," Luther droned on. "It is not possible for a retrovirus to infect the germ line. That’s the point. A virus that has the effect of destroying key neural systems, those involved in will and volition, that’s easy enough. One that is engineered only to trigger such an effect when the genome lacks the metatype gene complex, that takes time. One that also goes back into the germ line and affects all future offspring is almost an impossibility. It took me nearly seventy years to create it.