Revenge

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  REVENGE

  By ARTHUR PORGES

  _Hell may have no fury like a woman scorned, but the fury of a biochemist scorned is just as great --and much more fiendish._

  If the Syndicate is half as powerful as some people have claimed,they'll murder me any day now. I object on principle to being killed byevil men for a good deed, so maybe lynching by stupid ones ispreferable. I mean you, and you--the suetheads who profited by my work,but refused your help.

  You've been yammering about narcotics for years--how drug addiction wasspreading, reaching down even to your unmannerly, spoiled brats, whodespise their parents and our venal society to the same degree. Thestuff comes in by the ton across the Mexican border; they grow it forour benefit in Red China; and a few "friendly" Asian countries don'tmind exporting some now and then, either. In spite of heroic work by oursmall group of poorly financed narcotics agents, the flow of drugscannot be halted.

  Oh, you and your elected representatives made a lot of panicky moves tocombat this threat. The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare wasgiven a new Bureau, set up like the F.B.I., and headed by Myron P.Bishop, a man trained by that distinguished expert on narcotics,Anslinger, himself.

  But as to sensible solutions, such as legalizing the sale of heroin tobreak the world-wide criminal control on the distribution of drugs--thatyour vapid Puritan morality wouldn't permit. Millions of dollars forenforcement, and to punish the sick, but not one cent for prevention,and almost nothing to find out why people become addicts in the firstplace, and how to cure them.

  It wasn't entirely your fault. You listened to the experts, usuallycareer policemen who expect to cure any social evil with clubs andprisons. I am reminded of the simpleton found measuring two horses witha tape in order to be able to distinguish the black one from the white.Until I came along, nobody had ever reached the core of the matter. Youdon't kill a flourishing plant--in this case an Upas Tree--by loppingoff a handful of leaves. You strike at the roots. That's what I meant todo--and did--for your benefit. Oh, I admit there were a few dollars init for me, but so what? The ox that treads the wheat is not muzzled.When a man saves a manufacturer $50,000 a year by some improved process,or even by using three bolts someplace instead of four, they gladly payhim three per cent of the annual savings, or something like that, as areward. Most big outfits have such a policy, and it's a good one. Well,if I cut millions off the government budget, is a lousy $100,000 toomuch to ask? I just wanted to go on with my researches without battlinga horde of bill collectors every month. Fat chance--I didn't get ameasly dime. You, your elected and appointed officials, and your keptpress just gave me the all-time horse-laugh. Well, he who laughslast--you'll remember the old saw; I'll see to that.

  * * * * *

  I'm writing this so you'll know how they treated me. You mustn't thinkI'm a crank, mad at the world for no reason. My case is better thanDreyfus' and Sacco-Vanzetti's combined. Here I was prepared to removethe drug scourge forever, and at a piddling cost. Did I get courteoushandling, or at least a fair hearing? Not bloody likely! I was an idiotto expect anything from the world's most inflated bureaucracy--Dickens'Circumlocution Office brought up to date.

  Let me start at the beginning; then you'll see who's right. I'm abiochemist by profession. A damned good one, but too individualistic toplease the big research centers. They like docile teams--scientificPercherons to pull the big red wagon. So I taught at one jerkwatercollege after another. Sooner or later my superiors, all dodderers whostopped thinking with sighs of relief once they had their PhD unioncards, objected to my attitude. If I published, they were jealous; itmade the other faculty members look bad. If I failed to produce, thenwhy was I wasting lab facilities and neglecting my classes? Thestudents wanted their term papers back within five days; the otherteachers could manage it, why not me? The difference between what mycolleagues expected from their pupils and what I did was the differencebetween the lightning bug and the lightning. Those students! They didn'twant biochemistry; they want a letter on a card; a "C" would do. Damnfew of them got it from me, I'm happy to say, and those that did, knewmore about the subject than most PhD's.

  Now, I take as my creed the fruitful dictum: Think in other categories.A famous researcher once invented--or discovered--this maxim in a dream.It is the secret of many great advances in science. Get off the mainline. Stop fooling with the leaves of the tree, and turn to the roots.Invert the problem, if necessary.

  I was thinking about the narcotics scandal. A teacher at my college hada lovely sixteen-year-old daughter, carefully reared, who was badlyhooked. I saw that poor man's hair whiten in a few months. How would youfeel, knowing that your daughter had been so degraded by a drug as tosell herself to anybody with enough money to buy her a fix? An innocent,playful sniff at a party, and some punk, probably an addict himself, hadtrapped her in order to finance his own habit. They talk about cures,but people on the inside know that permanent escape from the trap is asrare as portraits of Trotsky in Russia. Or integrity among politiciansin this country.

  Well, I put my brains to work on the problem. It seemed obvious that, asin the case of Prohibition, you couldn't possibly lick the drug trafficby cutting the lines of supply. Not in a country as big as ours, withthe Mexican border and Red China on the side of the enemy. Not when apackage the size of a watch could be worth a fortune.

  Think in other categories, I reminded myself. How can a biochemist,rather than a policeman, stop the Syndicate? Then it came to me, simpleand obvious. Hit the source, the weak link, the roots of the poisontree. In short, Papaver somniferum, the opium poppy itself.

  Basic, isn't it? Destroy the plant, and you cut the heart out of thedrug traffic. No cops; no hopeless warfare against cunning smugglers; nobattle with big-money corruption of officials. And remember: no chemistalive can synthesize opium or its derivatives. Sure, there are a fewother bad narcotic drugs from different plants, like marijuana, but theyplay a relatively small part, and can be controlled. Besides, it was myintention to destroy their sources as well, when the time came. Butfirst the biggest culprit.

  * * * * *

  I go to work, re-examining all the recent work on tobacco virus andsimilar plant killers. New studies on the key protein chains of thegenes were the foundation stones of my plan. The disease had to behighly specific and deadly. I couldn't risk even the remotestpossibility of harming food plants in a hungry world.

  But, as I've said, with no false modesty, I'm no slouch in my field ofbiochemistry. I took a harmless poppy rust from our California flowershere, and treated its genes with certain chemicals. It was a matter ofsix months, and well over eighty tries, but finally I came up with avirus that killed the opium poppy like smallpox wiped out the Sioux. No;more than that. Some Indians were, or became, immune to the disease,just as insects build up resistance to the most potent poisons. But withmy virus that's simply not possible. I won't get technical here, but tobecome immune to this stuff would be like a man's developing anti-bodiesagainst his own tissues. It couldn't happen without killing the organismfaster than the virus does. Once this epidemic began, not a poppy wouldsurvive.

  So far everything was fine, except that, as usual, I lost my job. I gotfifty term papers behind. It didn't bother me, because there wasn't astudent in my three classes who knew any more biochemistry than ababoon. In the first paper I'd found this gem: "It is well known that amammal reproduces by suckling its young." Faced with more of the same,it was a pleasure to be fired.

  Now, in any really civilized society, they'd have my statue on top ofthe capitol building, and with neon lights t
o boot. But in ourbureaucratic wilderness of Washington, with a thousand government-hiredcretins running interference for each big, appointed super-cretin, mytroubles had just begun.

  I took some sample poppies to the H.E.W. offices. They were invacuum-sealed plastic envelopes, because I knew that once my virusspores got loose in the atmosphere, they'd spread all over the worldlike radioactive dust, or faster. I hoped to see the Commissioner ofNarcotics, Myron P. Bishop, but His Magnificence was harder to reachthan the whole College of Cardinals. It was impossible to put my pointacross. Plants, was it? That way to the Department of Agriculture. Oh,poppies. Pamphlets on wildflowers could be had from Documents.

  I wrote countless letters, pulled what few wires were within my reach,and haunted Washington like the ghost of Calhoun. And finally I got tenminutes with El Pomposo