Darwin''s Radio

  “That’s what they tell a pollster,” Cross murmured.

  “They’d certainly go for an easy out in large numbers. RU-486 is tried and proven. It could become a household remedy for the desperate.”

  “It isn’t prevention,” Jackson said, uneasy.

  “Of those who wouldn’t use an abortion pill, fully half believe the government is trying to force wholesale abortion on the nation, maybe the world,” Nilson said. “Whoever chose the name ‘Herod’s’ has really skewed the issue.”

  “Augustine chose it,” Cross said.

  “Marge, we’re heading for a major social disaster: ignorance mixed with sex and dead babies. If large numbers of women with SHEVA abstain from sex with their partners—and get pregnant anyway—then our social science people say we’re going to see more domestic violence, as well as a huge rise in abortions, even of normal pregnancies.”

  “There are other possibilities,” Kaye said. “I’ve seen the results.”

  “Go ahead,” Cross encouraged.

  “The 1990s cases in the Caucasus. Massacres.”

  “I’ve studied those, as well,” Nilson said efficiently, flipping through her legal pad. “We don’t actually know much even now. There was SHEVA in the local populations—”

  Kaye interrupted. “It’s far more complicated than any of us here can deal with,” she said, her voice cracking. “We are not looking at a disease profile. We’re looking at lateral transmission of genomic instructions leading to a transition phase.”

  “Come again? I don’t understand,” Nilson said.

  “SHEVA is not an agent of disease.”

  “Bullshit,” Jackson said in astonishment. Marge waved her hand at him in warning.

  “We keep building walls around this subject. I can’t hold back anymore, Marge. The Taskforce has denied this possibility from the very beginning.”

  “I don’t know what’s being denied,” Cross said. “In brief, Kaye.”

  “We see a virus, even one that comes from within our own genome, and we assume it’s a disease. We see everything in terms of disease.”

  “I’ve never known a virus that didn’t cause problems, Kaye,” Jackson said, his eyes heavy-lidded. If he was trying to warn her she was treading on thin ice, this time, it wasn’t going to work.

  “We keep seeing the truth but it doesn’t fit into our primitive views on how nature works.”

  “Primitive?” Jackson said. “Tell that to smallpox.”

  “If this had hit us thirty years from now,” Kaye persisted, “maybe we’d be prepared—but we’re still acting like ignorant children. Children who have never been told the facts of life.”

  “What are we missing?” Cross asked patiently.

  Jackson drummed his fingers on the table. “It’s been discussed.”

  “What?” Cross asked.

  “Not in any serious forum,” Kaye countered.

  “What, please?”

  “Kaye is about to tell us that SHEVA is part of a biological reshuffling. Transposons jumping around and affecting phenotype. It’s the buzz among the interns who’ve been reading Kaye’s papers.”

  “Which means?”

  Jackson grimaced. “Let me anticipate. If we let the new babies be born, they’re all going to be big-headed superhumans. Prodigies with blond hair and staring eyes and telepathic abilities. They’ll kill us all and take over the Earth.”

  Stunned, near tears, Kaye stared at Jackson. He smiled half-apologetically, half in glee at having warded off any possible debate. “It’s a waste of time,” he said. “And we don’t have any time to waste.”

  Nilson watched Kaye with cautious sympathy. Marge lifted her head and glared at the ceiling. “Will someone please tell me what I’ve just stepped into?”

  “Pure bullshit,” Jackson said under his breath, adjusting his napkin.

  The steward brought them their food.

  Nilson put her hand on Kaye’s. “Forgive us, Kaye. Robert can be very forceful.”

  “It’s my own confusion I’m dealing with, not Robert’s defensive rudeness,” Kaye said. “Marge, I have been trained in the precepts of modern biology. I’ve dealt with rigid interpretations of data, but I’ve grown up in the middle of the most incredible ferment imaginable. Here’s the solid foundation wall of modern biology, built brick by careful brick . . .” She drew the wall with her outstretched hand. “And here’s a tidal wave called genetics. We’re mapping the factory floor of the living cell. We’re discovering that nature is not just surprising, but shockingly unorthodox. Nature doesn’t give a damn what we think or what our paradigms are.”

  “That’s all very well,” Jackson said, “but science is how we organize our work and avoid wasting time.”

  “Robert, this is a discussion,” Cross said.

  “I can’t apologize for what I feel in my gut is true,” Kaye persisted. “I will lose everything rather than lie.”

  “Admirable,” Jackson said. “ ‘Nevertheless, it moves,’ is that it, dear Kaye?”

  “Robert, don’t be an asshole,” Nilson said.

  “I am outnumbered, ladies,” Jackson said, pushing back his chair in disgust. He draped his napkin over his plate but did not leave. Instead, he folded his arms and cocked his head, as if encouraging—or daring—Kaye to continue.

  “We’re behaving like children who don’t even know how babies are made,” Kaye said. “We’re witnessing a different kind of pregnancy. It isn’t new—it’s happened many times before. It’s evolution, but it’s directed, short-term, immediate, not gradual, and I have no idea what kind of children will be produced,” Kaye said. “But they will not be monsters and they won’t eat their parents.”

  Jackson lifted his arm high like a boy in a classroom. “If we’re in the hands of some fast-acting master craftsman, if God is directing our evolution now, I’d say it’s time to hire some cosmic lawyers. It’s malpractice of the lowest order. Infant C was a complete botch.”

  “That was herpes,” Kaye said.

  “Herpes doesn’t work that way,” Jackson said. “You know that as well as I.”

  “SHEVA makes fetuses particularly susceptible to viral invasion. It’s an error, a natural error.”

  “We have no evidence of that. Evidence, Ms. Lang!”

  “The CDC—” Kaye began.

  “Infant C was a Herod’s second-stage monstrosity with herpes added on, as a side dish,” Jackson said. “Really, ladies, I’ve had it. We’re all tired. I for one am exhausted.” He stood, bowed quickly, and stalked out of the dining room.

  Marge picked through her salad with a fork. “This sounds like a conceptual problem. I’ll call a meeting. We’ll listen to your evidence, in detail,” she said. “And I’ll ask Robert to bring in his own experts.”

  “I don’t think there are many experts who would openly support me,” Kaye said. “Certainly not now. The atmosphere is charged.”

  “This is all-important with regard to public perception,” Nilson said thoughtfully.

  “How?” Cross asked.

  “If some group or creed or corporation decides that Kaye is right, we’ll have to deal with that.”

  Kaye suddenly felt very exposed, very vulnerable.

  Cross picked up a strip of cheese with her fork and examined it. “If Herod’s isn’t a disease, I don’t know how we’d deal with it. We’d be caught between a natural event and an ignorant and terrified public. That makes for horrible politics and nightmarish business.”

  Kaye’s mouth went dry. She had no answer to that. It was true.

  “If there are no experts who support you,” Cross said thoughtfully, pushing the cheese into her mouth, “how do you make a case?”

  “I’ll present the evidence, the theory,” Kaye said.

  “By yourself?” Cross asked.

  “I could probably find a few others.”

  “How many?”

  “Four or five.”

  Cross ate for a few moments. “Jackson’s an asshole, but
he’s brilliant, he’s a recognized expert, and there are hundreds who would agree with his point of view.”

  “Thousands,” Kaye said, straining to keep her voice steady. “Against just me and a few crackpots.”

  Cross waggled a finger at Kaye. “You’re no crackpot, dear. Laura, one of our companies developed a morning-after pill some years ago.”

  “That was in the nineties.”

  “Why did we abandon it?”

  “Politics and liability issues.”

  “We had a name for it . . . what were we calling it?”

  “Some wag code-named it RU-Pentium,” Nilson said.

  “I recall that it tested well,” Marge said. “We still have the formulae and samples, I assume.”

  “I made an inquiry this afternoon,” Nilson said. “We could bring it back and get production up to speed in a couple of months.”

  Kaye clutched the tablecloth where it crossed her lap. She had once campaigned passionately for a woman’s right to choose. Now, she could not work her way through the conflicting emotions.

  “No reflection on Robert’s work,” Cross said, “but there’s a better than fifty-fifty chance the trials on the vaccine are going to fail. And that statement does not leave this room, ladies.”

  “We’re still getting computer models predicting MS as a side effect for the ribozyme component,” Kaye said. “Will Americol recommend abortion as an alternative?”

  “Not all on our lonesome,” Cross said. “The essence of evolution is survival. Right now, we’re standing in the middle of a minefield, and anything that clears a path, I’m certainly not going to ignore.”

  Dicken took the call in the equipment room next to the main receiving and autopsy lab. He slipped off his latex gloves while a young male computer technician held the phone. The technician was there to adjust a balky old workstation used to record autopsy results and track the specimens through the rest of the labs. He stared at Dicken, in his green robe and surgical mask, with some concern.

  “Nothing catching, for you,” Dicken told him as he took the phone receiver. “Dicken here. I’m elbow deep.”

  “Christopher, it’s Kaye.”

  “Hello-o-o, Kaye.” He did not want to put her off; she sounded gloomy but however she sounded, to Dicken, hearing her voice was a disturbing pleasure.

  “I’ve screwed things up big time,” Kaye said.

  “How’s that?” Dicken waved his hand at Scarry, still in the pathology lab. Scarry wagged his arms impatiently.

  “I had a tiff with Robert Jackson . . . a conversation with Marge and Jackson. I couldn’t hold back. I told them what I thought.”

  “Oh,” Dicken said, making a face. “How’d they react?”

  “Jackson pooh-poohed it. Treated me with contempt, actually.”

  “Arrogant bastard,” Dicken said. “I always thought so.”

  “He said we need evidence about the herpes.”

  “That’s what Scarry and I are looking for now. We have an accident victim in our pathology lab. Prostitute from Washington, D.C., pregnant. Tests positive for Herpes labialis and for hepatitis A and HIV as well as SHEVA. Rough life.”

  The young technician grimly folded his tool kit and left the room.

  “Marge is going to match the French on their morning-after pill.”

  “Shit,” Dicken said.

  “We have to move fast.”

  “I don’t know how fast we can go. Dead young women with the right mix of problems just don’t come rolling in off the street every day.”

  “I don’t think any amount of evidence is going to convince Jackson. I’m close to my wit’s end, Christopher.”

  “I hope Jackson doesn’t go to Augustine. We aren’t ready yet, and thanks to me, Mark is already touchy,” Dicken said. “Kaye, Scarry is dancing around in the lab. I’ve got to go. Keep your chin up. Call me.”

  “Has Mitch spoken to you?”

  “No,” Dicken said, a deceptive truth. “Call me later at my office. Kaye—I’m here for you. I’ll support you every way I can. I mean that.”

  “Thank you, Christopher.”

  Dicken put the receiver in its cradle and stood for a moment, feeling stupid. He had never been comfortable with these emotions. Work became all because everything else important was too painful.

  “Not very good at this, are we?” he asked himself in a low voice.

  Scarry tapped angrily on the glass between the office and the lab.

  Dicken lifted his surgical mask and put on a new pair of gloves.

  50

  Baltimore

  April 15

  Mitch stood in the apartment building lobby, hands in his pockets. He had shaved very carefully this morning, staring into the long mirror in the communal bathroom at the YMCA, and just last week he had gone to a barber and had his hair styled—managed was more like it.

  His jeans were new. He had dug through his suitcase and pulled out a black blazer. He had not dressed to impress in over a year, but here he was, thinking of little else but Kaye Lang.

  The doorman was not impressed. He leaned on his pedestal and watched Mitch closely out of the corner of his eye. The phone rang at the pedestal and he answered it.

  “Go on up,” he said, waving his hand at the elevator. “Twentieth floor. 2011. Check in with the guard up there. Serious beef.”

  Mitch thanked him and stood in the elevator. As the door closed, he wondered for a panicky moment what the hell he thought he was doing. The last thing he needed in this mess was emotional involvement. Where women were concerned, however, Mitch was guided by secret masters reticent to divulge either their goals or their immediate plans. These secret masters had caused him a lot of grief.

  He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and resigned himself to the next few hours, come what may.

  On the twentieth floor, he stepped out of the elevator and saw Kaye speaking to a man in a gray suit. He had short black hair, a strong thick face, a hooked nose. The man had spotted Mitch before Mitch saw them.

  Kaye smiled at Mitch. “Come on in. The coast is clear. This is Karl Benson.”

  “Glad to meet you,” Mitch said.

  The man nodded, folded his arms, and stepped back, allowing Mitch to pass, but not without a sniff, like a dog trying for a scent.

  “Marge Cross gets about thirty death threats every week,” Kaye said as she led Mitch into the apartment. “I’ve had three since the incident at NIH.”

  “The game is getting tough,” Mitch said.

  “I’ve been so busy since the RU-486 mess,” Kaye said.

  Mitch lifted his thick brows. “The abortion pill?”

  “Didn’t Christopher tell you?”

  “Chris hasn’t returned any of my calls,” Mitch said.

  “Oh?” Dicken had not told her the precise truth. Kaye found that interesting. “Maybe it’s because you call him Chris.”

  “Not to his face,” Mitch said, grinned, and sobered. “As I said, I’m ignorant.”

  “RU-486 removes the secondary SHEVA pregnancy if it’s used at an early stage.” She looked for his reaction. “You don’t approve?”

  “Under the circumstances, it seems wrong.” Mitch peered at the simple, elegant furniture, the art prints.

  Kaye closed the door. “Abortion in general . . . or this?”

  “This.” Mitch sensed her tension and felt for a moment as if she were putting him through a quick exam.

  “Americol is going to make its own abortion pill available. If it’s a disease, we’re close to stopping it,” Kaye said.

  Mitch strolled to the large plate glass window, pushed his hands into his pockets, looked over his shoulder at Kaye. “You’re helping them do this?”

  “No,” Kaye said. “I’m hoping to convince some key people, rearrange our priorities. I don’t think I’m going to succeed, but it has to be done. I’m glad you came here, though. Maybe it’s a sign my luck is improving. What brings you to Baltimore?”

  Mitch pulled hi
s hands out of his pockets. “I’m not a very promising sign. I can barely afford to travel. I got some money from my father. I’m on the parental dole big time.”

  “Are you going on to somewhere else?” Kaye asked.

  “Just to Baltimore,” Mitch said.

  “Oh.” Kaye stood a long step behind him. He could see her reflection in the glass, her bright beige suit, but not her face.

  “Well, that’s not strictly true. I’m going to New York, SUNY. A friend in Oregon arranged for an interview. I’d like to teach, do field research in the summer. Maybe start over again on a different coast.”

  “I went to SUNY. I’m afraid I don’t know anybody there now. Nobody influential. Please sit.” Kaye motioned toward the couch, the armchair. “Water? Juice?”

  “Water, please.”

  As she went to the kitchen, Mitch sniffed the flowers on the étagère, roses and lilies and baby’s breath, then circled around the couch and sat at one end. His long legs seemed to have no place to go. He folded his hands over his knees.

  “I can’t just scream and shout and resign,” Kaye said. “I owe it to the people I work with.”

  “I see. How’s the vaccine coming?”

  “We’re well into preclinical trials. Some fast-track clinical trials in Britain and Japan, but I’m not happy about them. Jackson—he’s in charge of the vaccine project—wants me moved out of his division.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I spoke out in the dining room three days ago. Marge Cross couldn’t use our theory. Doesn’t fit the paradigm. Not defensible.”

  “Quorum sensing,” Mitch said.

  Kaye brought him a glass of water. “How’s that?”

  “A chance discovery in my reading. When there’s enough bacteria, they change their behavior, get coordinated. Maybe we do the same thing. We just don’t have enough scientists to make a quorum.”