by
Robert J. Raskin
Chapter 1
*****Capital News Service******
For Immediate Distribution
Cross-Party AgreementFor Government Backed
Genetics Consortium
By Our Parliamentary Correspondent
Cross-Party AgreementFor Government Backed
Genetics Consortium
A spokesman at the Department of Trade and Industry congratulated the opposition for supporting the measure, saying that British science and research, responsible for many of the major discoveries that launched the biotechnical revolution, would now be able to receive the proper financing so that lucrative ventures could be pursued - especially in the fields of medicine and agronomy.
"The world is rapidly changing ," said Jeremy Throckmorton, a newly appointed minister at the DTI. "In the past we lacked the commitment to research and development which has meant losing out in the newly emerging markets. With the passage of this bill, we will be able to compete in the technology sweepstakes which promise a new era of prosperity for Britain."
The bill is due to go before the House at the end of the month and is expected to face little opposition, though several MPs have privately expressed doubt as to whether the proposed legislation contains enough built-in safeguards against untested products from genetic experimention.
(1)
Adjusting the focus on his motorised Nikon, Vermuden snapped off a series of shots at intervals of one tenth of a second. The camera let off a rapid-fire, paparazzi sound - pzzap! pzzap! pzzap! pzzap!
Suddenly a gust of wind swept them skyward once again.
"How long are you going to keep taking pictures of those birds?"
The voice entered his consciousness as an unwanted intruder, shattering his concentration.
Vermuden lowered his camera. The taut sinews of his face above his jaw twitched almost imperceptibly as he looked over at Thomas, the young man who was leaning, casually, against his bicycle.
The young man was thin and lanky with hair the same shade of blond that Vermuden's had been when he was that age. In fact, his boyish face could have been Vermuden's twenty years before.
"Sometimes I think you really are a bird-watcher," Thomas said.
Vermuden knelt down again and shot a quick series of photos as the sparrows swooped again. "I am. In a manner of speaking."
"I didn't think that's what we were doing. Besides, sparrows are very ordinary birds. You can see them all over the place. Not like spotted finches or blue herons. .."
"He's photographing them because they're dying." The words came from another boy - shorter, darker, foreign-looking - who had stopped his cycle at the same lay-by. "Didn't you see the dead birds back there?" he asked, pointing to a feathery mound some twenty feet down the other side of the road in front of a fence that separated the land from the highway.
"You've got a good eye, Salvador," Vermuden said, pointing his camera at the mound of dead birds and shooting off a final series before putting the lens cap back on the Nikon and calling it a day. Then, motioning for the boys to follow him, he said, "Let me show you something."
He led them across the road and then a few yards down, along the chain-linked fence, to the lifeless heap. Picking up a stick from the ground, he used it to turn one of the tiny bodies so the boys could see its swollen belly.
Thomas cringed. The darker, round-faced boy looked at the corpse impassively.
"What do you think killed them?" It was Thomas who spoke.
"Pesticides, most likely." Vermuden took off his rucksack, knelt down, unzipped one of the pockets and took out several plastic bags. He put the smaller bag on his hand and used it as a glove to retrieve one of the fragile bodies, placing the corpse into the second plastic bag and then sealing it with a twist-tie.
"What are you going to do with it?" asked the blond, watching Vermuden with queasy fascination."
"I'll have it analysed for a range of chemical pollutants," Vermuden replied, putting the wrapped corpse into a small Tupperware container and then closing it up inside his knapsack. "But what I'd really like is a sample of the soil from there..." He gazed out into the acreage that had been sectioned off. The land beyond the fence was hidden by a dense growth of evergreens. A sign fixed to the metal chain read: "PRIVATE LAND. TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED TO THE FULL EXTENT OF THE LAW!"
"I've climbed fences that were higher," said the darker boy.
Vermuden pointed to the broken ribbon of sharp metal that ran across the top. "That's razor wire. You'd rip yourself to shreds if you tried to go over this one."
"I bet Sam knows how to get through," said the blond. He turned, put the tips of his little fingers in his mouth and let out an ear-piercing whistle.
For the first time Vermuden noticed the small, brownish terrier that had been sniffing around the vegetation just a few feet from where they were standing. The dog pricked up its ears, looked over at its master and then went back to sniffing.
"He smells something on the other side," the blond continued. "He's great at burrowing under things when he wants to."
Vermuden walked over to where the terrier was digging away at the soil. Its forelegs were clawing at the earth, frantically, spraying the dirt like the debris from a tunnelling dynamo. In a wink of an eye, the terrier had burrowed its way through and had bounded into the evergreens on the other side of the fence.
"I told you!" said Thomas, with a note of pride in his voice.
Getting down on his haunches, Vermuden inspected the tunnel that the terrier had made. "It would have to be a lot deeper for me to fit through there," he said.
"I could probably wriggle through," the blond boy offered.
Vermuden thought a second. He looked back at the road. "It's too exposed," he said. "Someone might see."
"It wouldn't be if there was a bush," said Salvador.
"The trouble is, there isn't a bush," said Vermuden.
"Do you have a shovel?" Salvador pointed to some bushes across the road.
Smart kid, Vermuden thought to himself as he took out a folding shovel from his bag. Probably too smart for his own good.
The soil was soft and easily workable. It took no time at all to transplant a bush in front of the hole.
"I wouldn't want you to get into trouble," Vermuden said. "Mai wouldn't like it."
"Don't worry," said the blond, "I'll be back in a jiff. Besides, I have to find my dog."
Before Vermuden could protest again, the boy had made the discussion moot by wriggling underneath the fence. After he had got to the other side, there was nothing for Vermuden to do but pass him through a small trowel and a couple of jars.
"Where do you want me to get the soil samples?" the boy asked.
"Just fifty feet or so inside," said Vermuden. "It doesn't matter. If they've been spraying, there'll be residue all over. Just throw some top soil into the jars and come right back. You hear?"
Taking the equipment Vermuden had passed him, the boy disappeared into the evergreens, just like the dog.
It was a long five minutes Vermuden waited, watching anxiously for the kid to reappear. He looked at the round-faced boy. "Where the hell do you think he's gone?" Salvador shrugged.
"Thomas!" Vermuden called out. "I just need a small sample. Whatever you have is enough. I'd like you to come back. Now!"
They waited for a minute without hearing a response.
Vermuden inspected the hole and realised they'd have to dig a hell of a lot more for him to fit through. He glanced over at Salvador. "Do you think you could go in and fetch him?"
They swooped down in perfect formation, perilously close to the ground, almost as if they were on a secret kamikaze mission launching a suicidal attack on something unknown.
Passing through the screen of bamboo he came to another narrow strip of land. This was a dirt track that, from the regular furrows in the ground, was obviously used by motorised vehicles - tractors or small lorries, perhaps. On the far side of the dirt track was a row of hedges, nearly ten feet high and neatly trimmed. They were too thick for him to pass through, but fifty feet to his right was an archway that had been carved through the hedgerow. A sign posted in front of the archway read:
The alluring odour he had sensed before had grown stronger and he felt it go to his head as he tried wriggling his stocky body through the narrow space between the gate and its frame. As he shoved with the soft, palms of his hands, he felt the roughness of the wood scrape his skin leaving slight stains of blood on the wood's grain. Cursing, he pushed his body hard against gate. For his efforts, he felt a sharp dagger jab through his clothes into his abdomen as his body emerged, painfully, into the other side.
The throbbing in his torso was so intense that his vision became blurry. He let himself drop, blindly, onto the moist ground as he pulled out the enormous splinter and he lay on his back with his eyes shut until the spasms began to ease. Then, rubbing his eyelids with the back of his hand, he slowly opened them again.
His view, now unhindered by the trees, focused on the brightness of the sun. All he could see was a brilliant, pulsating yellow. The intensity of the colour mixed with the rich, viscous odour which filled his nostrils, made his head feel light and acted like an analgesic. He no longer felt any pain but, instead, a curious sensation almost like euphoria.
Turning his head to one side, he looked out into the fields. The unrelenting power of the sun's rays had made his see things just in silhouette. In the contrast of black and white, he could make out the image of Thomas sitting not more than twenty feet away. He, too, was silently staring out into the distance.
As he sense of colour slowly came back to him, Salvador felt himself gripped with a sense of awe and wonder. He sat himself up, transfixed by what he saw.
Forcing himself to his feet, he walked over to where his friend was sitting in quiet reverence. He touched him on the shoulder. "We need to go," he said.
"I want to stay a little longer," Thomas replied. "Besides, I have to find Sam."
"Sam can find his own way home," said Salvador, tugging at his shirt.
It was then, through the corner of his eye that Salvador saw them amongst all the other wondrous things. They were glowing like a hungry apparition - big and bright and beautiful. As luscious as a ripe and succulent fantasy.
It also reminded him that this was the afternoon he was going to have it out with Pike, his line manager, who had been pushing the R17s so hard to meet their deadlines that proper care and precautions were, according to O'Bryon, going by the wayside. Of course he understood Pike's anxiety, as the "show" was set months in advance and it was impossible to cancel once the publicity machine had been set into motion. But all the goodwill in the world wasn't going to hurry biology, even though sometimes management seemed to feel that the hand of God had been transplanted into their own corporate glove.
Sector II was a case in point. The self-sustaining agrosystem display had been well planned and designed. The R17s and the X3s had given their all to make it function properly. But even with the new growth inducers, fine - tuning the precise symbiosis was going to take a few more generation. Management wanted that to happen in months. The research and design team spoke more in terms of years.
And now that the pressure was on, the inevitable was happening. Shortcuts were being forced. All shortcuts, O'Bryon knew from long experience, were chancy. They could also be dangerous. You could shout and stamp your feet all you wanted, demanding that things be speeded up. In the end, you didn't necessarily get what you paid for, but what you deserved. At least that's what O'Bryon felt as he fumbled around for the key to open the gate.
Management, of course, did think you got what you paid for. And they paid a lot. More than Mike O'Bryon ever dreamt he'd be earning as a horticultural engineer (a fancy name, he thought, for what was really just an over-educated gardener).
He opened the rickety gate to Sector II and pocketed the key. Then, going back to the cart, he lifted his bag of equipment from the cargo bed, slinging the canvas sack over his broadly built shoulder.
Money was the name of the game, thought O'Bryon as he made his way into the compound. He loved his job. Aspects of it, anyhow. He loved the feel of soil in his hands and under his nails. He loved to watch things grow from seed to sprout and he felt an awe that sometimes bordered on religious fervour when eventually they flowered. But some of the things he had been forced to do, especially of late, he found abhorrent.
The idea of the self-sustaining agrosystem was good. He was convinced of that. It was, or could be, a triumph of human controlled ecological balancing. It could help to feed the world while reducing the demand for highly toxic pesticides. The factors, however, that made for this fragile symbiosis needed to be studied over long periods. It was no good at all forcing a situation that looked as if it might work and ignoring things that seemed to be insignificant. That was the whole idea behind chaos theory. Insignificant things, over a period of time, could become the catalyst for something that wasn't insignificant at all. Like the butterfly in Bikini that caused a hurricane in Bahrain.
As these thoughts filtered through his mind, he became aware of a curious odour that began to fill his head. It hung heavy in the compound. It was sweet and alluring and yet it also had a quality of stench. O'Bryon though there was something erotic and at the same time apprehensive about it - the odour of illicit sex mixed with an undertone of danger.
He had sensed that odour last time he had come to Sector II, several weeks before. But then it had been faint. Then, as now, he had been brought here by the sensors which indicated the movement of predators. Last time, the sensors had indicated something relatively small. They turned out to have been field mice and the AVFTs had done an excellent job of controlling them. In fact, when he had taken the remains back to the lab for analysis, everyone had been astounded not only at how effectively the protein had been digested but that an AVFT could actually devour a predator that large. The designers had been right. He had to give them credit even though he, for one, had been sceptical.
The question was - where do you stop? If you could control for field mice, how about badgers or rabbits? How about fox? And if you could devise a plant to trap a fox, then what have you created?
In fact, what concerned him now was that his fears had been realised. The sensors had picked up movements of something much larger than a field mouse. Something much larger indeed.
He looked out at the fields, glistening in the afternoon sun, still damp and moist after the automatic watering system had been triggered off by the G90/3 root surveillance tuber which had been interplanted between the rows and was now, after months of experimentation, working like a gem. O'Bryon couldn't help but feel a sense of pride at having been part of a team that created such a marvel. For, certainly, he had never seen such an exposition of wonders in full bloom before.
Of course, he of all people knew that appearances could be deceiving. There was still a long way to go before the bountiful display was ready for market, even though the "show" was bound to accomplish what it had been set up to do - to prove viability in order to get the proper funding to go on.
What worried him most were the AVFTs. And as he turned his attention to them, he realised how much they had grown. The hormone feed had certainly done its job. But there were more changes taking place than size. There was the strange colour, an almost phosphorescence that seemed to oscillate between an icy violet and a pulsating crimson. There was also that hypnotic odour, which he now realised was coming from the plants. He wondered what kind of pheromones the biochemists had programmed in.
And then he saw it. A fresh skeleton. Just the bone and cartilage remained.
He walked over to it and realised what the noxious element to the odour must have been. How the devil did they do it? he wondered. The carcass must have been three feet long from nose to tail. Fascinated, he bent down to take a closer look and decided it most likely was a small dog from the appearance of the teeth and the shape of the skull.
The bones had been cleaned white. He touched one and found it was still warm.
Everything had been digested except the bony matter. Even the fur and viscera had been devoured.
And he wondered - if they could devour a dog, why not...
It was his final thought.
There was just the slightest sting he felt before his body immobilised. A throbbing filled his head and he saw a brilliant glow inside his eyes that grew brighter until it burst into a flare of exploding neurones. Then all sensation was cut off.
Friday - 17 June
"Go ahead."
"You heard about the theft?"
"Yes. How bad is it? What's the worst case scenario?"
"I don't know. But you remember what happened in Spain?"
"Yes. Bloody awful crisis. The government fell, didn't it?"
"Still feeling the ramifications over ten years later."
"What does it take for those idiots to learn about proper security?"
"I understood that's one of the things the new bill is about. Getting some funds into their hands for adequate arrangements."
"Right. After the horse has bolted."
"So - how to proceed?"
"Carefully. Don't want to stir anything up if nothing is going to happen. On the other hand, should be prepared for the worst. Have the regional authority keep a weather eye open. But tell them nothing they don't need to know. Handle it with delicacy. Keep everything as vague as possible. Limit your contacts to people you can control. You can always use the 'national interest' line if you need to."
"And if something does happen?"
"You'll have to take it over, directly. I'm afraid you won't get much help from the Agency. Nothing direct. If you need assistance we'll have to contract out."
There was a pause. A brief moment of silence.
"When do you think we'll know if we have anything to worry about?"
"Depends on what they took. But if we make it through the weekend, chances are pretty good we'll come out of it without too many bruises."
Monday - 20 June
It was always "one more", she thought. Unlike several of her colleagues, however, she might allow herself an inward grumble but she had never refused a last minute patient who was able to scramble in the door before it was shut and bolted. When she was on duty, open hour seemed to go on forever.
Tonight, though, it was somewhat bothersome as she had tickets for a new and eagerly awaited production at the Arts Theatre and she had hoped to slip out after the last prescription had been reluctantly written - another ten days worth of Paxofen tablets to relieve the swelling of an ongoing rheumatic disorder. But when the receptionist explained the circumstances - that the patient was a young child and that the parents were quite concerned - she quickly consented and the medical records were brought to her office so she could flick through them before the child was brought in for examination.
The records, when she received them, proved to be unexceptional. A girl, aged six, born at Rosie Maternity Hospital. Race was marked 'other' rather than 'White British', 'African', or 'Asian', but from the name, Felicity Rojas, she would have known that at least one of her parent's ancestors came from Spain or a former Spanish colony.
In this case she knew that both parents had come from Chile. In fact, she knew much more than that, as she had treated the family - at least the mother, daughter and son - for some years now. According to her notes scribbled at the bottom of the file, she had last seen Felicity just a month ago for a minor eye problem. She remembered that it was a time when an epidemic of infectious conjunctivitis was going around and every other child was coming in with puffy, red eyes and tell-tale crusting of the eyelid.
But she also remembered having commented at that time on how well Felicity seemed to be developing. A healthy, happy child, full of vigour and life with an adorable smile and dark, sparkling eyes. She wished all her little patients were doing as well. And she couldn't help but put it down, at least partly, to the tender, loving care of the parents.
It was all the more disconcerting, therefore, when Eduardo and Maria Rojas were escorted into her small office carrying the limp figure of their daughter. Upon seeing the state of the child, Dr Quail dispensed with any thought of pleasantries and had the girl immediately placed on the examining table.
Any general practitioner who has been seeing patients for over twenty years, as she had done, can usually tell at once if someone demands serious attention as soon as they enter the examining room. A person suffering from a bad case of the flu might look dreadful, but a skilled physician sees beneath the obvious appearance, beyond the pallor, weakness and phlegm, concentrating on breathing, the look of the eyes and curious colourations.
In this case she knew at once that the patient was in distress. The child's breathing was both laboured and guttural. Her face was flushed with fever. But, even more, there were strange lesions on her body which indicated something was happening that went beyond the normal reaction to an ordinary virus or bacteria - at least the kind that was floating around Cambridge at the time.
After listening to her chest and doing a quick check of her vital signs, she did a brief history, garnering a list of observed symptoms and their duration from the mother - marking down 'vomiting, headache, muscle pains, diarrhoea' and, beside that, her own observations - 'respiratory insufficiency with dyspnoea and exanthema' (which meant, simply, laboured breathing and skin eruptions).
It took no time to make her decision: looking at the parents who had been sitting quietly on the edge of the straight-back chairs set against the wall, as far from the examining table as space would allow, she said, "I don't think you should get overly concerned. It's probably a mycoplasma - a bacterial infection. But I am a little worried about her lungs so I'd like to send her over to Addenbrooke's for observation..."
"When?" asked Eduardo. Both he and Maria were standing up now. Maria was rubbing her hands, trying as hard as she could to hold back the anxiety that was swelling inside her chest as though Felicity's illness had transferred itself, magically, into her own body. Perhaps she wanted it that way. It was if she needed to share this trauma with her daughter - to feel her pain.
"I'll call an ambulance right away," said Dr Quail.
It was rare that she smoked in the office these days since the medical staff had decided jointly that it was important for them to set an example for the younger patients. But occasionally, after hours, she did light up - especially when problems arose that went beyond the routine and needed thinking about.
This evening, as she pondered the events of the day, she found the slight narcotic effect of the nicotine helpful in organising her thoughts. Not that she was especially disorganised - to a large extent her training had been learning how and where to put things into slots.
That part of medicine needed a mind capable of rigorous discipline, for the number of categories were enormous and the process could go on, seemingly, forever. To Dr Quail, this was the least interesting aspect of her profession - and, in the age of computers, a skill that was becoming less essential.
What intrigued her was the other aspect of medicine that took it out of the realm of science and made it into an art. In this realm, one needed skills that depended less on computer aided logic and more on human intuition.
One of her concerns, professionally, was that medical science was becoming, more and more, a branch of statistics. Everything boiled down to probability. Sometimes the probability factor was so great that it became certainty. Other times it was merely a coin flip.
This is why she smoked. Medically, she knew it was bad. That it could be proven scientifically, she had no doubt. She knew the data. But she also knew, as every physician did, a number of her patients who smoked with impunity - or so it seemed.
To her, a patient like Molly Hargrove was as important as all her cancer victims- a stubbornly independent woman in her eighties, ten children, seventeen grandkids, who worked like an ox and smoked twenty-a-day since she was a kid and whose worst physical problem was a detached retina. Molly Hargrove showed every indication of living well into her nineties.
What Molly proved to her, if it needed proving at all, was that individual people were unique organisms. And what was biologically true for one, might not be true for another. As part of the general population, Molly might have run an enormous risk of developing either emphysema or lung cancer by the age of 80. But, as an individual, she had run a negligible risk of getting either one.
Of course, as a doctor she felt obliged to point out to her younger patients the hazards of tobacco. But, at the same time, she detested the neo-Victorian morality which was running rampant in the health service. And the idea being floated from time to time of refusing to treat patients who disregarded their doctor's orders not to smoke or drink was one she regarded as villainous.
This evening, however, it wasn't smoking or the quandaries of medical ethics that concerned her. She was puzzled by a series of cases she had seen at the surgery beginning early that morning when a man in his late fifties had come in complaining of shortness of breath. There was nothing particularly unusual about that, of course, except, upon examination, she found a pruritic rash developing down his arms and on his chest. And throughout the day, four other patients had come in complaining of vague flu - like symptoms, all with acute respiratory distress and all with similar skin lesions.
Perhaps if it were February or March she wouldn't have given these patients a second thought. The waiting room would have been filled with influenza victims each exhibiting various symptoms similar to those she had seen today. But it was June, and, for the first time in many weeks, business had been relatively slow.
What concerned her most, however, were the rashes. Skin eruptions are strange things. They can come from a multiplicity of causes and, seemingly, no cause at all. Some people, with particularly sensitive skin seemed to break out in spots if you looked at them funny.
But, to the trained eye, certain kinds of rashes can be an indicator depending on their disposition - blotchy or prickly, their colour - bright red, bluish, or pale yellow, and their placement on the body - torso, face or extremities.
The rash she had noted on the patients she had seen today would have been classified as an NSDR - non-specific dermitological reaction. Ordinarily, she would have shrugged them off as simply a general sign of disease. But there was something about these particular skin eruptions that pricked her curiosity and made her wonder. Firstly, because of their similarity and that similar rashes should be appearing on such a diverse group of people - from a six-year-old girl to a middle-aged man. And secondly, because she had never seen quite that kind of rash, even though it would have been hard for her to say exactly what it was that made it different - except it seemed to her unusual.
Then, as she continued to peruse the records of the six respiratory-insufficiency patients she had seen that day, it suddenly occurred to her that there was another similarity - a very strange one that she hadn't recognised before.
It was then that she reached for the telephone and dialled the number for the Regional Environmental Health Office.
This was quite an exceptional thing for a family practitioner to do. However, prior to going into general medicine, Dr Quail had been in public health. And, because of her background, she was one of several GPs who had been asked to serve as liaison to an epidemiological early warning committee which the European branch of the World Health Organisation had established recently.
Even though the hour was late, her call was forwarded to the residence of the Officer in Charge, Bernie Thompson.
What Pauline Quail said to him when he answered her call was not an emergency. Not in his book.
But he knew that as soon as he found out who was at the other end of the phone.
Pauline Quail and Bernie Thompson had crossed swords before. As one of the leading members of Physicians for Environmental Safety she had often been in the position of trying to encourage or badger (depending on one's perspective) the agency to take a stronger line on issues like water and air quality controls.
Bernie Thompson, of course, as a civil servant, was always trying to work his way out of politically delicate conundrums. He did this, like most bureaucrats, by rarely taking a position on anything. In fact, if he had a motto, it would have been something on the order of "The less done, the better".
This is something Pauline Quail understood quite well. And because she understood, she pushed that much harder. More than anyone else he had dealings with, Pauline Quail got up Bernie Thompson's nostrils.
But ringing him at home was one step over the line as far as he was concerned. Especially as the Chinese take-away which had just been delivered was getting cold.
"You're ringing to tell me of five case of pulmonary insufficiency?" He could hardly believe his ears.
"Six - so far. Five have been serious enough to be hospitalised."
"Why the bloody hell would you ring me at home about six bloody cases of influenza? Why would you even ring me about ten?"
"It's not influenza."
"All right, mycoplasmosis!"
"It's not the season, Bernie. I think we have something environmental..."
"So what the blazes do you want me to do?"
"I want you to ring around the other surgeries first thing in the morning and tell them to keep check on the number of pulmonary insufficiency cases that include the following symptoms..."
"Wait a minute, I'll get a pen," he grumbled.
On his way, he stopped off at the kitchen, opened one of the cardboard containers, sat down and ate his dinner.
Tuesday - 21 June
What he had noticed was a spot on his cuff. It appeared to be the remnants of the Chinese take-away meal devoured with bleary-eyed gusto last night. Unfortunately, that was before he had read the report on the very same restaurant on the train that morning which spoke in most unpleasant terms about rodent droppings in the noodles - quite likely the same noodles used in the dish he had eaten. Thompson could feel his stomach immediately turn queasy as his taste buds recalled the slightly rancid, oily flavour of the sauce which had caused the spot on his cuff.
It was then, as he directed his gaze to avoid looking at the stain, that he saw the number written on a slip of pink paper blue-tacked to the picture of his former wife which still sat on the far side of his desk possibly as a reminder that things, no matter how bad, could actually be worse.
The number had been given to him in very strange circumstances about a week before by one of his higher-ups in Peterborough who started off by saying, "Write this number down, Thompson."
"What am I supposed to do with it?"
"File it away somewhere. You're supposed to ring it if anything unusual comes across your desk in the next ten days or so. Don't ask me any questions because I don't know anything about it. I was just told to pass it on to you..."
The number he had written down had a London dialling code. "Who am I supposed to be speaking with if I call?"
"Don't you listen, Thompson? How the devil should I know? Maybe it has something to do with the new guidelines from the EuroCommission Public Health Committee on Epidemics. Maybe they're measuring response time. You figure it out..."
He had stuck the number on the photo and had forgotten about it till now. Pealing it off the dour face of the woman who had shared his bed through seven years of hell, he placed it by the phone and then punched in the numbers one by one, listening to the musical beeps and feeling quite ridiculous as he did.
There was ringing on the other end. Then a series of clicking sounds, probably from a re-routing device, and then ringing again.
Finally a voice answered. Abrupt. Impatient. A voice that knew its place in the world. "Hello! Who is it? What do you want? I'm in the middle of breakfast, damn it!"
"This is Cambridge Environmental Health," said Thompson, so cowed and embarrassed that he forgot to wonder who he had been connected with. "I was given this number to call..."
He could hear the voice on the other end talking to someone else, in muffled tones, "It's Cambridge EHO." Then, more muffled, another voice said, "Bloody hell!" Finally the person on the other end spoke directly into the mouthpiece again, "How serious is it?"
"How serious is what? I was given this number to ring if something unusual happened. I don't really know what's meant by 'unusual', but there's been a number of admissions for pulmonary insufficiency, mainly from the Chesterton area, the Northeast of the city. I suspect it's nothing more than a statistical aberration, but I thought I better check..."
"Quite right," said the voice at the other end, with a patronising sigh.
"I wouldn't take it seriously yet..." Bernie Thompson advised.
"Take it seriously," said the voice. "How much have you been told?"
"Nothing," said Thompson.
"Good. I think it's best we leave it that way for the time being..."
"Isn't there something I should know?"
"Nothing that would help you do your job. You know just about as much as we do, I'm afraid. We were given warning that some ecological disturbance may or may not eventuate this week somewhere in your neck of the woods."
"A terrorist plot?"
"I really can't say. Just get your investigation team together. Let us know the names of the people involved. We'll keep in touch." There was a smooth, syrupy-flavoured chumminess the voice now projected over the phone in contrast to the grating tone just moments before. "And let's keep this conversation between ourselves..."
"Of course," said Thompson. In spite of himself, he felt almost pleased to be in favour, even though he knew the human manifestation of that electronic sound, in a normal situation, would have paid no more attention to him than to a piece of lint stuffed inside his navel.
At the far end of the bridge he had left fifty pence on a piece of rotting cardboard next to a filthy street urchin holding a sign which read "Help Me Feed My Dog."
The bridge stank of stale urine and faeces and Bates (as he was called, since few people knew his Christian name) cursed himself for not having walked along the north side of the Embankment to Westminster Bridge when he had come down from Charing Cross. But there he was, running the gauntlet and having to pay heavily for it.
On the other hand, what a wonderful view of St. Paul's, he thought as he took out a perfumed handkerchief and brought it up to his tormented nose. Well worth one quid fifty. He paid more than that to take his young son to the zoo and the stink there was even worse.
Bates came to the end of the bridge and walked down the stairs that led to the esplanade. But instead of heading on to the concrete monoliths of the South Bank arts complex and the vile taste it brought to his mouth, he doubled back along the Embankment toward Jubilee Gardens till he came within sight of County Hall.
The afternoon sun had started to melt into the horizon and, across the river, the houses of government rose in a great, harmonious, breathtaking silhouette. However, it wasn't that which put a crimp in Bates' stomach. He had felt rather off for most of the day. And now there was this.
Last week when he had come a few hours earlier, it had been screaming with kids eating their lollies in the heat of the sun and dropping cornettos on someone's foot. Now the green of the garden was muted. Thank goodness the little buggers had gone, he thought.
The benches were empty, except for one where a well-dressed gentleman with a lion's mane of pure white hair had placed his bowler next to his rolled-up brolley and had pulled his gold-plated specks far down his nose to better read the tabloid he held out in front of him.
Bates walked over to the bench where the gentleman was, picked up the bowler and sat himself down. "Hello, Angus," he said.
"'Scandal of Killer Virus Lab!' The white-haired gentleman read the headline aloud. 'Scientists were accused last night of inexcusable failings while experimenting with a killer virus. They were forced to halt work involving a gene suspected of causing cancer after a visit from Government safety inspectors.'"
Then folding the paper, he placed it on his lap. "Bad business that," he said
looking out at the Thames. "Bad timing. Everything depends of timing. That's the key to everything."
"It's a storm in a teacup," said Bates. "Someone in HSE is trying to push his weight around. But there's nothing to it. The work was only classified as level 3 and the viruses were disabled - castrated, they call it. Anyway, Health and Safety are only demanding a special air-filtration system be installed."
Angus shook his head. "It's not what they want, it's where the story broke. The Daily Mail, Bates! They were supposed to be ours, weren't they?"
"They're just trying to boost their circulation," said Bates reaching for his nasal spray which he carried conveniently in his jacket pocket. He undid the top and sent a blast through his left nostril that went far into his sinuses. "But they're ours."
"They don't sound like it," said Angus, taking his bowler from Bates's lap and placing it on his head. "Wasn't that the same lab where a woman died a while back from a super bug some idiot scientist mislaid?"
"That was yesterday's news. It was forgotten the next day. By tomorrow this will be forgotten, too. People have short memories. Especially for disaster..."
"So what's this about our Cambridge facility?"
"We don't know yet. But there could be problems. Several people have come down ill. We're not sure if it's related to the work going on there..."
"Who's our local contact?"
Bates snapped open his attaché and pulled out a file. "A man named Thompson is the Regional EH chief. A simple minded bureaucrat. He'll do what we say, but he's far too stupid for something like this. We'll keep him busy with paper work and set up our own investigation ..."
"We need someone we can trust. But they can't be traced to us," said Angus taking the file from Bates. He rifled through the pages. "And the less they know, the better."
"We've made a short-list," said Bates, handing Angus another set of files.
Angus looked through the dossiers with a seasoned eye. Then, handing one back to Bates, he said, simply. "He's our man."
Bates grimaced. "I know him. I've worked with him before. Not really one of us..."
"Why did you short list him?"
"The GP who phoned in the alert - she knows him. That might be to our advantage, because she, herself, is a problem..."
"What sort of a problem?"
"She has dubious connections. Married an East German back in the 60's. What concerns us more is her relationship with several environmentalist groups..."
"Then he's our man," said Angus taking his bowler and placing it back on his head. He took his brolley and used it as a lever to help him up.
Bates followed him over to the wrought iron rail that edged the bank of the river and stood there watching a passing barge carrying tons of garbage out to sea. Suddenly, Angus placed the tip of his umbrella onto the toe of Bates' shoe. "I don't need to remind you. There's a great deal at stake here."
"No, you don't need to remind me," Bates replied, feeling the metal point dig into his foot.
"That's good," said Angus lifting his umbrella and giving it a twirl. "So nothing more needs to be said, does it?"
He had done what he could to brighten the place up, covering the walls with tapestries and masks from his time in Africa, Buddhist sculptures from his visits to the Far East, Mayan artefacts from trips to South America and other knick-knacks from expeditions to the four corners of the globe when he had been on the payroll of the World Health Organisation. But, whatever he did, the dour air of the place, tinged with traces of formaldehyde, always seemed to filter through, staining his precious objects with a rather off-putting yellow so that in the end he took them back to his cramped apartment overlooking the British Museum.
It was a few minutes after he had returned to his office from the lecture. He was looking over a student paper, finding himself bored to tears, not so much from disinterest but from the sloppy workmanship. The paper had clearly been done in a rush, over a midnight bottle of plonk, he suspected - there were even a few reddish stains as evidence. No thought had been put into it. Not even an attempt at analysis. Just something dashed off in the wee hours of the morning and handed in like a bag of dirty socks.
He put the paper down in disgust. Why should he care? he wondered. And then he realised. He didn't anymore. It suddenly dawned on him - something he knew all the time. He hated teaching.
When he had left his job at the World Health Organisation, he had been suffering from what had been called fatigue. It wasn't an extraordinary diagnosis for someone who had travelled from disaster to disaster, from the latest drug-resistant strain of malaria in Burma to outbreaks of ancient bubonic plague in the highlands of Mexico. He could feel the gradual change coming over him long ago, from a youthful idealist on the front lines of the battle against pandemics to the mature pragmatist balancing the possible with the likely and making do with what he could get. Then came the accident at Seveso which put a mighty dent in his brightly polished armour - though he could have lived with that, since he was still convinced that he had acted properly.
But it was his time in Africa, two gruelling years in Kenya doing a study on the AIDS epidemic, that finally threw him over the brink. What he had witnessed there was, in terms of absolute horror, beyond anything he had ever seen.
Even now it continued to haunt him like an apocalyptic apparition. In his mind he would see that endless highway stretching from Nairobi to Mombassa. Along the road, all the truck stops, tiny villages with lean-to hovels, tin roofs baking in the blazing sun, heating up the stinking rooms like ovens. The ersatz beer halls, with slat wood benches and sticky tables; the tiny huts scattered in the back yards for the truckers. Dirty mattresses on the muddy ground, whores with thin, dry lips and open sores on their arms and bony legs, so wasted they could hardly keep their stained skirts above their lanky hips. Every stop along the route had that same rank odour of beer and stale cum - the bodies, lifeless, gaunt, defiled as the land which stretched out flat and dry and grimy as far as he could see.
At the end of the road was the hospital, its wards overflowing with match-stick limbs, crammed into rooms without beds, naked in the damnable heat but too gaunt to sweat, faces with sunken eyes in lifeless heads, no longer black but an ashen shade of grey. They lingered on, half dead, clinging to a sort of zombie life that made living an obscenity.
That was the land he lived in, now, not only at night when those terrible images would flood his mind but also, sometimes, during lectures or meetings - it would happen in a instant, like a black talon ripping through his head. And rather than fading quietly into the dark corners of his brain - as most obsessions do, given time - they seemed to be coming more frequently.
It was also why teaching had become such a burden to him.
This morning, for example, when he had first come in and looked around at the students, quietly seated in the semi-circular rows that ascended like the balcony of a miniature opera house in dizzying abruptness, he had hardly recognised a single one - though this was the final lecture of term. Even as he spoke, he kept glancing, involuntarily, in the direction of a large, bald-headed man taking copious notes who stared at the lectern with grotesque eyes that seemed to bulge from his face. And he couldn't help thinking this person either had a thyroid condition or else was a serious lunatic.
His lecture had ended with his ideas on the general nature of poisons:
"The first rule to remember is that everything is a poison. The second rule - seemingly a contradiction of the first - is that nothing is a poison. The third rule is that substances which are poisonous to one organism in the biological continuum are not necessarily poisonous to another. The fourth rule, a corollary of the third, is that substances toxic to one individual of a species are not necessarily toxic to another."
He looked up and noticed the expression of dismay on several youngish faces.
"If this sounds confusing," he went on, "we only have ourselves to blame. For 'poison' is one of those words that science could readily do without. Labelling some substance as a 'poison' is similar to labelling an individual as 'evil'. Whatever we say about that person in the future, the notion of evil remains like a bad taste overriding every other impression we might have had. The same is true with a substance labelled 'poison'. Whatever else it might be, once labelled it forever lingers in the mind.
In fact, what we have seen is that any substance, any chemical or plant extract, can have either therapeutic or toxic effects on a particular organism. The equation will depend on two things - dosage and an individual's specific constitution at a certain point in time. All we can say with certainty is that the lesser quantity is curative while the greater is injurious. But the exact quantity is always relative.
Rabbits can tolerate great amounts of atropine. They can be fed for weeks on the roots, berries and leaves of Atropa belladonna. They can also consume quantities of cocaine that would destroy most humans without showing signs of ill-effects. Berries from the Deadly Nightshade plant can be eaten with seeming impunity by blackbirds but they are often fatal to pigs and sheep. Spotted Hemlock, disastrous to certain imbibing philosophers, can be easily tolerated by goats. Asperula odorata, on the other hand, can be eaten by humans but are often deadly to geese.
For belladonna and hemlock, the toxic or therapeutic effects on humans are well-known. But how about other plants that we classify as foods? Take the mainstay of an ordinary stew, for example. How many of us know that the common potato can induce fits in some unlucky sole? Or that turnips can make some people suffer from breathlessness? Or that radishes in your salad can make someone extremely ill from its toxicological effects?
None of us would have the audacity to call potatoes, turnips or radishes 'poisons', but that's exactly what they are - to some..."
It was here that he stopped, focusing his eyes on a young woman in the third row who was waving her hand in the air. There was nothing more disturbing to him than losing his train of thought in mid sentence.
Grant looked at the young woman dressed in black trousers and a black cardigan, her light brown hair pulled severely over her head and tied into an intricate knot.
He raised an eyebrow as a sign of impatience. "Is it urgent, Miss..."
"Janet Haskel. Ms Janet Haskel," the women, said, putting the emphasis on the titular designation.
"Is it urgent Ms Janet Haskel?" he repeated with a restrained sigh.
"I was wondering about your basic premise," she said, totally ignoring his question as well as his desire to move on. "If I did believe in evil, I suppose it follows that I would believe in poisons, too. Isn't that a semantic trap? I mean, doesn't the concept of 'poison' serve a useful purpose both in practice and in theory? That something can either be harmful or a remedy isn't really the issue. Aspirin can cure your headache or it can kill you. We don't call it a poison, though, since it's part of our basic arsenal of drugs. However, we do educate ourselves as to dosage and we make it clear that not following prescribed amounts can lead to disastrous results.
On the other hand, we do call arsenic a poison because we don't want to encourage its use by patients - even though it can and often is prescribed as a drug, under a different name, of course. I would think that toxicology is a useful branch of science only if we allow ourselves to call things by their proper names and establish definite parameters whereby we can determine cause and effect. That's what science is all about. The statement 'everything is relative' leaves it all up to God. Frankly, I was hoping for a little more facts and figures. Looking down at my notes, I can find little I can use, except to be careful with radishes and potatoes."
"You have a question, I suppose?" Grant asked patiently, even though he felt his stomach churn.
"Well, I suppose my question is this - as future epidemiologists, how do we make sense of everything you said? I mean, how, for heaven's sake, would we use it?"
Part of him half admired her brashness. And maybe it was a fair question after all, he thought.
"From an epidemiological perspective," he replied, "we would like to know how a certain pollutant in the environment will affect the natural habitat - or, more specifically, what its toxic effect will be on humans. Unfortunately, we cannot do this. We can only say that, from past experience a certain toxin released into the environment will be dangerous and probably will cause certain problems, but we can never be sure which individuals will be affected and what will be their reaction.
For example, in July of 1976, an accident took place in the town of Seveso in Italy. A plant that manufactured trichlorophenol - a chemical used to make antiseptics - released a large amount of dibenzodioxins into the atmosphere contaminating an area of about 700 acres. Within a week, a number of children were hospitalised with chloracne and animals - sheep, dogs, cows, horses - began dying. The soil in an established radial area around the plant was analysed and was found to contain high levels of dioxin..."
Grant stopped for a moment and looked at the young woman who had challenged him. He could see she was concentrating on his words. "As the epidemiologist in charge, Ms Haskel, what would you have done?"
She didn't hesitate. Her response was immediate. "Because of the high levels of dioxin found in the soil, and since dioxin is known to be a teratogen in animals, all the women who were living in the exposure zones during their first trimester of pregnancy should have been offered therapeutic abortions."
"In fact, that is exactly what was done, Ms Haskel, on the advice of toxicologists who - as I said - had studied the effect of dioxin on animals. Of the 150 women contacted, thirty had abortions performed - despite the resistance of the Catholic Church."
The young woman nodded her head in approval.
"However, of the 120 remaining women who gave birth, there were only two who bore children with anomalies - one with an intestinal obstruction, the other with a genital malformation, both of which were corrected by surgery."
"It still was the correct decision," said the woman.
"The advice on therapeutic abortions was given by toxicologists, one of whom was also an epidemiologist brought in to study the situation. It may have been proper advice based on the statistical data he had in hand, but I would be surprised if there wasn't some later doubt, some qualms..."
"Maybe that has more to say about the scientist than the science," Janet Haskel retorted, meeting his eye with a harsh, condemning look. "Without being able to make decisions based on statistical knowledge, what value is epidemiology?"
Grant felt extremely tired and his head hurt the way it did when he was coming down with the flu.
He was about to say something he would have regretted. But looking out at the younger students in the audience, he saw that they were fidgeting in their seats, seemingly embarrassed. So he ended by directing his final statement to them:
"Epidemiologists," he said, "are more like detectives than physicians. And like detectives, they can neither prevent a murder nor bring back the dead. But they can sometimes help to prevent more killings by finding the source of the gun and who it was that pulled the trigger. And in times like these, as keepers of a very troubled world, we need all the bloody help we can get..."
The door opened. He recognised her at once and it showed on his face. "Ms Haskel. Don't tell me you're still hungry for raw flesh..."
Her hair was down and hung loosely on her shoulders. She looked much less terrifying that way, he thought. In fact, close up, her face had an almost gentle look to it.
"I thought it was a fair question," she said. "It wasn't my purpose to antagonise you."
Grant looked down at the paper he had just been reading - attempting to read, that is - and then back up at her. "It was a fair question," he said. "I don't even mind being antagonised. At least you've given the issue some thought, which, I suspect is more than most of my students do..."
"You don't even know their names!" she blurted out. Then, closing her eyes, she said, "I'm sorry..."
"It's your manner I find a bit off-putting."
She opened her eyes again and looked at him squarely. "My manner? Oh, yes..."
"You're so combative, aren't you?"
"You'd rather have us pliant, I suppose."
"Pliant? No. Polite's more the word. It isn't such a bad trait."
"Except it doesn't get you anywhere." She gave him a questioning look. "What century are you living in?"
He chuckled. "Frankly, I don't know."
The corners of her mouth had worked their way into a frown. "I'm sorry I came," she said, turning on her heels.
Grant stood up. "Wait a minute..."
She turned back around and stared at him angrily.
"Why did you come to my office? Certainly not to apologise..."
"I wanted to tell you - I'm dropping out of the course!"
"What for?"
"Financial reasons."
"Don't you have a grant?"
She gave him an ironic smile. "You really are from another century, aren't you?"
"How about your parents? Can't they help you out?"
"They don't have much of an income. Besides, there are two more after me...and I'm the girl."
"I don't want you to leave the course," said Grant. He thought a moment and then wrote something down on a pad next to his telephone. "I've got some contacts at World Health," he said. "Let me find out what kind of funds they have for research assistants..."
"Why?" she asked. "You don't even like me. And I certainly don't like you."
"You've got a good mind," he said. "You're quick, you're bright, you're intelligent. And you're angry." He put his hand on her shoulder and looked into her eyes. "I'm not asking you to agree. Just think about it. You've got passion. What you need is a little compassion..."
"I could say the same thing about you," she replied, pulling herself away, "in reverse."
She stomped out of the office, nearly bumping into the figure who was standing in the doorway.
How long he had been standing there, Grant didn't know. But he recognised him at once. It was the man he had seen sitting in the lecture hall - the one with the bulging eyes.
There was a ridiculous smile on his face as he entered Grant's tiny office. The kind of oily smirk that might have been on a sleazy postcard captioned "Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink."
"You didn't see 'Oleana', did you?" he asked.
Grant looked at him quizzically. "I beg your pardon?"
"The play by Mamet. Really should, you know. It might have been written just for you."
"That's why I don't go to the theatre much," Grant responded. "Plays written for me are guaranteed to be boring." Then, narrowing his eyes, he said, "Who are you?"
The man was middle - aged and balding. But his face was pink like a baby's. Or a baboon's backside, Grant thought.
"Ruddle's the name," he said, holding out a curiously tiny hand. "T. S. Ruddle..."
Grant was surprised at the softness of the skin as he reluctantly shook the man's hand. It felt like a piece of refrigerated liver and it gave him the creeps.
Ruddle put down his black leather briefcase on Grant's desk, giving the hide a gentle caress before he opened it up, retrieving a manila folder from its contents. "I enjoyed your lecture," he continued. "Especially the bit about vegetables. I always wondered why turnips made me wheeze. My wife thinks it's self-induced..."
"What can I do for you, Ruddle," Grant asked impatiently, watching in dismay as the fat, little man colonised his desk.
Ruddle's bulging eyes had a bit of a twinkle. "It's not for me, Dr Grant. Oh, Gordon Bennet! Not me! Not at all!"
"It's just a phrase," said Grant, rubbing the back of his neck. "A manner of speaking."
"Of course!" He let out a strange little laugh. "My wife always says how literal I can be. 'Ruddle', she says, 'why are you always so literal?' 'Maybe it's my training,' I tell her. I trained as a chemist, you see. That was right before the war. Precision was the key. If you wanted a good titration, you had to follow the instruction manual to the letter. You had to be literal. But you're a scientist, Dr Grant. You know what I mean..."
"Listen," said Grant, losing his patience, " I've got quite a bit on my plate today..." He was convinced Ruddle was an insurance salesman.
The smile faded from Ruddle's lips. "Right you are, Dr Grant. I'll get to the point. It seems we need your services..."
"My services? What kind of services? What the blazes are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about past promissory notes. Bills of exchange. Obligations due." His narrow, almost hairless, eyebrows raised in a significant motion over his bulging orbs as he took out an ageing document from the folder and showed it to Grant. "That is your signature, isn't it? I'm afraid you've been seconded to us, Dr Grant."
He held the document in his hand, recalling a faint memory from the distant past and then looked up at Ruddle, at his hypnotically ugly eyes. His demeanour was no longer one of academic arrogance, but of tired resignation.
"What do you want from me?" he asked.
ISBN: 1-900355-11-6 PB
Order online through www.blackapollo.com
Techno-Farm
by Robert J. Raskin
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