Darwin's Children (37 page)

“Twenty thousand years,” Mitch said, still incredulous.

“That isn’t the half of it,” Eileen said.

Mitch took a huge leap of supposition and bent backwards, then did a little dip of disbelief. “You are not suggesting . . .”

Eileen stared at him keenly.

“You found
Neandertals
?”

Eileen shook her head, a strong no
,
then rewarded him with a teary-eyed smile that gave some hint of the distress she had gone through, at night, lying awake and thinking things over.

Mitch let out his breath. “What, then?”

“I don’t want to be coy,” she said primly, and took his hand. “But you’re not nearly crazy enough. Come on, Mitch. Let’s go meet the girls.”

21

BALTIMORE

M
orgenstern’s questions were spot on and difficult to answer. Kaye had done her best, but she felt she had goofed a few of her responses rather badly. She felt like a mouse in a room full of cats. Jackson appeared more and more confident.

“The fertility group concludes that Kaye Rafelson is not the proper individual to continue research in ERV knock outs,” Morgenstern concluded. “She has obvious bias. Her work is suspect.”

A moment of silence. The accusation was not rebutted; everyone was considering their options and the map of the political minefield around them.

“All right,” Cross said, her face as serene as a baby’s. “I still don’t know where we stand. Should we continue to fund vaccines? Should we continue to look for ways to create organisms without any viral load?” Nobody answered. “Lars?” Cross inquired.

Nilson shook his head. “I am perplexed by Dr. Morgenstern’s statements. Dr. Rafelson’s work looks impressive to me.” He shrugged. “I know for a fact that human embryos implant in their mothers’ wombs with the aid of old viral genes. Dr. Morgenstern is undoubtedly familiar with this, probably more than I.”

“Very familiar,” Morgenstern said confidently. “Utilization of endogenous viral syncytin genes in simian development is interesting, but I can quote dozens of papers proving there is no rhyme or reason to this random occurrence. There are even more remarkable coincidences in the long history of evolution.”

“And the Temin model of viral contributions to the genome?”

“Brilliant, old, long since disproved.”

Nilson pushed his scattered notes and papers into a stack, squared them, and thumped them lightly on the table top. “All my life,” he said, “I have come to regard the basic principles of biology as tantamount to an act of faith.
Credo,
this I believe: that the chain of instruction arising from DNA to RNA to proteins never reverses. The Central Dogma. McClintock and Temin and Baltimore, among many others, proved the Central Dogma to be wrong, demonstrating that genes can produce products that insert copies of themselves, that retroviruses can write themselves to DNA as proviruses and stay there for many millions of years.”

Kaye saw Jackson regarding her with his sharp gray eyes. He tapped his pencil silently. They both knew Nilson was grandstanding and that this would not impress Cross.

“Forty years ago, we missed the boat,” Nilson continued. “I was one of those who opposed Temin’s ideas. It took us years to recognize the potential of retroviruses to wreak havoc, and when HIV arrived, we were unprepared. We did not have a crazy, creative bouquet of theories to choose from; we had killed them all, or ignored them, much the same. Tens of millions of our patients suffered for our own stubborn pride. Howard Temin was right;
I
was wrong.”

“I would not call it faith, I’d call it process and reason,” Jackson interrupted, tapping his pencil harder. “It’s kept us from making even more horrible blunders, like Lysenko.”

Nilson was having none of this. “Ah, get thee behind me, Lysenko! Faith, reason, dogma, all add up to stubborn ignorance. Thirty years before that, we had missed the boat with Barbara McClintock and her jumping genes. And how many others? How many discouraged postdocs and interns and researchers? It was prideful, I see now, to hide our weaknesses and spite our fundamentalist enemies. We asserted our infallibility before school boards, politicians, corporations, investors, patients, whomever we thought might challenge us. We were arrogant. We were
men
, Ms. Cross. Biology was an incredible and archaic patriarchy with many of the aspects of an old boy network: secret signs, passwords, rituals of indoctrination. We held down, for a time at least, some of our best and brightest. No excuses. And once again we failed to see the coming juggernaut. HIV rolled over us, and then SHEVA rolled over us. It turned out we knew nothing whatsoever about sex and evolutionary variation,
nothing.
Yet some of us still act as if we know it all. We attempt to assess blame and escape our failures. Well, we
have
failed. We have failed to see the truth. These reports sum up our failure.”

Cross seemed bemused. “Thank you, Lars. Heartfelt, I’m sure. But I still want to know,
where do we go from here?
” She hammered her fist on the table with each emphatic word.

Still stuck in his chair in the far corner, pushed back from the table, wearing his trademark gray jacket and yarmulke, Maurie Herskovitz raised his hand. “I think we have a clear-cut problem in epistemology,” he said.

Cross squeezed her eyes shut and pressed the bridge of her nose. “Oh, please, Maurie, anything but
that
.”

“Hear me out, Marge. Dr. Jackson tried to create a positive, a vaccine against SHEVA and other ERV. He failed. If, as Dr. Morgenstern accuses, Dr. Rafelson came to Americol to demonstrate that no babies would be born if we suppressed their genomic viruses, she has made her point. None have been born. Regardless of her motivations, her work is thorough. It is scientific. Dr. Jackson continues to put forth an hypothesis that the results of his labors seem to have disproved.”

“Maurie,
where do we go from here?
” Cross repeated, her cheeks pinking.

Herskovitz lifted his hands. “If I could, I would put Dr. Rafelson in charge of viral research at Americol. But that would only be to curse her with more managerial duties and less time in the laboratory. So, I would give her what she needs to conduct her research on her own terms, and let Dr. Jackson focus on what he is best suited for.” He peered happily at Jackson. “Administration. Marge, you and I can make sure he does it right.” Herskovitz then looked at everyone around the room, trying hard to appear serious.

The faces at the table were stony.

Jackson’s skin had turned a bluish shade of ivory. Kaye worried for a second that he might be on the verge of a heart attack. He ticked his pen in a brisk shave-and-a-haircut-two-bits. “I welcome, as always, Dr. Nilson’s and Dr. Herskovitz’s opinions. But I don’t think Americol wants a woman who may be losing her mind in charge of this particular area of research.”

Cross leaned back as if caught in a cold wind. Morgenstern’s watery gaze finally settled on Jackson with an attitude of dread expectancy.

“Dr. Rafelson, last night you spent some hours with our chief radiologist in the imaging lab. I noticed the billing request when I was picking up results from radiology this morning. I asked what the billing was for, and I was told that you were looking for God.”

Kaye managed to hold on to her pencil and not let it drop to the floor. Slowly, she brought her hands up to the tabletop. “I was having an unusual experience,” she said. “I wanted to find out what the cause might be.”

“You told the radiologist you felt God was inside your head. You had been having these experiences for some time, ever since the removal of your daughter by Emergency Action.”

“Yes,” Kaye said.

“Seeing God?”

“I’ve been experiencing certain psychological states,” Kaye said.

“Oh, come on, we’ve just been lectured by Dr. Nilson about truth and honesty. Will you deny your God three times, Dr. Rafelson?”

“What happened was private and has no influence on my work. I am appalled that it should be brought up at this meeting.”

“None of this is relevant? Other than the expense, some seven thousand dollars of unauthorized tests?”

Liz seemed thunderstruck.

“I’m willing to pay for that,” Kaye said.

Jackson lifted a paper-clipped set of invoices and rippled it in the air. “I see no evidence of your picking up the bill.”

Cross’s calm look was replaced by indignant irritation—but at whom, Kaye could not tell. “Is this true?”

Kaye stammered, “It is a personal state of mind, of scientific interest. Almost half—”

“Where will you find God next, Kaye?” Jackson asked. “In your cunning viruses, shuffling around like holy ratchets, obeying rules only you can understand, explaining everything you can’t? If God was my mentor, I’d be thrilled, it would all be so easy, but I am less fortunate. I have to rely on
reason
. Still, it is an honor to work with someone who can simply ask a higher authority where truth waits to be discovered.”

“Astonishing,” Nilson said. In the corner, Herskovitz sat up. His smile appeared cut in plaster.

“It is not like that,” Kaye said.

“That’s enough, Robert,” Cross said.

Jackson had not moved since beginning his accusation. He sat half-slumped in his chair. “None of us can afford to give up our scientific principles,” he said. “Especially not now.”

Cross stood abruptly. Nilson and Morgenstern looked at Jackson, then at Cross, and got to their feet, pushing back their chairs.

“I have what I need,” Cross said.

“Dr. Rafelson, is God behind evolution?” Jackson called out. “Does he hold all the answers, does he jerk us around like puppets on a string?”

“No,” Kaye said, eyes unfocused.

“Are you really sure, now, in a way none of the rest of us can be, with your
special knowledge
?”

“Robert, that is enough!” Cross roared. Seldom had any of them heard Cross when she was angry, and her voice was painful in its crackling intensity. She let the stack of papers in her hands slip back to the table and spill onto the floor. She glared at Jackson, then shook her fists at the ceiling. “Absolutely unbelievable!”

“Astonishing,” Nilson repeated, much quieter.

“I apologize,” Jackson said, not at all chastened. His color had returned. He looked vigorous and healthy.

“This is over,” Cross declared. “Everyone go home. Now.”

Liz helped Kaye from the room. Jackson did not deign to look at them as they left.

“What in hell is going on?” Liz asked Kaye in an undertone as they walked toward the elevator.

“I’m fine,” Kaye said.

“What in hell was La Robert on about?”

Kaye did not know where to begin.

22

OREGON

E
ileen escorted Mitch down the slope on a crude stairway made of boards hammered into the dirt. As they walked through a copse of pines and up a short embankment, gaining a closer view of the camp, Mitch saw that a large excavation of about ten thousand square feet, L-shaped and covered by two joined Quonset huts, had been hidden by brush arranged over netting. From the air, the entire site would be little more than a smudge in the landscape.

“This looks like a terrorist base, Eileen. How do you conceal the heat signature?” he asked half-seriously.

“It’s going to terrorize North American anthropology,” Eileen said. “That’s for sure.”

“Now you’re scaring me,” Mitch said. “Do I have to sign an NDA or something?”

“I trust you,” Eileen said. She rested a hand on his shoulder.

“Show me now, Eileen, or just let me go home.”

“Where
is
home?” she asked.

“My truck,” Mitch said.

“That heap?”

Mitch mockingly implored forgiveness with his broad-fingered hands.

Eileen asked, “Do you believe in providence?”

“No,” Mitch said. “I believe in what I see with my eyes.”

“That may take a while. We’re into high-tech survey for now. We haven’t actually pulled up the specimens. We have a benefactor. He’s spending lots of money to help us. I think you’ve heard of him. Here’s his point man now.”

Mitch saw a tent flap open about fifty feet away. A lean, red-headed figure poked out, stood, and brushed dust from his hands. He shaded his eyes and looked around, then spotted the pair on the bluff and lifted his chin in greeting. Eileen waved.

Oliver Merton jogged toward them across the pale, rugged ground.

Merton was the science journalist who had dogged Kaye’s career and footsteps during the SHEVA discoveries. Mitch had never been sure whether to look on Merton as a friend or an opportunist or just a damned fine journalist. He was probably all three.

“Mitch!” Merton called. “How grand to see you again!”

Merton stuck out his hand. Mitch shook it firmly. The writer’s hand was warm and dry and confident. “My god, all Eileen told me was she was going to fetch someone with experience. How absolutely, bloody appropriate. Mr. Daney will be delighted.”

“You always seem to get there ahead of me,” Mitch said.

Merton shaded his eyes against the sun. “They’re having a kind of mid-afternoon powwow, if that’s the right word, back in the tents. Bit of a knockdown, really. Eileen, I think they’re going to decide to uncover one of the girls and take a direct look. You have perfect timing, Mitch. I’ve had to wait days to see anything but videos.”

“It’s a committee decision?” Mitch asked, turning to Eileen.

“I couldn’t stand having all of this on my shoulders,” Eileen confessed. “We have a fine team. Very argumentative. And Daney’s money works wonders. Good beer at night.”

“Is Daney here?” Mitch asked Merton.

“Not yet,” Merton said. “He’s shy and he hates discomfort.” They hunkered their shoulders against a gritty swirl blowing up the gully. Merton wiped his eyes with a handkerchief. “Not his kind of place at all.”

The wide, bush-studded net flapped in the afternoon breeze, dropping bits of dry branch and leaf on them as they stooped to enter the pit. The excavation stretched about forty feet north, then branched east to form an L. Mottled sunlight filtered through the net. They descended four meters on a metal ladder to the floor of the pit.