The Immortality Factor (29 page)

“Merger?”

“Might make sense, in the right circumstances.”

“But I thought—”

Johnston got to his feet. He loomed over me like a smiling thundercloud. “Let me worry about the business end of it, Arthur. You stick to the science.”

 

P
art of sticking to the science was attending scientific conferences. I encouraged my researchers to go to the more important conferences and present papers reporting on the scientific work they were doing. It was always a delicate matter, balancing the lab's need to maintain corporate secrecy against the individual researcher's need to maintain his or her scientific credentials. I always pushed for more openness; I wanted my researchers to be recognized by the scientific community for the top-flight scientists that they were. Too often men and women working at industrial laboratories are slighted or forgotten altogether because their corporate employers won't allow them to publish in the scientific literature or present papers at conferences.

And I had another reason to push for openness, too. By getting my people to tell the world what they were doing, I pushed them to keep moving forward with their work. No resting on your laurels once everybody else in the field knows what you've accomplished and can duplicate it. You've got to move on, go farther, break new ground. That was my contribution to the management of research. I believed in it when I was in academia and I thought it was absolutely essential at an industrial lab, where corporate secrecy can be a cloak for laziness or timidity.

The annual genetic engineering conference was taking place in Las Vegas. Cassie Ianetta was due to fly up from Mexico, Vince Andriotti was going to deliver a paper on his latest work in high-resolution imaging, and several of my younger researchers were giving papers also. Zack O'Neill and his development of regentides were definitely
not
going to show up at the conference.

I was set to go, though. I had been invited to make one of the luncheon speeches; not a scientific report but a “senior statesman” type of speech on the state of the field of genetic engineering. It would be hard to keep from talking about our organ regeneration work, but we weren't ready to reveal it to the world yet. Not yet.

The day before I was to fly to Las Vegas, Jesse called.

“We're back home,” he announced, “and Julia wants you to come over for dinner.”

“You should have let me know sooner. I'll be in Las Vegas for the next three days,” I said.

“You've taken up gambling?”

Frowning as I held the phone against my ear, I replied, “It's the annual genetic engineering meeting.”

“In Las Vegas? Where're they going to hold next year's, Atlantic City? Or maybe some Indian reservation where they've put up a casino?”

I didn't laugh. “I'll be back Sunday night.”

“Can't wait that long, Arby. Come over tonight.”

“But you just got back. Julia won't want to cook dinner before you've unpacked.”

“So we'll send out for pizza or Chinese,” Jesse answered carelessly. “Don't worry about it.”

I thought swiftly: If I pack this afternoon I can drive into town, have dinner with Jess and Julia, and then stay at the corporation's condo overnight. That'll be easier than driving to Kennedy from Connecticut in the morning rush traffic, even in a limo.

“What time?” I asked.

“Doesn't matter. We'll be here when you show up.”

“I'll be there at seven-thirty.”

“Great,” said Jesse.

But Jesse was not there at seven-thirty, of course.

I left my car and travel bags in the corporation's midtown condo and took a cab to Jesse's apartment. It was dark by seven-thirty, the end of an unseasonably warm late winter day. After weeks of gray overcast and icy wind blowing in from the river, this day had been bright with sunshine and the promise of springtime. The streets in Jesse's neighborhood seemed reasonably clean, and I didn't see any homeless people shuffling about or huddled in doorways. The only pedestrians appeared to be well-dressed local residents. Down the street cars hummed by on Riverside Drive; lights were twinkling in the condos on the Jersey side of the Hudson, outlining the high-rises that overlooked the river.

Tucking the bottle of wine I had brought from home beneath my arm, I found the Marshak nameplate in the doorway and pressed the button under it.

“Yes?” It sounded like Julia's voice, barely recognizable in the ancient speaker.

“It's me, Arthur.”

“Lovely.” The door buzzed. I pushed it open; heavy glass with ornamental iron scrollwork. The lobby felt overheated and stuffy. One elevator; it, too, was
very old, the door squeaked, and the cables groaned as I rode up to the fifth floor, hoping it would make it all the way there.

Julia was standing in their open doorway when I got off the elevator. She looked pale and thin, but she smiled broadly as I stepped toward her.

“Arthur, dear,” she said.

It felt strange not to take her in my arms, and Julia showed no inclination toward even a sisterly kiss on the cheek, so I awkwardly thrust the bottle of wine at her.

“Put it in the freezer,” I said, “so it chills down for dinner.”

“Yes, of course,” she said as she ushered me into the apartment. She was wearing a fuzzy sweater and dark slacks. It was too early for her pregnancy to show.

“How are you?” I asked, as I looked around the apartment. High ceilings with real moldings, the kind nobody bothers with anymore. Eclectic furniture, no two pieces seemed to match, yet it all came together in a pleasing, comfortable whole. Everything painted off-white, walls, ceilings, woodwork, everything. “How do you feel?”

“I'm fine, really,” Julia said. “A few problems, but that's to be expected, I suppose, in my delicate condition.”

“Where's Jess? Isn't he here?”

“Oh, he popped in at the hospital to see how they've managed without him. He'll be back soon.”

It was after ten o'clock when Jesse finally showed up, cool as a breeze, relaxed and happy. I was steaming. Julia and I had drunk about a quart of fruit juice each, waiting.

Julia kissed her husband warmly. Jesse grinned when he turned to me and stuck his hand out.

“So how's things with you, Arby? Made another million while we were gone?”

“Would you have stayed away this late if Julia had been here alone?” I asked him.

“Aw, don't start growling at me, Arby.”

Julia stepped between us. “Arthur, dear, he came home early to see you. If you hadn't been here, Jess would still be at the hospital.” Turning to her husband, “Wouldn't you, darling?”

Jesse made the same sheepish grin that had gotten him out of a thousand scrapes. “I don't know. Maybe.”

Julia phoned the neighborhood Chinese restaurant and half an hour later we were hunched over the coffee table in their living room, picking from cardboard cartons with wooden chopsticks.

“In Eritrea they eat with their fingers,” Jesse was saying. “Three major eating styles in the world: the fork, chopsticks, and fingers.”

“We've tried all three,” said Julia, “and I must say I prefer the fork.”

“Cultural bias,” Jesse said.

“Perhaps.”

“How was it in Africa?” I asked. I had already heard Julia's version of their time in Eritrea: the hunger, the disease, her own bout with fever, the skirmishes with starving bandits. Now I wanted to hear Jesse's.

“Looks pretty hopeless,” Jess replied. “If it weren't for the UN they'd all starve to death or kill one another.”

“Then why—”

“Interesting medical problems, though. All kinds of parasitic diseases. I'll bet they've got parasites there that haven't even been catalogued by Western scientists.”

“Sounds charming.”

“It's a terrible tragedy,” Julia said. “Especially for the children.”

“So we feed them and help them medically,” I heard myself say, “but we don't improve their basic situation.”

“No, not at all,” Julia agreed. “All we're doing is putting a Band-Aid on their problems.”

“And feeding them enough so they can go out and make another generation of starving, sick people who can't take care of themselves.”

Jesse looked up from his rummaging through the cartons. “What do you want us to do, Arby, leave them to die?”

“I don't think we're helping them,” I said. “I think we're just making their situation worse.”

“You want to send in the Marines?” Jesse asked. “Take over the country and straighten it out?”

I shook my head. “I wouldn't risk killing one American soldier over a problem that's none of our business.”

“But Arthur, the children!” Julia said. “We can't leave them to die.”

I looked into her dark eyes; they were steady, unwavering, no tears or unreasoning sentiment. She had made an unemotional ethical decision.

“Julia,” I said, “you can't keep bringing children into the world if you can't take care of them properly, can't even feed them. It's not right, and they shouldn't expect us to take care of them.”

“They don't expect anything,” Julia said calmly. “I don't think they have any hope left in them at all.”

“Then why are we prolonging their agony?”

Jesse made a wry grin. “Arby, suppose they could pay us for the food we give them. Suppose Omnitech could get a contract to feed them and make a profit at it. Would it be okay with you then?”

“That would mean they have enough money to feed themselves, wouldn't it?”

“Okay, so the U.S. taxpayer is footing the bill. Is that what bothers you, that you have to fork over a fraction of a penny to feed starving black people?”

“What bothers me,” I said, holding on to my temper, “is that what we're doing is not solving the problem. In fact, it's making things worse.”

“So you'd let them starve?”

I looked at my brother. Jesse was smiling that lazy, careless smile of his, but underneath it he was just as adamant as I was.

“Jess, do you support a woman's right to have an abortion?”

“Certainly.”

“This is the same thing. Why bring children into the world when you can't take care of them?”

“There's one rather large difference,” Julia pointed out. “The choice of abortion is up to the mother, at least in most cases. The women in Eritrea—”

“And elsewhere,” Jesse butted in.

“And elsewhere,” Julia added with a nod toward him, “those women
want
to have their babies. They don't want abortions, and they certainly don't want to watch their babies starve to death.”

We argued around and around, getting nowhere, of course. Finally I decided it was useless and changed the subject.

“Have you thought about the consulting agreement?” I asked.

Jesse seemed surprise by the abrupt shift of gears. He blinked a few times, then said, “Yeah, I have.”

“It's very generous of you to offer it, Arthur,” said Julia.

I contradicted, “The basic ideas here are as much Jesse's as they are mine. And we're going to need the best medical advice we can get on this.”

“I've been thinking,” Jesse said, with a long glance at Julia, “that maybe you ought to work out an agreement with the medical center to work with your people.”

That surprised me a little. “La Guardia?”

Jesse nodded. “We've got a top-notch medical team there, Arby. Just what you need.”

I had to admit that he was right. “But what about you, Jess? I want you to be part of this.”

He flashed his boyish grin. “I'll be part of it—through La Guardia.”

“Don't you want a consulting contract of your own?”

He flicked another glance at Julia, who remained absolutely silent.

“Well?” I asked.

“I don't know, Arby. We could sure use the money, but if I sign a consulting agreement, then I'd be committed to spending a certain number of hours on the program and I don't think I want to be tied down like that.”

“The agreement could leave the amount of time entirely up to your discretion,”
I said, starting to feel impatient with his reluctance. I thought I knew what was bothering him, but he wasn't going to come out and admit it.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jesse said. “The amount of time I spend on the project would be up to my discretion. Sure. And you'd be breathing down my neck every minute of the day.”

He just did not want to work for me. Not even as an independent consultant. That was the trouble.

Julia said softly, “If you make a contract with La Guardia, Arthur, you get the entire medical team, including Jesse. I'm sure he'll become fully involved in your program once the medical center is a part of it.”

I looked into those steady brown eyes of hers. “I thought that a consulting arrangement with Jess would be good for you two financially.”

“We're all right financially,” Jesse said.

“We're fine,” Julia added.

My stubborn idiot of a brother didn't want to feel beholden to me, especially in front of his wife. I heard Momma's voice telling me,
Watch out for your brother, Arthur. You're the practical one; Jesse's a dreamer.

But how can I watch out for him if he won't let me? I wondered.

“All right,” I said, admitting defeat. “We can work out a contract for La Guardia Medical Center to work in partnership with Grenford Laboratory.”

Jesse smiled as if he'd won some kind of a victory.

“Lovely,” said Julia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

G
raves banged his gavel and called for order. Slowly the hearing room quieted down. Jesse watched his brother sit back down in his front-row seat, his face still flushed with anger.