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make an impression at the Home Office.
"There's obviously a genetic series that dictates that a fetus will be
female," Beckett said. "The plague locks into that sex-differentiated pattern
and stays there long enough to create swift and general chaos."
"Takes the old ball and carries it off the field," Stonar said.
Forgot he was a soccer fan, Wycombe-Finch thought.
"Well put," he said.
Beckett's tone was puzzled. "The block, once formed, is remarkably strong.
It must be associated with more powerful chemical bonds. O'Neill identified
repetitive satellite-DNA processes in sufficient detail he could pick and
choose among them."
"You really think you're close on his heels?" Stonar asked.
"I say what I believe," Beckett said and he saw Hupp across the room nodding
agreement.
Wycombe-Finch, his teeth firmly clamped on the stem of the pipe, which had
gone out, managed to look sage and wished he felt as confident as Beckett
sounded.
Stonar looked at the director, and there was suspicion in the look. "What do
you say to all this, Wye?"
Wycombe-Finch removed the pipe from his mouth. He put it into the ashtray,
bowl down, looking at it as he spoke. "We are convinced that O'Neill mated
the two halves of specific portions within the DNA/RNA helix of the human
genetic system. He did this in a binding way." Here, Wycombe-Finch nodded at
Beckett. "The two halves dovetail into an extremely powerful bond. Bill's
team believes there may be independently replicating systems within that
helical chain to form this bond."
"And what do you believe?" Stonar asked.
Wycombe-Finch looked at Stonar. "They may have produced the most promising
insight yet achieved."
"May have," Stonar said. "You're not convinced."
"I'm a scientist!" Wycombe-Finch protested. "I must see the proof."
"Then why do you think their approach is promising?"
"It indicts the viral DNA, for one thing. We all know that has to be part of
it, but it also sketches clear steps into the cellular system."
"I fail to see those steps," Stonar said.
"The paper in this paper chase is the blocked enzymes," Beckett said.
Stonar flicked a glance at him, then back to Wycombe-Finch. He had noted this
comment, though, and it was obvious this would be replayed for the prime
minister.
"Viral DNA can be associated with bacterial DNA in a quite straightforward
process," Wycombe-Finch said. "All progeny of the bacteria will contain the
viral DNA and any messages written into that viral DNA."
"Message," Stonar said, his voice blank.
"It encounters that portion of the human DNA chain which dictates that the
host be female," Wycombe-Finch said. "The viral DNA, we believe, then locks
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into that cellular substratum and dissociates from its bacterial carrier."
"Message delivered," Beckett said.
"But do you know how it does this?" Stonar asked.
"We can follow its trail now," Beckett said. "We will begin to see the shape
of it up ahead very soon."
"How soon, dammit?" Stonar glared at Beckett.
Beckett only shrugged. "We're working on it as fast as we're able."
"We're fairly certain of the conditions under which it reproduces,"
Wycombe-Finch said. "Not to forget that it proliferates in the presence of
antibiotics."
"We're getting impatient," Stonar said.
"Right now, your impatience is keeping us from our work," Beckett said.
Stonar pushed his chair back and lifted himself to his feet. "Would someone
tell my driver I'm ready to go?"
Wycombe-Finch lifted a hand and saw an assistant get up hastily and leave the
room.
Stonar turned and focused on Wycombe-Finch. "You turn my blood to water, Wye.
If I had my way we'd come in here and absolutely burn out all of you. We'd
sterilize the ground you walk on and then we'd try to start over."
"Making the same mistakes all over again," Beckett said, coming around the end
of the table.
Stonar turned his coldly observant stare on Beckett. "Perhaps not. We might
make scientific research a lethal offense." Turning away, he strode out of
the room, not even glancing at the assistant who swung the door wide for him.
Beckett stood beside Wycombe-Finch, watching until the door closed behind
Stonar.
"What do you suppose he'll tell the prime minister?" Wycombe-Finch asked.
"He'll say we have a new theory that may pan out, but the government must wait
and see."
"You really think that?" The director stared hard at Beckett, then bent to
the table and retrieved the pipe.
"Very scientific," Beckett said. "Wait to see the proof."
Wycombe-Finch looked at his pipe while he spoke: "Tell me, Bill, was that
what you chaps call a snow job?"
"Not a bit of it."
The director looked up and met Beckett's gaze. "Then I do wish you'd briefed
me before dumping it out like that. Especially the two-way implications."
"Surely you don't question . . ."
"Of course not! I'm just not sure I would've shared it with Stoney."
"It went right over his head."
"Yes, I'm sure you're right about that." Wycombe-Finch glanced at the staff
members, who were slowly filing out of the room, none of them meeting the
director's gaze. "But he'll have his spies here and one of them's sure to
explain it."
"Then he'll know about the carrot as well as the stick."
"Politicians don't like sticks in other people's hands. Carrots either, for
that matter."
"We're quite excited by the implications," Beckett said.
Wycombe-Finch glanced at Hupp, still seated in the big chair. The room was
almost empty.
"I do believe," the director said, "that Doctor Hupp is not as excited as you
are, Bill. Doctor Hupp appears to be asleep."
"Well, what the hell!" Beckett said. "We did work all night."
Out of Ireland have we come, Great hatred, little room, Maimed us at the
start.
I carry from my mother's womb
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A fanatic heart.
-- William Butler Yeats
As they came down onto the central floor of the valley just before noon, John
found it not as flat as it had appeared from the heights. Low hillocks lifted
and fell beneath the road, some with cottages nestled into them. A few of the
cottages had not been burned, but most of the windows were gone. Doors stood
open. Not a sign of human life still here. The occasional barking of a dog
fox could be heard back in the trees and, once, as they rounded a granite-girt
corner, there was a frightened cackling of a hen, a glimpse of brown feathers
darting into the roadside bushes. Jackdaws were nesting in many of the
chimneys. One giant maple standing alone in a field was decorated with a
flock of collared doves, spots of soft fawn-gray speckled throughout the
green. Vernal grass had taken over in many of the fields.
Herity, walking beside John, sniffed the air and said: "There's a certain
smell to human occupation that's gone from this valley."
John stared at the backs of the boy and the priest walking about twenty paces
ahead. They were separated by the width of the road, the priest on the left,
his head bowed, the knapsack riding high on his shoulders. The boy sometimes
darted to the middle of the road, glancing all around and occasionally bending
his head to listen. The sound of their feet on the blacktop echoed between
the road's rock-fenced boundaries. He began to look more closely at the empty
valley around them, the blacktop winding through it, over the hillocks and
around them. There was a penetrating loneliness to this region, more empty by
far than any wilderness. He sensed that it came from the fact people had [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]