by Jerry Sohl
“Research is never done just once and never repeated,” the doctor said patiently. “Would you look at the sky with a telescope and never look again? In a way, Dr. Merrill is right. Yes, we’re doing research that has been done before. We’re trying to find out, for example, what Spermann failed to discover: Why does a cell differentiate and forever lose its plasticity?”
The doctor tossed the papers to his desk, turned to get one of the Missouri meerschaums on the pipe rack.
“Dr. Merrill and the others have their own ideas. I am having them trace the growth of the egg cell of a frog. They think it’s below them, that it’s elementary. Well, I say it is elementary and the solution will be elementary when we find it. They have been instructed to be very particular and exhaustive. They are all doing the same thing. It makes me angry to think they feel they are wasting their time.”
He lit the pipe and puffed on it furiously. “If they don’t discover something new, then we’ll take the adult frog, cut off its leg and put in its place an undifferentiated cell. Then we’ll treat these grafts with radiation, X-rays—everything in the spectrum. We’ll grow a limb yet. We’ve been working on the routine tests for nearly a year now. We ought to begin the bombardment with radiation soon. Maybe then they’ll be happier.” He leveled the pipestem at Martin. “I won’t have them quit what they’re doing until they’ve completed it, even if I have to get a whole new staff.”
Martin did not see that the doctor had scored a point, even though the doctor seemed to think he had. Can a man’s employees all be wrong and the employer right? He felt the doctor was impressing him with certain knowledge, but information he would have given anyway. He still did not answer the question. Now, if Martin could only talk with Dr. Merrill again...
“If you’d care to look at these charts,” the doctor said, picking them up, “you’re welcome to. It may give you some idea of the vastness and completeness of the project.”
“I’m afraid they wouldn’t mean much to me, Dr. Penn. Actually, I’m much more interested in your personal affairs.”
The doctor was amused. “Still going to do the story, eh?”
“It’s a challenge, now, Dr. Penn. I still want to live with it. But one thing is bothering me.”
“What’s that?”
“These clothes.” Martin indicated his soiled shirt, wrinkled tie, unpressed pants. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to run into Avon Ridge for my typewriter and suitcases if I’m going to stay here. I left them at the hotel.” I can also make a few phone calls, he said to himself.
“You’ll have a tough time doing that. Nobody gets off the reservation for a run into town.” The doctor picked up the phone. “I’ll dial headquarters. Where were you staying?”
“At the Hampton. Room 317.”
“You’ll have them in an hour,” the doctor said, his hand poised over the dial. “I’ll arrange to have the bill paid and you can settle up at Inspection.”
“Inspection?” There would be no phone call now; Martin was sure of that. He wondered how Forrest Killian had put in his call and whether outgoing calls from the reservation were censored.
“Everything coming in and going out is given a strict going over, Martin. Even with your credentials it wasn’t easy getting in, was it?”
When he had made the arrangements, the doctor turned to him. “Inspection is about three blocks from here…” He paused, then pressed a buzzer. “I’d better have Virginia go with you. She knows where it is.”
She came in quickly.
“Virginia,” Dr. Penn said, “will you show Martin Inspection? They’re bringing his stuff in from the hotel.”
“They’ll find the bombs in the false bottom of the suitcase,” Martin said. “Maybe you’d better not be there when they open it up.”
Virginia laughed. “I’ll take my chances. A wet bomb can’t go off. You knew they soak everything first, didn’t you?”
“So we’re even.”
They were walking through the laboratory section when Dr. Penn called to Virginia from his office.
“Wait here, Martin. I’ll be right back.”
The old man is probably giving her instructions, he thought. Be sure to keep a sharp eye on Enders, he would say. Martin wondered if he would ever have a moment alone again after the previous night’s violation of Penn-made rules.
He looked around him and saw a dozen men busy looking through microscopes, dissecting frogs, making marks on charts. He caught several of them eying him covertly, turning away when he returned their glances. He saw Amos Page and waved to him. He was trying to find the other two technicians he had met when he caught sight of Dr. Merrill. The head gave a signal for him to come over.
He walked nonchalantly past several men at work, approached the doctor who was remarkably clear-eyed considering how he had left him the night before.
“How are you, Doctor?”
Dr. Merrill smiled. “Couldn’t be better. Ever look through a microscope?”
“In my school days,” Martin admitted. “Not one of these with two eyepieces, though.”
“Didn’t have binocular ones when you went to school, I take it. Here, have a look.”
Martin sat on the stool, put his eyes to the tubes and as he did so he felt a piece of paper being put in his hand. He was embarrassed by the action. Why couldn’t the man come right out and say what he had to say? Why the mystery? Martin took a glance at something on the slide that resembled a desert strewn with driftwood. Then he got up.
“Thanks for the look,” he said. “When Miss Penn comes, tell her I’ll be right outside. I want some fresh air.”
“The look didn’t make you sick, did it?” It was Karl Gronemeier who was sitting near by. He was grinning.
“Nothing like that,” Martin said, wondering if he knew about the note.
When the doors to the laboratory closed behind him he stood on the steps, lit a cigarette, opened the paper.
It read:
If you are interested in something
strange, meet me where you found me
between five and six this afternoon.
Chapter 7
The white-haired sergeant said a truck had gone into town to fetch Martin’s things. Yes, it had been dispatched about ten minutes before. No, it wouldn’t be back for at least half an hour. There was nothing to do but wait and they judged by the sergeant’s manner he didn’t want them waiting inside.
“Tell me something,” Martin said as he and Virginia left the inspection station. “Isn’t anybody trusted around here?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I suppose I can understand why they don’t want me shuttling to and from Avon Ridge, but could you or your father get off the reservation to go into town?”
“You could have,” Virginia explained, “but it would have required a lot of red tape. Every time you come in or go out you’ve got to go through personal inspection at the gate—even after you get your pass. And then they usually want a pass application a day or two before you want to use it. The military—they’re the only ones who get on and off in a hurry.”
They came to a corner, turned it, walking leisurely.
“It’s a funny thing,” she said, glancing at him.
“What?”
“You’re wanting to learn so much about Dad. Aren’t we going to learn anything about you?”
“What would you like to know?”
“Well, where did you go to school?”
“I graduated from Cartwright. Is that what you wanted or do you mean the story of my life?”
She smiled prettily. She always did. It was a warm thing, her smile, and it lighted bright candles behind her eyes, the ethereal eyes that were beginning to stir him strangely.
“You might brief it down a bit.”
“Well, that ought to be easy. Up to now my life has been pretty uneventful. I was born in a small town in Indiana, got interested in writing by working on the local paper. After college I served in the army three
years in a tank-destroyer unit, started free lancing when I got out and was offered a job at National Scene. I have no family; my folks were killed in an auto crash while I was in the army. I have no brothers and sisters.”
“As an only child, do you consider yourself spoiled?”
“Spoiled rotten. Hadn’t you noticed?”
She laughed. “No. You keep it remarkably well hidden. What’s this?”
They stopped on the sidewalk before an arbored entranceway that was clearly out of place after the severity of stone white military buildings and close-cropped grass plots. She took his arm and they walked through. Inside there were several benches about the lawn and bushes shut out all the reservation except the tops of the taller buildings. A rock garden, complete with a gurgling spring, took up one corner of the little park. A small sign read: Relax with Nature—Courtesy Squadron B, 23rd MP Battalion.
“How thoughtful of them,” Virginia said. “I’ve been here a year and didn’t know anything about this. Let’s do as the sign says.”
“Remind me to be nice to MP’s from now on,” Martin said as they moved to the bench nearest the small waterfall.
“I’ve told you my life,” he said when they were seated. “Now it’s your turn.”
“Do you want the short form or the long form—better make it the short one. I don’t think there’d be time for the full story. I’ve always felt close to Dad. Remember most of my life at Billingsley—he was there longest. When Mother was living it was fun and we were all happy. I even managed to get a year of college before she died and I had to take over with Bobby.”
He reached for a cigarette, gave her one. As he touched a match to it, her eyes shifted to his and something smoldered behind them. He read invitation there, and it moved him. Yet he saw something else, something calculating and purposeful that made her desirable because it made her all the more unknown and challenging. The afternoon was suddenly warm. The match nearly burned his fingers before he had his own cigarette burning.
They sat in silence then, listening to the water run over the rocks, vaguely aware of the movement of motor vehicles somewhere on the reservation, the clatter of carpenters’ hammers somewhere farther away.
“What do you think of Dad?” she said suddenly.
“Why do you ask that? It’s too general a question.”
“You haven’t been getting along too well with him, have you, Martin? You shouldn’t have said what you did about Bobby, you know. That upset him.”
“I’m sorry. I just asked him—”
“Bobby is just a little boy. You know him now. You’ve seen and heard him. All he thinks about is rocket ships and space travel and the outer galaxy, not levitation and legerdemain.”
Martin studied the glowing end of his cigarette. He felt her mention of the incident was a reprimand, but he did not want to argue with her about it. It also revealed that she and her father must have talked things over.
“Why didn’t you go to the movies last night?”
He laughed but she did not smile. “Your father asked me that already this morning. Why is everybody so concerned about whether or not I went to the movies?”
“Dad would have told you all you wanted to know. You didn’t have to ask those men about him.”
Had he misinterpreted her eyes? She wasn’t really angry, was she? Could this be a game?
“I didn’t ask anyone about him, Virginia. They merely talked to each other and I listened. As a matter of fact, they only told me they couldn’t discuss anything with me.”
She looked at him now. “Do they like my father?”
“Underneath I think they do. They were just objecting to some of his methods. They—”
Now her eyes were angry. “They would object to you, too, if you were the one who told them what to do. They have a soft job, an easy berth with civil service and they are bored because security prevents their leaving the reservation. They are fed up, so they pick on their boss.” She snapped her fingers. “I wouldn’t give you a dime a dozen for the likes of them.”
He put his cigarette out by arcing it into the water.
She followed it with her eyes, then crushed her own under her heel in the grass. “And that Dr. Merrill. He’s a detriment to the whole project. He’s a drunken bum. Once he was a brilliant man. I don’t see how my father puts up with him.”
A bell ringing somewhere in Martin’s brain told him the girl lacked conviction. He wondered why she and her father—and Bobby—continued to sound off-key. He had been around enough—it was his business to analyze people and he had a special aptitude for it—yet the three Penns were baffling. There was something lacking in the fiber, something peculiar to the weave—or perhaps it was something added, something alien.
The incident with Bobby, the disappearance of Forrest Killian—in a test tube, Dr. Merrill said—and the strange experience of Ethel Winters, the alternate hot and cold personalities of the Penns themselves; they added up to something out of the ordinary. What was it?
He thought of the scrap of paper he had in his pocket in which Dr. Merrill had written about “something strange.” He had already seen enough strange things, what he wanted now was a reason, a motive for these things. Not something new. If he could uncover the mystery he would then have something really unusual for National Scene. The whole affair was beginning to transcend the pretense of a mere cover story on a personality. He hoped that whatever it was, it would be something innocent so that he could use it. The thought of General Deems descending on the reservation with an army of CIC men did not end the story the way he would want it.
“What time is it?” she asked. “Hadn’t we better go?”
He looked at his wrist watch. “We’ve got ten minutes.”
She had taken his wrist to look at the watch and as she did so a blonde forelock fell over her eye. Without thinking he brushed it back and she smiled at him. “I’m afraid I sounded angry with you,” she said. “I’m not, really. I think you’re very nice.” Her eyes were glowing, her even, white teeth bright in the sun.
“I work hard at it.”
“It seems natural.”
“It depends upon whom I’m with,” Martin countered.
She laughed, rose and extended her hands to him. She did not move away when he got to his feet to find her looking at him fetchingly.
The first kiss was gentle and he released her only to take her again. The second kiss was not gentle.
The civilian club was deserted when he got there a few minutes after five, but it started filling up shortly thereafter with people who stopped by for a beer or two before dinner. Martin bought one and sat at the same table he had taken the night before.
It had been a profitable day in spite of its bad start. Virginia talked at length about her father, and even Ethel, when they returned to the house with his clothes and typewriter after they had passed inspection, contributed to the discussion, adding recent dates and facts when needed. Bobby, when he came home from school, went to his television.
Breaking away from Virginia for his meeting with Dr. Merrill proved simpler than he thought it would be. He mentioned he was going to the club to pick up a carton of cigarettes and he held his breath for the reaction. Virginia merely suggested he pick up several packs for her while she helped Ethel with dinner. Things were going so well, in fact, that he had misgivings about the imminent meeting and felt a vague mistrust of Dr. Merrill.
The doctor appeared within the next few minutes, looked around the room before he sat down.
“Have you been, waiting long?” he asked.
“No, but I don’t have much time.”
“Then I’ll get right to the point.” Dr. Merrill shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “You’ve probably been bawled out for talking to me.” Martin started to interrupt, but the man waved him silent. “I don’t know how Dr. Penn found out about it, but he cornered me the first thing this morning. He has a faculty for doing the unsuspected.”
“You probably were baw
led out yourself, then, weren’t you?”
“I am every day. Look,” he said earnestly, “I know pretty well what Dr. Penn has said to you about the project. It wouldn’t take much to convince an outsider that Dr. Penn is on the right track, but believe me when I say the rest of us know better. He has a glib way of convincing the brass what he’s doing is right.”
The doctor lowered his voice. “He’s having us go through what is standard practice in every school and university, telling us that in our experiments with frogs we’re apt to run on to something new. We’re just marking time. What we ought to be doing is looking for the nerve buds that are responsible for regeneration, for it is these special nerves that innervate the structure which has to be restored and it could be the key to the metamorphosis of an ordinary cell to the regrowing type.”
“That’s all very interesting, but—”
“If regeneration is due to the localized persistence of embryonic tissue, or of rejuvenescent cells whose formative factors are activated by a stimulus, we ought to be looking for such a tissue in man, we ought to be seeking the stimulus responsible. Another tack might be looking into our own body cells to discover what part the cytochrome plays in our growth, how it might be used to regenerate lost parts. In insects this substance is secreted by cells acted upon by hormones and it helps some insects through their amazing metamorphosis. We haven’t looked into so many things. We ought to be doing any one of them instead of cutting up frogs like high-school students.”
“That,” Martin said to the out-of-breath scientist, “is a matter between you and Dr. Penn. I wouldn’t know which of you is right.”
Dr. Merrill sat back, adjusted his glasses. “He has got you doubting, hasn’t he? Oh, he’s a smooth one, all right.”
“I’m sorry,” Martin said, drinking the last of his beer. “It looks like a difference of opinion to me. Is that the ‘strange thing’ you were going to talk to me about?”
The doctor shook his head. “No. Now I’m not sure I want to tell you about that.”
