by Ben Bova
“Not yet. But this antibody treatment I told you about is a step in that direction.”
We seemed to have come full circle. I had tried to get him to talk about some of the other projects going on in the lab and he had led me neatly back to the subject he had started with.
Arthur got to his feet. “Come on, I’ll introduce you to the woman who’s doing the research and she can show you around her lab. You ought to see how the work gets done.”
And I’ll be out of your hair for a while, I thought. A pretty slick way of getting rid of me. But I followed him out of his office and into the laboratories where “the work gets done.” To my surprise, even after he introduced me to Cassie Ianetta, he didn’t leave my side. He seemed as excited about this work as he told me I should be. And as Cassie showed how she had stopped tumors from growing in laboratory rats and macaque monkeys and even chimpanzees, I did indeed become excited.
The three of us walked back through the animal pens to the fenced-over playground behind the laboratory building. A chimp was playing on the jungle gym when we pushed through the double doors. He took one look at me, a stranger, and ran off to the nearer of the two clipped-back trees. He swung up the stunted branches and sat in the highest crotch of the tree, his eyes flicking from Cassie to Arthur to me.
“It’s all right, Max.” Cassie held her arms out to the chimp. “Come on down and say hello.”
Arthur half whispered to me, “Max is Cassie’s baby. She taught him sign language when he was just a little toddler.”
I watched, fascinated, while Cassie ignored both me and her boss to speak softly, reassuringly, to the chimp. Max clung to his perch, though.
“Max has generated several strains of tumor-killing factors for us,” Arthur said while we waited.
“He’s a scientist?” I asked, grinning at my own wit.
“He’s a factory,” Arthur replied. “Cassie has used him to generate various factors. He’s now immune to a half dozen different types of cancers.”
That made my eyebrows rise. “Could that immunity be given to people?”
With a nod, Arthur said, “Cassie’s about to start field trials on human subjects.”
“My god,” I said. “If she can accomplish that she ought to get the Nobel Prize for medicine! Her and the chimp both.”
But Arthur shook his head. “Neither,” he muttered.
I was about to ask why not when Max finally decided it was safe to come down and join us. He scampered down from the tree so fast he was almost a blur and went straight to Cassie. He’s bigger than she is, I realized with a start, as the chimp wrapped a long hairy arm around Cassie’s waist.
Max waggled his free hand and Cassie laughed.
“He’s asking you if you’ve brought him any food,” Cassie explained.
I felt suddenly foolish. “I’ve got a couple of breath mints in my purse,” I said.
“No, it’s all right. I’ll give him his supper in a little while.” Cassie was smiling happily, radiantly, like a real mother with a real baby. She really does love this chimp, I realized.
“You and Max seem to get along very well,” I said, thinking it was the understatement of the month.
“Max has been a wonderful helper, a real friend,” Cassie said. Her eyes shifted toward Marshak. “And now he’s retired.”
“Retired?” I asked.
“Yes. He’s done everything we’ve asked him to, and now we’re not going to use him in any more experiments.”
She’s talking to me, I realized, but she’s still looking at Marshak.
“That’s right,” Arthur said. “Max has earned a graceful retirement. We’re going to put him out to stud.”
Cassie frowned at him, almost fiercely.
Max yawned conspicuously and knuckle-walked to the jungle gym.
“I think we’re boring him,” Arthur said. He and I laughed.
When Arthur finally walked me back to the front entrance, I realized that the receptionist and most of the office staff had already gone for the day. It was past quitting time, although the researchers all seemed to be still in their labs or offices. A uniformed security guard sat behind the reception desk now. I saw through the glass doors that it had indeed showered; the parking lot was puddled.
“I think I’m in sensory overload,” I said honestly to Arthur. “I’ve got a lot of information to sort out.”
“Remember that Cassie’s work with Max is strictly off the record,” he cautioned.
“Why—”
“We don’t want to stir up the wackos when the field trials start,” he said. “Can’t you just see the headlines: Scientists Use Chimp Genes on Human Guinea Pigs?”
I had to admit he was right, although I felt a surge of resentment. Why did you spend half the afternoon showing it to me if you didn’t want me to write about it?
As if he could read my thoughts, Arthur said, “I just couldn’t resist showing it off to you. Cassie’s done a magnificent job and her work could be a major breakthrough in cancer treatment, once we get the clinical results we’re hoping for.”
I said nothing as Arthur walked me to my rain-spattered car. It still looked dull and dingy. But I was thinking, He showed me Cassie and her chimp because he’s proud of the work the kid’s done. He’s in love with the work; he’s excited as hell about it. Like a kid in a toy store.
ARTHUR
I watched Pat Hayward drive away, thinking, She’s one very attractive redhead. Sharp mind, too. She appreciates the work we’re doing here.
But as I stepped back inside the lab my thoughts turned to that damned question she had asked me. Why did you leave teaching? You obviously enjoy it.
It all came surging back, like a black storm-driven tide. Even after eight years I felt nothing but fury toward Professor Wilson K. Potter, the man who had driven me out of the academic world.
The so-called quiet groves of academe are more like a jungle. I had found that out while I was still a graduate student, but I didn’t let it bother me. It’s just part of the academic world, the backbiting, the personality clashes, the jockeying for position. It was a lot worse in the other departments, I thought. At least in the sciences you had your research and you saw to it that it got published with your name on it. Maybe your professor stuck his name in there first, but everybody knew who really did the work.
When I got an assistant professorship in the department of molecular biology, the competition and gossip and infighting didn’t stop, they became more intense. There were a handful of us snotty new assistant professors, each of us full of our own self-importance and determined to reach that one cherished goal: a full professorship. That meant tenure, a safe position for life, an academic home that no one could threaten. I was going to be the one who beat out all the others, I knew that just as surely as I knew that one day I’d get the Nobel Prize for my research.
At first I had almost enjoyed the competition. I saw myself as a sassy young upstart invading the sacred halls of scholarly power. I was intent on making my mark. I was going to get to Stockholm, no matter what.
But I didn’t reckon with the quiet, implacable Professor Wilson K. Potter, the department chairman. He was a slight, spare man, almost completely bald, with innocent blue eyes and a constant little half smile playing on his lips. The kind who could knife you in the back without a shred of remorse. Potter had his own ideas about who he would appoint as a full professor and who deserved a Nobel Prize.
I wasn’t too worried about Potter. The man was notorious for putting his own name on his graduate students’ work and claiming their ideas and sweat as his own. But since everybody knew it, it didn’t really matter too much. The anti-Semitic little creep made life as difficult as he could for me, but I held my temper and wrote off Potter as one of the annoyances in life that had to be endured. He wouldn’t be department chairman forever. I was young enough to think that I could wait him out. After all, I intended to stay at Columbia for the rest of my life.
It was the c
ancer patent that tripped me up.
My first warning of trouble came at the annual Christmas cocktail party in the faculty club. A man approached me. He looked several years younger than I, but already soft, round-faced, starting to bloat. Still, he looked prosperous in a way that scientists seldom attained. Most of the other faculty members were in their usual well-worn tweeds or skirts and blouses. This guy was in a dark blue three-piece suit and an actual school tie.
“You’re Professor Marshak, aren’t you?” he asked me. I had been standing at the bar, getting a refill on my glass of white wine while I squinted through the smoke and laughing conversations and tinkling ice cubes at a certain sultry-looking professor of Romance languages sipping champagne across the crowded lounge. She was wearing a black sheath and looking bored with the older men surrounding her.
“Arthur Marshak,” I answered.
“I’m Greg Barrow.” He put out his hand. I took it briefly; it felt slightly clammy, but that might have been because he’d been holding his drink in it.
“What department are you in?” I asked. It was a standard question at faculty bashes; an icebreaker, like asking one’s astrological sign.
“Actually, I’m not a faculty member. I’m with the university’s legal staff.”
“A lawyer?” I drew back in mock horror.
Greg Barrow chuckled tolerantly. “I’m afraid you’re going to like lawyers even less in a few days.”
“How so?”
“It’s this patent you’ve applied for.”
“What about it?”
“The rights belong to the university.”
I shrugged. “I know that. But the university assigns the rights to me whenever—”
“I’m afraid the rights won’t be assigned in this case,” Barrow said ruefully.
Puzzled, I asked, “What do you mean?”
“The university will not release the rights to you.”
“Why not? They’ve done it before. It’s a special deal that we made a few years back.”
“Not anymore.”
I felt more surprised than angry. “When you say the university, just who in the university made this decision?”
Barrow shook his head slightly. “That’s not for me to say.”
That aroused my suspicions. I put my wine glass down on the bar. “Just what the hell is going on here?”
“You’ll be called to a meeting with the chief legal counsel. He’ll explain it all to you. I just thought I’d give you a little warning so you won’t be caught completely by surprise.”
A Christmas gift from a lawyer. “Well, thank you—I guess.”
Barrow put on a regretful smile. “Sorry to spoil the party for you.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, for some stupid reason trying to sound nonchalant. “Happy holidays.”
“Merry Christmas.”
The lawyer melted back into the crowd. For a while I just stood by the bar, my mind in a turmoil of surmises and worried suspicions. Finally I decided that there was nothing I could do until the legal department called me, so I retrieved my glass of wine and made my way through the crowd to the brunette I’d been eying. Maybe a lesson in the Romance languages will make me feel better, I thought.
It did, but only temporarily.
Sure enough, the day before the Christmas break began, I was called to the office of the university’s chief legal counsel and was told point-blank that the rights to my patent would not be assigned to me.
“The university will retain the rights,” said the counsel. He was a lean scarecrow of a man, cadaverous almost, in a wrinkled dead gray suit. He looked decidedly unhappy.
“The university has assigned the rights to me on my previous applications,” I said. “We have an informal agreement—”
“That will no longer be the case,” he told me. “The university intends to license the rights to a commercial bidder.”
“Who made this decision?” I wanted to know.
The scarecrow spread his long arms. “The, uh, university.”
He was trying to stonewall me. “Was it your idea? Did the decision originate with the legal staff?”
“No!” He blurted it like a man proclaiming his innocence.
“Then where did it originate?”
Silence.
“It had to come from somewhere,” I insisted. “Someone.”
“From your own department,” the counsel admitted.
From Potter, I realized.
It was starting to snow when I stormed out of the counsel’s office. Blind-angry, bareheaded, wearing nothing heavier than my tweed jacket, I tramped through the falling wet flakes back to my own building and straight to the office of the department chairman.
Potter’s office was far from pretentious. Bigger than the cubicles his faculty members were assigned, it was nonetheless a small, stuffy room crammed with bookshelves and a mahogany desk that Potter sat behind like a general looking out at his battlefield from the safety of the walls of his fortress. He was a small man, small in every way; I had often thought that a larger office would merely diminish his stature. There was one window, behind Potter’s back. The snow was thickening outside as I took the worn old wooden chair before the desk, my soaked shoes making puddles on his faded thin carpet.
“I’m very busy,” Potter said. And he started fluttering papers on his desk, with that venomous little half smile of his ticking at the corners of his mouth.
“You instructed the legal department not to assign the rights to my patent to me.”
Potter’s lopsided little smile disappeared. “Who told you that?”
“Let’s not play games, Professor. You did it and I know you did. The question is, why?”
“Legally, any patent granted for work by the faculty belongs to the university.”
“The university has assigned the rights to my previous patents to me. You know that. The arrangement was agreed to more than three years ago.”
“Yes, quite true,” Potter snapped, his eyes glittering angrily. “And you turn around and license the rights to Omnitech and make a fortune.”
“What of it? Other faculty members do the same thing. It’s common practice.”
“They get rich!” Potter screeched. “They make fortunes for themselves while the rest of us try to live on a professor’s salary.”
I sagged back on the hard wooden chair. By god, he’s jealous. The old bastard is jealous!
“A professor’s salary isn’t exactly penury,” I said, more softly.
Potter’s face contorted. “Do you know what Samuels told me last April? His university salary barely covers his income taxes! He invited me out to his big fancy house out on the Island just to show off how well he’s doing and then he tells me that his salary is not quite big enough to pay his income tax!”
“But that’s no reason to—”
“I won’t have any more members of my department using this university as a launching pad for their personal fortunes. Never again!”
“That’s unfair,” I said. “Dictatorial.”
Potter pointed a bony finger at me. “See here, Marshak. You’ve got to decide whether you’re going to be a proper member of this faculty or a money-grubbing businessman. You can’t be both. I won’t have it.”
My insides were trembling. “Are you telling me that you won’t allow me to have any of the benefits from the patentable work I do?”
“I’m telling you that you’re here to teach and do research, not to build up your private fortune. If you want to get rich, then get out!”
I was fighting to remain calm, reasonable. “I’ve worked all my life to get where I am. I’ve seen others take my ideas and make fortunes on them. It’s not fair of you to prevent me from getting what I deserve.”
“You signed the same disclosure and waiver forms that I did when you accepted your position on the faculty,” Potter said. “You’re not going to get special treatment anymore. That’s final.”
I got to my feet.
My legs were shaking. “I thought that I had finally found a home, a place where I could work and live for the rest of my life.”
“You are using university facilities and students to line your own pockets,” Potter snarled at me. “You don’t belong in academia, you’re just a money-mad Jew.”
“I’m not going to allow you to stop me,” I said, looking down on the little man.
“Then get out!” Potter snarled. “And don’t try to come back!”
Why did you leave teaching? Patricia had asked me. You obviously enjoy it.
Yes. I did enjoy the teaching. I did enjoy it. But that gloomy December evening as I stood outside with the thickening snow falling on my bare head, looking up at Potter’s window, I felt as if I had been orphaned and thrown out onto the street.
Which was just what Potter had done to me.
PATRICIA HAYWARD
It wasn’t until I had driven halfway back to Old Saybrook that I realized that I had gotten precious little information about Arthur Marshak. Hours and hours about the new antibody process and Cassie Ianetta’s work on stopping tumor growth. But the background information about the man himself was minuscule.
Is he really that self-effacing? I asked myself. He sure doesn’t come across as humble or shy. Then I wondered, Is he hiding something? Is there a bigger story here than the one Omnitech wants me to write?
By the time I got to our weather-beaten old cottage I had made up my mind to phone Marshak first thing the next morning to schedule a follow-up interview.
As I tossed my bag on the kitchen table, I heard Livvie call from the living room, “That you, Patsy?”
Who else? I answered silently.
“Patsy?”
How I hated being called Patsy!
“Patsy, is that you or should I call 911?”
“It’s me, Mom. Who else would it be?”
I walked into the tiny front room, suddenly feeling tired and cranky. The picture window had once looked out on a nice lawn and the shore of Long Island Sound. But our landlord had put up another bungalow on that lawn and now all we had to look at was its back windows.
