by Ben Bova
“Yes! Yes!” they screamed out of the darkness. I began to realize how Hitler could get kids to march their neighbors off to concentration camps.
“Let me see my people!” Simmonds exhorted. “Light your candles of faith.”
Thousands and thousands of candles lit up the darkness like the world’s biggest birthday cake. I found out later that Simmonds’s people had sold a candle to every person who came to the rally for a buck apiece. We could’ve run the hospital for a month on the candle money. Now they all lit up, a sea of lights flickering and dancing out there like an ocean of fireflies.
They surged toward the stage, where a solid wall of New York City police stood between them and Simmonds.
“Now is the time to show that you are prepared to sacrifice for the Lord,” Simmonds told them, lowering his voice slightly. The crowd hushed and stilled.
“Now is the time to give generously to this fine hospital, so that this fine doctor can continue the Lord’s work here among you.”
The inevitable pitch for money.
“I want to see a sea of green,” Simmonds told them. “As my helpers go among you, fill your hands with cash and raise your hands to the Lord.”
God almighty, I thought, if I were a pickpocket I’d follow this guy wherever he went. I peered into the candlelit crowd and, sure enough, they were digging into their pockets and purses and waving bills over their heads. I couldn’t tell if they were ones or bigger, but whatever they were, it must have totaled up to plenty.
When it was all over, it took a full squad of police to get us from the bleachers, through the milling crowd, and out to the buses that waited to drive us to Simmonds’s hotel. He was staying at the Marriott this time, down near Grand Central. His people had set up a small reception, small in comparison to the rally, that is. Must have been close to a hundred people in one of the hotel’s function rooms. Nonalcoholic drinks, cheese, and fruit. A lot of tuxedos. This was the big-money crowd and Simmonds worked them as expertly as he had the mob in the park. I saw a lot of checkbooks opening up.
I had to stand there with him and chat with just about everyone who was there. Simmonds acted as if we were old friends, almost brothers. Julia stayed by my side, the expression on her face somewhere between worried curiosity and reluctant amusement.
“Tell me more about this scientific work you mentioned,” said one of the men as he shook Simmonds’s hand. He was elderly, overweight, his shirt collar at least a size and half too tight for his throat. His wife was rake-thin, and had a pained look on her gaunt face. Bleeding ulcers, she looked like to me.
“Dr. Marshak can explain it better than I can,” Simmonds said, patting the man’s hand and moving him and his wife on to me while he turned to smile at the next couple.
The man gave me an expectant look.
“It’s research into organ regeneration,” I said, almost mumbled, in fact. “Instead of transplanting organs from a donor, they want to learn how we can grow new organs within our bodies.”
Before the man could reply, his wife snapped, “They’re not using animals for experiments, are they?”
“Of course they are,” I answered without thinking. “You wouldn’t want to use humans.”
“What kinds of animals?” she asked.
I must have shrugged. “Lab rats, to begin with.”
“Dogs?” she demanded.
“I don’t think so,” I said.
But she wasn’t satisfied with that. “They always use dogs. Scientists always use poor defenseless little doggies. They enjoy torturing the poor things.”
I should have told her she was wrong. I should’ve told her she was crazy. But instead I just said, “As far as I know, they’re not using any dogs.”
Clearly unsatisfied, she dragged her husband away to the fruit punch.
By the time we crawled into a taxi to go home, I was exhausted. I’d put in a regular day at the hospital, then been on my feet all through Simmonds’s sermon and the reception afterward. My feet hurt. For the first time in my life, my legs ached from standing all those hours.
Julia seemed tired, too. At least she was quiet all the way back to our apartment.
But as we undressed for bed, she asked me, “Don’t you think you should warn Arthur?”
“Warn him? About what?”
“That Simmonds has targeted his lab.”
“Targeted?”
“He practically identified Arthur’s laboratory as being the center of all the evil in the universe, didn’t he?”
She slipped off her bra, then padded barefoot into the bathroom. I sat on the bed and called out to her, “Don’t you think you’re exaggerating things?”
“No, I don’t.”
I was so tired it was an effort to take off my loafers. I could hear Julia brushing her teeth. I slumped back on the bed and closed my eyes. Falling asleep instantly is an important survival tactic for practicing doctors.
But Julia wasn’t ready for sleep yet. “I told you he was dangerous and now he’s attacking your brother.”
My eyes popped open. “He was just working up the crowd, for Pete’s sake. Just saying whatever came into his mind.”
“I don’t think so,” Julia said as she pulled the sheet back and climbed into bed. “I think he’ll use Arthur as a target to whip up his followers into a frenzy.”
“And do what? Burn down the lab? Don’t be silly.”
“Jesse, dearest, he’s dealing with very disturbed people. Don’t you realize that? Look at that elderly woman at the reception. She’d rather see experiments on human beings than on dogs. Really!”
“You’re getting worked up over nothing,” I said, even though I worried that she might be right.
“Perhaps. I certainly hope you’re right. All the same, shouldn’t you call Arthur and warn him?”
She was still trying to get Arby and me together. I didn’t go for it. “Arby can take care of himself.”
“I wonder,” Julia said, sounding totally unconvinced.
I turned toward her in the bed and stroked her thigh.
“I thought you were tired,” she said.
“Not that tired.” I went to kiss her.
But Julia put a finger against my mouth. “Lips that have not touched toothpaste shall never touch mine,” she said.
So I brushed my teeth and brought the whole tube of toothpaste back to bed and squirted it all over her naked body.
THE TRIAL:
DAY THREE, MORNING
Your name, please?”
“Professor Doctor Xenophon Zapapas.”
A hint of suppressed tittering rippled through the hearing room. Graves silenced the audience with a stern look.
“Your affiliation?” asked Rosen.
“I am head of the department of molecular biology at the University of Athens and a visiting professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa.”
Zapapas looked like the Hollywood version of a European scientist: he was small, dark, and intense. Dressed almost formally in a striped gray suit with matching vest and precisely knotted cravat, he appeared to be something of a dandy. His face was lean, with large expressive dark eyes and a pencil-slim black mustache, pointed little goatee, and thinning slicked-back hair that glistened in the overhead lights.
Arthur Marshak sat in the front row of the hearing room, watching Zapapas intently. He knew the man by reputation only: Zapapas put out a steady stream of research papers that were all variations of the same basic work he had done more than ten years earlier. He kept on publishing, and journals kept on accepting his papers, even though he had apparently not had a new idea in a decade.
When the National Academy of Sciences had agreed to convene this science court, Arthur had provided Graves and his staff with the names of more than a dozen knowledgeable researchers who could be called on to testify to the court about their evaluations of the scientific evidence he had prepared. Zapapas had not been among them. Rosen, as chief examiner, had gone out and dragooned his own
experts.
Sitting at his place alongside the three judges, Rosen asked, “Professor Zapapas, can you give us your estimation of the research done so far on organ regeneration at Grenford Laboratory?”
“Yes, of course.”
As the professor launched into his scientific testimony, Arthur noticed that Senator Kindelberger’s eyes soon began to glaze over. The senator had shown up on time for this morning’s session and taken his place at the front row of desks, on the opposite side of the judges from Rosen.
Zapapas wanted to show slides to illustrate the points he was going to make. Clerks duly lowered the window drapes and set up a slide projector on the table where Zapapas sat. The judges, Rosen, and Senator Kindelberger all came down from their seats at the front desks and took chairs in front of the jury, facing the projection screen that now covered the chamber’s side wall.
Except, Arthur noticed, that Kindelberger walked quietly through the darkened room and out the door at the rear. He’s had enough, Arthur said to himself. The reporters have noted he’s here; now he can duck out without being bored by the science.
But then, as Zapapas droned on about his own work in fetal tissue transplants, Arthur saw Jesse quietly get up from his seat on the front bench and tiptoe out of the chamber, too.
WASHINGTON:
DIRKSON SENATE
OFFICE BUILDING
Jesse felt nervous, apprehensive as he walked into the air-conditioned lobby of the Dirkson Building. Like a little boy sneaking into an X-rated movie.
I shouldn’t even have bothered going to the hearing this morning, he said to himself. Zapapas and a couple of other so-called experts were scheduled to give their testimony all day. Instead of putting in an appearance at the hearing, I could have slept late for a change.
After going through the metal detector in the lobby, he asked for Senator Kindelberger at the information desk. The security guard phoned, then told him that someone would be down shortly to escort him. Jesse clipped the plastic badge the guard handed him onto his jacket’s breast pocket.
Why does Simmonds want me to see Kindelberger? Jesse asked himself. It’s obvious that the reverend and the senator have joined forces. That must be Faber’s doing. But why do they want to drag me into it?
Looking around the spacious lobby, Jesse saw that the senators had no objections to making themselves comfortable. This building’s a goddamned marble palace, he thought. It must have cost a fortune and a half. A young black woman came to the information desk, shoes clicking on the marble floor, and introduced herself as one of Senator Kindelberger’s aides. She led him to the elevators, then down a handsome wide corridor to the senator’s suite of offices. Bigger than most of the wards back at Mendelssohn, Jesse thought as he gaped at the rich wood paneling and the young staffers who didn’t seem to be straining themselves too hard with work. A lot of talking going on; a lot of telephoning.
Jesse wondered what Julia would think of it. She had applied for U.S. citizenship before getting pregnant again. He wondered how the Congress would stack up against the House of Commons in her eyes.
Elwood Faber had set the meeting for ten o’clock. But although Jesse had made certain to be precisely on time, when his guide ushered him into the senator’s office he saw that Faber and Reverend Simmonds were both already there, seated in front of the senator’s desk. And another man.
He looked familiar: a round, puffy-looking face with baggy eyes. Twenty pounds overweight. Unhealthy grayish pallor; Jesse guessed that he suffered from a circulatory disorder. Forty-five, maybe fifty years old. The guy wasn’t much bigger than Simmonds, except in his bulging middle. Jesse knew he had seen him somewhere before. Those sleepy, hooded eyes. When you looked into them they were cold gray, calculating, cynical.
“Dr. Marshak.” Kindelberger got up and came around his massive desk, smiling warmly, hand outstretched in greeting. He towered over Jesse, a big rawboned man with a tanned, craggy, weatherbeaten face. He’s had a couple of melanomas removed, Jesse saw. At his age, he’s vulnerable.
“You know Reverend Simmonds, of course, and Mr. Faber,” said the senator, not letting go of Jesse’s hand. “I’d like you to meet Joshua Ransom.”
That’s who it is! The face clicked into Jesse’s memory as soon as he heard the name. Joshua Ransom. The self-styled activist. The man who had stopped or delayed a dozen new biotechnology programs with legal maneuverings. Neither a scientist nor a lawyer, Ransom had still managed to carry his objections against new scientific breakthroughs all the way up to the Supreme Court.
“King of the Luddites,” Jesse said to Ransom with a smile.
Ransom did not smile back. “I’ve been called that,” he said in a reedy tenor voice. “It’s a title I accept as an honor.”
Kindelberger looked uneasy.
“It’s all right, Senator,” said Simmonds. Turning to Jesse, “We’re all on the same side here, aren’t we, Dr. Marshak?”
Jesse realized the reverend was right. “I suppose we are,” he said reluctantly.
Kindelberger sat Jesse between Ransom and Simmonds, then went back behind his desk to the big swivel chair. Faber sat off to one side of the office, fading into the background like a professional servant.
“Have you had your breakfast, Doctor? Would you like some coffee, tea, whatever?”
“A cup of coffee will be fine,” Jesse said.
Kindelberger jabbed a finger at the woman who had ushered Jesse into the office. “I’ll have a cup, too. What about you fellas?”
Simmonds and Faber both asked for decaffeinated coffee.
Ransom said, “Pure fruit juice for me. No concentrates, no preservatives.”
Jesse wanted to ask Ransom if he ever took aspirin, but decided not to. Ransom represented a powerful political force, and the senator had invited him to this meeting for a purpose. No sense starting an argument right off the bat. With Simmonds’s religious zealots and Ransom’s antiscience activists, Kindelberger was putting together a serious coalition.
Kindelberger leaned so far back in his chair that Jesse thought he was going to put his feet up on the desk. But instead, he grinned and said, “I bet you’re wondering why we asked you here this morning.”
“It’s obviously got to do with the trial,” said Jesse.
“Damn right,” said the senator. Immediately he looked at Simmonds and apologized, almost sheepishly, “Sorry, Reverend. No offense.”
Simmonds said, “The senator needs to know why you oppose your brother’s work.”
Jesse felt alarmed. Why do they want to know? Isn’t it enough that I’m ready to stick my neck out and testify in the trial? What are they digging for?
The same black woman who had escorted Jesse to the office came in again, carrying a Lucite tray with four heavy mugs and two silver coffeepots, plus a tall glass of juice, giving Jesse a few moments to frame his answer while she put the tray on the senator’s desk and poured the coffee and then left the office, closing the door softly behind her.
Simmonds has been damned good to the hospital, Jesse was thinking as he reached for his mug and sipped at the steaming brew. I don’t want to lose him. But what’s this senator after?
Ransom’s eyes seemed to be boring into Jesse. “We all know why we’re here. But what about you? What’s your angle?”
“I see this as a moral issue,” Simmonds said, “and I assume that Dr. Marshak does, too.”
“In a way,” Jesse temporized.
Kindelberger’s brows knitted together. “Look, now. If I’m going to come out against this thing I’ve got to know who’s supporting me and why. I don’t want to look stupid and I don’t want to be hanging out there all by myself.”
“You won’t be by yourself,” Ransom said.
“Certainly not,” Simmonds added. “All my people will be solidly behind you. We’ll work for your reelection campaign.”
“That’s fine,” Kindelberger said, his eyes never leaving Jesse’s. “But I need to know why Dr. Marshak’s
going against his own brother on this.”
Jesse said nothing. He tried to hide behind his coffee mug, his mind desperately churning. What should I tell him? Why should I open my guts for them? Simmonds should never have put me in this position.
“What the senator needs to know,” Faber said in his soft, placating voice, “is whether or not your brother can actually regenerate organs in human beings.”
“That’s what the trial is supposed to determine,” Jesse said.
“Oh, he’ll be able to,” Ransom said, his voice dripping contempt. “Give a scientist enough time and enough money and he can do anything. Anything at all. Without a thought about what it means to the rest of the world. They just don’t care about anybody except themselves.”
“That’s bullshit,” Jesse snapped.
“Is it?” asked Ransom. “If you let the scientists have their own way they’d be poisoning us with toxic chemicals, creating monsters with genetic mutations, giving us cancer with radiation. I know! I’ve fought all my life to stop them.”
“Yeah, and all you did was delay developments that’ve given us better crop yields with smaller doses of pesticides. And cured victims of genetic diseases.”
“If it weren’t for me we’d all have cancer!” Ransom shrilled.
“Gentlemen!” Simmonds’s deep powerful voice stopped them. “No matter how we feel about these issues, that’s not what we’re here to discuss. We are all agreed that this work on organ regeneration must be stopped, isn’t that right?”
Jesse had to admit that Simmonds was right. Arthur’s work has to be stopped, and if I have to dance with the devil to do it, that’s what I’ll have to do.
Simmonds went on, “I am unalterably opposed to using fetal tissue for this or any research. It encourages women to have abortions. It encourages them to create life and then deliberately commit murder.”
“They never used fetal stem cells,” Jesse said. “They only used adult stem cells, and that was just at the beginning of the work. They’ve moved past that; they don’t need stem cells at all now.”
