Darwin’s Radio

Kaye climbed into bed and pulled the down comforter up under her neck. ‘At least I’m not feeling sorry for myself anymore,’ she said in a bold voice. Crickson joined her, parading his fluffy orange tail across the bed. Temin leaped up as well, more dignified, though a little damp. He condescended to be rubbed down with her towel.

For the first time since Mount Kazbeg, she felt safe and balanced. Poor little girl, she accused. Waiting for her husband to return. Waiting for her real husband to return.

CHAPTER NINE Manhattan (#ulink_735b7e2c-be63-5945-8c3b-941ade590cfe)

Mark Augustine stood before the window of his small hotel room, holding a late night bourbon and water on the rocks, and listened to Dicken’s report.

Augustine was a compact and efficient man with smiling brown eyes, a firmly rooted head of concentrated gray hair, a small but jutting nose, and expressive lips. His skin was permanently sun-browned from years spent in equatorial Africa, and from his years in Atlanta, his voice was soft and melodious. He was a tough and resourceful man, adept at politicking, as befitted a director, and it was said by many at the CDC that he was being groomed to be the next Surgeon General.

When Dicken finished, Augustine put down his drink. ‘Ver-r-r-r-ry inter-esting,’ he said in an Artie Johnson voice. ‘Amazing work, Christopher.’

Christopher smiled, but waited for the long assessment.

‘It fits with most of what we know. I’ve spoken with the SG,’ Augustine continued. ‘She thinks we’re going to have to go public in small steps, and soon. I agree. First, we’ll let the scientists have their fun, cloak it in a little romance. You know, tiny invaders from inside our own bodies, gee, isn’t it fascinating, we don’t know what they can do. That sort of thing. Doel and Davison in California can outline their discovery and do that for us. They’ve been working hard enough. They certainly deserve some glory.’ Augustine again lifted the glass of whiskey and twirled the ice and water with a quiet tinkle. ‘Did Dr Mahy say when they can get your samples analyzed?’

‘No,’ Dicken said.

Augustine smiled sympathetically. ‘You would rather have followed them to Atlanta.’

‘I’d rather have flown them there myself and done the work,’ Dicken said.

‘I’m going to Washington Thursday,’ Augustine said. ‘I’m backing up the Surgeon General before Congress. NIH could be there. We aren’t bringing in the secretary of HHS yet. I want you with me. I’ll tell Francis and Jon to put out their press release tomorrow morning. It’s been ready for a week.’

Dicken admired this with a private, slightly ironic smile. HHS – Health and Human Services – was the huge branch of government that oversaw the NIH – the National Institutes of Health – which in turn oversaw the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ‘A well-oiled machine,’ he said.

Augustine took this as a compliment. ‘We’ve still got our heads buried up our asses. We’ve riled Congress with our stance on tobacco and firearms. The bastards in Washington decide we’re a big fat target. They cut our funding by a third to help pay for a new tax cut. Now a big one comes and it’s not out of Africa or the rain forest. It has nothing to do with our little rape of mother nature. It’s a fluke, and it comes from inside our own blessed little bodies.’ Augustine’s smile turned wolfish. ‘It makes my hair prickle, Christopher. This is a godsend. We have to present this with timing, with drama. If we don’t do this right, there’s a real danger no one in Washington will pay attention until we lose an entire generation of babies.’

Dicken wondered how he could contribute to this runaway train. There had to be some way he could promote his fieldwork, all those years tracking boojums. ‘I’ve been thinking about a mutation angle,’ he said, his mouth dry. He laid out the stories of mutated babies he had heard in Ukraine, and outlined some of his theory of radiation-induced release of HERV.

Augustine narrowed his eyelids and shook his head. ‘We know about birth defects from Chernobyl. No news in that,’ he murmured. ‘But there’s no radiation here. It doesn’t gel, Christopher.’ He opened the room’s window and the noise of traffic ten floors below grew. Breeze puffed the inner white curtains.

Dicken persisted, trying to salvage his argument, at the same time aware that his evidence was woefully inadequate. ‘There’s a strong possibility that Herod’s does more than cause miscarriages. It seems to pop up in comparatively isolated populations. It’s been active at least since the 1960s. The political response has often been extreme. Nobody would wipe out a village or kill dozens of mothers and fathers and their unborn children, just because of a local run of miscarriages.’

Augustine shrugged. ‘Much too vague,’ he said, staring down at the street below.

‘Enough for an investigation,’ Dicken suggested.

Augustine frowned. ‘We’re talking empty wombs, Christopher,’ he said calmly. ‘We have to play from a big scary idea, not rumors and science fiction.’

CHAPTER TEN (#ulink_1c7f81db-4e1e-5feb-bbc1-67e251c1f4f7)

Kaye heard footsteps up the stairs, sat up in bed and pulled her hair from her eyes, then forked her fingers through her hair in time to see Saul. He stalked on tiptoes into the bedroom, along the carpet runner, carrying a small package wrapped in red foil and tied with a ribbon, and a bouquet of roses and baby’s breath.

‘Damn,’ he said, seeing she was awake. He held the roses to one side with a flourish and bent over the bed to kiss her. His lips opened and were so slightly moist without being aggressive. That was his signal that her needs came first but he was interested, very. ‘Welcome home. I have missed you, Mädchen.’

‘Thank you. It’s good to be here.’

Saul sat on the side of the bed, staring at the roses. ‘I am in a good mood. My lady is home.’ He smiled broadly and lay beside her, swinging his legs up and resting his stocking feet on the bed. Kaye could smell the roses, intense and sweet, almost too much this early in the morning. He presented her with the gift. ‘For my brilliant friend.’

Kaye sat up as Saul plumped her pillow into a backrest. Seeing Saul in fine form had its old effect on her: hope and joy at being home and a little closer to something centered. She hugged him awkwardly around the shoulders, nuzzling his neck.

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Now open the box.’

She raised her eyebrows, pursed her lips, and pulled on the ribbon. ‘What have I done to deserve this?’ she asked.

‘You have never really understood how valuable and wonderful you are,’ Saul said. ‘Maybe it’s just that I love you. Maybe it’s a special occasion just that you’re back. Or … maybe we’re celebrating something else.’

‘What?’

‘Open it.’

She realized with growing intensity that she had been away for weeks. She pulled off the red foil and kissed his hand slowly, eyes fixed on his face. Then she looked down at the box.

Inside was a large medallion bearing the familiar bust of a famous munitions manufacturer. It was a Nobel prize – made of chocolate.

Kaye laughed out loud. ‘Where … did you get this?’

‘Stan loaned me his and I made a cast,’ Saul said.

‘And you’re not going to tell me what’s going on?’ Kaye asked, fingering his thigh.

‘Not for a little while,’ Saul said. He put the roses down and removed his sweater and she began unbuttoning his shirt.

The curtains were still drawn and the room had not yet received its ration of morning sun. They lay on the bed with sheets and blankets and comforter rucked all around them. Kaye saw mountains in the rumples and stalked her fingers over a flowered peak. Saul arched his back with little cartilaginous pops and swallowed a few great gulps of air. ‘I’m out of shape,’ he said. ‘I’m becoming a desk jockey. I need to bench press a few more test benches.’

Kaye held out thumb and forefinger on her hands and spaced them an inch apart, then raised and lowered them rhythmically. ‘Test tube exercises,’ she said.

‘Right brain, left brain,’ Saul rejoined, grabbing his temples and shifting his head from side to side. ‘You’ve got three weeks’ worth of Internet jokes to catch up on.’

‘Poor me,’ Kaye said.

‘Breakfast!’ Saul shouted, and swung his legs out of bed. ‘Downstairs, fresh, waiting to be reheated.’

Kaye followed him in her dressing gown. Saul is back, she tried to convince herself. My good Saul is back.

He had stopped by the local grocery to pick up ham-and-cheese stuffed croissants. He arranged their plates between cups of coffee and orange juice on the little table on the back porch. The sun was bright, the air was clean after the squall and warming nicely. It was going to be a lovely day.

For Kaye, with every hour of good Saul, the lure of the mountains faded like a girlish hope. She did not need to get away. Saul chattered about what had been happening at EcoBacter, about his trip to California and Utah and then Philadelphia to confer with their client and partner labs. ‘We have four more pre-clinical tests mandated by our caseworker at the FDA,’ he said sardonically. ‘But at least we’ve shown them we can put antagonistic bacteria together in resource competition and force them to make chemical weapons. We’ve demonstrated we can isolate the bacteriocins, purify them, produce them in neutralized form in bulk – then activate them. Safe in rats, safe in hamsters and vervets, effective against resistant strains of three nasty pathogens. We’re so far ahead of Merck and Aventis they can’t even spit at our butts.’

Bacteriocins were chemicals produced by bacteria that could kill other bacteria. They were a promising new weapon in a rapidly weakening arsenal of antibiotics.

Kaye listened happily. He had not yet told her the news he had promised; he was building to that moment in his own way, taking his own sweet time. Kaye knew the drill and did not give him the satisfaction of appearing eager.

‘If that wasn’t enough,’ he continued, his eyes bright, ‘Mkebe says we’re close to finding a way to bind pili and block plasmid transfer, lactone exchange, gum up the whole command and control and communication network in Staphylococcus aureus. We’ll attack the little buggers from three different directions at once. Boom!’ He pulled back his eloquent hands and wrapped his arms around himself like a satisfied little boy. Then his mood changed.

‘Now,’ Saul said, and his face went suddenly blank. ‘Give it to me straight about Lado and Eliava.’

Kaye stared at him for a moment with an intensity that almost crossed her eyes. Then she glanced down and said, ‘I think they’ve decided to go with someone else.’