God Project (22 page)

   George Hamlin peeled off his horn-rimmed glasses and used two fingers to massage the bridge of his nose. The gesture was more habitual than anything else; his energy level, as always, was high. He was prepared to work through the night.

First, there had been the apparent breakthrough with Randy Corliss.

Then there had been the call from Boston.

Paul Randolph’s call had disturbed him more than he
had let on. It was nothing, he was sure, no more than an upset mother clutching at any straw that might lead her to her son. Even so, it had disturbed him that the mother had turned out to be Lucy Corliss. Why today? Why should the security of the project be threatened today, and by the mother of the one subject who offered a promise of success?

But he had put his concerns aside. All it meant, really, was that he would simply have to work faster. He picked up his laboratory analyses once more and began studying them.

The problem, he knew, had always had to do with the restrictive endonuclease-ligase compound—the combination of enzymes that altered the genetic structure of the egg just prior to conception. The process was basically a simple one, once he had developed the tools to accomplish it. It was a matter of cutting out a section of the deoxyribonucleic acid—DNA—then repairing it in an altered form. But it had taken Hamlin years to develop the compounds, all of which had to be tested by trial and error.

They had been years of lonely, unrecognized work that, so far, had led only to a series of total, if unspectacular, failures.

Failures that had not been, and never would be, noticed by the scientific community, but failures, nevertheless.

George Hamlin did not like failures.

He turned back to the first page of the report and began reading it through once more. He flipped through page after page of charts, graphic correlations of causes and effects, chemical analyses of the enzymes they had used, medical histories of every subject since the project had begun.

The key, he was now certain, lay in Randy Corliss. He turned to the page describing the genetic analysis of the boy.

It was the introns that interested him.

The answer, he had always been sure, was locked in the introns that lay like genetic garbage along the double
helix of DNA. Ever since he had begun studying them, George Hamlin had disagreed with the prevailing theory that the introns were nothing more than gibberish to be edited out of the genetic codes as the process of converting DNA into RNA, and finally into the messenger RNA that would direct cell development, was carried out.

No, Hamlin had long ago decided that introns were something else, and he had finally come to the conclusion that they were a sort of evolutionary experimentation lab, in which nature put together new combinations of the genetic alphabet, then segregated them off, so they wouldn’t be activated except by genetic chance. Thus, only if the experiment proved successful, and the organism lived, would the activated intron, now an exon, be passed on to succeeding generations.

What Hamlin had decided to do was find a way to activate the introns artificially, determine their functions, and then learn to control them and use them.

And slowly, over the years, he had succeeded.

That was when he had begun experimenting on human beings.

That was when the secrecy had begun, and that was when the failures had begun.

And now, locked somewhere within the small, sturdy body of Randy Corliss, the final answer seemed to be emerging.

It was too soon to tell, but it was only a matter of a few months now.

All that had to happen was for Randy Corliss to survive.

The years of secrecy would be over, and George Hamlin would take his place in the ranks of preeminent genetic engineers.

He wished, as he had many times over the years, that he could carry out his experiments entirely in his lab. But that was impossible.

Extrauterine conception was no problem—combining a sperm with an egg outside the womb had been accomplished years ago.

The problem was that there were so many subjects, so many embryos to be brought to maturity, and not nearly enough women who would agree to bear those “test-tube babies,” particularly knowing full well that those babies would be far more the children of George Hamlin than the children of themselves and their husbands.

And so he had made the decision.

The DNA in the ovum would be altered
in utero
rather than
in vitro
.

If the experiments failed, the parents would never know exactly what had happened.

If they succeeded, the parents would raise, albeit unknowingly, a group of wonderfully healthy, if not quite human, children.

And success seemed imminent. If Randy Corliss lived.

   The four of them sat stiffly in Lucy Corliss’s small living room: Lucy and Jim on the love seat, Sally Montgomery and Carl Bronski on the wing chairs.

It had not been easy for Sally to get there. After hearing what had happened that afternoon, both from Sally and her mother, Steve had suggested that Sally was overwrought. Sally, though she thought the word was ridiculous, had let it pass. Then, rather than argue with him, she had quietly agreed that a good night’s rest would be the best thing for her. A few minutes later, Lucy had called and asked if she would be willing to explain the computer data to Sergeant Bronski. She had agreed, and that was when the fight had started. And now, along with Steve, she had her mother to contend with. Phyllis had sat impassively at first, trying to ignore the argument. At last she had, in her infuriatingly rational voice, sided with Steve.

Sally, she declared, should not get involved with the problems of strangers. Certainly, she went on, Sally had enough to cope with right now, without taking on the problems of Lucy Corliss.

Finally, Sally had had enough. Barely retaining her civility, she told her husband and her mother where she was going and stormed out of the house.

Now, after explaining to Sergeant Bronski and Jim Corliss what she thought the computer printouts meant, she was beginning to wonder if she’d done the right thing.

All in all, she realized, there wasn’t really much of a parallel between Randy Corliss’s disappearance, and Julie’s death.

The only real link, indeed, seemed to be that both children had been under study by CHILD. And then, as a silence fell over them, Sally suddenly remembered a thought that had crossed her mind while she was working with the computer that morning. A notion that had been tugging at her mind since her lunch with Jan Ransom.

“Lucy,” she said, “I know this may sound like a strange question, but—well, did you want Randy? Before he was born, I mean. Did you get pregnant on purpose?”

Before Lucy could answer, Jim Corliss shook his head. “I was the one who didn’t want a baby,” he said. “In fact, it was Randy who put an end to our marriage. I guess Lucy thought he’d bring us closer together, but that’s not the way it happened.” His gaze shifted away from Sally, and he began talking directly to Lucy. “I know you meant well, but I … when you told me you were pregnant, I felt like a prison door was slamming on me. So I bolted.”

“But I wasn’t trying to get pregnant!” Lucy protested. “Randy wasn’t my idea. Just the opposite—I’d had a coil put in because I was pretty sure I knew what would happen if I got pregnant. Unfortunately, I was one of those women who doesn’t hold an IUD, but by the time I found that out, it was too late.”

Sally sat stunned, trying to sort it all out. Was she being hysterical, or was the whole situation becoming more ominous? There were four of them now, four children, all of them unplanned, all of their mothers “protected” by IUDs when the pregnancies occurred, all of them under study by the Children’s Institute for Latent
Diseases. Now two of them were dead and one was missing. Only Jason was left.

“It’s horrible,” she said, not realizing she was speaking out loud.

“What?” Carl Bronski asked her. “What’s horrible?”

Abashed, Sally glanced from one face to another. All of them were looking at her curiously, but all the faces were friendly. “I was just thinking,” she began. “Thinking about you, and me, and Jan Ransom, and all the coincidences.” She went through them one by one, half-expecting someone—Bronski probably—to tell her she was overreacting, to explain to her that she was seeing a conspiracy where none existed, to suggest that she get some counseling.

No one did.

When she was finished, there was a long silence that was finally broken by Sally herself.

“Lucy,” she asked, her voice oddly constricted. “Who was your obstetrician?”

Lucy frowned thoughtfully. “Somebody over at the Community Hospital. After Randy was born, I never saw him again. I’m afraid I’m just not much of a one for doctors. But his name was Weisfield, or something like that.”

“Was it Wiseman?” Sally asked, knowing the answer.

Lucy brightened. “That’s it! Arthur Wiseman. I hated him, but at the time he was all I could—” She broke off, seeing the twisted expression on Sally’s face. “What is it? What did I say?”

“Wiseman is my doctor too,” Sally explained. “And Jan Ransom’s.” Her voice suddenly turned bitter. “He and his bedside manner and his fatherly advice. What the hell was he
doing
to all of us?”

“We don’t know that he was doing anything,” Carl Bronski said quietly. But privately he decided that it was time for him to devote a great deal more attention to finding out exactly what
had
happened to Randy Corliss.

   The house was dark when Sally returned, except for
one light glowing upstairs in the master bedroom. Her mother, apparently, had finally gone home. Sally slipped her key into the lock, let herself into the house, then checked the lower floor to be sure all the windows were closed. As she started upstairs she wondered how she was going to tell Steve that far from withdrawing from Lucy Corliss’s problems, she was now going to become even more deeply involved. She knew what his response would be, and she didn’t want to hear it. Yet, she wouldn’t—couldn’t—begin lying to him about what she was doing.

Somehow she would have to make him understand. She knew now that something was happening at Eastbury Community Hospital. Something had happened to her there, and it had happened to Jan Ransom, and it had happened to Lucy Corliss. How many others had it happened to? How many other babies had died, and how many children were missing? She had to know, and Steve had to understand that.

They owed it, if not to themselves or to Julie, to all the women and children to whom, so far, nothing had yet been done.

She reached the top of the stairs and started toward the bedroom, but then changed her mind. She would look in on Jason first, just to reassure herself that everything was all right.

He lay in bed, sound asleep, his right arm dangling over the side of the bed. When she bent down to kiss him, he stirred, and turned over to look up at her.

“Mom? Is that you?” The words were mumbled sleepily, and Jason’s eyes, half opened, seemed to be searching for her.

“It’s me, honey,” she whispered, kneeling by the bed and slipping her arms around him. “How are you? Is everything all right?”

“I’m fine,” Jason replied. “Me and Dad spent the whole night playing games with Grandma, and I won.” There was a note of accusation in his voice, and Sally half-wished she had been home to enjoy the games. And
yet, she knew, if she
had
stayed home, she would have felt guilty all evening.

She reached down and touched the hand gently.

“Doesn’t it hurt at all?” she asked.

“Uh-uh,” Jason said. Then he added, “I guess Grandma was right I guess the fudge wasn’t as hot as I thought.”

Sally frowned in the darkness and felt her heart beat a little faster. Even Jason no longer believed that anything serious had happened to him.

And yet her eyes hadn’t deceived her. Or had they? How could she ever know? Maybe—just maybe—she
had
been too upset to realize how little damage had truly been done.

Once more she kissed him good night, then tucked him in. She pulled his door closed behind her and went down the hall and into the room she shared with Steve.

He was already asleep, a book open on his chest For a few minutes Salty stood still, trying to decide whether to wake him. In the end she decided not to. Instead, she undressed, switched off the light, and slid into bed beside him.

For a long time, though, she didn’t sleep. There were too many visions dancing in her head.

Julie, lying dead in her crib. From what?

Jason, his hand ravaged by the acid one minute, but only slightly red a few minutes later.

Again Jason, his hand covered with boiling chocolate, blistered and red, then, a few minutes later, nothing.

And I hadn’t meant to have him either, she thought bitterly to herself.

It had been a little over eight years ago, but still she remembered how frightened she’d been when she’d gone to Dr. Wiseman to have that first IUD inserted.

She had been almost as frightened that day as she was today.

Chapter 18

S
TEVE MONTGOMERY STAKED GLUMLY
at the report on his desk. After four readings, would a fifth bring it into focus? Probably not. Besides, he already knew what was in the report It was one more merger proposal, one more report on a small company that was eagerly waiting to be swallowed up by a larger one with all the executives of the former taking a profit on the sale, then going to work for the latter at twice the salaries they had been earning before. Steve’s job was to find the right conglomerate to make the merger. Under ordinary circumstances he would have relished the challenge.

Today his concentration was shot. Nothing would come from wading through the charts and profit projections one more time. He put the report aside and swiveled his chair around, but even the view of the soft spring morning beyond the windows did nothing to change the bleakness of his mood.

Until nine days ago, his life had been nearly perfect. A wife he loved, children he adored, work he enjoyed. And now, in a little over a week, his daughter was gone, his wife had changed, and his son …