The Immortality Factor (59 page)

Cassie began a halting explanation of the lab's work on the regeneration program. Arthur watched her become tenser and tighter with each word. And he saw Senator Kindelberger leaning intently forward to hear Cassie's faltering voice, big rawboned hands clasped on the desk in front of him, his pale gray eyes roaming the hearing chamber while his face never moved. Neat trick, Arthur thought. Unless you watch him closely you get the impression he's totally absorbed in Cassie's testimony, when actually he's looking around for somebody. I wonder who.

Jesse was back in the chamber, too, sitting at his spot in the front row of benches, across the room from Arthur. He looked troubled. Not upset, actually, but not his usual relaxed smiling self, either.

“The laboratory director, Dr. Arthur Marshak, decided that the regeneration work needed a chimpanzee experiment,” Cassie said, still staring straight into the camera. “This was Maximilian, the chimpanzee that they used.”

Cassie had spliced in a few minutes of earlier footage she had taken of Max; it looked like home movies of herself and the chimp. As the screen showed Max cavorting across the jungle gym or scampering up his trees, Cassie spoke gravely: “Max was raised from infancy at Grenford Laboratories.”

The screen showed Max and one of the handlers conversing in sign language.

Cassie, her voice beginning to tremble, explained, “Max had been taught American Sign Language, and could express himself quite well. He possessed a high degree of intelligence—and . . . a personality . . .” Her voice faltered, then came back to say, “He was almost like a human baby.”

Arthur closed his eyes. She might as well put a gun to my head and pull the trigger. She's trying to kill me. Yet he could feel no anger for Cassie, not even a sense of betrayal. He simply felt sorry for her, and for himself for allowing her to put him into this position.

While the TV screen showed Max cheerfully peeling a banana, his lips pulled back in a big sloppy grin, Cassie's trembling voice said, “Max was used as an experimental subject for the regeneration program.”

Suddenly the screen showed Max sitting sorrowfully in his pen, his left arm nothing but a stump, his right eye bandaged. The audience gasped. Even the jury seemed shaken.

“They've removed most of his left arm,” Cassie said needlessly. “And his right eye in its entirety.”

Max just sat there, forlorn. Arthur could almost feel the chimp's pain and bewilderment.

“They did this,” Cassie said, in a little girl's tearful voice, “while I was out of the country and unable to protect Max.”

Her voice obviously choking with tears, Cassie went on, “They wanted to see how the regentide would work on a chimpanzee. If it was successful, then they could go on to human trials.”

The video ended with Max looking pitiful, hunched in a corner of his pen, obviously depressed, melancholy, pathetic. The audience buzzed with whispers as a clerk removed the first disk and put another one into the DVD player. Arthur could see that Max's arm was unbandaged now and the buds of new growth showed pink and hairless at the end of his stump. But that was not what the others were whispering about, he knew.

While the screen showed Max listless and dejected, Cassie explained that the Grenford experimenters had injected the chimp with an antitumor agent. Arthur noticed that she never mentioned that she had been the prime researcher who had developed the antitumor treatment.

“The treatment seemed to inhibit the tumors in Max's arm,” she said, “but the ones in his eye socket continued to grow . . . along the optic nerve and into the forebrain.”

Cassie stopped speaking. The screen showed different shots of Max sitting sadly in his pen. Arthur thought he could hear someone sobbing quietly in the audience behind him. The disk seemed to go on for hours. Finally it ended and the clerk put in the final DVD.

They saw Max stretched out on his back. It was impossible to tell if he was breathing or not because the camera was shaking so badly.

Suddenly Cassie's voice burst out, “They killed him! They killed Max! Arthur Marshak is the killer. He's a murderer! He killed my Max and he's killed me, too!”

The TV screen broke into a hissing, flickering jumble, then went black.
Arthur felt all the eyes in the hearing chamber staring at him. And inside, he felt a cold fury. No, he answered Cassie silently. I didn't kill Max, you did. I could have saved him, but you made certain I'd never get that chance.

Graves banged his gavel and adjourned the session. Arthur hardly noticed until people started to get up and walk out of the chamber. The reporters converged on him, firing questions, while cameras flashed like an artillery barrage.

Arthur shook his head and held his hands up defensively. “I've got nothing to say—except that I feel terrible that Cassie was so emotionally unbalanced that she committed suicide.”

“She says it was your fault,” two of the reporters snapped in unison.

“She was obviously unbalanced,” Arthur said, trying to stay calm, seeing Pat off at the edge of the pack nodding encouragement to him.

“Do you feel responsible for her death?”

Arthur almost replied to the question. But a glance at Pat's face told him to duck it. “Look,” he said, “we're supposed to be conducting a trial here, under strict rules of evidence. The other side has bent those rules almost completely out of shape, but I'm going to try to stick to them. I'll make my statement before the judges when my turn comes.”

Past the crowd of reporters Arthur noticed Jesse getting slowly to his feet, looking grim. A messenger fought his way through the departing crowd to hand Jesse a note. Jesse scanned it, and his face went white. He crumpled the message and dropped it on the floor as he bolted up the aisle and through the crowd, pushing his way to the door with almost manic energy.

The reporters were still goading Arthur with questions, but he forced a smile and said, “That's all for now. I'll make my statement when the court reconvenes.”

Reluctantly the reporters put their cameras and voice recorders away and left the hearing room. Pat Hayward struggled past them to get to his side. Arthur started up the emptying aisle, bent down to pick up the crumpled note his brother had discarded. It read:

I need you right away. Julia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

S
uddenly it didn't matter what Jesse was doing in Washington or how important this trial was to Arthur. I had to have my husband here with me. I simply didn't know what else to do. The second blood test was positive; my baby would be born with spina bifida, a hopeless cripple.

I hadn't mentioned my terrible fear to Jesse before; he'd been so tied up with preparations for the hearings that I simply couldn't burden him with inconclusive test results. He would have dropped everything else to be with me. I didn't want that. After all, the first blood test wasn't absolute proof that the baby would be disabled.

I had undergone an amniocentesis test earlier, and when the obstetrician told me worriedly that she would like to take a tissue sample I hesitated.

“Why?” I asked. “Is something wrong?”

She was a gray-haired woman who had my complete confidence. Up until that moment. She never put a desk between herself and me; I always sat in the armchair in her cozy little office and she sat on the rocker next to me.

“The amniocentesis test doesn't necessarily detect everything,” she said. “A tissue sample would give us much more information.”

“About what?”

She spread her hands. “I don't want to alarm you, but we should make very certain that the fetus has no physical defects, now, while an abortion would be simple and relatively free of risk.”

“Abortion?” I felt my pulse rate leap. “What's wrong? What have you found?”

“Nothing definite, but . . .”

“But what, for god's sake?” Her evasiveness was maddening.

“There may be a problem, and if there is, we ought to catch it while there's still time.”

“What
kind
of a problem?”

She took a deep breath. “At best, nothing but an unusual ratio of blood factors that can easily be corrected. At worst—well, it could be spina bifida.”

“I've heard of that.”

“It's called open spine,” she said. “The baby would be unable to walk, unable to stand. Often there are problems with the legs and bladder, as well.”

Her stuffy little office began to swim. I felt dizzy, faint. No! I railed at myself. You are
not
going to faint. You are going to face this thing and deal with it sensibly. We are talking about life and death here; you can't hide behind tears.

“That's the worst possibility,” the obstetrician said. “It's probably nothing so severe as that.”

“I see.”

“That's why a tissue sample is necessary.”

I was still trying to pull myself together. I heard myself asking questions, making comments, as if it were someone else speaking, as if I were watching these two women converse from somewhere far away.

Finally, I said, “You recall that I had a miscarriage earlier.”

“Yes.”

“Wouldn't this tissue sample you want be an invasive procedure? Would it increase the risk of another miscarriage?”

“Only slightly.”

“Then I don't think I want to do it.”

“But—”

“I don't want to risk another miscarriage.”

She tried to smile reassuringly. “Your earlier miscarriage was the result of an infection. It won't happen again.”

“Not for that reason.”

She nodded.

“I still don't think I want to increase the risk of another miscarriage.” Oh, I was so firm and logical!

“But the risk is minimal.”

“Still.”

The doctor looked disappointed.

“Isn't there some other test that doesn't have to poke around inside me?”

“Alpha-fetoprotein,” she murmured.

“Alpha what?”

“It's a blood test. Completely noninvasive, as far as your pregnancy is concerned. We draw a blood sample from your arm.”

“And that can tell if . . .” I couldn't speak the words.

“It's not as good as a tissue sample, but it should give us the information we need.”

“Well, then,” I said, full of a courage I did not truly feel, “let's do the blood test.”

Except that this test was inconclusive. It took two weeks for the laboratory to mail the results back to my obstetrician and the results were so uncertain that we had to do it all over again.

“I'll get them to express-mail the results this time,” the doctor said. It was getting late; I was already in my fourth month.

There was no doubt about it this time. Spina bifida. I was carrying a child who would be crippled all his life.

Jesse was in Washington when the phone call came. I simply couldn't bear it alone; I had to call him, had to ask him to come home to me.

It was late in the afternoon when he phoned.

“I got your message. What's the matter? Are you all right?”

How much should I tell him on the telephone? “Jesse, can you come home?”

“Now?”

“Right now. Tonight.”

“What is it? Are you all right?” His voice went up half an octave.

“I'm fine, dear, but there's a problem with the baby. Please—I can't talk about it on the phone. I need you here with me.”

He did not hesitate an instant. “I'll get the shuttle. I'll call you from Reagan Airport before I take off and from La Guardia when I land.”

“Thank you, dear.”

“It'll only take a couple of hours. You sit there. Don't worry about a thing, I'll be with you in a couple of hours.”

“Wonderful.”

He was as good as his word, although it was more like three hours before he burst into our apartment, jacket slung over his shoulder, shirt sweaty, eyes fearful. I ran to him and he folded me into his arms and held me for a long, safe, silent moment.

Then we went to the sofa and sat together and I told him, as calmly as I could.

“Spina bifida?” His voice was hollow, aching.

“Dr. Fieldman recommends an abortion,” I said, trying to stay calm.

He looked into my eyes and I could see the agony in his. “Is that what you want?”

I said, “I don't know.” Which was almost a lie. I knew what I wanted, but I didn't know what Jesse wanted and it had to be his decision as much as mine. But if I told him what I wanted he would automatically say he wanted that, too, because he loved me and would do whatever I wanted in this. This wasn't a decision I could make for myself; I loved Jesse too much to do it that way. And there was a third party to the decision, as well.

“The boy would be crippled from birth,” Jesse muttered. “Spina bifida cases usually die before they're thirty unless you make extraordinary efforts to keep them going.”

“Isn't spina bifida something like paraplegia?” The words just popped out of my mouth and suddenly I knew what had held me together since the doctor told me of the test results, the hope that had been so deep inside me that I didn't even recognize it until that instant.

Jesse gave me a strange look, pained, almost angry. “You think Arby will be able to save the kid? Make him normal?”

“Would that be possible?”

He looked away from me. “Maybe in twenty years, if they ever figure out how to regrow tissue without killing the patient first.”

“Then there's
some
hope, at least.”

I could see him struggling with himself. Then he took my hands in his, gently. “Julia, I wish I could say that it's true, that Arby or somebody could wave a magic wand and cure the baby and make his spine strong so he could walk.”