by Ben Bova
The little room fell absolutely silent.
“The morality question,” said the law professor in a whisper.
“Oh, I suppose there will be the usual debates about the morality of it in the media and among the ethicists,” Rosen conceded. “But the political steamroller will already be running. If and when this court recommends proceeding to human trials, nothing will be able to stop the program from moving forward.”
“Not even the people who oppose fetal tissue research?”
“Not even the right-to-lifers,” Rosen insisted.
“Good!” Arthur snapped.
Rosen gave him a hard stare, then turned back to Graves. “That’s why I’ve got to have the latitude to determine all the background influences on this work. We’re not just looking at the cold technical data. We’re making a decision for the entire nation here. Maybe the entire world. A life-and-death decision.”
Graves puffed out a little sigh. “My god, Arthur, I think he’s right.”
Arthur started to object, but he saw the look on Graves’s face and the faces of the other two professors. He knew he had lost the argument.
And maybe the entire case.
WASHINGTON:
THE CAPITOL
Reverend Roy Averill Simmonds transferred from his Mercedes to the rented school bus at the preselected rendezvous point on Maryland Avenue, twenty blocks from the Capitol. His chauffeur stayed with the car, looking rather nervous to be left alone in the run-down neighborhood. Simmonds heard the door locks click behind him. The two aides who had been riding with him accompanied Reverend Simmonds as he climbed aboard the shabby, rickety bus. They were both big men, their faces expressionless as statues.
The people aboard the crowded, sweaty bus were overjoyed to have him among them. They were mostly youngish, in their twenties and thirties, new parents from a suburban church outside Baltimore. Reverend Simmonds worked his way along the aisle, shaking hands with each man and woman in the seats as the bus lurched and swayed through the hot summer sunshine.
“God bless you!” they called to him. “Thank the Lord for your strength!”
He smiled at each and every individual one of them, a bright beaming smile full of confidence and goodwill. He was a tiny man, even in his elevator shoes, almost delicate. Compactly built, a feisty bantam who stood out in a crowd because of that glowing smile and the palpable radiance of his personality. Sandy hair cropped short, light hazel eyes that could peer into the depths of your soul, he looked youthful and energetic, except for the shaggy eyebrows that showed a few strands of gray. And the faint scars behind his ears. But only an expert would notice such traces of cosmetic surgery. He wore plain tan slacks and a summer-weight sports jacket of slightly darker brown. No tie. He was no better dressed than the people with whom he rode.
One of his aides held a tiny oblong black cell phone in one beefy hand, with its receiver plugged into his ear. He whispered to Reverend Simmonds as they made their way down the length of the bus, hand over hand along the grips set into the seat backs.
When they got to the rear of the bus and all the passengers had turned in their seats to watch him, Reverend Simmonds raised both hands above his head and announced:
“We have more than a thousand people already at the Capitol, and more on the way!” His voice was strong and surprisingly deep.
Everyone cheered.
“Are you ready to show the world what God wants of us?” he demanded. The strength of that voice never failed to move people.
“Yes!” they shouted back, as one voice.
“Are you ready to force those godless scientists to obey the Lord’s will?”
“Yes!” they screamed louder.
The bus was braking to a stop, still some two blocks from the Capitol.
“Then let’s get out there and win the day for Jesus!”
They boiled out of the bus, impatiently yanking their printed placards from the bus’s luggage compartment and joining the growing crowd that was marching along the avenue toward the Capitol building, waving their signs like battle standards.
Simmonds descended from the bus, but did not join the march. He watched while another aide in a dark suit and string tie came running up to him, sweating and breathless.
“CNN van just arrived,” he gulped out.
“What about the other networks?” Simmonds asked, squinting into the bright sunlight.
The young man bobbed his head. “They’re all there, including Fox.”
Simmonds smiled. Turning to the aide with the cell phone, he said, “Get them ready.”
The sweaty young man said, “There’s others here, though.”
“Others?”
“People who’re for Marshak.”
Simmonds blinked with surprise. “Who brought them here?”
The young man shrugged inside his loose-fitting dark jacket.
“They’re not organized,” said the aide with the radio. “According to our front men, they’re just a bunch of old folks and cripples.”
“A spontaneous demonstration?” Reverend Simmonds smiled ironically. “How quaint.”
“They could cause trouble,” the other aide said.
Simmonds’s smile widened slightly. “Good,” he said. Then, motioning to his little group of assistants, he started walking toward the Capitol. “Let’s get cracking. If there’s going to be trouble, it’ll be on the news this evening. And if it’s on TV, I’ve got to be on the screen, right in the middle of it all.”
THE TRIAL:
DAY ONE, AFTERNOON
At least we’re talking about the science, finally, Arthur said to himself.
The morning’s nonsense about funding and priorities and corporate business was finished at last. They had taken a break for lunch, and Arthur had been surprised to see the crowds of demonstrators milling around across Independence Avenue and all the way to the barricades around the Capitol steps, marching past a grim line of blue-uniformed Capitol Police and helmeted soldiers carrying assault rifles. He saw his own name on many of their printed placards. Even from this distance he could hear their chanted slogans. My god, he thought, if they see me they’ll come after me like lions chasing down Christians.
Arthur canceled his idea of going to one of the nearby restaurants and ducked back inside the Rayburn Building to grab a quick bite at the cafeteria. He ate alone; neither Jesse nor anyone else associated with the trial was in sight. Arthur relished the brief respite of solitude.
Once the trial reconvened they finally started to get down to the scientific evidence behind his work. The hearing chamber had been darkened so that Arthur could show the PowerPoint slides he had set up in his notebook computer.
Standing at the witness table, Arthur tapped the tiny computer with his forefinger, which slightly shook the image on the screen set up on the side wall of the room.
“And as you can see, the new kidney has already started to assume the shape and size of the original. You can compare it to the left kidney, which was left intact in the animal.”
Someone coughed in the darkness. Otherwise the hearing chamber was still.
He tapped the computer’s keyboard, and the image on the screen changed. “This is the final X-ray in the series. The new kidney has reached juvenile size and is functioning nominally. The animal was returned to its normal life at this stage, and is still living quite normally.”
“The animal in question was a chimpanzee?” Rosen’s voice came out of the shadows.
“A macaque monkey,” said Arthur. “We didn’t do any chimp work at this stage of the program.”
“Thank you.”
“Can we have the lights, please?” said Graves.
Arthur felt a twinge of surprise. He had dozens more slides to show. But the overhead fluorescents blinked on and the people in the crowded room stirred and muttered as if coming out of a dream.
“I have no further questions for Dr. Marshak at this time,” said Rosen. “Although I may need to recall him later.�
�
Graves nodded. “You are excused, Dr. Marshak.”
Feeling slightly off balance at the abrupt termination of his testimony, Arthur pleaded, “But there’s a lot more evidence to show.”
“The jury has your written reports,” Graves said. “And you will be allowed to respond to the jury’s questions later in the proceedings.”
Nettled, Arthur said, “Well, then, I have a prepared statement that I want to read into the record.” He pecked at the keyboard, shutting down the PowerPoint program.
“Later,” said Graves. “We will accept prepared statements at a later stage of the proceedings.”
Feeling frustrated, Arthur slapped the notebook closed. He had deliberately chosen not to allow an assistant to help him operate the computer. He wanted to show the slides by himself. Now, as he toted the computer back to the front bench where all the witnesses had been seated, he heard Graves announce:
“Court will adjourn until ten o’clock tomorrow morning.” But before anyone could move he asked, “Mr. Rosen, who do you plan to call next?”
“I’ll start tomorrow morning with Dr. Jesse Marshak.”
WASHINGTON:
THE CAPITOL
Larry Corrigan had taken a haircut and shaved and even worn a tie and jacket for the rally. He didn’t want people to think of him or his friends as a pack of motorcycle bums. Some of the other guys wore their leathers in the hot summer sun, sweating and cursing as they wheeled themselves across the special parking lot set aside for the handicapped right up to the line of cops and soldiers at the base of the Capitol barricade.
They had come from some pretty distant places, many of them. Their black jackets proclaimed club affiliations from New Jersey, Minnesota, Texas, even California. Paraplegics and quadriplegics, most of them injured in cycle accidents. Larry felt kind of proud of them.
His own bunch, from the VA hospital in Bethesda, had been tooling around the parking lot since morning, watching busload after busload of religious nuts arriving and forming ranks like a bunch of toy soldiers. Kids, most of them, although there were plenty of older folks carrying banners and placards, too; mostly women, gray-haired and grim-faced.
“What a bunch of pissants,” grumbled Spider Zee, sidling his wheelchair hub to hub next to Larry’s. Spider had cleaned up for the day, too. Even washed his hair and pulled it back in a long ponytail.
“Watch the language,” Larry warned. “We don’t want the reporters to think we’re Hell’s Angels.”
Spider laughed. “More like Purgatory’s Spooks.”
When the wheelchairs had first arrived in front of the Capitol that morning they had had their few moments of fame. The TV cameras had focused on them while Larry, suddenly a spokesman for the whole, smiled and squinted up at a bottle-blond reporter who held a microphone under his nose.
“If anybody can get us on our feet again,” he had said for the TV news, “we’re for it.”
“Even if it means experiments on animals?” the reporter had asked.
“Hell, they can experiment on me if they want to,” Larry had snapped, instantly regretting the expletive. “I’m not goin’ anywhere.”
The reporter had smiled professionally. “Critics of Dr. Marshak claim he’s using fetal stem cells in his experiments. Are you in favor of abortions?”
Larry sucked in a breath before answering. Are you still beating your wife? It was a no-win question. Finally he said, “I put in my time in the Middle East and Afghanistan, when I was in the Army. I’ve seen lots of kids die. I’m against killing.”
“Even if fetal stem cells are necessary to cure you?”
“Those scientists are pretty smart, I think. They’ll figure out a better way, you wait and see.”
The reporter looked disappointed that she could not get him to say anything controversial. She tried a few more questions, then turned to her camera operator and said tartly, “Wrap it up. Let’s get somebody else.”
As he sat in the hot afternoon sunshine that baked the parking lot and Capitol grounds, Larry watched the organized platoons of protesters and the signs they carried:
MARSHAK KILLS BABIES
NO ABORTIONS FOR PROFIT
USING STEM CELLS IS MURDER
Most of his guys were off in a corner of the asphalt parking lot, grabbing sandwiches and beers from the truck that had accompanied them. Some of the club were drinking from bottles or flasks they had brought along with them. Then Larry saw Spider and a couple other of the guys wheeling themselves over toward the orderly lines of protesters marching by the barricade. Ed Frank was with them, leading the charge in his electric-powered chair. They’re going to get themselves into trouble, Larry thought. He called to two of his most reliable club members to follow him as he started wheeling after Spider and Ed.
Sure enough, by the time Larry got within earshot, Spider was shouting at a squad of earnest-looking young men and women in dark suits and modest dresses.
“Hey, why d’you people want to keep me crippled, huh?”
They tried to ignore him and continue their carefully paced march along the barricade that blocked off the Capitol steps. On the other side of the picketers the Capitol Police stood grimly waiting for trouble.
“Hey, I’m talkin’ to you!” Spider yelled.
“Pay no attention,” said the marchers’ leader, up at the head of the line.
That was the worst thing she could have said. Spider angled his chair sharply and cut into the middle of their line, forcing a placard carrier to stop or fall over him.
“Spider, leave them alone!” Larry called.
But Spider’s face was red with more than the afternoon’s heat. The placard the young man was carrying proclaimed ABORTION IS MURDER. Spider glared up at the kid.
“You want me to sit in this fuckin’ wheelchair the rest of my life?”
“I don’t want to interfere with God’s plan,” said the young man. A little smugly, Larry thought.
“You think God wants me to stay crippled?” Spider demanded.
“You brought it on yourself, didn’t you? Nobody forced you to ride a motorcycle.”
“You stupid little shit!” Spider screamed. “I was drivin’ a fuckin’ school bus!” And he reached up with his powerful arms to wrestle the kid’s placard away from him.
The young man tried to hold on to the placard. A couple of his friends jumped in to help him.
“Stop it!” Larry yelled at the top of his voice. “For god’s sake, stop it!”
But Spider had wrestled the sign away from them and was swinging it like a two-handed broadsword. He knocked down one protester and several others grabbed at him, at the placard, at his chair. The cops just stood there doing nothing. Larry saw it all dissolve into a wild, fist-swinging, screaming melee within an instant. Then the cops moved in. Ed’s chair toppled over and he spilled out, totally helpless, people stepping on him as he screeched with pain. Larry tried to ram his own chair into the growing riot, to protect Ed as much as he could, but somebody clipped him behind the ear and everything went gray and blurry.
The TV camera teams came running to the growing scuffle as police and protesters and wheelchairs and reporters all converged on the fight. An Army-green helicopter hovered overhead, its engine roar and downwash smothering everyone.
From more than a block away, Reverend Simmonds broke into a sprint, his two beefy security men galumphing along behind him. Get there before the camera crews leave, Simmonds gasped to himself as he ran. Got to get there before the camera crews leave.
WASHINGTON:
EVENING
When the hearing adjourned late that afternoon and the room began to empty out, Arthur realized that he was facing the prospect of dining by himself.
He hated to eat alone, especially away from home, in a hotel. He needed people to talk to, to review the day’s events and prepare for tomorrow’s. But none of his own researchers had come down to Washington for the trial; Arthur had thought that their written reports would be su
fficient and both the Omnitech legal staff and his public relations consultant thought it would be best if Arthur made his presentation by himself. Now he was starting to think that he might get Darrell Walters, at least, to come down and bolster his own testimony. Rosen was going to use Cassie’s DVDs, he was certain. And Graves would let him do it. Talk about murder, Arthur said to himself.
Patricia Hayward had been at the hearing, she was serving as Arthur’s PR consultant, but she must have ducked out as soon as the session was adjourned.
Arthur stood uncertainly in the emptying hearing chamber. Everyone else was rushing out. Jesse was nowhere in sight and Arthur could not share a meal with his brother now, anyway. Then he saw Milton Graves come out of the door behind the judges’ desks.
“Milton,” Arthur called to him. “How about dinner?”
The chief judge actually blanched. “Arthur, I simply can’t! I shouldn’t even be speaking to one of the witnesses outside the court chamber.”
He hurried away, leaving Arthur standing alone. But not for long. As soon as Arthur stepped out into the corridor the news reporters raced up to him.
“Dr. Marshak! One minute, please!”
Arthur was quickly surrounded with microphones thrust in his face and video cameras staring at him. Good thing Graves ran away, he told himself. What would they make out of a harmless conversation between the two of us?
“Dr. Marshak, you seemed very upset at the hearing today.”
“Dr. Marshak, what did Judge Graves say to you and Mr. Rosen when he called you into his chambers?”
“Dr. Marshak, how do you think today’s testimony went?”
“What do you think of this afternoon’s riot?”
“Riot?” Arthur felt his stomach clench. “There was a riot?”
“A big fight between some paraplegics and the religious demonstrators.”