Alyson Bender fell into step alongside Peter Jansen. “Did the police contact you today?” she said.
“No,” he said. “Why?”
“I wondered how you knew they were searching the boat…and the phone records.”
“Oh.” In truth, he had made that up. “Well. It was on the news.”
“Was it? I didn’t hear. What channel?”
“I don’t remember. Five, I think.”
Rick Hutter came over and said, “Really sorry, Peter. Really sorry, man.”
Jenny Linn had been walking close behind Vin Drake, and she said to him, “But I don’t understand your research program—like what you’re actually doing here in this forest.”
Drake smiled at her and said, “It’s because I haven’t explained it yet. In simple terms, we’re planning to collect samples from a cross-section of the Hawaiian ecosystem, from Tantalus Crater down into the Manoa Valley, where we’re standing.”
“Collect what kind of samples?” Rick Hutter said, hands on his hips. He was wearing the usual Rick outfit, jeans and an outdoor shirt, sleeves rolled up and now damp with sweat, looking as if he was on a bushwhack through deep jungle. He had the usual combative look on his face, too, his jaw set, eyes narrowed.
Drake smiled and answered, “Essentially we will collect samples from every species of living thing in this ecosystem.”
“What for?” Rick went on. He stared straight at Vin Drake.
Drake stared right back at Rick. A cold look. Then smiled. “A rain forest is the greatest repository of active chemical compounds in nature. We are standing in the middle of a gold mine full of potential new drugs. Drugs that could save uncounted human lives. Drugs worth uncounted billions of dollars. This forest, Mr., uh—”
“Hutter,” Rick said.
“This lush forest, Mr. Hutter, contains keys to the health and well-being of every person on this planet. And yet this forest has barely been explored. We have no idea what chemical compounds actually exist here, in the plants, in the animals, in the microscopic life-forms. This forest is terra incognita, absolutely unknown terrain. It’s as vast, as full of riches, and as unexplored as the New World was for Christopher Columbus. Our goal, Mr. Hutter, is simple. Our goal is drug discovery. We’re searching for new drugs on a vast scale beyond anything imagined. We have begun a total screening of this entire forest for bioactive compounds, from Tantalus to the bottom of this valley. The payoff will be huge.”
“ ‘The payoff,’ ” Rick echoed. “ ‘Gold mine.’ ‘New World.’ So it’s a gold rush you’re talking about, isn’t it, Mr. Drake? It’s all about money.”
“That’s much too crude,” Drake answered. “First and foremost, medicine is about saving lives. It’s about ending suffering and helping every person reach their human potential.” He switched his attention to the others, and began walking along the trail, getting himself away from Rick Hutter, who obviously annoyed him.
Rick, now standing with his arms folded, murmured to Karen King, “The guy is a modern Spanish conquistador. He’s looting this ecosystem for gold.”
Karen gave him a scornful look. “And just what are you doing with your natural extracts, Rick? You’re boiling the hell out of tree bark looking for new drugs. Why is that any different?”
“The difference,” he said to her, “is the huge sums of money involved. And you know where the money in all this is, right? It’s in patents. Nanigen will take out thousands of patents on the compounds they find here—and giant drug companies will exploit the patents, earning billions—”
“You’re just jealous ’cause you don’t have any patents.” Karen turned away from Rick, while Rick glared at her.
He called after her, “I’m not doing science to get rich. Unlike you, apparently…” He realized she was ignoring him. Pointedly.
Danny Minot struggled at the tail end of the group. For some reason, Danny had brought his tweed jacket to Hawaii, and he was wearing it now. Sweat poured down Danny’s neck and drenched his button-down shirt, and he skidded from place to place on the trail in tassel loafers. He blotted his face with a pocket square and pretended to ignore his misery. “Mr. Drake,” he said, “if you happen to be familiar with post-structuralist theory—uh—you might be aware of how—ugh—whoof!—how we can’t actually know anything about this forest…For you see, we create meaning, Mr. Drake, when really there is no meaning in nature…”
Drake seemed unfazed by Danny. “My view of nature, Mr. Minot, is that we don’t need to know the meaning of nature in order to make use of it.”
“Yes, but…” Danny went on.
Meanwhile, Alyson Bender drifted back a few paces, and Peter ended up walking with Rick. Rick nodded toward Vin Drake. “Do you believe this guy? He’s like Mr. Biopiracy.”
“I’ve been listening to your remarks, Mr. Hutter,” Drake said, twisting his head around suddenly, “and I have to say it’s completely false. Biopiracy refers to the taking of indigenous plants without compensating the country of origin. The concept is attractive to the ill-informed do-gooder but fraught with practical difficulty. Take the example of curare, a valuable medicinal drug, used in modern medicine today. Surely someone should be compensated? Yet there are dozens of different recipes for curare, developed by many tribal groups stretching across Central and South America—a vast area. The curares differ in ingredients and cooking time, depending on what is meant to be killed, and on local preferences. How, then, do you compensate native medicine men? Did the shamans of Brazil do more valuable work than the shamans of Panama or Colombia? Does it matter that the trees used in Colombia migrated—or were transplanted—from native Panama? What about the actual formula? Is the addition of strychnos important or not? How about the addition of a rusty nail? Is there any consideration for public domain? We allow a drug company twenty years to exploit a drug, then make it public. Some say Sir Walter Raleigh brought curare back to Europe in 1596; certainly it was well known in the 1700s. Burroughs Wellcome sold curare tablets in the 1880s for medical purposes. So by all odds, curare belongs in the public domain. And finally, modern surgeons no longer use curare from native plants anyway. They use synthetic curare. You see the complexities?”
“This is all corporate evasiveness,” Rick said.
“Mr. Hutter, you seem to enjoy being the devil’s advocate against my points,” Drake said. “I don’t mind. It helps me sharpen my arguments. The truth is, using natural compounds for medicine is just the way of the world. The discoveries of every culture are valuable, and all other cultures borrow from one another. Sometimes discoveries are traded for a price, but not always. Should we license the horse stirrup from the Mongols who invented it? Should we pay the Chinese for domesticated silk production? For opium? Should we track down the modern descendants of Neolithic farmers of ten thousand years ago who first domesticated food crops in the fertile crescent, and pay them? How about the medieval Britons who learned to smelt iron?”
“Let’s move on,” Erika Moll said. “We take your point even if Rick doesn’t.”
“Okay, the point is that claims for biopiracy of plants really can’t occur in Hawaii because there are, strictly speaking, no indigenous plants. These are mid-Pacific volcanic islands that rose from the surface of the ocean as barren, hot lava plains, and everything growing on them now has been brought from elsewhere—by birds, by wind, by ocean currents, by Polynesian warrior canoes. Nothing’s indigenous, although some species are endemic. The legalities of the situation are one reason why, in fact, we have located our company in Hawaii.”
“Evading the law,” Rick mumbled.
“Obeying the law,” Drake said. “That’s the point.”
They were coming to an area of chest-high green leaves, and Drake said, “Now, we call this area Ginger Lane, with white, yellow, and kahili ginger. Kahili has those foot-long red stems. The trees above us here are mostly sandalwood, with the typical deep-red flowers, but there are also soapberry and milo trees, with large dark green leaves.�
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The students were turning, looking in all directions.
“I assume you’re all familiar with this, but in case you’re not, this spiky, striped leaf is oleander, and it will kill a human being. One local man died from grilling meats over a fire on an oleander stick. Children sometimes eat the fruits and die. In addition, the very large tree off to your left is a strychnine tree, originally from India; all parts are fatal, the seeds most of all.
“Next to it, that tall shrub with the star-shaped leaf is the castor bean plant, also fatally toxic. But at very low doses, castor bean compounds may have medicinal properties. I assume you know that, Mr. Hutter?”
“Of course,” Rick said. “Castor bean extracts have potential to improve memory function, as well as antibiotic properties.”
Drake turned at a fork, following a path that went down to the right. “Finally, here we have Bromeliad Alley,” he said. “About eighty varieties of this plant family, which as you know includes the pineapple. Bromeliads harbor a great range of insect life as well. The trees around us are primarily eucalyptus and acacia, but further on we have the more typical rain-forest trees—ohia, and koa, as you will see from the curved leaves littering the trail.”
“And why are we being shown all this?” Jenny Linn asked.
Amar Singh joined in. “Exactly. I’m curious about the technology, Mr. Drake. How do you take samples from so many different living things? Especially when you consider that almost all living things are very small. Bacteria, worms, insects, and so forth. I mean, how many biosamples are you collecting and processing per hour? Per day?”
“Our laboratory sends a truck to this rain forest every day,” Drake said, “to pick up precision-cut flats of earth, or a selection of plants, or whatever else our researchers have asked for. So you can expect to have fresh research materials brought to you daily, and in general to be provided with whatever you ask for.”
“They come here every day?” Rick said.
“That’s right, about two p.m., we just missed them.”
Jenny Linn crouched down. “What’s this?” she said, pointing to the ground. It seemed to be a small tent, about the size of her palm, covering a small concrete box. “I saw another one just like it, a short distance back.”
“Ah yes,” Drake said. “Excellent observation, Ms. Linn. Those tents are scattered throughout the rain forest in this area. They’re supply stations. I’ll explain that to all of you later. In fact, if you are ready to leave, I think it’s time you learned what Nanigen is all about.”
They began to circle back toward the parking lot, skirting a small brownish pond with overhanging palm fronds and small bromeliads lining the edges. “This is Pau Hana Pond,” Drake said. “Means ‘work is done.’ ”
“Strange name for a duck pond,” Danny said. “Because that’s what it is. I saw three or four families of ducklings here before.”
“And did you see what happens?” Drake said.
Danny shook his head no. “Is this going to upset me?”
“That depends. Look in the fronds about three feet above the water.”
The group paused, stared. Karen King saw it first. “Gray heron,” she whispered, nodding. A dusty-gray bird, standing about three feet tall, with a spiky head and dull eyes. It looked unkempt and lazy. It was absolutely motionless and it blended perfectly into the shadows of the palm foliage.
“It can stay that way for hours,” Karen said.
They watched for several minutes, and were about to leave when one of the duckling families began to skirt around the edge of the pond. They kept their bodies half-hidden in the overhanging waterside grasses, but to no avail.
In a swift motion, the heron left its perch, splashed among the ducks, and resumed its perch, this time with tiny duck feet protruding from its jaws.
“Ewwww!” Danny.
“Yuch!” Jenny.
The heron threw back his head, looking straight up, and in a single flip motion gulped down the remains of the duckling. It then lowered its head, and turned motionless again in the shadows. It had all taken place in a few seconds. It was hard to believe it had happened at all.
“That’s disgusting,” Danny said.
“It’s the way of the world,” Drake said. “You’ll notice the arboretum is not overrun with ducks, and that’s the reason why. Ah! If I am not mistaken, here are our cars, waiting to take us back to civilization.”
Chapter 8
Kalikimaki Industrial Park 28 October, 6:00 p.m.
On the way back to the Nanigen headquarters, Karen King drove the Bentley convertible and the other students crammed themselves into it, while Alyson Bender and Vin Drake went in the sports car. They hadn’t gone far when Danny Minot, the science studies student, cleared his throat. “I think,” Minot said, speaking above the rush of the wind, “that Drake’s arguments about poisonous plants are subject to dispute.”
“Subject to dispute” was one of Minot’s favorite phrases.
“Oh? How’s that?” Amar said. Amar in particular loathed Minot.
“Well, this notion of poison is slippery, isn’t it,” Minot said. “Poison is what we call any compound that does us harm. Or we think does us harm. Because it may not, in reality, be so harmful. After all, strychnine was once dispensed as a patent medicine in the 1800s. It was thought to be a restorative. And it’s still administered for acute alcohol poisoning, I believe. And the tree wouldn’t go to the trouble of making strychnine unless it had some purpose, self-defense most likely. Other plants make strychnine, like nightshade. There must be a purpose.”
“Yes,” Jenny Linn said, “to keep from being eaten.”
“That’s the plant’s view.”
“It’s our view, too, because we don’t eat it either.”
“But for humans,” Amar said to Minot, “are you arguing that strychnine is not harmful? Not really a poison?”
“That’s right. As a concept, it’s slippery. One might even say it’s indeterminate. The term ‘poison’ doesn’t really refer to anything fixed or specific at all.”
This brought groans throughout the car.
“Can we change the subject?” Erika said.
“I’m simply saying the idea of what is poison is subject to dispute.”
“Danny, with you everything is subject to dispute.”
“In essence, yes,” he said, nodding solemnly. “Because I have not adopted the scientific worldview of fixed verities and immutable truths.”
“Neither have we,” Erika said. “But some things are repeatedly verifiable and therefore justify our belief in them.”
“Wouldn’t it be pleasant to think so? But that’s just a self-serving fantasy that most scientists have about themselves. In reality, it’s all power structures,” Minot said. “And you know it. Whoever has the power in society determines what can be studied, determines what can be observed, determines what can be thought. Scientists fall in line with the dominant power structure. They have to, because the power structure pays the bills. You don’t play ball with the power structure, you don’t get money for research, you don’t get an appointment, you don’t get published, in short you don’t count anymore. You’re out. You might as well be dead.”
There was silence in the car.
“You know I’m right,” Minot said. “You just don’t like it.”
“Speaking of playing ball with power,” Rick Hutter said, “look over there. I think we’re coming to the Kalikimaki Industrial Park, and Nanigen headquarters.”
Jenny Linn took a small insulated Gore-Tex case the size of her hand and carefully clipped it to her belt. Karen King said, “What’s that, show and tell?”
“Yes,” Jenny said. “If they’re really going to offer us jobs, well, I thought…” She shrugged. “These are all of my extracted and purified volatiles. What did you bring?”
“Benzos, baby,” Karen said. “Benzoquinones in a spray container. Blister the skin, burn your eyes—it may come from beetles, but it’s the idea
l personal-defense chemical. Safe, short-lasting, organic. It’ll make an excellent product.”
“Of course, you would bring a commercial product,” Rick Hutter said to Karen.
“That’s because I just don’t have your scruples, Rick,” Karen said. “Why? You going to tell us you didn’t bring anything?”
“No, no.”
“Liar.”
“Well, okay.” He tapped his shirt pocket. “There’s a latex extract from my tree. You daub it on and it kills any burrowing parasites under your skin.”
“Sounds like a product to me,” Karen said, swinging the wheel, and the Bentley slipped around a hairpin turn, glued to the road. “Maybe you’ll make a billion dollars from it, Rick.” She took her eyes off the road for a second and flashed him a wicked smile.
“No, no, I’m just studying the underlying biochemical mechanism—”
“Tell it to the venture capitalists.” Karen glanced at Peter, who sat in the front seat beside her. “And what about you? You’ve got a lot on your mind. Did you bring something?”
“Actually,” Peter said, “I did.”
Fingering the CD in his jacket pocket, Peter Jansen felt a nervous shiver pass through his body. Now that he was going into the Nanigen building, he realized he hadn’t fully worked out his plan. Somehow he had to get Bender and Drake to confess in front of the group, and playing Jorge’s recording of the phone call between Alyson Bender and Vin Drake would provoke that, he hoped. And if all the graduate students heard a confession, then Drake would be unable to retaliate. There were seven of them; he couldn’t attack them all at once.
At least that was the idea.
Lost in his thoughts, Peter stayed with the group as they moved into the building, led by Alyson Bender. “This way, please, and ladies and gentlemen…” They stopped first at the elegant black-leather reception area. “I will need your cell phones, your cameras, and any other recording devices in your possession. You will leave those here, to pick up when you depart. And please sign nondisclosure agreements at this time.”
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