Mutant 59

by Kit Pedler

  Anne leant back against the head of the bed. The tears were there but they refused to come. Suddenly the overwhelming fact of his death hit her. She collapsed weeping.

  Anne slowly cried herself out. She felt drained. There were too many conflicting emotions, she wanted peace, a refuge. She turned to Buchan and held both his hands. ‘James,’ she said, ‘I’m very grateful, thank you.’

  ‘I’ve not done anything, lassie.’

  ‘Now I want to go home,’ said Anne.

  ‘I’m not sure you should be leaving just yet.’

  ‘I’m all right,’ said Anne. ‘Really, I need to go home.’

  ‘I’ll get the ward sister,’ said Buchan doubtfully. ‘Then if they say you can, I’ll drive you back.’

  ‘No,’ said Anne. ‘Please don’t, you’ve done enough. I’m sure you’re wanted with the others in the lab. Leave me – really I’d much rather. Thank you.’

  Buchan left the room and it was only when she had finished dressing and was preparing to face the ward sister that she remembered the letter.

  Had this contributed to Kramer’s decision? After seven years of marriage she knew him less than she had ever done. He was entirely unpredictable. Did he read the letter before he went?

  She rejected the thought. Of course not. How could he have known the flight would crash. That was not in his make-up. But, to wash his hands of somebody, that was entirely in character. She remembered with a sudden chill that the letter left no room for compromise.

  It must have seemed entirely final to him and was obviously why he had abandoned such a cold, unfeeling wife in her dangerous situation.

  How could she blame him. There were many ways of approaching their central problem and, the thought suddenly struck her, suppose it was entirely in her mind?

  Suppose the trip to Cambridge had been totally unconnected with this woman? Suppose she had built the entire thing up in her imagination?

  No, the letter was proof, they had been lovers. But so what? Perhaps it was just a physical thing. Perhaps the woman had built a great deal more into it than Kramer had felt. She had never seen one of his letters to her. And on this flimsy evidence she had wrecked her Me and probably sent her husband to his death.

  The house doctor was reluctant to let her go and made her sign the voluntary discharge form. They were in fact glad to get a vacant bed for more urgent cases. After advising her to rest and see her doctor on the following day, they called a taxi for her and she went home.

  In the flat Anne collapsed onto one of the oversize armchairs. The familiar smells and the atmosphere soothed her. There was more of her in the flat now than of Kramer. It had been her refuge, almost a place of hermitage for her. There was little, in fact, to remind her of him at all.

  With a shock she realized that there never had been any imprint of his character in the flat. It was as if he had used it as a hotel room – in transit. Always in transit – a fleeting kiss – sorry honey I’ve got to be in Geneva this evening, sorry honey – can’t make dinner tonight – sorry honey – sorry honey.

  The words reverberated and she dozed lightly in the chair, then slowly opened her eyes. She longed for a friend, someone to hold her, look after her. Both her parents were dead and, despite her many business acquaintances, she had few friends. She looked across the room and then something caught her eye. She rose to her feet.

  It was quite unmistakable, there on the mantelpiece, the letter. She ran over, picked it up. It had not been opened.

  Menzelos’s thirty-foot ocean-going cruiser lay at anchor riding a slight swell in Chichester harbour; its sleek white and gold lines reflecting brightly in the dark water.

  On board, Menzelos was at work in the engine bay, making the twin Volvo engines ready for the long haul over to Bordeaux. Ackerman sat morosely watching him, whisky bottle in hand, while Carole Menzelos stocked the galley cupboards with tins of food from a holdall.

  They had had no trouble on the way down to the coast. Alford had dropped off to lie low with friends in the town and the Customs official quite understood that their time in London had been a great strain and now they were off to France for a few days’ break. Menzelos had in fact wanted to go over with his wife, but Ackerman in a fury of paranoid mistrust had insisted on going with them.

  Ackerman checked the jewels. They were hung in polythene bags suspended from a nylon cord inside the main gasoline tank. Even a zealous customs official would never have seen them since the hook from which they were suspended was well round the corner of the tank, away from the neck of the filler opening.

  As he screwed back the filler cap, he checked the plastic fuel feed pipes to the twin engines, pulling them with his fingers to test the brass unions at each end.

  Variant fifty-nine began to feed.

  Nine hours later with Cap Rochelle six miles away on the port side the sleek fibreglass hull forged on through the growing seas of the Bay. All three were now drowsy with the hypnotic roar of the engines.

  The fuel pipe to the starboard engine began to sag and bulge.

  In the main cabin, Ackerman was surly drunk. Carole Menzelos tried to concentrate on a paperback and Menzelos stood in the cockpit vainly trying to see ahead through the wash.

  The rate of division of variant fifty-nine accelerated until it had gorged its way through the fuel pipe. Finally, the pipe burst, releasing a gushing flood of high octane fuel into the closed-off engine bay. Float levels in the twin-Weber carburettors fell and the engine coughed once and then died.

  Menzelos looked at the dials in front of him and pressed the red starter button irritably.

  As the motor whirred protestingly against the dead weight of the fuel-starved engine, its armature emitted a small corona of sparks.

  The fuel vapour in the engine bay abruptly flashed into flame. The main tank fractured and with a terrible roar exploded in a great orange ball of flame engulfing Menzelos and blasting through the companion way into the main cabin.

  The impact of the blast tore the bottom away from the engine bay and water fountained upwards into the cockpit, engulfing the charred remains of Menzelos’s body.

  Ackerman, his face blackened and fixed in a mask of pain, struggled through the cabin door against the racing icy water.

  Abruptly the hull of the cruiser tilted around him and began to plunge downwards.

  As the water level rose, forcing him against the roof of the cabin, his last action was to reach out ineffectually for one of the jewel bags tumbling past in the roaring water.

  The bacteriological laboratories were in a fury of activity.

  On one bench, technicians were busy plating out samples of the fifty-ninth variant onto flat dishes containing a thin layer of gelled culture medium. They were working through armholes in sealed cabinets, awkwardly trying to manoeuvre the dishes and the samples through rubber gloves sealed into the armholes. Inside, the cabinets were lit by a harsh ultra-violet light. As each dish was inoculated, it was stacked on a pile. Every few minutes another technician opened a side door in a cabinet, took out a pile of dishes and transferred them to an incubator with a glass door, making a note on a clip pad hanging beside the incubator.

  On another bench, a row of haggard and unshaven scientists were gazing with fixed concentration down binocular microscopes. As they completed each slide examination, a note was made and the slide discarded into a large vessel of disinfectant.

  A third group were examining antibiotic-sensitivity test dishes. These were similar to ordinary culture dishes but on top of an even layer of incubated bacilli there had been arranged a ring of small filter paper discs. On each disc a drop of a particular antibiotic had been released, so that any restriction of growth caused by the antibiotic would be seen as a clear area surrounding the disc.

  In the immunology section, three gowned women seated in front of an improvised perspex shield covering a fume cupboard were pipetting carefully measured drops of clear serum into hundreds of small glass tubes stacked in rows in copp
er racks. As each rack was inoculated, they were taken to a nearby water bath for slow warming at blood heat.

  Over the continuous activity hung the stale soup smell of culture medium. The air was humid with the water from the steam sterilizing ovens in a nearby laboratory. Moisture ran down the inside of the windows.

  At one end of the main lab was a closed off glass-walled room. Inside, the atmosphere was dry and cool away from the tropical fetor of the lab. Professor Kendall sat at his desk. A thin bird-like man with a shock of soft white hair, he sat surveying the others as they talked animatedly.

  Wright was sitting on the edge of the desk and Gerrard was slumped wearily in an easy chair. Scanlon came in and sat on an office chair next to Kendall.

  Kendall spoke with a meticulous use of consonants: ‘If we’re really quite honest about it, we’re drawing an almost total blank. Consider: we’ve now run through all known antibiotic agents. Only one showed any sensitivity – Neomycin D …’

  ‘Why don’t we use it?’ Wright broke in.

  ‘Because, my dear Mr Wright, there isn’t enough “D” in the world to sterilize more than a few square yards. We have to be considerably more ingenious than that I’m afraid. No, we’ve drawn a blank, we might just as well admit it and that’s that.’

  ‘I’m sure the growth of the variant is related to the polymer used for the biodegradable bottle,’ Gerrard said. ‘Down in the disused tube station, every time we saw a piece of bottle, there was an increased activity of the bacteria around it. I brought the bits up, you saw them.’

  ‘How does that help us?’ Wright said defensively. ‘Just because it likes our bottle material doesn’t mean to say it’s the prime cause.’

  ‘I didn’t say it was,’ Gerrard replied. ‘I just said there is a connection.’

  ‘What are you suggesting?’ Kendall asked mildly.

  ‘I’m not clear yet,’ Gerrard said absently. ‘Something I’m trying to get out of my head, just a vague notion, that’s all.’ He thought for a moment: ‘Why don’t ordinary disinfectants work?’

  ‘They do, after a fashion,’ replied Kendall. ‘In fact that’s what the decontamination squads are having to rely on at present. Trouble is, they only really act on surfaces. What we need is a much more deeply seated attack. Something which will get at the roots of the problem. To make disinfectants successful, we’d have to literally flood the whole of Central London with lysol or something. It’s just not practical. No, we must find a more specific method – something related to the variant itself.’

  ‘Supposing I’m right,’ Gerrard went on. ‘Supposing that there is something about the plastic our group used to make the bottle.’

  He turned to Wright: ‘When you first designed the plastic molecule – what was your reasoning? How did you arrive at its shape?’

  ‘The main requirement.’ Wright said, ‘was to make a long polymer chain with unstable reactive cross-links. To use photosensitive links in a way which would ensure that the action of light released bonds and fixed oxygen onto the remaining valencies.’

  Kendall interrupted: ‘Sorry, I’m a bit lost.’

  Gerrard explained: ‘Long plastic molecule chains which will break apart under the action of light and oxygen.’

  ‘How very ingenious,’ Kendall murmured.

  Gerrard turned to Wright: ‘Can you draw the shape of the molecule?’

  ‘Yes,’ Wright replied picking up a felt pen, and began to draw expertly on a large sheet of paper.

  ‘The main chain looks like this, and these are amino-groups here’ – the drawing of lines, dots and symbols grew – ‘the oxy-phenyls – here and the quinol ring here. These as you can see are unstable bonds which will result in the fulfilment of electron density if this part of the chain unfolds. Only a few quanta of light are enough.’

  ‘Then what?’ Gerrard asked.

  Wright looked surprised: ‘Well, surely you know! Then the molecule breaks into these four components here’ – he pointed to the drawing – ‘and it is then available for destruction by ordinary bacterial action.’

  ‘But why?’ Gerrard persisted. ‘How is it available?’

  Wright was growing impatient: ‘Look, I’ve been over this hundreds of times with you …’

  ‘Great! Now once more please. There’s something I’m trying to get clear. Tell me again what it is about the molecules which ordinary bacteria can break down?’

  Kendall interrupted: ‘This is no ordinary bacterium, there’s nothing like it on earth anywhere. It’s a totally new variant.’

  Wright continued: ‘Well, once we had a molecule which would disrupt into smaller units under the influence of light, we tried to design the units to be as similar as possible to polypeptides …’

  ‘Polypeptides, sorry I don’t really see …’ Kendall began,

  Gerrard broke in: ‘Polypeptides, middle-sized molecules that go to make up protein.’

  ‘I see!’ replied Kendall. ‘You tried to make a plastic residue which would resemble protein.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Wright. ‘To aim at a sort of middle-of-the-road structure so that before, it would be a perfectly good container material – and after light exposure through the trip, a perfectly disposable material, which would be consumed in the normal way – something people could put on the compost heap.’

  ‘It’s a really clever idea,’ said Kendall, ‘but you didn’t reckon with the variant, did you?’

  ‘How could we,’ said Wright. ‘It doesn’t exist according to the books, there’s no such damned species.’

  ‘How do we know our bottle material didn’t help it to evolve?’ asked Gerrard.

  ‘What evidence?’ exclaimed Wright.

  ‘We can’t exclude the possibility can we?’ Gerrard continued.

  ‘Oh for God’s sake,’ complained Wright. ‘We can’t exclude the possibility that it came from the moon either, can we?’ He looked derisively at Gerrard: ‘Let’s stick to what we do know.’

  Gerrard persisted: ‘I’m sure it’s related to our plastic. As I said, each time I recognized a bit of one of our bottles, the growth rate nearby was higher than anywhere else.’

  Wright was now openly hostile: ‘That proves nothing at all!’

  Gerrard glared at him: ‘You don’t really want us to be involved, do you? What you really want is to exonerate our bottle – so we don’t take any rap.’

  ‘Even if what you say has some basis – which I very much doubt – that still doesn’t make us responsible. The variant is the problem not the bloody plastic.’

  ‘Not at all. If our product is even slightly responsible for all this disaster then we’re going to have to assume some blame.’

  Wright laughed harshly: ‘I simply don’t follow your line of argument. Supposing we made petrol. Supposing we sell petrol and somebody blows himself up with it, does that make us responsible for his death – simply because we made it!’

  ‘This is completely different,’ said Gerrard. ‘We knew in the first place that we were making a substance which would degrade under the action of bacteria, that we were mimicking a natural process. We knew …’

  ‘For God’s sake …’ expostulated Wright. ‘We didn’t know about this variant organism. How could we possibly have said to ourselves – no we mustn’t go on with this process because a new germ might appear which would mutate. It’s a completely speculative idea in the first place – you haven’t got any evidence whatever and yet you expect us to go cap in hand to everyone and say mea culpa! You know I think you want to get the blame – you’re a victim looking for a cause!’

  Kendall was embarrassed at the outbreak: ‘Gentlemen. I think we might …’

  Gerrard gestured him to silence: ‘All right, so I’m swimming in guilt, so what? You don’t want to lift a finger …’

  ‘Prove to me what to do and I’ll do it,’ Wright retorted.

  ‘Right. First, we have an organism which eats plastic, then we have a plastic which degrades to a protein-like struc
ture following exposure to light and air. Never mind for a moment where the bugs came from, but we know they interact …’

  ‘We don’t know,’ Wright replied. ‘You’re guessing – there’s no evidence!’

  ‘Never mind,’ Gerrard went on. ‘If they do interact, then why don’t we exploit that?’

  ‘I don’t follow,’ Kendall began.

  Gerrard was gaining confidence. ‘Yes, that’s it, why not?’ He turned to Wright. ‘How easy is it to alter the structure of the plastic molecule?’

  ‘Depends what you want to do with it,’ Wright said suspiciously.

  ‘Nothing radical,’ Gerrard replied. ‘How easy would it be to replace – say – one of the amino groups?’

  ‘Easiest of them all actually,’ said Wright. ‘Just a matter of hydrolysis and then …’

  ‘Never mind how,’ said Gerrard excitedly. ‘As long as you can do it quickly.’

  ‘Yes I said so,’ Wright replied irritably. ‘But I don’t see …’

  ‘Would an azide of cyanide molecule go in easily?’

  ‘Yes it would actually, I tried it in one of the earlier experiments, no good obviously – poisonous as hell.’

  ‘Precisely!’ shouted Gerrard – ‘Poisonous!’

  Kendall jumped up: ‘I see! Alter the construction of the plastic so that …’

  … it’s poisonous,’ Gerrard was shaking with excitement. ‘Then put it down – like rat poison – and the bacteria will feed on it and die.’

  ‘Good God!’ Kendall exploded. ‘A good idea yes – I like it. But what would …’

  ‘… you’ve nothing really to go on. Just a waste of time,’ said Wright.

  Gerrard ignored him. ‘Have you still got the pilot apparatus at the lab?’

  Wright started to protest again.

  ‘Have you got it?’ Gerrard was standing over Wright almost menacingly. Wright looked up, the Canadian towered over him. ‘Yes, it’s there, it’s set up actually. Scanlon was working on it last week as a matter of fact. Trying to …’