“Primitive?” Jackson said. “Tell that to smallpox.”

“If this had hit us thirty years from now,” Kaye persisted, “maybe we’d be prepared — but we’re still acting like ignorant children. Children who have never been told the facts of life.”

“What are we missing?” Cross asked patiently.

Jackson drummed his fingers on the table. “It’s been discussed.”

“What?” Cross asked.

“Not in any serious forum,” Kaye countered.

“What, please?”

“Kaye is about to tell us that SHEVA is part of a biological reshuffling. Transposons jumping around and affecting phe-notype. It’s the buzz among the interns who’ve been reading Kaye’s papers.”

“Which means?”

Jackson grimaced. “Let me anticipate. If we let the new babies be born, they’re all going to be big-headed super-humans. Prodigies with blond hair and staring eyes and telepathic abilities. They’ll kill us all and take over the Earth.”

Stunned, near tears, Kaye stared at Jackson. He smiled half-apologetically, half in glee at having warded off any possible debate. “It’s a waste of time,” he said. “And we don’t have any time to waste.”

Nilson watched Kaye with cautious sympathy. Marge lifted her head and glared at the ceiling. “Will someone please tell me what I’ve just stepped into?”

“Pure bullshit,” Jackson said under his breath, adjusting his napkin.

The steward brought them their food.

Nilson put her hand on Kaye’s. “Forgive us, Kaye. Robert can be very forceful.”

“It’s my own confusion I’m dealing with, not Robert’s defensive rudeness,” Kaye said. “Marge, I have been trained in the precepts of modern biology. I’ve dealt with rigid interpretations of data, but I’ve grown up in the middle of the most incredible ferment imaginable. Here’s the solid foundation wall of modern biology, built brick by careful brick…” She drew the wall with her outstretched hand. “And here’s a tidal wave called genetics. We’re mapping the factory floor of the living cell. We’re discovering that nature is not just surprising, but shockingly unorthodox. Nature doesn’t give a damn what we think or what our paradigms are.”

“That’s all very well,” Jackson said, “but science is how we organize our work and avoid wasting time.”

“Robert, this is a discussion,” Cross said.

“I can’t apologize for what I feel in my gut is true,” Kaye persisted. “I will lose everything rather than lie.”

“Admirable,” Jackson said. “ ‘Nevertheless, it moves,’ is that it, dear Kaye?”

“Robert, don’t be an asshole,” Nilson said.

“I am outnumbered, ladies,” Jackson said, pushing back his chair in disgust. He draped his napkin over his plate but did not leave. Instead, he folded his arms and cocked his head, as if encouraging — or daring — Kaye to continue.

“We’re behaving like children who don’t even know how babies are made,” Kaye said. “We’re witnessing a different kind of pregnancy. It isn’t new — it’s happened many times before. It’s evolution, but it’s directed, short-term, immediate, not gradual, and I have no idea what kind of children will be produced,” Kaye said. “But they will not be monsters and they won’t eat their parents.”

Jackson lifted his arm high like a boy in a classroom. “If we’re in the hands of some fast-acting master craftsman, if God is directing our evolution now, I’d say it’s time to hire some cosmic lawyers. It’s malpractice of the lowest order. Infant C was a complete botch.”

“That was herpes,” Kaye said.

“Herpes doesn’t work that way,” Jackson said. “You know that as well as I.”

“SHEVA makes fetuses particularly susceptible to viral invasion. It’s an error, a natural error.”

“We have no evidence of that. Evidence, Ms. Lang!”

“The CDC—” Kaye began.

“Infant C was a Herod’s second-stage monstrosity with herpes added on, as a side dish,” Jackson said. “Really, ladies, I’ve had it. We’re all tired. I for one am exhausted.” He stood, bowed quickly, and stalked out of the dining room.

Marge picked through her salad with a fork. “This sounds like a conceptual problem. I’ll call a meeting. We’ll listen to your evidence, in detail,” she said. “And I’ll ask Robert to bring in his own experts.”

“I don’t think there are many experts who would openly support me,” Kaye said. “Certainly not now. The atmosphere is charged.”

“This is all-important with regard to public perception,” Nilson said thoughtfully.

“How?” Cross asked.

“If some group or creed or corporation decides that Kaye is right, we’ll have to deal with that.”

Kaye suddenly felt very exposed, very vulnerable.

Cross picked up a strip of cheese with her fork and examined it. “If Herod’s isn’t a disease, I don’t know how we’d deal with it. We’d be caught between a natural event and an ignorant and terrified public. That makes for horrible politics and nightmarish business.”

Kaye’s mouth went dry. She had no answer to that. It was true.

“If there are no experts who support you,” Cross said thoughtfully, pushing the cheese into her mouth, “how do you make a case?”

“I’ll present the evidence, the theory,” Kaye said.

“By yourself?” Cross asked.

“I could probably find a few others.”

“How many?”

“Four or five.”

Cross ate for a few moments. “Jackson’s an asshole, but he’s brilliant, he’s a recognized expert, and there are hundreds who would agree with his point of view.”

“Thousands,” Kaye said, straining to keep her voice steady. “Against just me and a few crackpots.”

Cross waggled a finger at Kaye. “You’re no crackpot, dear. Laura, one of our companies developed a morning-after pill some years ago.”

“That was in the nineties.”

“Why did we abandon it?”

“Politics and liability issues.”

“We had a name for it…what were we calling it?”

“Some wag code-named it RU-Pentium,” Nilson said.

“I recall that it tested well,” Marge said. “We still have the formulae and samples, I assume.”

“I made an inquiry this afternoon,” Nilson said. “We could bring it back and get production up to speed in a couple of months.”

Kaye clutched the tablecloth where it crossed her lap. She had once campaigned passionately for a woman’s right to choose. Now, she could not work her way through the conflicting emotions.

“No reflection on Robert’s work,” Cross said, “but there’s a better than fifty-fifty chance the trials on the vaccine are going to fail. And that statement does not leave this room, ladies.”

“We’re still getting computer models predicting MS as a side effect for the ribozyme component,” Kaye said. “Will Americol recommend abortion as an alternative?”

“Not all on our lonesome,” Cross said. “The essence of evolution is survival. Right now, we’re standing in the middle of a minefield, and anything that clears a path, I’m certainly not going to ignore.”

Dicken took the call in the equipment room next to the main receiving and autopsy lab. He slipped off his latex gloves while a young male computer technician held the phone. The technician was there to adjust a balky old workstation used to record autopsy results and track the specimens through the rest of the labs. He stared at Dicken, in his green robe and surgical mask, with some concern.

“Nothing catching, for you,” Dicken told him as he took the phone receiver. “Dicken here. I’m elbow deep.”

“Christopher, it’s Kaye.”

“Hello-o-o, Kaye.” He did not want to put her off; she sounded gloomy but however she sounded, to Dicken, hearing her voice was a disturbing pleasure.

“I’ve screwed things up big time,” Kaye said.

“How’s that?” Dicken waved his hand at Scarry, still in the pathology lab. Scarry wagged his arms impatiently.

“I had a tiff with Robert Jackson…a conversation with Marge and Jackson. I couldn’t hold back. I told them what I thought.”

“Oh,” Dicken said, making a face. “How’d they react?”