With growing, unwelcome resignation, Parnell eventually turned to his own before-and-after blood specimens, starting at the lower magnification, and for the briefest of seconds not fully absorbing what he was seeing. Parnell was too consummate a professional to accept a single illustration. Patiently, although with increasing satisfaction, he checked every single treated and untreated slide, one against the other, and obtained the same result in every case. It was only when he pushed his stool away from his bench, stretching against the aching tension in his back and shoulders, that Parnell became properly aware of how tightly and how long he had been hunched over his microscope. It was a fleeting discomfort, virtually at once compensated by a surge of excitement. Which, in turn, was tempered by further inherent professionalism. He had positive findings from a lot of separate, uncontaminated tests. Which in his own opinion was unequivocal. But which, by the standards of research – and certainly the challenge he would have to face – was insufficient. There had to be separate, independent experiments, with no prior, alerting indication of what the expected result might be. And he needed to duplicate everything himself – on himself – against the remote possibility that this initial analysis had inadvertently been contaminated to produce a faulty result.
Only Ted Lapidus was still reading when Parnell emerged into the main laboratory, surprised to find it was already noon. The rest of the unit looked up at him in solemn expectation. He said: ‘Any bright, shining pathways?’
There was a further series of head-shaking. Mark Easton said: ‘In the words of the prophet, back to the drawing board.’
‘I want everything temporarily suspended, at least for the rest of today,’ announced Parnell. ‘I’m asking all of you to conduct blind blood-sampling, using your own blood, involving something Dubette is making available on a limited market.’
‘What are we looking for?’ asked Lapidus, coming up from his final paper.
‘Blind tests, like I said,’ refused Parnell. ‘No prior indication. I don’t want us challenged on this.’
‘We’re bypassing phase-one animal assessment?’ queried Battey.
‘Yes,’ acknowledged Parnell.
‘Why the mystery?’ demanded Beverley.
‘There isn’t one. I want independent, corroborative findings, that’s all.’ Or was it all, he asked himself.
Parnell refined – and extended – the confirming experiments, testing upon the altered Dubette medicines before individually duplicating the experiments by separately adding liulou-sine, beneuflous and rifofludine. Having already established the research once, Parnell completed the repetition ahead of everyone else. He withdrew briefly to his side office, to avoid the appearance of hovering over them, but used the vantage point to watch them at work. Once again he was impressed at how quickly – and expertly – they had unquestioningly adjusted to his limited briefing.
Beverley was the first to finish of the rest of the group. As Parnell came out into the main laboratory, she said: ‘I expected to sweat blood, not give it!’
‘This is a one-off situation,’ said Parnell.
‘I hope it is,’ said Lapidus. ‘I’ve never gone along with this scientist-test-yourself mumbo-jumbo.’
‘Neither have I,’ assured Parnell. ‘As I said, it’s a one-off.’
‘When do we know what it’s all about?’
He didn’t know, Parnell acknowledged. The mutation on his own initial self-experiment had shown after forty-eight hours, but it could have occurred far quicker than that. He should have monitored it during the Saturday, and most certainly have checked on the Sunday. Not having a time sequence risked his first findings being dismissed as flawed research. ‘Let’s give it an hour.’
‘What were you doing when we arrived?’ pressed Sato.
‘I’ve duplicated everything, for a comparison.’
‘You expect us to do that too?’ demanded Battey.
‘No,’ assured Parnell. ‘If your findings match mine – and my second tests corroborate – that’ll be enough.’ Should he set up a meeting with Dwight Newton in advance? There was every reason to move as quickly as possible if his findings were confirmed and the French subsidiary were already in production. But his findings weren’t yet confirmed. And until they were he couldn’t risk setting off alarm bells and challenging a company vice president and the director of chemical research.
There was another familiar hiatus throughout the unit. Sean Sato and Deke Pulbrow returned to their earlier contrasting of chicken and human DNA strings. Parnell told Kathy Richardson how he wanted the San Diego and London research filed, and dictated letters to both institutions congratulating them upon their exploratory work but regretting it hadn’t led them anywhere.
Parnell adhered strictly to his hourly check. There was no mutation on any of his carefully prepared petrie dishes. One by one, unasked, the rest of the unit ran their own checks on their own experiments. There was no response from anyone.
Impatiently Lapidus said: ‘I really don’t see why we can’t be told what we’re looking for!’
Neither did he now, conceded Parnell. It was overly cautious, imposing blind comparisons as he had: he deservedly risked the ridicule of the rest of the unit – whose respect he believed he’d had until now – if his cultures were inconclusive. ‘You’ll see it soon enough.’
‘How long do you want us to stay here?’ questioned Sean Sato. ‘I’m not complaining but I actually have something fixed for tonight I need to rearrange if this is going to go on.’
He needed at least one independent observer, accepted Parnell. ‘Let’s give it another hour. We’ll decide what to do in another hour.’ He sounded weak, ineffectual, he realized. He hadn’t thought it through, prepared properly.
Beverley said: ‘I’m not doing anything – in no hurry to get away.’
‘Neither am I,’ said Peter Battey. He led the afternoon coffee break. Parnell declined. So did Beverley.
When the two of them were alone Beverley said: ‘This is looking a little strange.’
‘It’s looking fucking ridiculous!’ corrected Parnell.
‘That’s what I meant.’
‘I didn’t want to influence anyone, as I didn’t want us to influence each other on Saturday when we were halfway through reading the flu research.’
‘You can’t influence a genetic reaction by telling someone in advance what it might possibly be! It’ll either happen or it won’t. And if it doesn’t, you’re not going to look good.’
‘I’ve already realized that.’
‘You ought to talk to people more.’
‘Maybe I should.’
Everyone was back fifteen minutes before the next scheduled culture-dish examination. Again Parnell was the first, the focus of every eye. He was even aware of Kathy Richardson watching from her separate office.
It was a warm, positively physical feeling, deep within him, as if he’d ingested something – a quick-reacting drug, even, which was an analogy that irritated him, although only for a passing second, because there was no irritation or disappointment at what he was looking at through the microscope lens. The mutation wasn’t as extensive as it had been when he’d first looked that morning – so far only three out of a total of fifteen of the newly prepared petrie dishes – but it was sufficient confirmation to substantiate his every fear. And there was every reason to be frightened, he realized, still bent over his apparatus but no longer concentrating solely on what was happening on the slide in front of him. He couldn’t remember an experiment – either one he’d conducted himself or one he’d read about, in any scientific research paper – in which a mutation occurred as quickly as this appeared to be doing.