The Immortality Factor (15 page)

Graves knitted his brows and said, “Mr. Rosen, you really are wandering rather far afield.”

Rosen stared at the chief judge for a long moment, then turned back toward Arthur. “Did you use any government funding on this work?”

“The paraplegic work?”

“The entire program, including organ regeneration.”

“No.”

“None whatsoever?”

“Not one penny.”

“Any government facilities? Instruments or equipment that your laboratory had purchased on government money?”

Arthur hesitated long enough to let him think he was searching his memory. “No, not to the best of my recollection.”

Rosen smiled at him. “That's a lawyer's phrase, Dr. Marshak. Have you been briefed by a lawyer?”

Arthur smiled back at the examiner. “Omnitech's legal department is very interested in this hearing, naturally. But, no, I have not been coached in any way.”

Rosen's expression showed clear disbelief.

“Then, to the best of your recollection,” said the judge on Arthur's left, “no federal funds were used in your experiments on tissue regeneration.”

“That is correct,” Arthur said, glancing at the jury. Several of them were scribbling notes. “And we didn't use stem cells, either. Neither fetal cells nor adult.”

“Really?” Rosen blurted.

“Really,” said Arthur. “Check the reports.”

Rosen paced before him a few steps, hands pressed together before his lips as if in prayer, framing his next question. The TV cameras focused on him. The audience waited in silence.

“Dr. Marshak,” he said, turning back toward Arthur, “just who actually was the first to hit upon the concept of regenerating organs and limbs? Was it you or your brother, Dr. Jesse Marshak?”

“We did it together.”

“Did you?”

Arthur thought a moment, then replied, “If I remember correctly, I first got the idea for regenerating spinal neurons and Jesse amplified it to consider other kinds of tissue.”

“Organs?”

“Yes.”

“Limbs?”

Feeling nettled by Rosen's seeming obtuseness, Arthur said, “Yes, and toes and fingers, too.”

No one laughed.

“Then it was Dr. Jesse Marshak who originated the concept of regenerating limbs and organs, not you.”

“What difference does it make?” Arthur shot back. “We're not here to decide who gets a patent on the idea. I thought the purpose of this court was to decide on the scientific validity of the concept. Can we regenerate human organs? Can we regrow a lost arm or leg? I say the answer is yes, we can.”

“That is for this court to decide,” Rosen snapped.

“Well, then let's get into the scientific evidence on the subject and stop talking about personalities and funding and corporate takeovers.”

Rosen looked at the judges. None of them had a word to say. Turning back to Arthur, he smiled tightly. “We will get into the scientific evidence soon enough. First it is necessary for us to establish the background under which the work was done.”

“I don't agree,” said Arthur.

“I'm sure you don't, but there are other scientists who do. Very prominent scientists, in fact.” Rosen went back to his end of the table and riffled through some papers there. “The late Dr. Stephen Jay Gould, of Harvard University, for example. Would you say he was a prominent biologist?”

Arthur answered through clenched teeth, “A paleontologist, I would say.”

Rosen gave his wintry smile, then read from the sheet of paper in his hand, “Dr. Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard University had this to say about the human background behind scientific research: ‘The myth of a separate mode based on rigorous objectivity and arcane, largely mathematical knowledge, vouchsafed only to the initiated, may provide some immediate benefits in bamboozling a public to regard us as a new priesthood, but must ultimately prove harmful in erecting barriers to truly friendly understanding and in falsely persuading so many students that science lies beyond their capabilities.' ”

“That's got nothing to do with the matter at hand!” Arthur protested.

“I'm sure you think so,” said Rosen, “but still the fact remains that in your rush to prove your idea a young woman was killed.”

Arthur shot to his feet. The audience stirred and all the TV cameras swung to him. “Listen,” he said hotly. “I agreed to participate in this hearing because I want the scientific facts laid out clearly and distinctly so that the scientific
community—and the general public—can decide on the
scientific
issue of whether or not we can regenerate human organs and limbs. You can debate the social or moral or financial or political sides of the matter somewhere else. This is supposed to be a court of
science
and you're trying to turn it into a political football game. I will not participate in this farce!”

He picked up his leather-bound PowerBook computer from the desktop.

“Dr. Marshak!” called the chief judge, up at the front table. “Arthur—please!”

The hearing chamber was alive with voices now. News reporters whispered hurriedly into their voice recorders. The audience was abuzz. Rosen stood glaring at Arthur while Graves rapped his gavel uselessly.

Over the babel of voices Graves shouted, “Court is recessed for fifteen minutes. Dr. Marshak, Dr. Rosen—I want to see you in the judges' chambers. Now!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A
ctually, the first time I popped the idea of organ regeneration to Omnitech's management was at the board meeting when Johnston tried to sandbag me. It was probably a mistake for me to mention the work so early, but I was trying to fight my way out of a trap.

Omnitech's quarterly meeting of the board of directors took place that summer, as usual, at the corporate headquarters in downtown Manhattan. Over the past two years the meetings had become progressively more tense, as the corporation's sales staggered through a global recession and then slowly recovered. Profits suffered, too, but Johnston and his administrative people managed to keep the net from sinking too far by cutting costs ruthlessly. Which meant laying off workers.

Grenford Lab hadn't been touched by the layoffs. I wouldn't stand for that. Besides, the lab was too small a division for its personnel costs to have any real impact on the corporate financial picture. But more than once I had been forced to fight off moves to cut entire research programs in the name of economy and that most sacred of all cows, the bottom line.

I had a favorite riposte I used on the board whenever they started talking about cutbacks at the lab. “I own a few shares of stock in this corporation, too,” I would tell them, “and if you want our stock to be worth anything five years from now, you'd better keep your hands off our research efforts.”

At that particular quarterly meeting, though, you could feel a special tension in the air. While the board automatically approved the minutes of our last meeting and then the treasurer's report, I wondered what was making everyone so uptight. Sales had improved; only slightly, but at least the trend was upward. And although Johnston and the other officers were worried about the possibilities of a hostile takeover bid, the European consortium would not be trying to grab the corporation if Omnitech wasn't a valuable asset.

Is it the takeover bid? I asked myself as I sat at the long polished Brazilian cherrywood table. No, I decided, scanning the faces of the other board members. We've been wrestling with the takeover bid for almost a year now. It's something else. Something new in the wind.

No matter how sales and profits went, the board's meeting room remained opulent. Two walls were all glass, from floor to ceiling, glass that darkened automatically when direct sunlight fell on it. Manhattan was spread out on display through those glass walls, from City Hall past the spires of the skyscrapers all the way out to the almost-hidden greenery of Central Park. The emptiness of Ground Zero was off to the left. In the other direction I could see across the East River toward Brooklyn Heights. Not so far away, as the crow flies, from my childhood home. Only a lifetime or two.

The meeting ticked along almost perfunctorily. Johnston kept to the agenda and discouraged speech-making. He sat at the head of the table, with the nominal chairman of the board at his right hand, a doddering old man whose reputation far exceeded his talent, as far as I could see.

Freda Gunnerson was giving a terse report on the Stockholm Division's program to build and operate a modern computer factory in Moscow. The report was pretty glum. Looking around the table, I realized that not all of the board members looked wired tight. Some seemed as unruffled or musingly distracted as they did at every meeting. Fewer than half of the twenty-four-member board ever had anything constructive to say at these meetings, and they were usually the members who also ran operating divisions. The others, mostly white-haired or balding, were on the board because they owned large blocks of stock or had risen to the level of senior statesmen in the corporate world. I often wondered how some of these semi-somnolent old men ever got out of bed, let alone rose to the level of captain of industry. I've got to admit that the few women on the board seemed sharper, more focused than the elder statesmen. Probably they had to be, to rise past the glass ceiling.

The more I studied my fellow board members, the more it seemed to me
that only the members of the executive committee were wound up. Something's going on in the executive committee, I realized.

“The Russians say they want capitalism,” Gunnerson was complaining in her thin nasally whining voice, “but they are riddled through with corruption and they have no idea of what competition really is or how incentives work.”

The executive committee had held its own private little meeting before the regular board meeting, I knew. Something happened that's got them all edgy as hell. Maybe Johnston will get into it when we go to new business on the agenda.

“Thanks for your report, Freda,” Johnston said when she turned over the last leaf of the pages before her. “Any comments?”

The board members glanced at one another. Before anyone could speak up, Johnston said, “Okay, we'll go on to new business.”

Several of the members looked clearly surprised.

“Before we do that,” said Tabatha Young, the only woman among the senior officers of the board, “what's the latest on the takeover bid?”

Johnston squirmed slightly in his chair. I liked white-haired Tabatha Young; she had taken her late husband's seat on the board as a temporary measure nearly five years earlier and had shown that she possessed as much knowledge and drive as anyone sitting at that table; more than most of the men her own age, in fact.

“It looks as if the Europeans are going to go ahead with a hostile takeover bid,” Johnston said unhappily.

“That's what you told us last meeting,” said Tabatha. “Hasn't anything happened since then?”

Frowning, the CEO said, “I expect them to make a public bid for our stock in a couple of months, three at the most.”

That sent a shudder of sighs and whispers down the table.

“And what are we doing to prepare for that?” Tabatha could be relentless when she wanted to be.

“The one thing we've got to do is improve our cash position,” said Johnston. “That should up the market price of our stock, make the takeover attempt too expensive for them.”

“And what steps are you taking toward that end?”

Johnston hesitated, then replied, “I'm not prepared to discuss that yet. The executive committee is working out a plan, but it's not finalized. It may be necessary to call a special meeting of the board in a few weeks specifically on that subject.”

“I see,” said Tabatha.

“Any new business?” Johnston asked eagerly from the head of the table.

Sid Lowenstein said, “I hear Art's started down another new trail. Maybe he can tell us something about it.”

My annoyance at Lowenstein's calling me Art was swallowed by my surprise at being asked to report on the new work I had started at the lab. I had only had that one brief discussion with Johnston about the paraplegic work and now Lowenstein wanted me to talk about it in front of the entire board. Why?

“It's very early,” I said cautiously, trying to think it out while I talked. “And very small. I can handle it out of the division's internal funds for the time being.”

“What's it all about?” asked Tabatha.

“Don't be coy, Arthur,” Johnston said. “Tell the board what you told me two weeks ago.”

Have they rehearsed this? I wondered. I felt as if I were stepping into a quicksand bog. “It's much too early to let this information go beyond these four walls.” I knew that corporate board members kept secrets about as well as congressmen or White House aides.

They all leaned forward in their plush chairs and looked expectantly down the table at me.

There was nothing for me to do except plunge ahead. Gingerly. “We've started very preliminary work on experiments that may lead to a way to cure paraplegics.”

“Cure them?”

“If this idea works, we may eventually be able to reconnect the severed spinal tissue and allow paraplegics to regain control of their legs.”

Surprisingly, one of the oldest men there asked, “What about their bladder functions? It's kidney and bladder infections that kill most paraplegics, isn't it?”

He must have one in the family, I thought. “Yes, it should allow them to regain control over their bladders, as well. Reconnect the spine, and the brain regains control over all the parts of the body that were lost when the spinal cord was severed. If they haven't degenerated too far.”

“Can you really do that?” the woman next to me asked.