They shook hands gingerly. Dicken sized up Newcomb for a moment, then said, “You’re Mark’s new traveler.”

“Yes,” Newcomb said.

“Congratulations on getting the appointment,” Dicken said to Augustine.

“Don’t bother,” Augustine said. “It’s going to be a nightmare.”

“Gather all the children under one umbrella,” Dicken said. “How’s Frank doing?”

“He’s leaving Walter Reed next week.”

Another silence. Dicken could think of nothing more to say. Newcomb folded his hands uncomfortably, then adjusted his glasses, pushing them up his nose. Dicken hated the silence, and just as Augustine was about to speak again, he broke in with, “They’re going to keep me for another couple of weeks. Another surgery on my hand. I’d like to get off the campus for a while, see what’s going on in the world.”

“Let’s go into your room and talk,” Augustine suggested.

“Be my guests,” Dicken said.

When they were inside, Augustine asked Newcomb to shut the door. “I’d like Kelly to spend a couple of days talking with you. Getting up to speed. We’re moving into a new phase. The president has put us under his discretionary budget.”

“Great,” Dicken said thickly. He swallowed and tried to bring up some spit to wet his tongue. Drugs for pain and antibiotics were playing hell with his chemistry.

“We’re not going to do anything radical,” Augustine said. “Everyone agrees we’re in an incredibly delicate state.”

“State with a capital S,” Dicken said.

“For the moment, no doubt,” Augustine said quietly. “I didn’t ask for this, Christopher.”

“I know,” Dicken said.

“But should any SHEVA children be born alive, we have to move quickly. I have reports from seven labs that prove SHEVA can mobilize ancient retroviruses in the genome.”

“It kicks around all manner of HERV and retrotrans-posons,” Dicken said. He had been trying to read the studies on a special viewer in the room. “I’m not sure they’re actually viruses. They may be—”

“Whatever you call them, they have the requisite viral genes,” Augustine interrupted. “We haven’t faced them for millions of years, so they’ll probably be pathogenic. What worries me now is any movement that might encourage woman to bring these children to term. There’s no problem in Eastern Europe and Asia. Japan has already started a prevention program. But here, we’re more cussed.”

That was putting it mildly. “Don’t cross that line again, Mark,” Dicken advised.

Augustine was in no mood for wise counsel. “Christopher, we could lose more than just a generation of children. Kelly agrees.”

“The work is sound,” Newcomb said.

Dicken coughed, controlled the spasm, but his face flushed with frustration. “What are we looking at…Internment camps? Concentration nurseries”?”

“We estimate there will be one or two thousand SHEVA children born alive in North America by the end of the year, at most. There may be none, zero, Christopher. The president has already signed an emergency order giving us custody if any are born alive. We’re working out the civil details now. God only knows what the E.U. is going to do. Asia is being very practical. Abortion and quarantine. I wish we could be so bold.”

“To me, this does not sound like a major health threat, Mark,” Dicken said. His throat caught again and he coughed. With his damaged eyesight, he could not make out Augustine’s expression behind the bandages.

“They’re reservoirs, Christopher,” Augustine said. “If the babies get out in the general public, they’ll be vectors. All it took for AIDS was a few.”

“We admit it stinks,” Newcomb said, glancing at Augustine. “I feel that in my gut. But we’ve done computer analysis on some of these activated HERV Given expression of viable env andpol genes, we could have something much worse than HIY The computers point to a disease like nothing we’ve seen in history. It could burn the human race, Dr. Dicken. We could just flake away like dust.”

Dicken pushed up out of his chair and sat on the edge of his bed. “Who disagrees?” he asked.

“Dr. Mahy at the CDC,” Augustine said. “Bishop and Thorne. And of course James Mondavi. But the Princeton people agree, and they have the president’s confidence. They want to work with us on this.”

“What do the opponents say?” Dicken asked Newcomb.

“Mahy thinks any released particles will be fully adapted retroviruses, but nonpathogenic, and that the worst we’ll see is a few cases of some rare cancers,” Augustine said. “Mondavi also sees no pathogenesis. But that’s not why we’re here, Christopher.”

“Why, then?”

“We need your personal input. Kaye Lang has gotten herself pregnant. You know the father. It’s a first-stage SHEVA. She’ll have her miscarriage any day now.”

Dicken turned away.

“She’s sponsoring a conference in Washington state. We tried to get the Emergency Action Office to shut it down—”

“A scientific conference?”

“More mumbo-jumbo about evolution. And, no doubt, encouragement for new mothers. This could be a PR disaster, very bad for morale. We don’t control the press, Christopher. Do you think she’ll be extreme on the subject?”

“No,” Dicken said. “I think she’ll be very reasonable.”

“That could be worse,” Augustine said. “But it’s also something we can use against her, if she claims the support of Science with a capital S. Mitch Rafelson’s reputation is pure mud.”

“He’s a decent fellow,” Dicken said.

“He’s a liability, Christopher,” Augustine said. “Fortunately, he’s her liability, not ours.”

76

Seattle

Kaye carried her yellow legal pad from the bedroom to the kitchen. Mitch had been at the University of Washington since nine that morning. The first reaction to his visit at the Hayer Museum had been negative; they were not interested in controversy, whatever his support from Brock or any other scientist. Brock himself, they had sagely pointed out, was controversial, and according to unnamed sources had been “let go from” or even “forced out of” the Neandertal studies at the University of Innsbruck.

Kaye had always loathed academic politics. She set the notebook and a glass of orange juice on a small table by Mitch’s worn chair, then sat down with a small moan. With nothing coming to her this morning and no sense of where to take the book next, she had started a general short essay that she might use at the conference in two weeks…

But the essay had abruptly stalled as well. Inspiration was simply no competititon for the peculiar tangled feeling in her abdomen.

It had been almost ninety days. Last night, in her journal, she had written, “Already it is about the size of a mouse.” And nothing more.

She used Mitch’s remote to turn on the old TV Governor Harris was giving yet another press conference. He went on the air every day to report on the Emergency Act, how Washington state was cooperating with Washington, D.C., what measures he was resisting — he was very big on resistance, playing to the rugged individualists east of the Cascades — and explaining very carefully where he thought cooperation was beneficial and essential. Once more he went through a bleak litany of statistics.

“In the Northwest, from Oregon to Idaho, the law enforcement officials tell me there have been at least thirty acts of human sacrifice. When we add this to the estimated twenty-two thousand incidents of violence against women around the country, the Emergency Act seems long overdue. We are a community, a state, a region, a nation, out of control with grief and panicked by an incomprehensible act of God.”

Kaye rubbed her stomach gently. Harris had an impossible job. The proud citizens of the U.S.A., she thought, were adopting a very Chinese attitude. With the favor of Heaven so obviously withdrawn, their support for any and all governments had diminished drastically.