CHAPTER 2

"Ferris!" Mitchell yelled, slamming the laboratory door behind him.

"Right here," the small man said briskly. He was sitting at a work table, penciling notes. "I've been expecting you."

"Doctor—Harold—you shouldn't have given this story to the newspapers," Mitchell said. He tapped the back of his hand against the folded paper.

"On the contrary, I should and I did," Ferris answered. "We wanted something dramatic to show to the trustees and here it is."

"Yes, we wanted to show our proof to the trustees—but not broadcast unverified results to the press. It's too early for that!"

"Don't be so stuffy and conservative, Mitchell! Macklin's cured, isn't he? By established periodic cycle he should be suffering hell right now, shouldn't he? But thanks to our treatment he is perfectly happy, with no unfortunate side effects such as gynergen produces."

"It's a significant test case, yes. But not enough to go to the newspapers with. If it wasn't enough to go to the press with, it wasn't enough to try and breach the trustees with. Don't you see? The public will hand down a ukase demanding our virus, just as they demanded the Salk vaccine and the Grennell serum."

"But—"

The shrill call of the telephone interrupted Mitchell's objections.

Ferris excused himself and crossed to the instrument. He answered it and listened for a moment, his face growing impatient.

"It's Macklin's wife," Ferris said. "Do you want to talk to her? I'm no good with hysterical women."

"Hysterical?" Mitchell muttered in alarm and went to the phone.

"Hello?" Mitchell said reluctantly. "Mrs. Macklin?"

"You are the other one," the clear feminine voice said. "Your name is Mitchell."

She couldn't have sounded calmer or more self-possessed, Mitchell thought.

"That's right, Mrs. Macklin. I'm Dr. Steven Mitchell, Dr. Ferris's associate."

"Do you have a license to dispense narcotics?"

"What do you mean by that, Mrs. Macklin," Mitchell said sharply.

"I used to be a nurse, Dr. Mitchell. I know you've given my husband heroin."

"That's absurd. What makes you think a thing like that?"

"The—trance he's in now."

"Now, Mrs. Macklin. Neither Dr. Ferris or myself have been near your husband for a full day. The effects of a narcotic would have worn off by this time."

"Most known narcotics," she admitted, "but evidently you have discovered something new. Is it so expensive to refine you and Ferris have to recruit new customers to keep yourselves supplied?"

"Mrs. Macklin! I think I had better talk to you later when you are calmer."

Mitchell dropped the receiver heavily. "What could be wrong with Macklin?" he asked without removing his hand from the telephone.

Ferris frowned, making quotation marks above his nose. "Let's have a look at the test animals."

Together they marched over to the cages and peered through the honeycomb pattern of the wire. The test chimp, Dean, was sitting peacefully in a corner scratching under his arms with the back of his knuckles. Jerry, their control in the experiment, who was practically Dean's twin except that he had received no injection of the E-M Virus, was stomping up and down punching his fingers through the wire, worrying the lock on the cage.

"Jerry is a great deal more active than Dean," Mitchell said.

"Yes, but Dean isn't sick. He just doesn't seem to have as much nervous energy to burn up. Nothing wrong with his thyroid either."

They went to the smaller cages. They found the situation with the rats, Bud and Lou, much the same.

"I don't know. Maybe they just have tired blood," Mitchell ventured.

"Iron deficiency anemia?"

"Never mind, doctor. It was a form of humor. I think we had better see exactly what is wrong with Elliot Macklin."

"There's nothing wrong with him," Ferris snapped. "He's probably just trying to get us in trouble, the ingrate!"

Macklin's traditional ranch house was small but attractive in aqua-tinted aluminum.

Under Mitchell's thumb the bell chimbed dum-de-de-dum-dum-dum.

As they waited Mitchell glanced at Ferris. He seemed completely undisturbed, perhaps slightly curious.

The door unlatched and swung back.

"Mrs. Macklin," Mitchell said quickly, "I'm sure we can help if there is anything wrong with your husband. This is Dr. Ferris. I am Dr. Mitchell."

"You had certainly better help him, gentlemen." She stood out of the doorway for them to pass.

Mrs. Macklin was an attractive brunette in her late thirties. She wore an expensive yellow dress. And she had a sharp-cornered jawline.

The Army officer came out into the hall to meet them.

"You are the gentlemen who gave Dr. Macklin the unauthorized injection," he said.

It wasn't a question.

"I don't like that 'unauthorized'," Ferris snapped.

The colonel—Mitchell spotted the eagles on his green tunic—lifted a heavy eyebrow. "No? Are you medical doctors? Are you authorized to treat illnesses?"

"We weren't treating an illness," Mitchell said. "We were discovering a method of treatment. What concern is it of yours?"

The colonel smiled thinly. "Dr. Macklin is my concern. And everything that happens to him. The Army doesn't like what you have done to him."

Mitchell wondered desperately just what they had done to the man.

"Can we see him?" Mitchell asked.

"Why not? You can't do much worse than murder him now. That might be just as well. We have laws to cover that."

The colonel led them into the comfortable, over-feminine living room. Macklin sat in an easy chair draped in embroidery, smoking. Mitchell suddenly realized Macklin used a pipe as a form of masculine protest to his home surroundings.

On the coffee table in front of Macklin were some odd-shaped building blocks such as were used in nursery schools. A second uniformed man—another colonel but with the snake-entwined staff of the medical corps in his insignia—was kneeling at the table on the marble-effect carpet.

The Army physician stood up and brushed his knees, undusted from the scrupulously clean rug.

"What's wrong with him, Sidney?" the other officer asked the doctor.

"Not a thing," Sidney said. "He's the healthiest, happiest, most well-adjusted man I've ever examined, Carson."

"But—" Colonel Carson protested.

"Oh, he's changed all right," the Army doctor answered. "He's not the same man as he used to be."

"How is he different?" Mitchell demanded.

The medic examined Mitchell and Ferris critically before answering. "He used to be a mathematical genius."

"And now?" Mitchell said impatiently.

"Now he is a moron," the medic said.