Where the Summer Ends Part 6

"Polio? Exactly. Another killer plague that appeared from nowhere. Sure, this time we came up with a vaccine. But so we know where it went-where did polio come from, though? Each generation seems to have its nemesis. When I was your age, the big killer was stomach cancer. Like bad weather, we talked a lot about stomach cancer, but nothing much was ever done, and it faded into the background just the same. Instead, we had heart disease. Now there's the number one killer for these many years-the reason for billions of government dollars doled out for research. And what have we really done about it? Dietary fads, a few ghoulish transplants, and a pile of Rube Goldberg gadgetry that can keep things pumping for a few extra years. Sum total: too close to nothing to bother carrying. But that's all right too, because now heart disease is on the way out, and for now our great slayer of mankind is cancer.

"History and figures tell the story, young man. Cancer is here for the moment. And maybe all your research will do something about it, then more likely it won't. But it doesn't matter in the long run, because cancer will have its heyday and fade like its predecessors at the scythe handle, and then we'll find something new to die of. Wonder what it'll be."

"Someone else's worry, that's what it'll be. I suppose, as they say, you got to die of something." Geoff pushed his chair back from the table. "Meanwhile I'll chase after today's problems. And one of the most immediate concerns a scintillation counter run that ought to be gone through by now. See you, Ira."

"Sure. Hey, how about leaving that paper, if you're finished reading it."

Dr Thackeray was waiting in the lab when Geoff returned. The Great Man was leaning over Metzger's desk, idly looking through several days' loose data and notes. A long white lab coat, stylishly ragged after the Center's peculiar sn.o.bbery, covered his spa.r.s.e frame. A little imagination and he could make a good Halloween phantom, mused Geoff, watching the blue cigar smoke swirl about his hawklike face.

Geoff stepped into his office alcove. "Keeping late hours, Dr Thackeray?" The Chairman of Medicine has no first name within the walls of his domain.

"Good evening, Dr Metzger," returned his superior. "No, not particularly. I wanted to see how things were going with you, and I felt it likely you'd still be here. Your devotion to your work has caused some comment-even among our staff. Most commendable, but I hope you aren't working yourself into an early grave."

"I'll manage," Geoff promised. "I feel like I'm really getting somewhere right now though, and I hate to let up."

"Yes. I see you've made progress, Dr Metzger." His eyes black in the sterile glare of the fluorescents, Dr Thackeray let his gaze gesture about the crowded laboratory. "Very significant progress in the year you've been with us here at the Center."

Geoff framed his words with care. "I don't like to put myself down as saying-even off the record-just how far what I'm doing here might lead, Dr Thackeray. You've seen what I've accomplished so far, read the preliminary reports. But in the last few months I've... well, made a few unexpected breakthroughs. I think I know what it will mean, but I want absolute evidence to substantiate my findings before I speculate openly with regard to what I've learned. Forgive me if this seems melodramatic, but I've no desire to be labeled a fool, nor would I care to bring derision upon the Center."

"Again commendable, Dr Metzger. I appreciate your position, naturally. As you know, there's been some speculation among the staff relating to your most recent work-enough that some of us can understand what you're trying to lead up to."

"I'm making no preliminary claims," Geoff repeated. "Between the two of us, I feel certain of my ground. But too many over-eager researchers have gone off half c.o.c.ked and regretted it when their errors were immediately apparent to more careful workers."

"To be sure!" Dr Thackeray turned his piercing eyes into Geoff's. "I truly admire your discretion. Untold damage might result from foolish disclosures at this point. I agree."

"Thank you, sir."

"Not at all." Dr Thackeray waved his hand. His expression darkened. "It's because of the position you find yourself in right now that I've left these two papers on your desk."

Surprised, Geoff noticed for the first time the two dull black binders waiting beside a tangle of data tapes. Their vinyl covers bore no t.i.tle-then, on closer glance, he was aware of a tiny silver seal embossed on either spine.

"It required considerable effort to obtain those two copies," Dr Thackeray advised. "Needless to say, I'll expect you to examine them with care-the data is confidential, of course-and return them to me when you've finished. Reading them is explanation enough for the present, so I'll say no more for now.

"I think you'll want to discuss your thoughts on this with me. How about tomorrow morning at eight o'clock? I think you will have read through them to your satisfaction by then."

"Certainly," agreed Metzger in bewilderment. "If you feel this is important to my project..."

"It's extremely important, Dr Metzger, I a.s.sure you. Very well, then. We'll talk this over at eight."

With a bizarre sense of foreboding, Geoff took up the first of the black folders.

*IV*

Dr Thackeray's secretary was not present when Metzger entered the Department of Medicine offices the following morning-his nerves jagged after a sleepless night. Since he knew he was expected, he knocked and entered the Chairman's office. Sanctum sanctorum, soul of the Center, he thought with a tinge of hysteria.

"Dr Thackeray, I've been trying to get in touch with you all night..." He halted, startled to find the Chairman of Surgery seated within.

"It's all right, Dr Metzger," p.r.o.nounced Dr Thackeray. "Dr Lipton is a party to... this matter we have to discuss."

Numbly Geoff dropped into the room's vacant chair. The two older men faced him with carefully composed mien-eyes alert as birds of prey.

Geoff thumped a fist against the black vinyl folders in his lap. "G.o.d, it's all here!" His eyes were feverish. "Everything I've done, all I'd hoped to establish-a number of aspects I'd never considered!" Dr Thackeray nodded, eyes unblinking.

"Well, Christ, where did you get this? If you knew someone else was working in my field, why didn't you tell me earlier? h.e.l.l, this is too important for professional jealousy. I'll gladly share any of my data with these researchers. To h.e.l.l with who gets official credit!" His voice began to shake. "This research-this information! My G.o.d-it means a definite cure for almost every form of human cancer! Why, this delineates each etiological factor involved in cancer-pinpoints two definite stages where the causative agent can be destroyed, the disease process completely arrested! This research marks the triumph of medicine over leukemia, most of the systemic dysplasias-individual organ involvement will be virtually eradicated!"

"Quite true," Dr Lipton agreed. His long surgeon's fingers toyed with the silver-and-onyx ring he wore.

"Well, no more suspense, please! Whose work is this? Where's it being done?" Geoff's excitement was undiminished by the coolness of the other two physicians.

"One paper was prepared from the work of Dr C. Johnson Taggart," Dr Thackeray told him.

"Taggart? No wonder it's... But Taggart died ten years ago-brain tumor! You mean they've taken this long to piece together his notes?"

"The other paper, as you've noticed, is considerably older. Most of it was the work of Sir David Aubrey," Dr Thackeray concluded.

Geoff stared at them to determine whether they were playing some horribly sick joke. "Aubrey died at the turn of the century."

"True again. But he was responsible for most of the pioneer work in this field," Dr Lipton added with a tone of reproof.

The overweighted shelves of acc.u.mulated knowledge seemed to press down on Geoff's soul. A windowless room in the center of the complex, like a chamber of the vast heart of some monstrous ent.i.ty. "I don't understand," he whispered in a choked voice. "Why hasn't this information been used before now? Why were millions left to die?"

"Perhaps the world wasn't ready for a cure to cancer," Dr Thackeray replied.

"That's... that's insane! I don't understand," quavered Geoff, noticing now that Dr Thackeray wore a ring similar to Dr Lipton's. There was a seal set into the onyx. He had seen it before. It was stamped on the spines of the black binders.

"You can understand," Dr Thackeray was saying. "This will be strange-traumatic perhaps, at first. But think carefully. Would it be wise to circulate a total cure for cancer just now?"

"Are you serious? You can't be! The lives, the suffering..."

"The price of power, Dr Metzger. The price of power-just as every empire is built upon the lives and suffering of the expendable." Dr Lipton's voice was pitiless as the edge of his scalpels, excising without rancor the organism's defective tissue.

"Think of cancer in more rational terms," Dr Thackeray went on. "Have you any conception of the money invested every day in cancer research, in treatment of cancer patients? It's incalculable, I a.s.sure you. Do you think the medical profession can sacrifice this wealth, this enormous power, just for a humanitarian gesture?"

"But a physician's role is to heal!" screamed Metzger, abstractly noting how thoroughly the endless shelves m.u.f.fled sound.

"Of course. And he does heal," put in Dr Lipton. "But where would a physician be if there were no sickness to be healed?"

They were mad, Geoff realized. Or he was. He had been overworking. This was a dream, a paranoid fantasy.

This knowledge made him calmer. He would follow this mad logic-at least until he could be certain with whom the insanity lay. "But some diseases are eradicated," he protested.

"When they become expendable," Dr Thackeray told him. "Some, of course, simply die out, or fall victim to non-medical intervention. Others we announce a cure for-makes the profession look good. The world has restored faith in medicine, praises its pract.i.tioners, and pours more money into research. The prestige a physician enjoys in the community is an essential factor to us."

Lipton's frown furrowed into his close-cropped hair where it grew low on his brow. "And sometimes we slip up, and some fool announces a major cure without our awareness. Thank G.o.d, there's less of that now with the disappearance of independent research. As it is, we've had some d.a.m.n close calls-took a lot of work to discredit a few of these thoughtless meddlers."

Geoff remembered some of them. And now he knew fear, fear greater than his dread of insanity; fear that these men were all too sane. "I suppose something can happen to some of these researchers who might cause difficulty."

"You make it sound like a line from a gangster movie, but yes," Dr Thackeray acknowledged. "Quite a number of them die from some sudden illness, and the scientific community regrets that they left their brilliant promise unfulfilled."

"It's a way of avoiding other dilemmas as well, as I think you'll follow me," Dr Lipton growled. "Meddlers who become aware of our existence. Fools who would destroy the medical profession with Communistic laws and regulations, endanger the social structure with ruinous legislation.

"And don't look shocked, young man. Think instead just what kind of doctor you might be right now, if some of these late and unlamented wild-eyed liberals could have done all they intended to this country and to the medical profession."

"Murder... " breathed Geoff weakly.

"Not actually," Dr Thackeray broke in. "After all, as physicians we have to see human society as a living organism. The social organism is subject to disease just like any other ent.i.ty. To be trite, it isn't murder to excise a cancerous growth. Regulation treatment-sometimes drastic treatment-is essential if the organism is not to perish. This is the rationale behind all forms of government; the alternative is chaos. I think you'll agree that an educated elite is best suited to direct the social destiny of us all. After all, an epithelial cell is scarcely suited to handle the functions of a nerve cell. It functions smoothly, dies when its time comes-all because the brain, of which it has no conception, directs its course. How else would you have it?"

"You can't suppress medical knowledge indefinitely" Geoff returned defiantly. "Someday someone will eradicate cancer. They were aware of its etiology as far back as Aubrey..."

"Certainly."

"In fact, it's amazing that Aubrey understood cancer so thoroughly-considering the relatively crude apparatus of the day." Dr Thackeray smiled. "Ah, but we've talked earlier about the possibility of what I believe you termed 'recondite scientific knowledge.' And besides, Aubrey had several advantages over moderns as to the matter of his starting point."

Horror was damp on Metzger's face. The air was stifling, charged with hideous revelation. "You said he was a pioneer... "

"Yes," Lipton rumbled impatiently. "A pioneer in the development of the disease process."

"Oh my G.o.d," whispered Geoff. "Oh my G.o.d!"

"I know this is a great deal to comprehend," Dr Thackeray offered sympathetically. "But use your intelligence. To have significant power, a physician must have an essential role-and what is more compelling than the power of life and death? If there were no diseases, there would be no need for physicians. Therefore at certain times throughout history it has been necessary to develop and introduce to the general population new forms of disease."

"But accidental deaths-traffic accidents..." Geoff countered, striving to follow his resolve to argue the situation by their own insane reasoning.

Dr Lipton laughed shortly. "If you only knew half our efforts toward keeping cars and highways unsafe! Or the medications we release for the public to abuse. Or the chemical additives we've developed..."

"Who? Who are you?" His nerve was going to shatter in another instant. This dispa.s.sionate, insane...

"There are a number of us " Dr Thackeray announced. "A small, highly select order of medicine's elite. An ancient order, I might point out. After all, the art of medicine is as old as human suffering, is it not?

"And of course, our order has grown in power with the pa.s.sage of time. Today, our society is custodian of an astonis.h.i.+ng body of medical and scientific knowledge; our research facilities are the best in the world. We have a certain hierarchy-democratically established, of course-to oversee our operations, direct the use of our wealth, to make those decisions vital to maintaining the order's power and security.

"And naturally you can see why we've been so interested in you, Dr Metzger."

Under their relentless stare, Geoff struggled desperately to maintain exterior calm, while underneath his mind grappled with ideas too nightmarish for conception. "What do you want from me?" he grated, dreading the answer.

"Come now, young man," Dr Thackeray spoke rea.s.suringly. "This isn't a high tribunal. We wish to bestow a great honor upon you-an honor reserved for only those most worthy. We want you to join in our order."

"This is insane, of course," Geoff murmured without conviction. "You want me to become part of a society of inhuman despots? G.o.d! This is the most debased treachery to mankind that any mind could ever conceive!"

"It will take a certain period for your thinking to adjust to this new awareness," Dr Lipton interceded with some rancor. "It might change matters if you knew your father was one of us."

"I can't believe that!" But from the dim recesses of his memory came the phantom image of a ring he once saw his father wear-a black onyx ring, set with a peculiar signet.

"True, nonetheless," Dr Thackeray said. "I knew him well. His untimely death was a great setback to us."

" So 'untimely death' can even strike your council of petty G.o.ds! "

"There are occasional power struggles within our... " Dr Lipton began. He was silenced by a glare from Dr Thackeray.

"Naturally we protect ourselves from our own, ah, methods," Dr Thackeray proceeded. "As a member of our order, you will have access to medical techniques beyond the dream of those outside. Only rarely does something untoward occur."

"Why did you pick me?"

"That should be obvious. It was essential to stop your present line of research, certainly. But that could have been a simple matter. No, we've had our attention on you for a great while. As I say, your father was high in our order. Your family connections are invaluable. Your own contributions to medicine would have singled you out, even had your background been quite plebeian. You're a brilliant man, Dr Metzger. It would be difficult to postulate a candidate better qualified for members.h.i.+p in our order."

"I suppose I'm immensely flattered."

"You should be," the surgeon growled.

"And you shall be," Dr Thackeray a.s.sured him. "You will naturally want a certain length of time to consider. This is quite understandably a devastating blow to your past conceptions and ideals. We are pleased to offer you time to consider, to re-evaluate your position in light of this new awareness. You're an intelligent man, Dr Metzger. I feel certain your decision will be the rational one-once you've had time to reconsider your former prejudices and misconceptions."

"Suppose I decide to tell the world of your unspeakable conspiracy?"

"Who would ever believe you?"

"It's not that unusual for an overwrought researcher to suffer a nervous collapse," Dr Lipton told him. "In such cases, immediate inst.i.tutional treatment is available. We become very sympathetic, and work very hard to help our stricken fellow-but I'm afraid our cure ratio is somewhat grim."

Geoff remembered, and fear tightened a chill coil around his heart. "I have to think," he muttered, his thoughts searching frantically for some release to this nightmare. "G.o.d, I have to think! "

"Of course." Dr Thackeray's smile was one of paternal sympathy. "We'll wait for your decision."

Not very many minutes after Geoff Metzger had dazedly fled Dr Thackeray's office, a section of the book-lined wall pivoted open. The two noted physicians looked expectantly to the heavy-set man who waited within the hidden niche.

"Well, Dr Royce?"

The eminent psychiatrist grimly studied the monitoring devices focused on the room's vacant chair.

"No," he p.r.o.nounced.

*V*

By habit Geoff stumbled back to his lab. A wounded beast returns to his lair, he thought morbidly.

None of his lab workers had appeared. No doubt they had been instructed to take a day off. His phone worked-at least there was a dial tone. But then they couldn't disconnect every phone in the Center. Besides, who could he tell? Gwen? She might believe him. More likely she'd call a psychiatrist at the first discreet moment. And even without believing him, her knowledge would endanger her life as well.

It was monstrous. Surrounded by a sterile labyrinth of tile and cinderblock and stainless steel, shelves of gleaming lab equipment, banks of humming research apparatus-watchful in the dead white glare of the fluorescents... G.o.d, he'd never realized how sinister a research lab could be. Suddenly he felt like some ancient sorcerer, surrounded by the abhorrent paraphernalia of his evil delvings-a sorcerer who had suddenly succeeded with his conjurations, who now held the bleak knowledge of what demonic powers had claimed his soul.

To become a partner in this inhuman conspiracy was unthinkable. Perhaps its arrogant, ruthless rationality would appeal to certain of his colleagues. But never to him. He could never endure the knowledge of so monstrous a betrayal. He would not become traitor to mankind.

The alternative? Death, almost certainly. Countless others had died for suspecting, for so much as entertaining ideas which might lead to exposing this secret order. He knew. They would show him no mercy. What chance did one man have against a hidden society that had held remorseless power for centuries?

There was a slim chance. His only chance. He might pretend to acquiesce. He could agree to join them in their dread order. Of course, they would suspect; he would be carefully watched. But in time they would accept him. For such enormous stakes he could afford to bide his time, wait patiently for years perhaps. During that period he could plan, build up una.s.sailable evidence, learn their names-lay preparations for the day when he might expose their dark treason to the unsuspecting world...

"Hey, buddy, you look gloomy. Wife troubles, I bet. They don't go for their man spending all his time with the test tubes, I should know. How about some coffee?" Dave Froneberger was grinning at him, already fiddling with the urn.

Geoff blinked at him dumbly. After the ordeal of these last few hours, Froneberger with his insinuating ba.n.a.lities and petty gossip seemed almost an ally. Perhaps he could be one.

"Thanks, Dave," he muttered, accepting the Styrofoam cup. He was too shaken even to feel his customary disgust with the bitter coffee. Yes, Froneberger with his prying interest in his research might be an ally At least he could be one other party to this new cancer data. They couldn't murder and discredit the entire Center staff.