The Meddlers (6 page)

Remember what you’re here for, he told himself and turned back to his audience.

“I must indeed apologize for my… irritation,” he said and produced his most disarming smile. “My feelings were hurt. Will you forgive me, madam?” And he looked directly at the woman who had been the origin of his biting anger and smiled again. She reddened and bobbed her head and sat down a little awkwardly.

Bridges’ voice came clearly again. “Dr. Briant,
why
are you doing this work?”

“I thought I’d explained that!”

“Oh, yes, you explained about what you want to find out. All very interesting. And that it may have practical applications. But
why?
Do you want to make it possible to rear a race of supermen? Bit… well, Hitlerish, isn’t it?”

Careful. Careful, Briant thought, and he paused a moment before speaking.

“I can assure you that I have no political motives whatsoever. Politics bore me, frankly. But I am a biologist, a scientist. And that
means I’m a realist. We surely have all faced the fact that the world is in real danger of overpopulation?” He looked around at the rest of the journalists. “That the time must inevitably come when we will have to control the right to reproduce? How it will be done is outside my brief at the moment. I… well, I want to find a way to ensure that we have a method that will help us produce only the best and happiest of individuals, so that when the time comes for control to be applied, it can be done gainfully. How much better it will be to say to people, ‘We can ensure that the children you have will be the best possible children, the ones with the best inheritance, the ones who will make the world a really good place to live in instead of the misery it so often is.’”

I’ve got them! he thought with sudden joyousness. I’ve got them.

“You can’t really want the handicapped, the mentally dull, the physically frail to reproduce themselves ad infinitum? In the early days of man’s evolution natural forces ensured that these individuals were weeded out of the human race and could not reproduce, but science has altered all that, made it possible to rear such frail specimens. Survival of the fittest was a superb natural mechanism which we damaged. Now, as a scientist, I am trying to repair that damage. Isn’t that a laudable aim?”

“Oh, undoubtedly,” Bridges murmured, and he was clearly heard, for Briant’s oration seemed to have completely flattened the other listeners. “Although I can’t help wondering whether you may be creating a tool which could be dangerously used. Do you never fear the possible misapplication of your work?”

“A scientist cannot be swayed by such fears and still remain true to science.” Briant paused, seeking the words which would explain what he meant without antagonizing this man. He was no longer aware of the other people present, only of the lanky figure in the front row.

“Take Rutherford. Had he worried about the possibility of atomic warfare when he was attempting to split the atom, he would never have gone on; and we would have lost the many benefits nuclear physics has given us, such as freely available power and treatment of disease. No, Mr. Bridges. In the search for knowledge
what matters is the truth that is knowledge. How it is used becomes the responsibility of others, not the searchers. And anyway, my search for knowledge about human behavior—surely it can’t be dangerous? To help people to be better people, happier people, how can that be dangerous?”

There was a short silence, and then from the back of the room a very young man stood up.

“Now you know how to select these perfect babies, Dr. Briant, will the treatment be available on the National Health Service?”

And suddenly the room shook with laughter. The prosaic simplicity of the question seemed to release and dissipate their suppressed anxiety and resentment, and the young man went scarlet with shame. But Briant was grateful to him.

“A most reasonable question!” he said loudly above the noise. “Most reasonable.” The laughter subsided. “It will be some time before the results of the experiment can be applied; not until the child reaches maturity can we evaluate our findings. And as for the National Health Service, well, it isn’t financing my work now! I have to seek such support from charity. And unless more charity comes my way, the whole project may founder.”

Leave it at that, leave it at that, he thought. Don’t shout too hard for money, but leave it at that. It’s enough.

The shrill woman stood up again. “Dr. Briant! Can you tell us what the baby’s name is?”

For one brief moment Briant was nonplused. He had frankly given no thought whatsoever to the child’s name; he had not yet thought of him as an identity anyway. Perhaps that was why. But to say as much to this sentimental woman’s-magazine lady would be asking for trouble, undoing all the efforts he had made to assure them all of his true warm humanity—emotional lot! And it would be a picture of his true warm humanity that would bring the money in for the project. He had then one of his occasional flashes of utter brilliance. “Why,” he said, smiling kindly at her, “George Briant, of course. He is, after all, to be as a son to me.”

He left them just before eleven, well satisfied with his morning’s work. He’d made mistakes, but he had salvaged them. They had seemed quite satisfied with his answers to their further questions, piddling little questions about the baby’s weight and hair and eye color, about the progress of the birth. He’d handed those to Miss Guttner, as the obstetrician involved, and she had confused them considerably with talk about the obstetric details, which pleased Briant a good deal. While she was ponderously explaining what an LOA presentation was, they couldn’t probe at him.

He had deeply resented the questions about himself as a personality, but had accepted Kegan’s whispered warning about antagonizing them again, and had submitted with the best grace he could muster. Yes, he was medically qualified, as well as being a biologist. Yes, he was a professor—an associate, not the holder of a chair, and did teach, but preferred to be referred to as Dr. Briant rather than Professor. No, his son was not at present intending to follow his
father into a scientific career, although his daughter was (and these questions he found particularly intrusive, but then thoughts of Ian and his activities always were an intrusion anyway). And no, he could not discuss the question of his wife’s involvement with the infant at this stage. She was of course interested in his progress, but as he had already told them, a mother substitute had been appointed to give the child his direct physical care.

He frowned sharply as he thought again about those particular questions. He had still not been able to talk to Majorie about the adoption. When he had reached home the previous evening, she had gone to bed. “Feeling ill, poor darling,” Ian had told him with a hint of malice underlying his display of concern. “She cooked dinner for us—she always keeps her promises, doesn’t she, no matter how she’s feeling?—but now she’s bushed.”

And George had found her apparently asleep, and had slept uneasily himself, impatient to get the whole matter properly thrashed out, hoping to discuss it in the morning. But she had woken with one of her banging headaches, so that was that.

Perhaps tonight I’ll get a chance, he thought now, with a lift of optimism. With a successful press conference behind him, he felt a new confidence in his ability to handle Marjorie, even though she was clearly well launched into one of her periods of being thoroughly tiresome. That she was being merely tiresome was undoubted. He had talked to Apthorp about her the previous afternoon, and it was clear she had exaggerated his anxiety about her health. There had been no new developments at all.

Yes, he’d deal with Majorie tonight, and he’d get her to agree to make her token agreement to the adoption. But he was glad he’d been able to fend off too many probing journalistic questions about her; he didn’t want them publishing any comments about her at this stage, that was sure. Such premature publicity could make her positively obstructive instead of merely difficult.

Indeed, he told himself as he walked briskly across the courtyard toward the covered way that led past Pathology and Pharmacy to the rear of the hospital and his own unit, it was not quite as bad as it might have been, taking it all around. And now at least he’d be left in peace to get on with some real work.

The thought of work brought its familiar comfort, and as he pushed open the door of his unit he switched his mind tidily from the press conference to the tests waiting to be done. He had an enjoyable job of work waiting for him, and asked for no more than that. And he had six people to work with who wouldn’t waste time on stupid questions about the baby’s emotional welfare, who saw as clearly as he did the greater fascination in the sheaves of data they had already collected on the child since his birth.

At seven days, we may be able to get some sense out of the graph on the effects of vacuum decompression during the pregnancy, he told himself happily and walked into his crowded office with a spring in his step.

  Isobel moved softly as she carried the pile of fresh disposable diapers to the cupboard. He was a good baby, didn’t startle and wake at the least noise, like some did, but there was a pleasure in being gentle and slow about things. And the least I can do is make sure he has some peace and quiet while he can, poor little scrap, she thought.

She stacked the diapers neatly on the top shelf, checked the gowns and vests, and then closed the cupboard and turned to look approvingly around the room. All tidy and comfortable, though she would have preferred to see a little color about the place. All that buff paint—it was so unbabylike; a nursery should have some pink and blue and lemon in it, like sugared almonds. But when she had asked if they couldn’t warm the place up a bit with some pretty colors, Dr. Briant had said sharply that they had to avoid confusing their color appreciation tests later, and she’d have all the color she wanted then.

She moved over to the cot and looked down at the baby. He really is a dear little thing, she thought, rubbing a little at her right breast. It was sore. She had told Dr. Saxby, and he’d said he’d mention it to Dr. Briant; it could be she was having a bit too high a dose of the red capsules. She certainly had a lot of milk. She thought herself it was because he was such a hungry baby—suckled so vigorously she felt sometimes as though he was pulling out her middle. Not that she had said that to Dr. Saxby. They had warned
her at the start there would be complicated things going on, and not to try to understand them, that her job was looking after the baby. So, obediently she kept her own counsel. She wasn’t going to risk annoying them as she had about the color of the paint.

The baby moved his head, and she winced slightly as she looked at him. Those things strapped to his poor little scalp—they must hurt him, no matter what they said. But he didn’t wake, even though he was lying right on two of them, so maybe they were right. Electrodes, that’s what they were; she had seen them used on the baby in the next cot to Jenny in the hospital, just a few days before she had died.

Strange how she could think about Jenny now without feeling so sick. For a long time after she had died, she hadn’t been able to think about her at all, it had been so awful, but now she could. And in this last week, ever since she had started the job properly, it had got even easier. The baby had helped a lot.

She sat down in the chair at the head of the cot and very carefully slid her forefinger into the baby’s hand. His grasp tightened around it automatically, and she found herself smiling. Dear little thing he was, just like Jenny had been at his age.

She felt a sudden stab of guilt, comparing him with Jenny. No matter what they had said to her at the hospital, it had been her fault she had died. She should have known she was ill, got a doctor to see her earlier, not waited until the bronchitis had turned to pneumonia, so that none of their injections and treatment had been any good. But she had been so ashamed. They had advised her to have the baby adopted, told her she’d not be able to earn a living for them both, but she’d been willful and gone her own way.

And when Jenny had got ill, she had been willful again, told herself she could manage to get her better without having the doctor to see her. And she knew now the reason she hadn’t wanted the doctor, knew it was because she was afraid they’d take Jenny away from her because she wasn’t fit to look after her. So it was her fault Jenny had died. She would carry the knowledge of that all her life.

Yet who’d have thought I’d be given another chance like this?
she thought. When she had decided to go after a job with children, the best she had hoped for was a mother’s-help place; she wasn’t trained as a nanny or anything like that. Yet she’d walked right into this marvelous chance, with no mother who would get jealous of her with the baby, only this bunch of doctors to deal with. It was like having a baby of her own again. It really went to show that God was good; when you’d paid for the things you did and you were really sorry, He gave you something good to make it up to you. And He knew she’d paid sorely for having Jenny, paid in her own shame at being caught by a married man at her age, paid in being the cause of her death.