The breeds of man, p.1
The Breeds of Man, page 1
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The Breeds of Man
By Francis Marion Busby
BOOK ONE
"Knowing that one is collaterally descended from a virus can be somewhat humbling."
(From Origins, by Rome dos Caras.)
Chapter One
The Presidential Task Force, Cogdill thought, needed someone who knew how to ramrod. Three days ago they'd called him in from Chicago, and for those three days he'd sat around watching them not make up their minds. As Chairman of the Board for the Phoenix Foundation, Thane Cogdill was used to seeing some action. Here in D.C., to date he'd observed very little.
The subject was AIDS: more specifically, how to combat the fatal scourge. At latest report, more than half the country's population tested positive for exposure; how many would contract the disease, and when, was anybody's guess.
Two years earlier, Gilcorp's labs had produced a vaccine that seemed to stem the threat. But as viruses will do, this one had mutated—had found new vectors and begun to spread by new avenues. Had, in fact, scared the hell out of most of North America and much of Europe. Africa, possibly the organism's original source, suffered between disease on the one hand and famine on the other. From Central and South America, word was sparse. And as usual, neither China nor the Soviet bloc was telling anyone much more than the time of day.
Now, sipping coffee, Cogdill watched and listened as the Task Force's own Chairman, Pete Randall, plowed through old ground. "The question is whether we can, in conscience, bypass normal procurement methods. A good case can be made—"
Cogdill had had enough. "Excuse me, Pete. The question is, do you want to give my people the green light for an all-out push toward an AIDS cure? Or poop around for another six months, shuffling procurement papers and permission documents?"
Some of the Force members looked shocked; Randall merely showed distress. Cogdill went on, "When Phoenix clobbered herpes for you, a time back, it stayed clobbered. Remember?"
"Of course. But that contract went through normal bidding."
"And you got lucky; you got Phoenix. With AIDS, you didn't; Gilcorp outbid us."
"That's true, and—"
"And for a while, their vaccine seemed to work." Now Cogdill was getting warmed up. "But then the retrovirus mutated. It couldn't do that spontaneously, not'on such a wide scale. The change had to be triggered by Gilcorp's vaccine."
"But how—?"
"Pete, I don't know how; I'm an administrator, not a white-coat." Forgetting that he wasn't in his own Board room, presiding, Cogdill slapped his hand down onto the table, hard. "Here it is: do you want to vote a nostrings grant, to get us started on this job as soon as I can get to a phone? Or would you rather stay with the lowest bidder?" He stood. "When you decide, call me at my hotel. Either way, tonight I'm catching my ten o'clock flight back to Chicago."
The woman sitting beside Randall—Laura Casey, her name was—glared at Cogdill. He hated to see her do that; the tall brunette was one of the better, more decisive thinkers in the Task Force. "You're demanding a bottomless purse, no conditions, or you pick up your marbles and go home. That's arrogance."
Aroused now, Cogdill said, "You want arrogance? If the Feen takes this job and doesn't produce, you get a full rebate of all costs. You can write it up that way."
Having said all that he felt needed saying, Cogdill left.
His cab was an electric, and its metered charging circuits were a Feen development. The trick had been to make the interface unnecessarily complex, to foil Charlie Cheater and make sure all energy usage could be properly billed.
Located in a rather unassuming hotel, Cogdill's room was done in middle 1980s let's-pretend-it's-not-plastic. It had, somehow, a nostalgic appeal: even the bas-relief seagulls helped his mood. After he showered, and ordered dinner from room service, he made himself a drink: real bourbon, ice water on the side. Then he watched some Tri-V.
He switched away from the news, because "you can't turn the page." Printout sheets cost more, but saved time.
He passed up horseback basketball, the Grandmothers' Water Polo semifinals, and a talk show featuring two women who claimed to be pregnant by interstellar aliens. Cogdill snorted; if alien visitors ever did show up, all he hoped was that the Feen would manage some kind of handle on First Contact negotiations.
Flipping through the channels, he blinked in surprise before turning back to a very explicit depiction of group sex. After a few more seconds of blurred, writhing flesh, the screen cut to a youngish, florid-faced man whose blond hair was plastered down by an immoderate amount of grease. Introducing himself as the Reverend Jody Jay Tolliver, he said, "What you have seen here, my good friends, is sin. And now, what you see next is the wages of sin." Then on split screen several people were shown, before and after suffering the ravages of AIDS. Cogdill wasn't certain the befores-and-afters were always the same people—but that was advertising for you, and this was definitely a commercial.
Enough of that; he turned the set off. Dinner arrived; he ate nonpolluted fish from the Great Barrier Reef, and vegetables grown well away from toxic-waste dumps. Or so the menu promised; if it read truly, the considerable tab was worth it.
Then he packed, and waited to see if the Task Force would nibble.
It was Casey they sent. The desk called to announce her, and someone escorted her to Cogdill's door. So she had clout.
And also presence. Instead of the business hairdo, Casey sported a rioting mass of blue-black curls; her stylized office garb was superseded by a sleek Nile-green gown.
If the transformation was intended to divert Cogdill from contract considerations, it failed. A two-year widower, he found he couldn't ignore the woman's striking attractiveness—yet it had no bearing on the matter at hand. Inspecting the papers she'd brought, he bluepenciled the tricky clauses someone had slipped into the agreement; Casey shook her head, saying, "I told Pete you'd catch that stuff, but the lawyers insisted on trying."
"They always do." Business was done; belatedly he offered her a glass of wine, and she accepted. Attempts at small talk went nowhere; it was almost time for Cogdill to leave for the airport before it came to him, what to say. "If you're free to handle it, I'd like you to manage liaison for this project."
"Yes, I could arrange that assignment."
"Good. When you're up in Chicago we can get better acquainted. Take some time for it."
Slowly, she nodded. "I think I'd like that."
When the cab didn't arrive in time, she drove him to the airport and walked with him to Checkin. "Goodbye," and she moved inside the handshake to kiss his cheek.
Boarding the plane, Thane Cogdill felt unaccountably good.
After he reread the grant authorization and accepted a snack from the flight attendant, Cogdill slept for the rest of the subsonic ride. At O'Hare, once he had his luggage and a cab, he decided it was too late to go home; the trip there and back would take time he could use for sleeping.
So he went directly to the Foundation, and dossed down in the pied-a-terre suite behind his office. He'd done a lot of that since his wife died. Maybe he should sell the house, but he wasn't ready, just yet, to put away so much of his past.
Feeling energetic next morning he showered, called for breakfast from the Exec Cafeteria, and ate while scanning some reports he'd taken from his desk on the way in. Nothing really new, no problems: he initialed each item and turned on the Tri-V.
A news analyst was discussing NASA's new third-generation shuttle, explaining the changes it would bring to Earth-Moon travel. The Feen held shares in the multinational Lunar Enterprise System, so Cogdill paid heed.
A normal Moon trip consisted of four stages: shuttle to low orbit facilities at the 400-km belt, Transfer-A vehicles up to synchronous stations, Transfer-B's (A's modified for extended life support but less cargo space) to lunar orbit, and light-duty shuttles to Luna-surface. What the third-gen shuttles would do, the narrator told in terms suitable for a bright six-year-old, was reach sync height directly from Earth. Existing shuttles, Trans-A taxis; and low-orbit installations would still have their own functions, but not as part of the overall Earth-Moon route.
He switched the set off. It was time for his Board meeting. Time to enter the lion cage.
Two floors below the tower suites, the Board room faced west, away from the major high-rise cluster. The room's large windows looked out over lesser buildings; beyond them, suburban sprawl faded into a blur of hazed air, with no true horizon.
Walking the conference table's length, Cogdill saw that all Board members were present. At the far end he took his seat. With his back to the window's light he saw each face quite clearly—but they couldn't see his, all that well.
Having no time or patience for parliamentary niceties, he handed out copies of the Task Force grant proposal. "Skim it; I've checked out the fine print. Ten minutes; then we'll vote."
But things always take longer and cost more. Thin-faced Roark, chewing his pencil-line mustache, had nits to pick. Beau Slade needed, everything explained in kindergarten terms. Amailie duShield wanted time to consult with the law firm that handled her husband's estate. And Cogdill knew the ultracautious temperament that belied Harve Castellan's dashing appearance. Castellan, in particular, hedged at the guarantee clause—until Cogdill said, "Come on, Harve; we've done this before. And when's the last time we had to pony up a rebate?"
Luckily the remaining members w
"Now then." With the small stuff pushed aside, Cogdill was warming up. "Let's set this project up right away, get it moving fast." He leafed through his notes. "To run the lab side of things I propose Dr. Mareth Fallon. If you don't know her record, look it up; twice she's saved her superiors' butts. At the moment she's largely marking time. All in favor? Right."
Frowning, Ned Roark said, "I'm not so certain—"
"I am." Cogdill slapped the table. "If you're not sure what you're saying, why say it?" With a quick headshake, he continued. "To head the project I propose young Kennet Bardeen."
Quicker this time, Roark said, "Now wait a minute. I want some discussion here. Bardeen's a junior administrator, pure and simple. He knows nothing about physical science, and—"
"I know," said Cogdill. "In his entry-level interview he said, and I quote, "When it comes to organic chemistry, I got only as far as ethanol." "
Beau Slade leaned forward. "He's not a drunk, is he?"
By laughing, Cogdill surprised himself. "Hell, no! He's a man who can joke at his own expense. He is also, if records don't lie, a damned good administrator. I think this job may need both qualities."
He looked down one side of the table and then the other. "Motion put to vote: all in favor? Carried." He stood. "Move to adjourn, motion carried."
Leaving the room, he felt a twinge of guilt. Sometimes I push "em around too much. But how else could he get things done?
Coming to his office by its main entrance, Cogdill saw that his chief secretary had made a good start on her In-basket. "Morning, Glynnis. Anybody need me right away?"
She smiled. "Nothing urgent. How was the trip? Is there anything I should know about it?"
"Not until it hits your desk, I'd expect." That was the good thing about working together more than twenty years: you didn't have to dot all the i's. Glynnis Payne was fifty, two years older than himself but not looking it. If ever she decided to retire, he dreaded having to adjust to someone new.
Now he said, "I want to see Dr. Mareth Fallon in my office as soon as possible. Find out when, and let me know, please."
"Right." She nodded. "Anything else?"
"Not at the moment." Moving toward his own office door, he added, "If any calls come in, my line's open."
Fallon was available at five-thirty; before she arrived, Cogdill rechecked her personnel file. In ten years at Phoenix she'd built an impressive project record. Minor tasks, mostly, compared to this one, but they showed her approach to be sound.
When she arrived, right on time, he looked her over. Mareth Fallon was tall, thin upstairs and heavier below, with a long, ruddy face under sandy hair cut to need little or no maintenance. Her expression was pleasant.
As she sat across the desk, facing him, he handed her the grant proposal. "We have a crash job, picking up after Gilcorp on the AIDS problem. A fairly open budget, and I want you to boss the lab end—the real work. Do you want it?"
Looking not at all surprised, she said, "I knew what it was; things leak. Yes, I do—if you can meet some conditions."
"A raise comes with it, of course. What else?"
She handed him a sheet of paper. "Here's a list of twelve researchers I'd like to have with me; I'll settle for any six. They won't be easy to get, so I'm asking that you put money no object." Her smile came lopsided. "If you have to pay any of them more than you're paying me, that's all right, too. Because the name of this game is results; I can't play it any other way."
He looked at her list: some names he knew, others not. He nodded. "I like your thinking. Until we've approached these people I can't make any guarantees. But for now, would you phase out your present work and begin setting up the support team?"
She nodded; he said, "For physical plant I had in mind the ground floor of Building K-5; we're clearing space from two completed projects, and could vacate the rest of that level within two or three months. Satisfactory?"
Her headshake wasn't negation; she said, "When you move, you really move, don't you?"
"Then are we agreed?"
"I think so. One thing, though: who will I be working for? Directly, I mean."
"Does it matter? A manager's a manager."
Her breath came out a snort. "Unless he's a shithead. My file will show that for two solid years I was stuck on a project that got nowhere. Finally I gave up and transferred."
"Whaft happened to the project?"
"After you fired Merle Cravens, it succeeded."
Recall came. "Oh—that one." His brief laugh served for punctuation. "Yes. I see what you mean. Well, then—do you know Kennet Bardeen? If so, what's your opinion?"
"I've met him; he seems reasonable enough, which should indicate competence. He even has a sense of humor. So—"
"So you'll take the job?"
Her sudden smile gave her attractiveness. "If you can get me any fair share of the people I've asked for." She stood. "Meanwhile I'll go ahead with the tentative arrangements."
A handshake seemed in order. Cogdill stepped around his desk and shared one.
He smiled. "I'll be in touch."
"Yes. Good luck with your recruiting."
As he watched her leave, Cogdill mused: Her walk is awkward, but her thinking isn't.
Sitting again, he called Glynnis Payne. "Get word to Kennet Bardeen. I want to see him here tomorrow morning, nine o'clock."
When she'd acknowledged, he closed down his desk terminal and considered the upcoming evening. His silent home didn't attract him; might as well stay here again, this night.
But not the next. For one thing, he was running out of fresh clothes.
Chapter Two
Kennet Bardeen had met the Feen's Chairman only a few times, but rumor said he was a tyrant in the Board room. Enroute to Cogdill's office, Bardeen kept trying to digest butterflies.
After a brief wait the Chairman's secretary sent him in—to a dark-paneled room, not large but free of clutter. The oversized desk carried two computer terminals and a multiline phone console; one of the terminal screens would do the video.
Immediately he put his attention to Thane Cogdill. Seated, the man didn't look as tall as Bardeen knew him to be. Above a thin, weathered face, his greying hair was trimmed closer than the current norm. Not by much, but noticeably.
The man gestured toward a chair near the desk. "Sit down."
No handshakes. Right. Bardeen sat, then waited. After perhaps a minute that seemed more like thirty, Cogdill spoke. "I have Board approval to appoint you director of a major project. We have a government grant, practically no limits except deliver-or-no-pay, to develop an AIDS vaccine that really works. Cure, too, if possible."
"Sir, I thought Gilcorp held that contract."
Cogdill's grin carried a hint of secret triumph. "Not any more. It's a fair guess that their vaccine changed the virus so as to give it new vectors. No one has any idea how, but what other answer is there? So they're out, and we're in."
The Chairman paused. "Well?"
Say it right. "What I'm good at, sir, is keeping teams on track, monitoring what's working and what isn't, cutting out people—or lines of endeavor—that aren't getting anywhere."
"I know. That's why you're here."
The dry tone and lack of facial expression gave no clues. "But I'm not a lab man. Before I could evaluate the medical reports, I'd need them translated into English."
Cogdill's brows rose. "You're not a physicist, either, but your ceramic-engine project proved out."
"I know what physics is about; I don't need gravity or voltage explained to me. Except for some of the details. But when it comes to biochemistry I'm totally ignorant."
One eyebrow up, the other down; Cogdill was versatile. "And if I see to it that you're provided translations you can follow?"
"If you can guarantee that, sir, please count me in." He felt he should explain further. "I'm not trying to be difficult; I'd love to have the job. I just want to be sure I can do it."
"Because your career would hang on it."
For no reason he could understand, Bardeen found himself grinning. "That too, of course. But also because this particular job is more important than any one person's career."
