The Meddlers (12 page)

“Most of them preferred to see it at home. With their families.”

“Really! How little interest people take in their jobs these days. One would have thought discussion with one’s working colleagues, after so important a transmission, would have superseded all else, wouldn’t one?”

“Yes. One would,” Graham said savagely. “But it all depends on the pressures, doesn’t it?” And he switched on the set and went back to his desk, putting as much physical space as possible between himself and his employer.

  Bodily discomfort, added to the anger that still bubbled unpleasantly inside him, had the effect of clarifying his mind, just as it had on the day of the press conference. What right had they to make a panel discussion out of this? And what a panel! A journalist and an MP, as well as J. J. Gerrard himself, and what was he? Just another bloody journalist, a dilettante with a ragbag mind, who thought that because he had a smattering of scientific language, which he produced with a glib assurance that made George want to choke him, he was qualified to question
him
, a serious scientist with an intellectual grasp that Gerrard could never understand, let alone achieve.

And this physical discomfort! Did they have to use these foul lights that blistered the back of his neck with heat and almost blinded him, making his eyes water with their stabbing? Did they have to sit him in a swivel chair that swung sideways with every movement of his body? Did they have to have so tight-packed an audience, with the front row so close to the dais on which he was sitting that he could positively feel their stupid gawping eyes on him?

And the place smelled too, of hot bodies, hot electrical equipment, and the fumes of whisky; not surprising that, considering the amount of the stuff they swallowed during the half-hour he had spent in that crowded room full of people who talked to one another in an incomprehensible private language, and at him as though he were a stupid child when they explained how the program would run.

He should never have agreed to take part in this charade, should have adhered to his first decision to refuse. Bloody Kegan. He sat and thought somberly about Kegan, keeping his chin tucked into his neck and his eyes on the toes of his outstretched feet, as people clutching clipboards bustled about, and men wearing earphones and pulling the attached wires behind them moved importantly from place to place and shouted at the invisible listeners who spoke to them through the earphones.

And then, suddenly, the big studio hushed expectantly as one of the earphoned men shouted, “All right, studio, a minute from the top. Counting now. Audience, remember, start your applause when I signal. Forty-five. Ready on opening captions. Thirty. Camera three, clear that shot on J. J.’s entrance. Twenty. fifteen. OK, start your applause,
now
. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five…”

The applause, scattered at first, thickened, took on a note of real enthusiasm, and tinny music could be heard threading through it, and then J. J. Gerrard was coming through the wide entrance at the back of the dais, his rather fat face heavily serious over his pink shirt, walking purposefully to the chair in the center. George felt rather than saw the swing of the camera that was aiming over his own left shoulder at Gerrard, felt it move backward, and then a great surge of apprehension came up into his chest, drying his mouth and clogging his throat. Christ! What was he doing sitting here? He ought to get up and go, just like that, and to hell with the lot of them.

“… a matter which concerns all of us, very deeply,” Gerrard was saying. “That, for all its surface appearance of mysterious and complex scientific endeavor beyond the ordinary man’s comprehension, carries implications which must affect all of us, now and in the future. A matter with which I believe everyone, the studio
audience here, the millions watching tonight in this country and all over the world, should be fully aware. And that is why we are here. Michael Bridges, the scientific journalist who first revealed to the public at large that this project existed—and we all owe him a great debt…”

A camera on the far side moved, swung in to stare at Michael Bridges, sitting on George’s right, and came so close that George could see inside its Cyclops eye to the movement of the focusing mechanism.

“Kenneth Gurney, MP, a backbencher with no governmental or party axe to grind, but a keen awareness of the rights of the man in the street, here to ask questions on behalf of the watching millions.…”

George looked with distaste at the man sitting on Gerrard’s other side, at the shining dapper head, the pin-striped suit with a white carnation in the buttonhole, and the sleek self-satisfied smirk on his face, and thought,
He’s
enjoying this, pompous bastard.

“And of course, the man who knows most about it, the scientist who designed this project, set it up, launched it on an unknowing world. Dr. George Briant…”

The camera swung again, but this time George looked above it, to a monitor screen hung on a metal rafter above the audience, to see his own face in close-up, the eyes staring upward in a way that gave him an absurdly soulful look. Immediately he looked away and stared instead at J. J. Gerrard, not caring whether or not he showed his dislike for the situation he was in.

“Dr. Briant, let me tell you here and now that we are not here to make judgments. We are all”—he swung his hand comprehensively, to take in the audience, the studio staff, somehow implying he took in the watching millions too—“we are all worried by what we have heard of your work. We can’t deny that. But we are not going to condemn merely because we don’t understand. It is because we need to understand that we have asked you to come here tonight. I for one am making a disinterested search for information. No more and no less. You would agree that we have a right to seek this information?”

“If you feel you need it,” George said dryly.

“Indeed, we do! So far all we know is what has appeared in the newspapers, that you have, shall we say, brought into life a baby—a human baby just like any one of the infants sleeping in their mothers’ arms all over the world—in a way that is to say the least unusual. That you propose to keep this baby in your laboratories and investigate him—”

“
Not
in a laboratory, if you use the word to mean a place full of test tubes and retorts and animals in cages. In a well-equipped nursery where he can be observed with no distress to himself—that is all.”

“Ah! Thank you for the definition. Very well, in a special nursery where he can be observed. As we understand it, he will live what you must admit is an… unnatural life? until he reaches maturity. And we want to know the hows and whys, the purposes of this project. Why you should feel it reasonable to subject a human baby to this distasteful experience—”

George moved sharply. “For someone who started out by stating he was not here to make judgments, you would appear to have a few already to hand,” he said acidly. “Unnatural, distasteful—all words that apply to value judgments, wouldn’t you say?”

“I stand rebuked,” J. J. Gerrard said smoothly and swung his chair to face the audience. “Not for the first time, hmm?” And the audience responded with a soft wave of laughter, approving his modest admission of fallibility.

He turned back to George. “I apologize. But let us go on. And just to sketch in the background, could you recapitulate for us? For the benefit of those who have somehow failed to read the widespread newspaper accounts?”

George inclined his head and took from his pocket the folded paper that carried the statement he had read at his press conference.

“I can only repeat what I have already said to other journalists,” he said and began to read. When he reached the end and put the paper back in his pocket, the audience shifted and swayed slightly, making him realize just how raptly they had listened to him.

After a momentary pause, Gerrard swung his chair again and
said to the audience, “I hope you all understood all that. I can’t deny a lot of it was way over
my
head.”

And the audience laughed, with relief rather than humor, and from somewhere at the back someone clapped loudly, making the laughter rise again before it subsided into silence.

But by then Gerrard was facing George again, an expression of great seriousness replacing the wry look he had produced for the audience.

“Clearly, we need a little more detail, Dr. Briant, if we are fully to understand. Could you tell us more about these extrapolations— or predictions—you were able to make from your study of the newly fertilized egg cell? And then can you give us an account of how far they have proved accurate? And a brief account of the investigations you have made since the child’s birth?”

“It’ll have to be brief,” George said dryly. “You’ve asked enough to keep me talking for a month. All right. The extrapolations. On the basis of the work done by other researchers on the structure of DNA strands, and my own identification of Briant Bodies Alpha and Beta, I was able to choose a conception that would produce certain clearly defined physical characteristics. Sex, hair, eye and skin color, physique. These were very easily identifiable. Less easy to identify were personality traits which I believe are carried by Briant Bodies Gamma and Delta. As you may know, there has been much scientific argument about the ways such traits appear. Are they inborn, or are they created by the action of environmental influences?”

As he warmed to his theme, George forgot he was talking to one individual, and through him to a huge lay audience. It was as though he were dictating material for a paper in one of the journals or addressing a class of senior students.

“I believe the importance of genetic influences has been diminished in the amount of work that has been done on environmental influences. Some sociologists and to a lesser degree some psychoanalysts seem to assume they are working on pieces of wax, that a baby takes on all its imprints from outside. Yet in all logic, how can this be so? No amount of stimulation from the environment can,
for example, increase the intelligence quotient of a known mongol. I don’t deny that very often a potential for intelligence is underdeveloped because the environment lacks sufficient stimuli; but however much the environment is manipulated, unless the genetic material is good, there is a point beyond which such manipulation cannot have an effect.”

“Do you mean that your researches will actually be able to define exactly what the full intelligence potential of the individual is?” Gerrard cut in. “I thought the idea of a fixed IQ rating was out of date now, that the latest reports from educationists say you can’t measure it exactly.”

George frowned sharply, irritated at being stopped just as he was getting well into his stride. “Educationists, as you call them, can’t measure the full potential because they have such primitive tools and methods of assessment. What I am trying to do is identify
genetic
potential long before the birth of the infant, and therefore long before he has been affected by his environment. And if you will be good enough to let me go on, you will see how I am monitoring the environment of the infant in order to see precisely what effect it has. May I therefore continue?”

Gerrard blinked and then folded his arms and leaned back in his chair. “By all means,” he said, a little stiffly.

“Thank you. Now, as I said, my own investigation of DNA strands revealed what I believe to be specific intelligence and personality factors in Briant Bodies Gamma and Delta. I started by looking at the chromosome patterns, of course—remember the men who are born with an extra Y chromosome, who show aggressive behavior and antisocial tendencies. It would take far too long to tell you in detail how I identified the specific genetic patterns of these chromosomes; you’ll have to accept my assurance that I believe I did identify them.”

“Ah! That sounds very—” Gerrard leaned forward again.

“Mr. Gerrard!” George stood up so sharply that his swivel chair swung half around. “Did you or did you not say that the purpose of my presence here this evening was to give you information about my work?”

“What? Well, of course, Dr. Briant! But—”

“Then will you be good enough to permit me to do just that? If you persist in interrupting me, it is unlikely in the extreme that I will have sufficient time to give you the complete picture which you say you are so anxious to get! I am a logical man, Mr. Gerrard, accustomed to presenting material in a concise, ordered and intelligible manner.
Ordered
. And that means that all these questions you are jumping in with will be answered as part of the statement I am here to make. If you will contain yourself in reasonable patience, and permit me to do what I came here to do, we will all be better off! Do I make myself clear?”

There was a rustle from the audience as George sat down again, but he ignored it. Let them think him high-handed; he was damned if he was going to let this greasy television pundit push him about.

Gerrard was looking at him with his eyebrows slightly raised. “Indeed you do! But may I point out to you, Dr. Briant, that I for one-and I think it likely that the audience feels much as I do—find the material you are giving us in so admirably
concise
and
ordered
a manner is not as intelligible as it might be, since we are ordinary simple souls? The language you speak is somewhat above our heads. So while I take your point that you are prepared to give us all the information we seek, may I reserve the right to interrupt when it is absolrtely necessary to do so? For example, to ask for definitions of some of the words you use?” He turned to the audience. “That
is
fair enough, wouldn’t you say?”

A murmur of assent went up as the audience shifted and rustled again, and Gerrard turned back to Briant. “Will you accept the need for
this
much interruption, Dr. Briant?”

“For definitions of terms, by all means. But I insist, no more of these attempts to anticipate. At the end, if there are any gaps, then by all means. But now, may I continue?”

Gerrard inclined his head with exaggerated courtesy, and George leaned back and went on.