"You're right, Colonel, but that difference is crucial. In the past we wanted to achieve maximum spread and penetration in the shortest time possible." Rolsom pushed through a pair of rubber doors and held one aside for the others to follow. "But now we have to set precise limits and
"Including the Russians," said Major Jones.
"Yes."
"Maybe that can't be helped anyway." Madden's laconic remark seemed to hold a number of veiled meanings.
In the next bay the party stood on a yellow gantry while Rolsom went on about "contaminatory media," which Skrote understood to mean air, water and food.
"Drop a liter of TCDD in the Bombay water system and we can guarantee a wipeout of eighty to eighty-five percent of the population within a fifteen-mile radius. Unfortunately the rest of the city-dwellers drink collected rainwater. With food we can spray grain crops and rice fields, but again we can't be certain of total wipeout. There's the question of toxic runoff into the oceans too, which could spread the contaminant globally. However . . ."
Rolsom beckoned and the group clustered around an angled observation panel. Inside the garishly lit chamber was a family of chimpanzees, two adults and five offspring. All were slumped or sprawled, eyes dull, patches of fur missing, the flesh raw underneath. Some of their fingernails had dropped off.
The director pointed out one of the small males, marked with a circle of red dye on its back. "That's Chappaquidik. We injected him with a ten-ppm solution about a week ago. Look closely and you'll see that he's gone blind. But more interesting, from our point of view, he's transmitted it to the others. Now they're all starting to show symptoms."
Skrote was surprised. "I didn't know genetic damage caused by TCDD was contagious."
"In the normal course of events it isn't," Rolsom replied. "All previous outbreaks, from Seveso onward, were air- or waterborne." A quiet note of pride crept into his voice. "One of our toxicologists injected hamsters to test for its effect on enzymes. Purely by accident he discovered that above a certain concentration--roughly seven parts per million--the disease is transferable by means of infected bacteria. Depending, that is, on a specific behavioral pattern. Can you guess what?" he asked, turning to them.
Nobody could.
Rolsom pursed his thick lips and over the intercom came a metallic kissing sound. "Hamsters and chimps are very affectionate creatures. They kiss and cuddle a lot. And that's it--that's how the disease is transmitted."
Rolsom wore a triumphant grin, like a conjurer pulling a rabbit out of a hat.
"Animal carriers," Colonel Madden mused. "Deployment and containment in one neat simple package."
"Somebody here gave it the name of the 'Kissing Plague,' " said Rolsom, still grinning. "We've hopes for humans too."
"You've tried it on humans?" Madden asked.
"Not yet. But the physiology of chimps and humans is very similar." Rolsom winked at them through the fishbowl. "And humans also kiss a lot-
After lunch they were' shown the special area known as Zone 4 on the far side of the lagoon. The laboratories and medical wards were outwardly unimpressive: an untidy jumble of single- and two-story white stucco buildings surrounded by a double perimeter electrified fence. The only odd thing about it, for a research establishment, was that the windows were very small and barred, like those of a prison.
On the short ride across the lagoon Rolsom jokingly remarked that the electrified fence wasn't to keep intruders out; it was to keep the patients in. If any of them escaped and managed to interbreed, Star-buck might become--in his phrase--"an island of freaks."
Even with his experience in genetic engineering Skrote had never seen anything like it. The director hadn't been joking after all--it really was like a fairground freak show.
First they were shown the anoxia and pollution victims, gray shriveled wrecks in oxygen tents living on borrowed time. In answer to Skrote's inquiry, Rolsom said, "We use these to study the effects on body tissue resulting from drastic oxygen depletion. Very little medical research has been done on the subject till recently. We also need them as guinea pigs to find out if TCDD can be transferred as effectively in humans as in chimps. We'll be starting on that in about a month from now."
"What do you intend to do?" asked Major Jones sardonically. "Force them to kiss one another?"
Rolsom smiled and shook his head. "You'd be surprised--or maybe you wouldn't--at the strength and persistence of the human sexual impulse. Even in cases such as these." He nodded down the ward at the rows of oxygen tents. "Perhaps you've noticed that the wards are mixed. At night we turn out the lights and let them get on with it."
