We came back through the big glass doors hand in hand. The night
watchman, making his last round, nodded and smiled at us as we wound up
the stairs to the penthouse. We went through the showers together since
nobody else was about. I scrubbed her back to get rid of the salt sea
crystals and was rewarded with a warm, wet kiss. We reached the living
room just as Dr. Hallam, freshly shaven and bright, came in for his
breakfast.
"Welcome back, kids!" he boomed at us. "Did you have a good time?" He
looked closely at Pat.
A slow flush deepened the color of her cheeks and he grinned elfishly.
"I see you did. Well, let's have some breakfast. I have news for you
and plenty of work, so eat heartily."
He pushed the toaster buttons and the bread dropped out of the
cooler-keeper and lowered itself into the heating element. I set three
cups and three glasses under the dispenser and dialled tomato juice and
medium strong coffee. Pat cracked six eggs into three plates, added
bacon and pushed them into the slots in the electronic oven. A minute
later, with his mouth full of toast and egg, Hallam mumbled,
"After you left I waited for about two hours before Smith phoned. He
had a preliminary report on the female ferrets. You'll be glad to hear
this, both of you. He couldn't find a thing on any of them."
"Wonderful!" Pat breathed, and smiled at me radiantly.
"What about the pregnant one?" I said.
"There were only the usual changes in the ovaries associated with
pregnancy. Mind you," he went on, "even with the new techniques, frozen
sections are far from perfect, but I must admit I'd be disappointed if
I weren't so relieved."
"Did the male ferrets show anything?" I said.
"He wasn't sure. He thought there were some inflammatory changes in the
testicles but he wanted to wait for the paraffin sections to confirm
it."
"Was there anything else?" Pat asked.
"Nothing except bronchial irritation, which one would expect."
It was eight o'clock when the telephone rang and I picked it up.
"Dr. Macdonald here," I said.
"Mac, is the boss in?" Smith asked.
"He's busy right now. Can I take a message?"
"Yes. Tell him the H and E's on those ferrets show only mild ovarian
inflammation. The testicles are definitely inflamed ... a low
grade thing with a lot of lymphocytes. There is swelling and some
degeneration of the sperm cells but it doesn't seem to affect the
hormone secreting elements."
"What about other organs?"
"Aside from nasal and bronchial inflammation, essentially negative."
"Have you any suggestions?"
"It's too early to come to any conclusions but I'd like to follow up
on this. How about taking biopsies on the male ferrets rather than
sacrificing them. Then maybe we can see what is happening, I mean what
the progression of the disease is, in the same animal. You could snip
out a piece of ovary on some females too!"
"It isn't easy but we can do it."
"How about the other animals?"
"Some of the mice look a bit sick this morning, but the monkeys are
still healthy."
"Well, if you can get the biopsies to us soon, we should have a good
idea, late tonight or tomorrow morning, of what's going on. Say, I just
had a thought! Didn't George inoculate some ferrets when the epidemic
first broke out?"
"I wasn't here but I believe he did. Why don't you ask Harry? He was
working with the Chief when I was away. All those animals are in the
other section anyway."
"I'll do that. With yours in the acute stage and the others
convalescent, we should get a good idea of the progress of the disease.
I'll let you know later."
Hallam was in the ferret room. I joined him there and told him of
Smith's suggestions.
"This is going to be quite a day," he grinned wryly.
* * * * *
He was so right. It took several hours, and innumerable bites and
scratches from indignant animals, fortunately the plastic gloves were
tough enough not to tear, before the last snarling male writhed back
into his cage to lick his smarting personal property. We stopped for
lunch and went back to the more complicated task of operating on the
females in the afternoon.
In the meantime, the testicular biopsies, in their fluid-filled
bottles, were on their way to Tissue Path., to join those that Smith
and his residents were already preparing from the convalescent ferrets.
Speaking into Dictape machines, the junior residents described and
numbered the specimens while deft-fingered girl technicians wrapped
them in little packets and put those in tiny perforated boxes. They
dropped the boxes into beakers filled with fixative which they then set
up on the Technicon machines. The dials were set, the clock ticked,
and hour by hour, as the timer clicked into the grooves of the wheel,
the arms of the Technicon lifted, dangling their clusters of dripping
boxes, turned like soldiers on parade, and dropped them again into
the next beaker. On they went through the fixative that preserved the
cells as they had been in life, the alcohols that slowly and carefully
removed the water, the xylol that replaced the alcohol and, finally,
the hardened shreds of tissue lay in melted paraffin, ready for the
cutting.
But first they had to be embedded in paper boats full of melted wax
which, when it hardened, held them securely. Then, in millionths of a
metre, the incredibly fine edge of the microtome sliced off a ribbon of
tissue, as a bacon slicer cuts pork. The technician laid the ribbons
on a bowl of warm water, separated off each individual slice with her
needle and guided it on to a prepared glass slide which was then laid
aside to dry. That was not all. Now the process had to be reversed, the
paraffin removed with xylol, the xylol with alcohol, the alcohol with
water, before the pale white dots of tissue could be stained. There was
no way of hurrying the process. Chemicals need time to react, and time
they took, regardless of our impatience. At last the blue color of the
Hematoxylin and the red of the eosin had been added in their turn and
taken up by the tissues; the protective balsam and the slip cover had
been placed over the sections; the slides had hardened enough to be put
under the microscope.
With mounting excitement, Smith and his senior residents racked down
the binocular microscopes to focus on the minute blue and red dots
that lay beneath. Silently they looked, moving the slides jerkily but
accurately with their fingers to view all the sections. Still silent,
they swapped slides to check and re-check their findings. At last
Smith straightened up and removed his spectacles. He rubbed his eyes
wearily. He looked along the table at the three young men who had
worked with him.
"Any doubts about this?" he said.
Three heads shook slightly. There was nothing to say. They were too
tired for casual chatter. He pushed the Intercom switch.
"Dr. Hallam. Smith calling."
The sound came into the living room as we sat at midnight coffee. The
rasping voice jarred us out of the apathy of exhaustion.
"This is Hallam."
"George, we've just read those testicular biopsies. There's a
sub-acute inflammation in those with the flu, as we saw before; in the
convalescent ferrets there is complete absence of spermatozoa with no
evidence of new formation."
I looked at Pat. "Now who should be worried?"
"I've never heard of this before in ferrets with the flu," Hallam was
saying. "I'd think of mumps except that it isn't easily transmitted to
the weasel tribe and this isn't like mumps clinically."
"What do you propose to do now?"
Hallam thought for a moment. "Carry on with our animal experiments;
but we can't afford to wait for the monkeys. We shall have to start
working on people."
"How?"
"Get in touch with the Public Health Department and see if you can
round up volunteers for testicular biopsy in convalescents from the
first attack. If they don't want a biopsy maybe you can persuade them
to give us a sperm count."
"You know we can't keep this hushed up if we do that. The papers are
bound to get hold of it."
"I realize that," Hallam said grimly, "but they're going to know sooner
or later. Maybe this will soften the blow when it does come."
"OK George, you're the boss. We can't do anything until morning. I'm
going to close up shop and let everybody get some sleep."
"Good idea. Keep away from the flu if you can."
"Huh, fat chance. I've got my family anyway. It's my kids I'm worried
about."
"There are times when I'm glad I'm a bachelor," Hallam replied and shut
off the speaker.
"Doesn't look too good, does it?" I said.
"We'll know by tomorrow night, I hope."
"I can't figure this thing at all. An inflammation that destroys the
testicular cells should give a lot of swelling and pain. Those ferrets
were frisky enough and they didn't show any signs of orchitis."
"Neither did most of the human victims," Hallam said.
"Perhaps it's only a temporary arrest in the maturation of the sperm
rather than destruction of the spermatogonia themselves. That could
be the explanation for the low grade inflammation and the minimal
symptoms."
"You mean there might be some interference with an enzyme system?" Pat
said.
"Yes. We see it in anemias where the cells don't mature properly
because of a lack of some vitamin like B12. The same sort of thing
could be happening here, I suppose."
"Then it might be only temporary?"
"I sincerely hope so, especially if Smith finds the same in man as he
reports in the ferrets."
"I wish I could share your optimism John," the Director said, "but if
this is a weapon it won't have just a temporary effect. There would
be no point to that." He yawned. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil
thereof, as the Good Book says. Let's go to bed."
* * * * *
The alarm jarred me out of deep sleep. As I groped beside the bed for
the still vibrating clock, I regretfully abandoned my dreams for the
austere grey walls of my temporary room, and the dreary window view of
a wet Vancouver dawn. The tide was out and the slimy green-spattered
mud and rocks of the estuary looked like a surrealistic painting of a
hangover. At the water's edge, a school of fishing boats angled in the
mud, their tilted trolling masts reminding me of the broken antennae
of some strange crayfish, stranded and dead on a fishmarket floor. And
dead they were. No smoke came from their humpbacked little cabins; no
fisherman climbed the slanted decks.
I wondered if the epidemic had silenced their motors, or was it just
not the season for fishing. Were the lusty trollers and seiners
worrying about their lost virility and gone home to test it out? The
newspapers had been asked to play down their sterility stories, which
had caused so much consternation yesterday, but even so it was common
knowledge that those who had had involvement of the sex glands might be
sterile.
I turned down the corridor to the kitchen and started the coffee
dispenser. Pat was still asleep after a late night coaxing reluctant
male and female ferrets into the same cage and to be friends instead
of messily murdering each other. Chivalry among ferrets is not highly
regarded, even with females in season. We wanted to see if they
could produce families, not to see which one was the stronger sex.
Tranquillizers are fine for the purpose but it takes a neat balance
to eliminate the fight and keep the desire. Hallam was not around. He
was an early riser and could probably be found watching the monkeys if
I cared to go there. They had shown no symptoms as yet. Probably the
incubation period was about the same as in man, and if so there had not
been time for the fever to start.
I moved on again to the shower, taking it cool to clear my fuzzy head.
Now there was little to do but wait; wait for the ferrets to get
amorous; wait for the chattering monkeys to fall ill; wait for more
biopsies of the human volunteers out there beyond the virus-proof walls
of our chosen prison. I thought of the previous day, the second after
our brief excursion. After breakfast we had rechecked the animals while
Pat had transferred cultures, brought our records up to date and then
Hallam and I sat in the living room playing cribbage while we waited
for Smith's reports.
As he had predicted, the newspapers soon heard of the new
investigations and the noon headlines, shown over the TV, were large
and frightening. "Are Flu Victims Sterile?" the _Daily Mail_ screamed
hysterically in three inch letters and went into a long discourse
based only on a cautious statement, attributed to Dr. Smith, that some
experimental animals, after the flu, showed a decrease in procreative
powers. _The Sun_ was more cautious but the tune was the same. An hour
after the papers appeared, Hallam ordered all telephone lines to the
Laboratory shut down and a short dictated speech, intended to calm the
hysteria, was played continuously over the trunks and repeated on both
radio and TV.
The mayor came to the hospital, as mad as a clucking hen whose eggs
have been disturbed, as indeed they had. She cooled off considerably
after Hallam spoke to her on the inside telephone, and, in cooperation
with the local director of the RCMP, the head of the Metropolitan
School Board, the Medical Officer of Health and various other officials
summoned to the spot, agreed to form a Public Safety Committee to take
immediate action if the need arose. They too, after their meeting,
could only sit and wait for Smith's report.
"Why didn't you go down and talk to them sir?" I said later.
"I don't want to get the flu."
I smiled condescendingly. "Oh? I didn't think it would mean that much
to you."
"It doesn't," he said levelly, "but it would to you and Pat if I
brought it back up here with me."
There was nothing I could say. I have seldom felt so foolish.
* * * * *
Later in the day, I played a lazy game of cribbage with Hallam while
Pat knitted and watched TV at the other end of the room. Deciding to
have some fun, as the Chief dealt a new hand, I picked up the paper
that was lying on the table.
"Say, Pat, here's a little item that should interest you," I said,
and pretended to read. "Lovely woman scientist, possible Nobel prize
winner, knits little things and dreams of rose-covered cottage. I
always wanted at least ten children, our reporter quotes Mrs.--" I
started loudly, cocking one eye over the top of the paper; but I didn't
finish.
Pat got up abruptly. For an instant I thought she would throw the wool
at me, needles and all.
"You stinker ... you absolute stinker," she spat at me, and almost ran
from the room.
"Lord! She must be getting stir crazy," I said, bewildered.
"John, sometimes I think you spent too many years overseas," Hallam
said quietly. "You still can't imagine how a woman thinks."
That broke up the crib game. Neither of us had the heart to continue.
For the first time I really began to imagine a world full of sterile
people; the falling population; the frustrated family life; the
emptying houses; the already empty schools.
"God, what a dreary prospect," I said aloud. "And we were worrying
about overpopulation."
The Chief caught my train of thought but he just nodded. There was no
answer.
An hour later the phone rang. He answered it and then turned to me
with a smile. "That was a report from Smith about the ovaries of those
convalescent ferrets I inoculated with the first cases of flu. They
seem OK. Maybe it affects only a few females after all."
"Well, we can't go peeking into the tummies of all the ladies in
Vancouver just to find out," I said.
"No, but we could try to get permission to biopsy ovaries on women who
have abdominal operations in the city hospitals. Many of them have had
the flu. It should tell us something."
He turned back to the telephone and in a matter of minutes Bruce
Thompson had agreed to cooperate and to pass the word on to the
surgical departments of the other hospitals in town.
Pat showed up to make us afternoon tea but she was clearly
disturbed ... even more so when she heard the news.
"I thought you'd have been pleased to hear about the females," I said
dubiously.
"Suppose it does apply to women. What good are active ovaries to a
prospective mother if all the men are sterile?" she said, scornfully.
"Well, you could always marry a Russian, when they take over the world."
"Fool," she sneered. "That probably will be years from now, and I'll be
too old. For another thing, I don't want to be part of anybody's harem,
even for a baby."
"Where do you get that harem stuff?" I grunted. "The Russkis aren't
Moslems."
"This isn't your good day, John," Hallam interrupted. "It is obvious
that there will be a tremendous demand for fertile males, and I can
even visualise the female voters of this country and the United States
demanding a quota for Russian immigrants to this continent. Just how
the disgruntled American males would react I don't know. It could lead
to a very nasty situation, and maybe to that retaliatory war the Reds
are trying to avoid. Of course, it could also mean civil war ... a war
between the sexes ... with our males trying to revenge themselves on
the Russians and our more realistic females trying to prevent it so
they could use the Slavs to rebuild the nation ... on Communist terms
of course."
"Boy, this is really science fiction gone wild," I said. "Seems as if I
picked the wrong place to live, unless I can avoid the flu."
Pat didn't even look at me after that crack. The day dragged on. Radio
reports came every few minutes and the interruptions of the TV programs
to announce the spread of the epidemics were almost as frequent as the
commercials.
* * * * *
By now the Chinese had admitted that thousands were dying in the
big cities of Peiping and Shanghai, while panic had disrupted
communications to the interior. The first frightened reports were in
from India, where efforts to block the Himalayan passes were too late
and refugees had spread the deadly "measlepox", as it was now called,
to Assam and Upper Bengal. There were rumors of flu in Texas and the
Rangers had redoubled their efforts to keep the Mexican "wetbacks"
from sneaking across the Rio Grande. All trans-Pacific air travel was
cancelled.
About that time, the Intercom lit up again.
"Are you there, George?" It was Dr. Smith.
"Yes. What have you found?"
"We have the reports on thirty sperm counts taken today from
professional personnel in this hospital. They are all negative."
"You mean normal, I hope."
"I mean negative for sperm. Three are from doctors who are just over
the fever. They show a few abnormal forms in the secretion but no live
ones. All the others are several days convalescent and show nothing but
epithelial cells, a few polymorphs and more lymphocytes."
"What about the biopsies?"
"We have half a dozen that we rushed through. The slides aren't the
best but it's perfectly obvious that something serious is happening.
The spermatogonia are degenerating. The Sertoli cells seem all right
and the interstitial cells are apparently untouched."
"What's he mean?" Pat whispered to me.
"He means the cells that form the sperm are dying but the ones that
give a man his masculinity are intact."
"How many more biopsies have you?" said the Chief.
"About fifty."
"That's not enough. We're going to need at least several hundred. There
must be absolutely no doubt in anyone's mind that this is a national
emergency when we present the facts to the Government. I know that the
statisticians can prove that this present number is highly significant
but a politician is much more impressed with a lot of people than with
a small group."
Joe Armstrong came on the line. "George, I'm convinced now that this
virus does have serious after-effects. Let me talk to the other
hospitals. We can get enough specimens in another twenty-four hours to
prove your point." He paused, obviously considering his words. "I can't
go along with this secret weapon idea yet.... I don't think there's
enough evidence. What do you say?"
"There isn't any evidence for the weapon theory," Hallam admitted, "but
Gordon is well on the way to showing that the structure of the virus
is synthetic. What I mean is that it looks more like a crazy mixture
of mumps and flu than like any of the natural viruses or their known
mutations."
"I still don't think we'd better let that story get out. There'll be
enough hell raised as it is."
"All right ... just as long as we stop this thing."
"How do you suggest we go about it?"
"Joe, there isn't time to search for a way of preventing it by
vaccines. It will take months to manufacture enough, even if we
succeed. Our only hope is to alert the civil authorities to its
after-effects and get a strict quarantine set up. Frankly, I think
it's almost hopeless by now. The Eastern Seaboard started reporting
cases just a short time ago. Agents must be working in seaport cities
like Montreal, New York, Charleston and all the others. I'm afraid
we're licked except for isolated communities in the far north or in
some rural areas which can be ringed around with guards to prevent
contamination. Every male we can save must be protected either until
the disease dies out or we can devise a vaccine."
"Do you have any other ideas?"
"You could get a Blood Donor Program going to collect blood from those
who have had the flu. We might be able to separate out antibodies from
convalescent serum strong enough to give a temporary protection to
those who haven't had the disease ... and then hope for a vaccine."
"OK, George," said the Intercom. "Why don't you three stay in there
and work on the vaccine since you haven't had the flu yet. I'll alert
the Minister of Health. The Public Safety Committee is already back in
session."
"Do that, Joe," Hallam said, "and tell Harry Cope and Polly Cripps to
stay on call. We're going to need help with the electron pictures and
other procedures."
* * * * *
So that day had gone by and here was another one, a day of coffee
drinking and waiting, a day of writing reports, of listening to
the mounting clamor in the outside world. In the Vancouver area,
schools were closed at noon. The Public Safety Committee, impressed
sufficiently by yesterday's preliminary reports, barred all public
meetings and ordered theatres, bars and dance halls to close. Families
not yet affected by the flu were urged to stock up on supplies and
then remain home. Quarantine regulations were put in effect to protect
them. This reversal of the usual procedure in which those who had not
had the disease were kept isolated, was explained as necessary since
the majority of the people had already been victims and therefore were
unsalvageable. By nightfall the day's biopsy reports were coming in
from all the city hospitals. There was no doubt. Every male who had had
the flu was sterile!
The extras hit the streets an hour after dark. The Lieutenant Governor
came on the TV and radio to declare a state of emergency. Curfew was to
be enforced, beginning the next night, for all except essential medical
services and food supply. At least the country was aroused. All trace
of former unconcern had disappeared.
I went to bed early. There was nothing more I could do.