Robin Cook: Chromosome 6

Martha Blummer greeted him. “Dr. Edwards is in the chimpanzee wing,” she said. Martha was the veterinary secretary. Her husband was one of the supervisors at the motor pool.

Kevin set off for the chimpanzee wing. It was one of the few areas in the building he was at all acquainted with. He went through a second pair of double doors and walked the length of the central corridor of the veterinary hospital. The facility looked like a regular hospital, down to its employees who were all dressed in surgical scrubs, many with stethoscopes draped over their necks.

A few people nodded, others smiled, and some said hello to Kevin. He returned the greetings self-consciously. He didn’t know any of these people by name.

Another pair of double doors brought him into the main part of the building that housed the primates. The air had a slightly feral odor. Intermittent shrieks and howls reverberated in the corridor. Through doors with windows of wire-embedded glass, Kevin caught glimpses of large cages where monkeys were incarcerated. Outside the cages were men in coveralls and rubber boots, pulling hoses.

The chimpanzee wing was one of the ells that extended from the back of the building into the forest. It, too, was three stories tall. Kevin entered on the first floor. Immediately the sounds changed. Now there was as much hooting as shrieking.

Cracking a door off the central corridor, Kevin got the attention of one of the workers in the coveralls. He asked about Dr. Edwards and was told the vet was in the bonobo unit.

Kevin found a stairwell and climbed to the second floor. He thought it was a coincidence that Dr. Edwards happened to be in the bonobo unit just when Kevin was looking for him. It was through bonobos that Kevin and Dr. Edwards had met.

Six years ago Kevin had never heard of a bonobo. But that changed rapidly when bonobos were selected as the subjects for his GenSys project. He now knew they were exceptional creatures. They were cousins of chimpanzees but had lived in isolation in a twenty-five-thousand-square-mile patch of virginal jungle in central Zaire for one and a half million years. In contrast to chimps, bonobo society was matriarchal with less male aggression. Hence, the bonobos were able to live in larger groups. Some people called them pygmy chimpanzees but the name was a misnomer because some bonobos were actually larger than some chimpanzees, and they were a distinct species.

Kevin found Dr. Edwards in front of a relatively small acclimatization cage. He was reaching through the bars making tentative contact with an adult female bonobo.

Another female bonobo was sitting against the back wall of the cage. Her eyes were nervously darting around her new accommodations. Kevin could sense her terror.

Dr. Edwards was hooting softly in imitation of one of the many bonobo and chimpanzee sounds of communication. He was a relatively tall man, a good three or four inches over Kevin’s five foot ten. His hair was a shocking white which contrasted dramatically with his almost black eyebrows and eyelashes. The sharply demarcated eyebrows combined with a habit of wrinkling his forehead gave him a perpetually surprised look.

Kevin watched for a moment. Dr. Edwards’s obvious rapport with the animals had been something Kevin had appreciated from their first meeting. Kevin sensed it was an intuitive talent and not something learned, and it always impressed him.

“Excuse me,” Kevin said finally.

Dr. Edwards jumped as if he’d been frightened. Even the bonobo shrieked and fled to the back of the cage.

“I’m terribly sorry,” Kevin said.

Dr. Edwards smiled and put a hand to his chest. “No need to be sorry. I was just so intent I didn’t hear you approach.”

“I certainly didn’t mean to frighten you, Dr. Edwards,” Kevin began, “but I…”

“Kevin, please! If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a dozen times: my name is Bertram. I mean, we’ve known each other for five years. Don’t you think first names are more appropriate?”

“Of course,” Kevin said.

“It’s serendipitous you should come,” Bertram said. “Meet our two newest breeding females.” Bertram gestured toward the two apes who’d inched away from the back wall. Kevin’s arrival had frightened them, but they were now curious.

Kevin gazed in at the dramatically anthropomorphic faces of the two primates. Bonobo’s faces were less prognathous than their cousins, the chimpanzees, and hence considerably more human. Kevin always found looking into bonobos’ eyes disconcerting.

“Healthy-appearing animals,” Kevin commented, not knowing how else to respond.

“They were just trucked in from Zaire this morning,” Bertram said. “It’s about a thousand miles as the crow flies. But by the circuitous route they had to take to get across the borders of the Congo and Gabon, they probably traveled three times that.”

“That’s the equivalent of driving across the U.S.,” Kevin said.

“In terms of distance,” Bertram agreed. “But here they probably didn’t see more than short stretches of pavement. It’s an arduous trip no matter how you look at it.”

“They look like they are in good shape,” Kevin said. He wondered how he’d appear if he’d made the journey jammed into wooden boxes and hidden in the back of a truck.

“By this time I’ve got the drivers pretty well trained,” Bertram said. “They treat ’em better than they treat their own wives. They know if the apes die, they don’t get paid. It’s a pretty good incentive.”

“With our demand going up they’ll be put to good use,” Kevin said.

“You’d better believe it,” Bertram said. “These two are already spoken for, as you know. If they pass all the tests, which I’m certain they will, we’ll be over to your lab in the next couple of days. I want to watch again. I think you are a genius. And Melanie… Well, I’ve never seen such hand-eye coordination, even if you include an eye surgeon I used to know back in the States.”

Kevin blushed at the reference to himself. “Melanie is quite talented,” he said to deflect the conversation. Melanie Becket was a reproductive technologist. GenSys had recruited her mainly for Kevin’s project.

“She’s good,” Bertram said. “But the few of us lucky enough to be associated with your project know that you are the hero.”

Bertram looked up and down the space between the wall of the corridor and the cages to make sure that none of the coverall-clad workers were in earshot.

“You know, when I signed on to come over here I thought my wife and I would do well,” Bertram said. “Moneywise I thought it would be as lucrative as going to Saudi Arabia. But we’re doing better than I’d ever dreamed. Through your project and the stock options that come along with it, we’re going to get rich. Just yesterday I heard from Melanie that we have two more clients from New York City. That will put us over one hundred.”

“I hadn’t heard about the two additional clients,” Kevin said.

“No? Well it’s true,” Bertram said. “Melanie told me last night when I bumped into her at the rec center. She said she spoke with Raymond Lyons. I’m glad she informed me so I could send the drivers back to Zaire for another shipment. All I can say is that I hope our pygmy colleagues in Lomako can keep up their end of the bargain.”

Kevin looked back into the cage at the two females. They returned his stare with pleading expressions that melted Kevin’s heart. He wished he could tell them that they had nothing to fear. All that would happen to them was that they would become pregnant within the month. During their pregnancies they’d be kept indoors and would be treated to special, nutritious diets. After their babies were born, they’d be put in the enormous bonobo outdoor enclosure to rear the infants. When the youngsters reached age three the cycle would be repeated.