Blood Music

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Brenard went through the stapled papers carefully, hand on forehead, lifting the legal-sized pages and folding them back, his frown deepening.
What was going on in the black cube was enough to make his hair stand on end. The information was by no means complete, but his friends in Washington had done a remarkable job. The packet had arrived by special courier just half an hour after Edward Milligan left.
Their conversation had filled him with a biting, defensive shame. He saw a distant version of himself in the young doctor, and the comparison hurt. Had good old famous Michael Bernard been walking around in a fog of capitalistic seduction the last few months?
At first, Genetron’s offer had seemed clean and sweet-minimal participation in the first few months, then status as a father-figure and pioneer, his image to be used to promote the company.
It had taken him entirely too long to realize how close he was to the trigger of the trap.
He looked up at the window and stood to raise the blinds. With a rustling snap, he had a clear view of the mound, the black cube, the wind-swept clouds beyond.
He could smell disaster. The black cube, ironically, would not be involved; but if Vergil Ulam had not triggered things, then the other side of Genetron would have done so eventually.
Ulam had been fired so precipitously, and blackballed so thoroughly, not because he had done sloppy research—but because he had followed so closely on the heels of the defense research division. He had succeeded where they had met frequent setbacks and failure. And even though they had studied his files for months (multiple copies had been made) they could not duplicate his results.
Harrison yesterday had murmured that Ulam’s discoveries must have been largely accidental. It was obvious why he would say that now.
Ulam had come very close to taking his success and leaving Genetron, and the government, in the lurch. The Big Boys could not put up with that, and could not trust Ulam.
He was your basic crackpot. He could never have gotten a security clearance.
So they had tossed him out, and frozen him out.
And then he had come back to haunt. They could not refuse him now.
Bernard read the papers through once more and asked himself how he could back away from the mess with the minimum of damage.
Should he? If they were such fools, wouldn’t his expertise be useful—or at least his clear thinking? He had no doubt he could think more dearly than Harrison and Yng.
But Genetron’s interest in him was largely as a figurehead. How much influence could he have, even now?
He dropped the blinds and twisted the rod to close them. Then he picked up his phone and dialed Harrison’s number. “Yes?”
“Bernard.”
“Certainly, Michael.”
“I’m going to call Ulam now. We’re going to bring him in now. Today. Get your whole team ready, and the defense research people, too.”
“Michael, that’s—”
“We can’t just leave him out there.”
Harrison paused. “Yes. I agree.”
“Then get on it.”