Finally Gin said, "Doesn't look like we'll ever see eye to eye, does it? " '"No, it doesn't." '"Can we agree to disagree, then? " "I don't suppose I have much choice." '"You could fire me."
"I don't want to do that. But don't expect my blessing." '"I never did." Bat I want it, dammit. I wish I didn't, but I do. "I don't even know if I'll get the job. But if I do I'll have to adjust my schedule to, " "Cassidy can take up the slack. We'll work it out."
Gin felt a trickle of warmth, seeping through her. This - was a blessing of sorts, wasn't it? If not, it would have to do.
"Thank you, Duncan. I didn't expect, " "I want to keep you nearby .
.
. where I can keep an eye on you.
The warm trickle became a chill. What was that supposed to mean?
"Just don't let us down, Gin, " he said, his blue eyes burning into hers. "Don't betray us." He held her locked in his gaze a moment longer, then turned away.
"I'm glad we had this talk, Gin. The first of many, I hope. I'm sure you've got some dictation to catch up on. ' "Yes. Sure. I'll see you later." '"Be sure to let me know as soon as you hear from Marsden.
As for me, I'm off to the links." He pulled out a key ring and matter-of-factly locked his top drawer. "Surgery tomorrow at eight.
" Idly wondering why he bothered locking the drawer, Gin waved and left him.
This was turning out to be one strange day.
i G IN. \ EASY NOW, OLIVER SAID SOFTLY, WATCHING OVER HER shoulder, coaching her.
"That's it. Just go easy . . . easy . . . " Gin hadn't felt like being alone this afternoon. No word from Marsden's office, or from Gerry, so she'd arranged to spend a couple of hours in Oliver's lab practicing her implant-filling technique. She'd learn and get paid for it.
She smelled garlic on his breath and wondered what he'd had for lunch.
Nothing low cal, she was sure. Oliver had a weakness for Italian food and didn't seem to care what effect it had on his waistline. Probably linguine and clam sauce, don't spare the garlic, Better forget Oliver's dietary indiscretions. She needed to concentrate on what she was doing.
Gin had the 26-gauge needle of a tuberculin syringe inserted in the end of one of Oliver's medium, -size membranous implants and was injecting it with normal saline. Had this been for real, she'd be working under sterile conditions and filling the implant with Oliver's "secret sauce." Staring through the magnifying lens centered in the round head of the fluorescent examination lamp, she watched the half-inch-long tubular membrane swell and stretch. Like filling the world's tiniest water balloon.
"It's full now, " Oliver said. "Feel that back pressure? " She hadn't felt any until now, which was why half a dozen membranes lay ruptured on the side of the tray. But this time she did feel a hint of resistance on the plunger.
"Believe it or not, I think I do."
"Swell! Now it's time for the zapper." Gin repressed a smile as she reached for the cautery handle. Did anyone else on earth still say swell? Oliver had to be the last.
He was a bit of an enigma. Didn't seem to have much of a life outside his lab. No wife or family. No significant other that she knew of.
He'd had the staff over to his house for a dinner party one night and Gin had felt she knew less about him afterward than before.
'"Okay, " she said. "I'm ready."
"You know what to do. Just take your time" Gin had seen Oliver do this a hundred times but had never got this far. She readied the flattened tip of the cautery unit in position near the puncture site, slowly withdrew the needle, then stepped on the round power pedal near her left foot. A tiny blue spark arced from the tip to the implant, searing and coagulating the protein membrane around the puncture.
She watched through the magnifying lens, waiting for a telltale bead of fluid to form, signaling the need for another zap. But the membrane remained dry. She'd sealed the opening.
Success. Finally. A tiny triumph. Hardly made up for the fiasco in Marsden's officer Monday or Allard's accident this morning, but right now she'd take anything.
Gin looked up and found Oliver's round face grinning at her.
"It's going to be swell having someone else around who can fill these things. I'm sick to death of it."
"Why don't you just hire an assistant or two to help with the scut work? " "There's really not all that much to be done at this stage of the studies. And I'd like to limit the number of people who know what we're working with."
"And just what are we working with? " "Secret sauce."
"Oliver, come on.
Don't you think I have a right to know.
He thought a moment. "All right. Fair enough. But keep it under your hat. This solution is not patentable, sodon't want anyone stealing my thunder by beating me to market with it."
"Mum's the word, " she said.
"I'm sure I can trust you, " he murmured as if he'd just now realized it.
He removed his thick, horn-rimmed glasses as he sat down next to her.
He began to talk, rapidly, as if someone had opened a valve. Gin realized he must have been dying to expound on his secret sauce.
'"Are you familiar with the work done by the Department of Cell and Structural Biology in the University of Manchester in England? " "No.
Not a bit."
"Not many clinicians are. Okay then, how about fetal surgery? Have you seen any of that? " "Some down in Tulane. It wasn't part of the internal medicine rotation, obviously, but I picked up some information by osmosis."
"Good. Then you know that a fetus can have surgery in utero and be born months later completely scar free.
" "Yes, I remember a couple of OB residents talking about that. This high-risk baby they'd delivered had had a mass removed from its abdominal wall at about sixteen weeks' gestation and was born without a trace of an incision."
"Exactly. But the surgery has to be performed during the first five months. Any procedure done later leaves a scar just as it would on an adult. Cellular biologists have wondered about it for years. What's happening in there? What's different? What prevents the usual excess amount of collagen from being laid down and forming the scars we all know so well? The folks at the University of Manchester came up with the answer a few years ago." Gin snapped her fingers. She remembered something . . . where had she seen it? "Some sort of growth factor, wasn't it? " Oliver clapped his hands. "Excellent! Transforming growth factor beta, to be precise. They identified three types of the growth factor, and found that the third, beta type 3, falls off sharply at the end of the second tnmester of pregnancy. The type-three molecule, I call it beta-3 for short, has been synthesized since then and that's the key ingredient in the secret sauce." '"So that's the secret behind Duncan's incredible results. " ''llh-uh, " Oliver said, wagging a finger. "Duncan has the eyes and the hands that do the remodeling. Even without a drop of beta-3 his patients would have minimal scarring. All I've done is find a way to gild the lily."
"But why the implants? Couldn't he just coat the incisions with beta-3? ' "No. You need it in the final phase of healing. Remember the three stages of wound repair, inflammation, proliferas ion, and remodeling?
Beta-3 does its work in stage three where scar tissue forms to replace granulation tissue. At suturing time, beta-3 would accomplish nothing.
You need a means of delayed release." as, slaving away, testing antidepressants on rats in Skinner boxes as a psychopharmacologist at GEM Pharm during the day, and at night working in my home on a continuous delivery system for medication. Norplant was the hot topic then, but the Norplant implants have to be removed after five years. I thought I could improve on that, develop an implant that would deliver its medication in a metered dose for five years, maybe longer, and then dissolve. Great idea, no? " "I take it that didn't happen."
"Not completely. I developed a soft, flexible, crystalprotein matrix that would indeed dissolve without a trace.
However, it was nonpermeable. Wouldn't allow a drop of anything on one side to pass through to the other, until it dissolved, and then it would dump its entire contents into the surrounding tissues. I'd come up with nothing more than a very elaborate and expensive way of giving someone an injection. I was terribly discouraged. ' "And then along came Duncan."
"Right. After his . . . well, after he left vascular surgery, I heard about Manchester's results with transforming growth factor beta type 3 and saw how my imperfect slow-delivery membrane might be perfect for delivering something else. The FDA approved us for clinical trials and the results have been astounding." Gin had seen patients on postsurgical follow-up visits and only with a magnifying glass was it possible to tell they'd had surgery. Suddenly Gin was struck by the enormous potential for Oliver's implants.