Read Online The Stone That Never Came Down by John Brunner - Free Book Online

… Arthur is right, though, to say that’s what we suspect is happening. We’ve never administered it to a human subject. But it looks as though it has finally been tested on a man.” He pointed with a shaking hand at the note Hector was holding.
    “You mean you think Dr Post deliberately dosed himself with it?” Sawyer hazarded. “But surely he’d have told you, done it under controlled conditions!”
    “It’s all too likely,” Kneller sighed. “We had been wondering whether he was overworking–he did seem very tired, very impatient … But it’s no good speculating now.”
    “How in heaven’s name could you keep this a secret?” Hector burst out. “How long have you been working on it?”
    “Since just after Sakulin’s first paper appeared. About two years. But Maurice must have identified the original compound a year or more earlier still.”
    “But you can’t have done it all by yourselves! I mean you and Maurice and Dr Randolph!” Hector took a pace forward. “Surely you must employ–well–lab technicians?”
    Kneller said in a gravelly tone, “Yes, of course. And postgraduate students, too. But, you see, among the trustees of the Gull-Grant Foundation there’s a move to have our Institute dissolved and sell the site for redevelopment. They’d have to go through the courts, but … Never mind! The point is that when we realised just what a colossal discovery Maurice had made we called a staff meeting and suggested that–short of being first to achieve a synthetic replicant–this was our best chance of putting the Institute so firmly on the map they wouldn’t dare disband our team. Our staff are very loyal, and they agreed without exception. But Maurice had used standard techniques to synthesise VC, so if any hint of its existence had leaked out we’d certainly have been beaten into print. Priority in publication is all, you know, and there are lots of better-funded institutions that could run test-series in a month which our budget compels us to take a year over. So the staff willingly pledged themselves not to breathe a word about VC until Maurice’s definitive paper was complete. He was due to present it at the Organochemical Society in March.”
    “VC …” Sawyer said. “What does that stand for?”
    “Well,” Kneller answered slowly, “we haven’t told you quite everything about this stuff. Remember how we chanced on it.”
    Hector’s blood suddenly seemed to turn sluggish as mercury and drain from his head. The world swam around him as he forced out, “You mean it’s a replicant?”
    “Far and away the most successful ever synthesised,” Kneller said. “Streets ahead of the best that Sakulin or anybody else has produced. It’s not a virus, not in any standard sense of that term, but it does have this one viral attribute–which, incidentally,” he interpolated, “we were no longer looking for by that time! It seems to be an inescapable corollary of the molecular structure … and there are enough papers waiting to be written about that to keep our staff contentedly quiet, believe me!”
    “Right,” Randolph agreed. “All being well, every member of our team can look forward to a solid lifetime of genuinely valuable research into this single substance and its close relations. You see, given the proper environment, it multiplies. Living animal tissue is ideal. Which is why we call it ‘viral coefficient’.”
    “You mean it breeds?” Sawyer cried. “You mean it’s infectious?”
    “Not infectious!” Randolph snapped. “Cold air, sunlight, even dilution in plain water will inactivate it almost at once. But … Well, without being infectious, it may possibly be contagious. Which is why we’d better collect some equipment from our labs and get along to the police mortuary right away. We’ve got to establish whether Maurice–”
    “Chief Inspector!” A voice echoing up the stairway.
    “Up here!” Sawyer shouted back, and there was a pounding of footsteps