Free Pharmakon by Dirk Wittenborn

periodic table bannered behind it, the figure seemed to cast a shadow on them, even when it didn’t. Hands, sweat, use had smoothed its surface and given the wood a darkly damp patina, as if it were perspiring. The eyes of the shared face were wide open; the whites were inlays of bone, with huge dilated pupils of red coral. The mouth was lipped in cowry shells, the man/woman was neither smiling nor angry; the expression was one of superior calm.
    As Friedrich had hoped, the residue of dried gaikau dong in the bottom of the vessel provided the yeast culture necessary to ferment the kwina leaves into a crude beer. By day seven they had 3.78 liters of The Way Home as it would have been prescribed by the Bagadong shaman to ameliorate the grief and fears and depressions of a bereaved widow, an orphaned child, a spurned lover, or a warrior who had lost his hand, or his courage. To make administering this drug easier and more scientific re: dosage, as well as to ascertain in what form, if any, kwina was psychoactive, Friedrich and Winton distilled off the alcohol, then dried the remaining liquid in a vacuum.
    By day ten The Way Home was reduced to a saltshaker’s worth of faintly chartreuse crystals. Gai kau dong was referred to by its initials, GKD. Doctors Friedrich and Winton had not quite become friends but were relaxed enough in one another’s company to borrow cigarettes from each other’s packs without feeling the need to ask.
    It was day eleven. The crystals had been diluted in sterile water at a ratio of a hundred to one. Colorless and odorless, The Way Home now resided in 1,000 milliliter glass-stoppered Erlenmeyer flasks. Friedrich and Winton sat on stools, admiring the purified fruits of their labor. Will’s shirtsleeves were rolled up, tie loosened; he wore a black rubber apron tied around his waist. She wore a freshly laundered lab coat and sensible shoes cobbled out of alligator. “What do you think we should call it?”
    “Nothing, until we find out if it works.” Will wasn’t a pessimist. It was just that he had learned the hard way that you won’t be disappointed if you expect the worst. They both reached for the pack of cigarettes on the counter at the same time. There was only one Lucky left. “You can have it.” Will handed her the smoke.
    “We’ll share. We’re partners, after all, Dr. Friedrich.” They never used first names. Winton lit it off the Bunsen burner, took a drag, and passed it to Friedrich. He had sworn to his wife he hadn’t started smoking again. When she smelled the stink of cigarettes on his clothes, he blamed it on Winton. He didn’t feel guilty about the lie until he tasted Bunny’s pink lipstick on the end of that shared cigarette.
    “When this is all over . . .” Winton took back her cigarette, “. . . I think I’m going to turn Jack and Jill into a planter.” They were her nicknames for the figures on the vessel.
    “Please correct me if I’m wrong, but did I ever tell you or imply that you could have the fermenting vessel?”
    “No . . .” Bunny stubbed out the shared cigarette. “I apologize for being presumptuous.”
    “I already promised it to my wife.” He hadn’t, but Winton’s sense of entitlement annoyed him a little more each day.
    “Is Nora fond of primitive art?”
    “Why do you think she likes me?”
    “That is not a question I’ve ever thought about.” She picked a bit of tobacco off the tip of her tongue and jotted down something in her notebook.
    Friedrich wondered why he’d brought Nora into the conversation, and changed the subject. “We’re gonna need thirty-six rats for our initial tests.”
    “I should think one or two would be enough to determine if it’s toxic. The only way we’ll know the psychological effects of GKD is to test it on humans.” Winton had put a tea kettle on the Bunsen burner.
    “I’m not comfortable letting anyone take this until I’ve seen hard evidence it has a beneficial effect.”
    “You’re