Free Crisis by Ken McClure Page A

into their bodies through cuts and grazes on their hands while they worked on the disposal of the slaughtered sheep. The supposedly mutant Scrapie virus had breached a normally impassable barrier and attacked their brain cells.
    Bannerman had a nightmarish thought. Perhaps there was no species barrier at all. Maybe the virus could cross to man quite readily under normal cir cumstances but the incubation time was so long that the disease did not appear until old age. Under these circumstances it might be called senile dementia. The Achnagelloch mutation might be one which speeded up the disease rather than allowing it to cross any barrier. It was a complication he would have to bear in mind.
    Although Gill had referred to the possibility of ‘mutant’ Scrapie in the notes he had not offered any thoughts on what might have caused the mutation. No mention was made of radiation or the proximity of a nuclear power station. If it hadn’t been radiation, what else could it have been? Bannerman wondered. Chemical or spontaneous mutation were the other two possibilities. Viruses were notorious for chang ing their structure. The AIDS virus did it all the time. The ‘flu’ virus did it too. UV radiation? UV light was a powerful mutagen. It was not inconceivable that changes in the ozone layer might allow UV levels to reach mutagenic levels. Chemical mutagenesis? Modern society produced a host of chemicals capable of altering DNA and inducing mutations. The possibilities seemed endless.
    There were several practical questions that Bannerman wanted to ask. How soon after the diagnosis of Scrapie in the sheep of Inverladdie had the infected animals been slaughtered, and by what means? Had the corpses been buried quickly? Dead sheep lying around the hillside would be prey to vermin and carrion which would spread the virus.
    Gill’s notes indicated that the local vet, Finlay, had been called in quickly by the farmer. According to Finlay’s report, the infected sheep had been slaugh tered without delay and the corpses had been buried immediately in lime pits on the farm. Everything seemed satisfactory. Compensation had been paid to the farmer at Inverladdie and the veterinary inspectorate were keeping an eye on other farms in the area for further signs of Scrapie.
    Bannerman found a problem with the research notes, however, when he tried to find out what experimental measures had been taken to investi gate the pathology of the men’s deaths. He checked through all the papers again but found nothing. He felt sure that brain samples would have been sent to the Neurobiology Unit for testing in mice. He would check. He got out his diary where he had made a note of Hector Munro’s number, and called it. He remembered that Munro had said at the meeting in London that his people would be happy to give any help they could.
    ‘Munro.’
    ‘Dr Munro? This is Ian Bannerman. We met at the MRC in London.’
    ‘Of course, you decided to take the assignment then?’
    ‘ This is my first day,’ said Bannerman. ‘I’ve been going through the case notes and I find I need some information.’
    ‘Fire away.’
    ‘I presume Gill asked your people to test the brains of the dead men for confirmation of slow virus infection and to measure incubation times in mice. Do you have any results yet?’
    ‘I’m afraid you presume wrongly,’ replied Munro. ‘Gill did not send us anything from the autopsies.’
    ‘But your people are the acknowledged experts on this sort of thing!’ said Bannerman. The short incubation time is one of the most striking and worrying features about this whole business!’
    ‘I wouldn’t disagree with that,’ said Munro, ‘but nothing has come to us. I supposed that Stoddart’s people were carrying out their own investigation.’
    Bannerman let out a sigh of frustration. ‘Depart mental politics,’ he complained. ‘I’ll check on that. In the meantime would you mind if I sent you some brain biopsies for mice