Free The Empty House by Michael Gilbert Page B

can only follow in their footsteps and hope, with patience and good fortune, to reach the point from which they were stepping off and advance a few steps more into the darkness before we, too, die.”
    An owl outside said, “Hoo,” and Peter jumped. Dr. Bishwas said, “I become dramatic, I apologise. Let us return to our cells. You must understand one further fact about them. Some cells are static. That is to say, they increase in size, but do not divide. The cells of the nerves and the muscles are of this type. Other cells, such as blood cells, are in a constant state of subdivision. But this is the important point, Mr. Manciple, and it is one to which you must give particular attention, for it is the objective of my whole discourse. You remember that each cell has in it a nucleus, and that this nucleus contains the genetic code which governs your whole development. It dictates not only external characteristics such as the shape and growth of your body and the colour of your eyes and your hair, but internal matters as well. You mental capacity, your predisposition to certain derangements such as hay fever or colour blindness. The speed with which your arteries harden in age. It may even, although this has not yet been proved, affect a predisposition to cancer. You understand what I am saying?”
    “Yes,” said Peter.
    “Very well. Then you will appreciate the importance of the fact that when a cell divides, the nucleus of the daughter cell must correspond in every particular with the nucleus of the parent cell. This is achieved in a series of six steps, each of which has been noted by geneticists and separately identified and named, by which the nucleotides attach themselves to the daughter cell in a correct and prearranged order, thus ensuring that the genetic code is reproduced accurately. Sometimes, by accident, this does not happen. This is what we call a mutation. The logical sequence of the body’s development is interrupted. The results are almost always catastrophic. The loss of resistance to disease. Mental inequilibrium. Freakish growths, unrecognisable as human beings, ranging from the moron whose body grows but whose mind remains that of an infant, to those poor creatures who, if they live, may be exhibited for gain in circuses. More usually, and mercifully, they die and are preserved for the instruction of students in the museums of our teaching hospitals.”
    “You spoke of this being the result of some accident. Has anyone discovered what sort of accident is involved? I mean, what causes the accident?”
    “Until recently there has been very little knowledge but a great deal of speculation. The work of Dr. Daniella Rhodes at Cambridge, which I mentioned to you earlier, has led to advances in the search for reasons, but whole areas are still in darkness. The results of lawless development, on the other hand, have long been noted. Cancer is only one of the more obvious. Some of the predisposing factors are also known. Radiation, for instance. It is now realised that in its earliest applications the incautious use of radium probably caused more cancerous growth than it cured. The inhalation of fumes can be another predisposing cause. But the fundamental cause, the trigger which actually sets the mutations into motion, is still a mystery. It is a mystery to the solution of which the researches of leading geneticists in all countries are being applied. Because if it could be determined, we might be able to find out how to control it.”
    “And this is what Dr. Wolfe was working on?”
    “He was working on it, almost continuously, for the whole of his time here. It was a natural development, you see, of the work he had been doing before he came. The papers which he wrote at the end of his second and fourth years, and which I was privileged to see, demonstrated how far he had advanced.”
    “And in the last two years?”
    “During the last two years, and more particularly recently, I could not help