Free World without Cats by Bonham Richards Page B

I’ll come right over.”
     
    Jane arrived just as her boss was attempting to placate four agitated cat owners. Kal hadn’t come in yet. Jane stepped right into the group, grabbed Vera’s arm, and all but dragged her into the back room as Vera protested weakly. At Jane’s urging, Vera lay down on the cot. Jane returned to the group out front. Vera heard her assure them that the vet was doing all she could, but that she had to get some rest or she wouldn’t be able to work at all.
    Before she dozed off, Vera thought how fortunate she was to have found Jane. Here was a helper who continually made herself useful, finding constructive things to do where others might find none. Vera knew that Jane would handle the cat owners with tact and courtesy. She slept soundly, but woke briefly when Kal arrived then fell back into slumber.
    Jane roused Vera shortly after ten. “There’s a Professor P. Merrill Morton on the line.”
    “Hello. Dr. Morton? This is Vera Barnett. What have you found?”
    “Well, it’s a bit of a puzzle, I’m afraid. We’re not quite finished, but I can tell you that one blood sample has a Gram-negative bacillus we haven’t yet identified; I think it’s Pseudomonas . The other two samples appear to be sterile.”
    “But … but …” Vera was still groggy from her nap, but she then came fully awake. “I guess it’s some kind of virus, then.”
    “Yes, it would seem so. However, I’m wondering about the one sample that shows bacteria. Is there any chance that you contaminated the blood with skin bacteria when you autopsied the cats?” Vera sensed that Morton was trying to be tactful.
    “Yes, of course it’s possible,” Vera responded curtly, “but I do know how to take blood aseptically from a dead animal.”
    “Yes, I’m sure you do. I just … well anyway, that’s what we’ve got so far. I’d be happy to look at more samples. My wife told me that quite a few of her friends’ cats are ill. I’ve got to tell you, my curiosity is piqued.”
    “Thank you, Dr. Morton. I’ll bring more samples. And I will be very careful not to contaminate them. Perhaps I could bring up one or two of the sick cats and let you draw their blood yourself.”
    “That would be fine.”
    Vera gazed out the window. So it’s probably a virus after all … but it can’t be panleukopenia. What the hell is it? Vera brewed a pot of coffee while she looked over the lengthy list of messages that had piled up while she slept. She checked all the animals in the ward, removing the bodies of two cats that had expired during her slumber. She consulted with Kal, but he had no new information. There was some terrible disease afflicting the cats of Camarillo, that’s all they knew. Vera made a few calls to owners and then sat down and sipped coffee absently, while Jane continued taking calls and Kal dealt with walk-ins.
    Vera and Kal drew a tiny amount of blood from several of the sick cats in the ward and prepared blood smears. “Look,” Kal said, “those tiny needle sticks are still oozing blood.”
    “I see. Seems to be something wrong with their blood clotting. That’s consistent with the internal hemorrhaging I saw in the dead cats. Vera diluted a small amount of blood in saline and placed it on a special slide called a hemacytometer. She examined it with her microscope. Her fingers clicked away at a counting device. “Ah hah!” was the only remark she uttered for twenty minutes.
    When she was finished, she turned to Kal. “That’s it! The lymphocyte count in all these cats is low, less than one tenth of the normal level. Also, I see lots of immature leukocytes. This is some mutant type of feline leukemia, and it develops much faster than any I have ever seen. It all fits. Swollen spleens, diarrhea, compromised immunity. Everything makes sense except the rapidity of the disease. Feline leukemia usually takes months or years to develop, not days.”
    As Vera was recording her results, the phone rang. It