‘Completely,’ said Goldine without turning to look at Dryden. ‘I was a guinea pig.’
‘That’s untrue!’ Serafin angrily protested. ‘After the adoption we genuinely tried to make your life as normal as any child’s.’
‘Then, why didn’t you send me to school like other kids?’ Goldine simply asked.
The question hung in the air unanswered.
Dryden pressed on. ‘The tests you gave Goldine increasingly revealed that she was unusually strong for her age — “physically precocious,” I think you said yourself. And that was how the Olympic idea took root. What a boost it would give your research paper if Goldine won a gold medal! It wouldn’t be the proof of your theories, because you don’t convince scientists with isolated cases, but it would bring much-needed publicity to your ideas. By this time, editors were rejecting the papers you wrote. You had nothing new to say, so they weren’t interested. I can see it must have depressed you profoundly.’
‘Who told you these things?’ demanded Serafin.
‘Does it matter?’ said Dryden. ‘What obsessed you wasn’t whether you were right: you were convinced you were. You had a compulsion to prove you were right, put the theory beyond dispute. But how? You had gone as far as you could in your thesis, and that was gathering dust. To answer your critics required something out of science fiction: a subject of average stature from the twenty-first century.’
Goldine swung around to face Dryden. There was surprise in her expression. And fear. She was afraid of what he would say next. She looked pathetically vulnerable in the white bathrobe, fingering her neck, eyes opened very wide, brow fretted with anxiety.
He was moved.
He would have liked to take her aside, tell her gently, but she wouldn’t have believed him. This had to be said in Serafin’s presence.
He glanced briefly back, trying to give her courage. Then he returned to Serafin. ‘In the early sixties, there was an important development. You heard about HGH and the experiments to promote human growth. Using hormones extracted in autopsies, doctors treated children suffering from pituitary deficiencies, with spectacular results. The treatment was taken up at a number of centers. A unit was opened at your own Institute in Bakersfield. You suddenly saw that this could have an application to your research. With HGH, you could create what you had thought was a science-fiction fantasy. You were measuring Goldine’s growth from week to week. You knew how tall she was likely to be as an adult. But with HGH it was possible to augment that. You could increase her height to the level you believed it would take three generations of evolution to attain. And you could prove beyond dispute that her frame could adjust to that level of increase.’
Goldine stared white-faced at Serafin. ‘Those were the injections you gave me? All those were hormone injections?’
Melody said in a low voice, ‘Christ, I don’t believe this!’
Serafin pushed aside the chair and went toward Goldine, putting out a hand to touch her shoulder. ‘My dear, put this way it sounds indefensible, but, believe me, I didn’t go into this lightly. I learned everything I could about the treatment in the growth unit. I made the most intensive study of HGH and its effects.’
‘That’s how I got to be as tall as I am?’ said Goldine, horror written on her features. ‘You planned for me to be six foot two?’
Serafin nodded. ‘I planned for you to be tall, yes, as tall as women will be a century from now.’
A phrase came back to Dryden. Something Goldine had said on La Jolla Beach when she had told him about the cosmetic surgery she had undergone. All I had was my six foot two. Even that was denied her now.
‘To prove your theory, huh? Like someone had to have the first smallpox vaccination, the first heart transplant? What do I get — a one-line credit in a medical encyclopedia?’ Goldine continued speaking in a rush, coming to terms with what she had learned. ‘So you made me exercise, gave me physiotherapy as a kid to make me a perfect physical specimen — some kind of superwoman?’
‘But you are!’ said Serafin passionately. ‘You are Goldengirl. I’ll tell you what you get. Glory, fame, more money than you can spend!’
‘Who gets all that?’ she demanded. ‘The kid you took out of Tamarisk Lodge? Is that who I am? Docs the glory go to Dean Hofmann, or a bunch of hormones taken from corpses?’
‘You were born a natural athlete,’ said Serafin as if he had not heard. ‘Your grandmother won a gold medal. Your father was on the U.S. Olympic team. The ability is inherited. The injections weren’t given to make you a champion runner — they wouldn’t do that. They made you taller, bigger, that’s all. Through your running you are proving that your frame has adapted to the extra growth. It has no weakness. You are six foot two and a mesomorph and you can power your body faster than any woman alive. That’s the triumph of my life’s work, Goldine.’
Dryden was no scientist, but he could see huge gaps in Serafin’s rationale. The man had become so obsessed with his theory that he had abandoned scientific method for a kind of biological alchemy. It was so crackbrained that to take up points would lead nowhere. He had to leave all that, try at least to get to the truth of what it had produced.
‘It’s a hollow triumph, Dr. Serafin, because you daren’t publish now. Isn’t it time you told Goldine why you put her in this place?’
She turned quickly, looking at Dryden with frightened eyes. ‘What does that mean?’
‘It’s for him to tell you,’ answered Dryden.
Serafin was shaking his head, but it was a gesture of submission, not defiance. ‘My dear, I would like to spare you this, but he leaves me no choice. If you are to hear it, then it is best I tell you myself. When I started giving you the hormone all those years ago, I was aware that there was a certain risk attached, a chance of damaging your health. I didn’t know how high a risk it was. Later, I learned that it was probable, if I persisted with the injections, that they would permanently damage the gland known as the pancreas. That, I must tell you, has happened. The reason why you have been unwell since the U.S. Trials is that you have diabetes. The stress of competing in the Trials brought it on, but the injections were really responsible.’
‘No, Doc,’ said Goldine in a voice steady, but thick with emotion. ‘The injections weren’t responsible. You were. I have this thing wrong with me and you knew it would happen. Now would you tell me if it’s permanent?’
Serafin put a conciliatory hand toward Goldine, then let it fall limply as he met the contempt in her eyes. He turned his face away and nodded. ‘I gambled that it wouldn’t happen so soon. I wanted you to get your gold medals first. Then, when it was diagnosed, I would tell you why I did this. You would be compensated by your success in the Olympics. You would have the fame, the material benefits, as a consolation, knowing I had provided you with the training, the conditioning, the backing that transformed you into Goldengirl.’
‘While the injections were transforming me into an incurable,’ said Goldine bitterly. ‘What did you stand to get out of it?’
‘Not money,’ insisted Serafin. ‘Dryden can confirm that. The consortium was necessary to provide the facilities you needed, but for me the money wasn’t important. I didn’t trade your health for profit, Goldine. For a principle. To demonstrate a scientific truth.’
Goldine suddenly started to laugh, a shrill peal of laughter verging on hysteria. She tossed back her head, showing her white teeth, and then rocked forward till her long hair cascaded over her shoulders. The others in the small bedroom watched with petrifying unease. ‘Oh, Christ,’ she said when she had recovered herself enough, ‘it’s just incredible! Fifteen years creating your six-foot-two-inch scientific truth, and what happens? Four weeks before the big demonstration it goes down with diabetes. The bones are great, the bodywork is okay, but the inside’s seised up. You pathetic little man! You proved your theory, but nobody will know. There isn’t a medical institute in the world that would publish it, knowing how it left me. You just have the bills to pick up, and the job of telling the consortium what happened to their multimillion-dollar ripoff.’