But then the conversation came around to the subject of why she would be willing to leave her present post-an important and apparently highly rewarding position as head of nursing at a child-care center of one of the Southern states-for the sake of immuring herself in the secretive and closely guarded headquarters of Stasis Technologies. And she said, "I know that I'll be giving up a great deal to come here. Still, I'll be gaining a great deal, too. Not only the chance to do work of the kind I like best in an area that nobody has ever worked in before. But also it'll give me a chance to get that damned nuisance Bruce Mannheim out of my hair at last."
Hoskins felt a chill run through him.
"Bruce Mannheim? You mean the 'children in crisis' advocate?"
"Is there some other one?"
He drew his breath in deeply and held it. Mannheim! That loudmouth! That troublemaker! How on earth had Dorothy Newcombe gotten herself mixed up with him? This was completely unexpected and not at all welcome.
After a moment he said carefully, "Are you saying that there's sort of a problem between you and Bruce Mannheim, then?"
She laughed. "A problem? I guess you could call it that. He's suing my hospital. Suing me, I suppose I'd have to say. I'm one of the named defendants, actually. It's been a tremendous distraction for us for the past six months."
A sickly sensation churned in the pit of Hoskins' stomach. He fumbled with the papers on his desk and struggled to regain his equilibrium.
"There's nothing about this in your Personnel report."
"No one asked me. Obviously I wasn't trying to conceal anything or I wouldn't have mentioned it now. But the subject just never came up."
"Well, I'm asking you now, Ms. Newcombe. What's this all about?"
"You know what kind of professional agitator Mannheim is? You know that he takes the most far-fetched positions imaginable by way of showing everybody how concerned ha is for the welfare of children?"
It didn't seem wise to get drawn into spouting opinions. Not where Bruce Mannheim was concerned.
Warily Hoskins said, "I know there are people who think of him that way."
"You phrase that in such a diplomatic way, Dr. Hoskins. Do you think he's got your office bugged?"
"Hardly. But I don't necessarily share your obvious distaste for Mannheim and his ideas. As a matter of fact, I don't really have much of a position about him. I haven't been paying a lot of attention to the issues he's been raising." That was a flat lie, and Hoskins felt uncomfortable about it. One of the earliest planning papers dealing with the current project had said: Take every step to make sure that we keep pests like Bruce Mannheim from landing on our backs. But Hoskins was interviewing her, not the other way around. He didn't feel obliged to tell her anything more than seemed appropriate.
He leaned forward. "All I know, actually, is that he's a very vocal crusader with a lot of articulate ideas about how children in public custody ought to be raised. Whether his ideas are right or not, I'm not really qualified to say. About this lawsuit, Ms. Newcombe-"
"We've taken some small children off the streets. Most of them are third-generation drug users, even fourth-generation, congenital addicts. It's the saddest thing you can imagine, children who are born addicted. -I assume you're aware of the generally accepted theory that drug addiction, like most physiological addictions, very often arises from some genetic predisposition in that direction?"
"Of course."
"Well, we've been conducting genetic studies on these children, and on their parents and grandparents- when we're able to find them. We're trying to locate and isolate the drug-positive gene, if there is such a thing, in the hope that some day we can get rid of it."
"Sounds like a good idea to me," Hoskins said:
"It does to everyone except Bruce Mannheim, apparently. The way he's come down on us, you'd think we're performing actual gene surgery on those kids, not simply doing a little prowling around in their chromosomes to find out what's there. Purely investigative work, no genetic modification whatsoever. But he's slapped us with sixteen different injunctions tying our hands in every imaginable way. It's enough to make you cry. We've tried to explain, but he won't pay attention. He distorts our own affidavits and uses them as the basis for his next lawsuit. And you know how the courts are when it comes to accusations that children are being used as experimental subjects."
"I'm afraid I do," said Hoskins dolefully. "And so your hospital is spending its energies and resources on legal defense instead of-"
"Not just the hospital. He's named specific individuals. I'm one of them. One of nine researchers who he's charged with child abuse-literal child abuse-as a result of his so-called studies of our work up to this point." There was obvious bitterness in her voice, but a touch of amusement, too. Her eyes flashed a bright twinkle. She laughed until her heavy breasts shook. "Can you imagine it? Child abuse? Me?"
Hoskins shook his head sympathetically. "It does seem incredible."
But his heart was sinking. He still had no doubt that this woman was ideally qualified for the job. But how could he hire someone who was already in trouble with the dreaded Bruce Mannheim? There was going to be controversy enough over this project as it was. No doubt Mannheim would be poking his nose into what they were doing before very long in any case, no matter what precautions they took. All the same, to add Dorothy New-combe to the roster would be asking for the worst sort of trouble. He could just imagine the press conference
Mannheim would call. Letting it be known that Stasis Technologies had chosen to hire a woman who was currently defending herself against the accusation of child abuse at another scientific facility-and Mannheim would make accusation sound like indictment-to serve as nurse and guardian of the unfortunate child who was the pathetic victim of this unprecedented new form of kidnapping-No. No. He couldn't possibly take her on.
Somehow he forced himself to go through another five minutes of asking questions. On the surface, everything remained amiable and pleasant. But it was an empty exercise, and Hoskins knew that Dorothy Newcombe knew it. When she left, he thanked her for her frankness and expressed his appreciation of her high qualifications and offered her the usual assurances that he'd be in touch soon, and she smiled and told him how pleased she had been by their conversation-and he had no doubt at all that she realized that she wasn't going to get the job.
As soon as she was gone, he phoned Sam Aickman and said, "For God's sake, Sam, why didn't you tell me that Dorothy Newcombe is currently on the receiving end of some kind of cockeyed lawsuit of Bruce Mannheim's?"
Aickman's face on die screen registered amazement verging on shock.
"She is?"
"So she told me just now. A child-abuse accusation stemming from the work she's been doing."
"Really. Really," Aickman said, crestfallen. He looked more abashed than amazed now. "Hell, Jerry, I had no idea at all that she was tangled up with that colossal pain in the neck. And we questioned her very thoroughly; let me tell you. -Not dioroughly enough, I guess."
"That's all we'd need, hiring somebody for this job who's already on Mannheim's hit-list."
"She's terrific, though, isn't she? Absolutely the most motherly human being I ever-"
"Yes. Absolutely. And comes with a money-back guarantee that we'll have Mannheim's legal vultures sinking their claws into us as soon as he finds out she's here. Or don't you agree, Sam?"
"Looks like you're going to go for Marianne Levien, then, is that it?"
"I'm not through interviewing yet," Hoskins said, "But Levien looks pretty good."
"Yes, doesn't she," said Aickman, with a grin.
Edith Fellowes had no way of knowing that she was merely the Number Three candidate for the job, but it wouldn't have surprised her to learn it. She was accustomed to being underestimated. There was nothing flashy about her, nothing very dramatic, nothing that registered immediate top-rank qualifications in anything. She was neither stunningly beautiful nor fascinatingly ugly, neither intensely passionate nor interestingly aloof, neither daringly insightful nor painstakingly brilliant. All through her life people had tended to take her for granted. But she was a stable, firmly balanced woman who knew her own worth perfectly well, and, by and large, she had had a satisfying, fulfilling existence-by and large.