Forty signs of rain - Kim Stanley Robinson [65]
Onto the parklike grounds of Torrey Pines Generique, through the newly beefed-up security gates. The place was looking empty, he thought as he entered the main building and walked down its halls to Derek’s office. They had definitely let a lot of people go; several labs he passed stood empty and unused.
Frank entered the reception room and greeted Derek’s secretary, Susan, who buzzed him in. Derek got up from his broad desk to shake hands.
“Good to see you again, how are you?”
“Fine, and you?”
“Oh, getting by, getting by.”
His office looked the same as the last time Frank had visited: window view of the Pacific; framed copy of Derek’s cover portrait on a U.S. News & World Report; skiing photos.
“So, what’s new with the great bureaucrats of science?”
“They call themselves technocrats, actually.”
“Oh I’m sure it’s a big difference.” Derek shook his head. “I never understood why you went out there. I suppose you made good use of your time.”
“Yes.”
“And now you’re almost back.”
“Yes. I’m almost done.” Frank paused. “But look, like I said to you on the phone, I did see something interesting come in from someone who has worked here.”
“Right, I looked into it. We could still hire him full-time, I’m pretty sure. He’s on soft money up at Caltech.”
“Good. Because I thought it was a very interesting idea.”
“So NSF funded it?”
“No, the panel wasn’t as impressed as I was. And they might have been right—it was a bit undercooked. But the thing is, if it did work, you could test genes by computer simulation, and identify proteins you wanted, even down to specific ligands, so you could get better attachments to cells in vivo. It would really speed the process. Sharpen it.”
Derek regarded him closely. “You know we don’t really have any funds for new people.”
“Yeah I know. But this guy is a postdoc, right? And a mathematician. He was only asking NSF for some computer time really. You could hire him full-time for a starter salary, and put him on the case, and it would hardly cost you a thing. I mean, if you can’t afford that…Anyway, it could be interesting.”
“What do you mean, ‘interesting’?”
“I just told you. Hire him full-time, and get him to sign the usual contract concerning intellectual property rights and all. Really secure those.”
“I get that, but ‘interesting’ how?”
Frank sighed. “In the sense that it might be the way to solve your targeted delivery problem. If his methods work and you get a patent, then the potential for licensing income might be really considerable. Really.”
Derek was silent. He knew that Frank knew the company was nearly on life support. That being the case, Frank would not bother him with trifles, or even with big deals that needed capital and time to get going. He had to be offering a fix of some kind.
“Why did he send this grant proposal to NSF?”
“Beats me. Maybe he was turned down by one of your guys when he was here. Maybe his advisor at Caltech told him to do it. It doesn’t matter. But have your people working on the delivery problem take a look at it. After you get this guy hired.”
“Why don’t you talk to them? Go talk to Leo Mulhouse about this.”
“Well…” Frank thought it over. “Okay. I’ll go talk to them and see how things are going. You get this Pierzinski back on board. Call him today. We’ll see what happens from there.”
Derek nodded, still not happy. “You know, Frank, what we really need here is you. Like I said before. Things haven’t been the same in the labs since you left. Maybe when you get back here we could rehire you at whatever level UCSD will allow.”
“I thought you just said you didn’t have any money for hires.”
“Well that’s true, but for you we could try to work something out, right?”
“Maybe. But let’s not talk about that now. I need to get out of NSF first, and see what the blind trust has done with my stock. I used to have some options here.”
“You sure did. Hell, we could bury you in those, Frank, I’d love to do that.”
Giving people options to buy stock cost a company nothing.