Forty signs of rain - Kim Stanley Robinson [67]
She turned and saw him. “What,” she said sharply, looking at him as if to stop him in his tracks.
“Oh hi I was just wondering how you’re doing, I haven’t seen you for a while, I wondered. Are you up for, how about going out and having dinner somewhere and catching up?”
She surveyed him. “I don’t think so. I don’t think that would be a good idea. We might as well not even go there. What would be the point.”
“I don’t know, I’m interested to know how you’re doing I guess is all.”
“Yeah I know, I know what you mean. But sometimes there are things you’re interested in that you can’t really ever get to know anymore, you know?”
“Ah yeah.”
He pursed his lips, looked at her. She looked good. She was both the strongest and the wildest woman he had ever met. Somehow things between them had gone wrong anyway.
Now he looked at her and understood what she was saying. He was never going to be able to know what her life was like these days. He was biased, she was biased; the scanty data would be inescapably flawed. Talking for a couple hours would not make any difference. So it was pointless to try. Would only bring up bad things from the past. Maybe in another ten years. Maybe never.
Marta must have seen something of this train of thought in his face, because with an impatient nod she turned and was gone.
A FEW DAYS after Frank dropped by, Leo turned on his computer when he came in to the lab and saw there was an e-mail from Derek. He opened and read it, then the attachment that had come with it. When he was done he printed it all out, and forwarded it to Brian and Marta. When Marta came in about an hour later she had already done some work on it.
“Hey Brian,” she called from Leo’s door, “come check this out. Derek has sent us a new paper from that Yann Pierzinski who was here. He was funny. It’s a new version of the stuff he was working on when he was here. That was interesting I thought. If we could get it to find us better matching ligands, you might not need the hydrodynamic pressures to get them to stick in the body.”
Brian had come in while she was telling him this, and she pointed to parts of the diagram on Leo’s screen as he caught up. “See what I mean?” Liver cells, endothelial cells—all the cells in the body had receptor ligands that were extremely specific for the ligands on the particular proteins that they needed to obtain from the blood; together they formed something like lock-and-key arrangements, coded by the genes and embodied in the proteins. In effect they were locksmithing at the microscopic level, working with living cells as their material.
“Well, yeah. It would be great. If it worked. Maybe crunch them through this program over and over, until you see repeats. If you did…then test the ones with the ligands that fit best and look strongest chemically.”
“And Pierzinski is back to work on it with us!”
“Is he?”
“Yeah, he’s coming back. Derek says in his e-mail that we’ll have him at our disposal.”
“Cool.”
Leo checked this in the company’s directory. “Yep, here he is. Rehired just this week. Frank Vanderwal came by and mentioned this guy, he must have told Derek about it I bet. He was asking me about it too. Well, Vanderwal should know, this is his field.”
“It’s my field too,” Marta said sharply.
“Right, of course, I’m just saying Frank might have, you know. Well, let’s ask Yann to look at what we’ve got. If it works…”
Brian said, “Sure. It’s worth trying anyway. Pretty interesting.” He Googled Yann, and Leo leaned over his shoulder to look at the list.
“Derek obviously wants us to talk to him right away.”
“He must have rehired him for us.”
“I see that. So let’s get him before he gets busy with something else. A lot of labs could use another biomathematician.”
“True, but there aren’t a lot of labs. I think we’ll get him. Look, what do you think Derek means here, ‘write up the possibilities right away.’”
“I suppose he wants to get started using the idea to try to secure more funding.”
“Shit. Yeah, that’s probably right. Unbelievable. Okay, let’s pass on that for