Chapter 10

“I need to show you something, Millie,” Siscom said as they walked toward the Animal Care Unit.

They had finished eating breakfast together, a time normally filled with smiles after a night apart, but this morning he was not his usual self. He hadn’t spoken more than a few sentences, and he knew Millie was wondering what was the matter with him.

When they entered the unit, they strolled past Tika’s cage. Siscom watched Millie pause, take notice of her large abdomen. Delivery was imminent, he knew. Tika ambled to the front of her cage and rattled the bars in obvious recognition of her and the veterinarian.

“Yes, good morning, Tika,” Millie called over the animals’ hooting. “You’re going to be a mother pretty soon.”

In Siscom’s office, they sat while he retrieved a folder and set it in the table in front of him.

“What did you want to show me, Gerald?” Millie said. “You’ve been awful quiet this morning.”

“Look at this,” he said, handing her a photo. “It’s the latest ultrasound on Roku. Look at it closely. I didn’t notice it before this but tell me what you see.”

Millie studied the photo for a few minutes. Siscom watched her until he was satisfied she understood his concern. He watched as a look he could only describe as panic, possibly dismay, formed on her face.

“Now,” he said, “I want to know why. But first I want to know exactly what it is.”

“Gerald--”

“I’m not kidding, Millie. What is this and how did it happen? This is ludicrous.”

“Gerald--”

“Stop with the Gerald. Start with some explanations.”

She passed the photo back to Siscom. He noticed her eyes filling with tears. His heart skipped a beat, for he suddenly knew she was stressed beyond measure.

“This is not the ultrasound of a normal Yeti,” he continued. “So what the hell is this?”

“Gerald--I--I--Oh God, how can I tell you? I know I should have been honest with you from the start.”

“What do you mean by that?” he said, his voice beginning to show anger. “Millie, I have to know the truth. What is going on here?”

Millie lowered her head and stared at her hands that were folded in her lap. “I--I injected my own DNA into Sasha’s ovum before the IVF procedure. Before fertilization.”

“You what?” he said, now with an incredulous tone in his voice. “You did what?”

“I extracted my own DNA from a blood sample then injected it into the fertilized ovum of Sasha. The one I earlier fertilized with Bentu’s sperm.”

Siscom couldn’t believe what he heard. He stared at Millie for a long moment.

“Millie, tell me you didn’t really do this,” he said.

“But I did. I truly did.” Her voice nearly cracked, and he could see she was on the verge of tears.

“So Roku is a...a...”

“A chimera, Gerald. A chimera.”

“A what?”

Millie wiped her eyes and smiled.

“An organism that has the DNA of two different species in its genome.”

“My God,” Siscom said. “Millie, you can’t do this. You can’t be serious.”

“Why not? It’s my own DNA. What law have I violated?”

“Christ! You simply can’t do this,” Siscom repeated. “It doesn’t look like a Yeti on the ultrasound, and it certainly doesn’t look human. It is the worst looking primate fetus I have ever seen. Like something out of a horror movie. We’re going to have to destroy it before Radner or Olson finds out what we’ve done. The sooner, the better.”

“No!” Millie said. “Gerald, you can’t. This can be history, don’t you see? Listen to me.”

“We have no choice.”

“Listen,” Millie said, “we now have mice with human brain cells and pigs with human blood flowing in their veins. Chimeras are no longer something of science fiction. They certainly can be useful to medical science. This Yeti-human chimera offers us an unparalleled opportunity to push the frontiers of science light-years ahead. Roku will become famous as he leads us forward.”

Siscom was so flustered he was having difficulty organizing his thoughts and speaking. He was stunned, blindsided by Millie’s deceitfulness. And he was a party to it. Struggling to overcome his shock, he continued his questions.

“What do you plan to do with him, Millie?”

“Study him, of course.”

“How? Where? In what way?”

“I haven’t made up my mind just yet. Roku will be an infant and will need to grow some at first. I thought, for starters, I would chart his growth statistics and measurements. Everything about his infancy care will be ground breaking.”

Siscom shook his head.

“I dunno, Millie. I dunno. The best thing to do is abort Tika. Before this creates a firestorm neither of us can weather.”

“I won’t allow it, Gerald. I simply won’t. This is my project, not yours.”

“But, Millie--”

“I have had the same reservations you seem to be having,” Millie said. “To understand the fear and anger evoked by chimeras, it is useful to go back in scientific history to March 1984, when an animal unlike any other ever born, or seen, adorned the cover of Nature, our international journal of science. The journal’s audience of scientists was treated to an unforgettable photograph of an animal with a head that was mostly goat, an upper torso that was wooly sheep, with other body parts that alternated between the two species types. Its creator, a Danish embryologist, said it behaved like a goat but did not quite smell like one. It preferred the company of sheep. This first ‘geep,’ as the animal became christened, was physically healthy, long-lived, and even fertile. The Danish team created additional geeps over the next several years.”

“But, Millie, those were all animals. Primates. No human DNA was involved.”

Millie continued as if she had not heard him. “The geep is an alluring example of a laboratory-created chimera, named by scientists in honor of the creature from Greek mythology with the head of a lion, the torso of a goat, and a tail sprouting the head of a venomous snake. Like other mythological species composites, the chimera was imagined as a monster because it violated a perceived natural order in which each species is divinely created as a separate and unique category. Indeed, a chimera’s potential violation of nature was so profound that rational thinkers have always assumed it couldn’t possibly exist, and the word chimera has become a metaphor for a wishful idea without any basis in reality.”

“Millie, I really don’t want--”

She held up a hand.

“Please, Gerald,” she said. “Let me finish. The Danish scientist, unlike most scientists, was unwilling to accept the natural limitations imposed by traditional beliefs. ‘The role of the biological scientist,’ he said, ‘is to break the laws of nature, rather than to establish, let alone accept, them.’ With this spark of irreverence, the man created not only geeps but also other species composites, including a cow-sheep creature that he cooked and ate after completing his analysis. The same refusal to accept conventional wisdom provided him with the confidence to bypass fertilization in the invention of the cloning technology used to create Dolly and thousands of other subsequently cloned animals. Building upon his pioneering work, other scientists combined even more distant species, creating chicken-turtle and chicken-mouse fetuses, for example. In all of these instances, chimeras were used as models to study basic biological processes.”

Siscom thought for a minute. He sat staring at the ultrasound photograph. He felt himself wavering under Millie’s persuasive arguments. “I must admit I am curious to see what your experiment will produce. However, I still believe we need to tell Radner and Dr. Olson the truth. Harry was wanting to come and see for himself the results, and it wouldn’t be right to have him find out only after he arrived.”

“I suppose not,” Millie said. “But it’s a risk I don’t think we should take.”

“She’s going to deliver any day now. In fact, this fetus will be too large for a normal birth. Tika will require a Cesarean.” Siscom knew he sounded insistent.

“I know, I know.”

He could see the tears in Millie’s eyes. Her face was flushed. She sat wringing her hands.

“Okay,” he said. “We’ll do it your way, for now. Maybe after Roku is here, Harry will be elated, who knows?”

“Gerald, do you know anything about Dr. Olson and this investigation of his?”

“Only what the rumor mill churns out. The paper hasn’t had any news lately, so I don’t really know anything. Do you?”

“No, nothing. It seems such a shame that he has to endure such a thing. He has been so good to me.”

“To all of us,” Siscom agreed.

“I wish there was something we could do that would sway those trustees in his favor.”

“I doubt if there is.”

***

A few days later, Tika went into labor. Siscom moved her to a different area after selecting two trusted technicians to assist him. The area was off limits to the rest of the facility personnel. Standing by was a Vega 200 neonatal intensive care incubator that had been modified for primate use. It contained a double wall canopy, to reduce heat loss; unique side doors, opening from both sides; built-in weighing scale; servo humidity and servo oxygen controls; a color touch screen with trend display for temperature, humidity, and oxygen saturation; and motorized bed tilting and rotation.

Tika’s labor was difficult as Roku was much larger than the average chimp fetus. After several hours of the chimp not making much progress, Siscom decided to intervene.

“The last ultrasound showed Roku weighing approximately twelve pounds so I doubt if Tika can give birth naturally. I’m going to attempt an extraction,” he said. “We need to get her in the squeeze cage.”

“I thought you were going to do a Caesarean,” Millie said.

“This is a last ditch effort to avoid an operation,” Siscom said in a worried tone. “If I can’t get Roku out this way, I’ll have to operate, but I’d rather not if I can help it.”

Millie must have looked at the veterinarian oddly for the man said, “We’re not a hospital here, Millie.”

She watched as Siscom directed the technicians to roll the cage into the exam room and lift Tika into it. The chimp appeared to be in obvious pain for her eyes darted between Millie, Siscom, and the technicians.

Once they had Tika loaded in the squeeze cage and immobilized, Siscom inserted a catheter into a neck vein connected to a bag of saline. He turned it on, and it began running into Tika. “We don’t have forceps like in humans,” he said, donning a gown and gloves. “We use the old fashion method--our hands.”

Siscom spent the good part of an hour trying to get his hands around Roku’s arm and pull him further down the birth canal. But the fetus wouldn’t budge. Siscom tried every trick in the book, but it was to no avail. Sweat poured off his face and through his gown. Amniotic fluid and blood soaked the cage.

Finally, he backed away.

“It’s no use,” he said. “We’ll need to do a Caesarean.”

Siscom used a stethoscope and listened to Roku’s heartbeat.

“Are they all right, Gerald?” Millie said.

“Fine. We just need to get Roku out pretty quick.”

He barked a few orders to the technicians who began preparing Tika for the surgery. Drapes, instruments, and sponges were laid out on a table while Siscom injected Tika with an anesthetic. Her eyes closed, and she began slow, deep breathing. While the technicians prepared for the operation, Siscom changed his gown and gloves. Millie was at his side. One of the technicians scrubbed the chimp’s abdomen with antiseptic solution then arranged the surgical drapes over the operative field.

“Tika won’t die because of this, will she?” she said.

“Not if I can help it,” Siscom replied.

“I’m afraid this is going to be a long evening and night.”

“I suspect so. Well, here we go.”

It had been a few years since Siscom had performed a Caesarean operation and never on a chimp. But the anatomy wasn’t complicated. As he worked, the technicians stood by the incubator waiting for the delivery. Millie turned away.

“I can’t stand to watch,” she said. “Tell me when you’ve delivered Roku.”

Siscom labored through the abdominal wall and found the uterus, making a low transverse incision in it. The wound suddenly filled with amniotic fluid, and Roku slithered out.

Siscom was stunned. He had never seen anything like Roku. The ultrasound had not prepared him for the grotesque little creature. He quickly gathered the infant up in a towel and carried it to the incubator.

One of the technicians hissed. The other gasped.

Millie rushed to the side of the incubator.

“Oh my God!” she said. “I never dreamed.”