Goldengirl

‘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.’

She was close to tears, but her words were shaped in the white heat of her new knowledge. They were razor-edged.

Serafin stood in silence, spastically stretching and clenching his fingers, suffering, Dryden suspected, more from the destruction of his dream than shame at what he had inflicted on Goldine.

Of those present, Dryden had least reason to feel emotionally involved. He had engineered this confrontation, anticipated what Serafin would say.

But he had not anticipated Goldine’s reaction.

He had watched her and listened in genuine surprise turning to admiration. For it took courage to speak like that to Serafin, her virtual slavemaster for fifteen years. Maybe it was an isolated outburst of defiance, but it showed she was no automaton. Her own personality had survived and was struggling to be free.

And Dryden cared.

There would be no Goldengirl. No triumph at the Olympics. Nothing in it for Dryden Merchandising. But stumbling toward him out of this wreckage was the girl who had been Dean Hofmann.

Yes, he cared passionately.

Jack Dryden in love? Crazy. It couldn’t happen.