Читаем The Fungus полностью

She gave the mushroom one last lingering look then went to the door. It slid open at the touch of a button. She stepped through into a small room enclosed by frosted glass. As the door slid shut behind her there was a hissing sound from above. A harmless but powerful anti-bacteria gas was being fed into the room. She began to strip off her clothes-the rubber gloves, the plastic cap, the face mask, the long white gown, the paper briefs and then finally the plastic overshoes and slippers. The reusable items went into the sterilizer, the non-reusable into a small electric incinerator.

Then she stepped into a shower cubicle and turned on the water, which also contained anti-bacteria agents.

As she soaped herself thoroughly she gave her body an indifferent inspection. Despite her 31 years and two children it was still a good body with long, well-shaped legs, firm stomach and large but equally firm breasts. Once she had been proud of her body but now her looks, and even her sexuality, rarely impinged on her consciousness.

This had been another point of contention with Barry. “Making love to you is like making love to the mattress,” he had accused her. “And you know why? Because you’re sublimating your sex drive in your damn work! Your body may leave the lab occasionally but your mind stays in there 24hours a day. All you’re ever really thinking about are your precious fungi. Hell, the only way now I could turn you on would be to dress up as a fucking fungus myself, phallus impudicus preferably.”

She had told him he was talking nonsense but deep down knew there was some justification in what he’d said. But it couldn’t be helped — the work had to be continued at that fast pace. She promised herself that once she achieved her goal and the pressure lessened she would try and make it up to Barry. But, of course, the marriage had collapsed well before that had happened.

By the time she’d finished showering her thoughts had left Barry and returned to the fungus lying on the lab table. As she walked naked to a second glass door and then stepped through into a small changing room she was thinking that tomorrow she would try the enzyme on a specimen of agaricus campestris, the ordinary field mushroom which was very similar to the cultivated variety but actually a different species. It was possible that the reproduction-inhibiting factor might be only present in a bisporus. .

The thought cheered her up still further as she dressed and began to dry her long, blonde hair with a portable drier.

It was then she noticed the cut on her right forefinger. It was a small incision on the very tip of her finger, extending at right angles from the end of her fingernail for just over a quarter of an inch. As she held it up for a closer look a small drop of blood oozed out. Automatically she put the end of her finger in her mouth and sucked.

Frowning, she wondered how she could have cut herself. Then she remembered removing that sliver from the gill segment for the microscope. She must have nicked herself with the scalpel. Oh well, it didn’t matter; the cut would have been well and truly cleaned by both the antiseptic gas and water. Not that there was any chance of picking up a dangerous infection from anything in her lab. Despite all the elaborate safety precautions, which were imposed on all the Institute’s genetic engineering facilities no matter what the nature of their work, she knew that there was nothing potentially harmful among any of the artificial micro-organisms that she and her team had created over the years.

Or so she believed.

Unknown to her, several thousand microscopic mushroom cells still remained in the cut and under her fingernail. They were dead or dying but the virus-like enzyme, which had been designed to survive for as long as possible, was still active within all the cells.

And while the enzyme wasn’t directly harmful to human life its indirect effects were to prove, very swiftly, catastrophic.

Humming to herself Dr. Jane Wilson finished dressing and made her plans for the night. Though she hadn’t slept for the last 36 hours she was too excited to go home to bed. No, she wanted to celebrate, and she’d celebrate by having her first self-indulgent night out in years. She would go to a movie, perhaps — preferably a comedy — then have an Indian meal and after that go to a pub and get quietly drunk. She would do all the things that she and Barry used to enjoy doing when they first met.

Damn, she was thinking about him again. She wondered if she should give him a call when she got home and break the wonderful news. No, he’d probably be typing away over there in Ireland even at that late hour — wearing his stupid ear-plugs-and would accuse her of interrupting his “flow.” That was if he even bothered to answer the phone.

No, she decided, she wouldn’t call him. He could read about it in the papers.

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