The Fungus

To overcome this problem Jane and her team were obliged to build, finally, a micro-organism that was more like a virus in structure than an ordinary enzyme. But even when they’d succeeded in creating this unusually stable macro-enzyme they had yet to hit upon the precise chemical combination of the four basic chemical sub-units of deoxyribonucleic acid, DNA, that would produce the desired effects in the mushroom.

So the last 18 months had been spent in testing different versions of the enzyme on the a. bisporus spore cells. Each manufactured enzyme had differed from the others in only the smallest and subtlest ways in their atomic structure but when introduced to the spores they produced widely differing changes in the mushrooms, many of them drastic but none of them the required ones. Until now.

Now, with Enzyme Batch CT-UTE-8471 they’d hit the jackpot. Or almost.

Jane regarded the giant mushroom thoughtfully. Eventhough the enlarged specimen s reproduction system had been retarded in some way by the accelerated growth process it was still a considerable and historic achievement. And it was possible that the reproductive system had merely been slowed down by the modified catalyst. Tomorrow she would grow another specimen but leave it attached to the mycelium — the fungoid equivalent of roots — for a longer period.

Even if reproduction had been completely inhibited by the new enzyme it was possible that further modification to the enzyme structure would solve the problem. And even if it didn’t it wouldn’t seriously effect her achievement in the long term, she now realized. If the enzyme could be manufactured in large quantities cheaply — and she saw no reason why it couldn’t be — then it would simply be a case of applying it to the mushroom cultivation trays containing ordinary a. bisporus spores, perhaps in the form of a spray, in order to grow any number of the giant variety.

She leaned back on the stool, straightened her back and stretched her arms above her head. She grinned, her feeling of elation returning. Okay, so she hadn’t been 100 % successful but she was so close it didn’t matter. She had created a new and plentiful source of cheap protein that would greatly alleviate the world food shortage. And — who knows? — might lead to a Nobel Prize.

Of course she would have to share the award with her three assistants, Rachel, Tod and Hilary. what a shame for them they hadn’t been in the lab to witness the actual moment of success but she had sent them all home at lunchtime. They had been working around the clock for the previous 24 hours testing a new series of enzyme batches. All had proved negative and it was only on a whim that Jane, by then alone, decided to try just one more variation before going home herself.

She stood up and smiled at the mushroom. She would leave it there on the tray for them to see when they arrived in the morning. The expressions on their faces would be something to remember.

In the meantime she was going to savor her triumph all by herself. It would be exclusively hers for the next 18 hours or so.

She felt a momentary pang that she couldn’t share it with Barry but all that was finished now, probably for good. True, it was supposed to be a ‘trial’ separation but she couldn’t see them ever getting back together again. The last year before the break-up had been hell. She knew she was partly to blame — her involvement with her research had become obsessive — but Barry could have been more supportive instead of acting like a spoiled brat. He knew how important her work was, not just for her but possibly for the whole of mankind, yet he persisted with his ridiculous behavior.

The real problem, she now realized, was that he deeply resented the success she had made of her career. Mycology, after all, had been his field too but it was she who had attracted all the attention, right from the start, with her Ph.D. paper The Relationship Between Fungi and Mankind: Areas of Potential Exploitation in Agriculture and Industry, and subsequently received the research grants and a department of her own while he had just plodded on doing basic research.

Well, perhaps he was happier now writing his childish thrillers over in Ireland. She knew his books were beginning to enjoy a popularity of sorts-but what a waste! Imagine spending your time producing escapist fantasies for emotionally retarded adults when you could be doing something useful with your life.