“Acute anemia?” Humphries echoed, his eyes narrowing. “How can my son have acute anemia?”
The man sitting in front of Humphries’s desk was the chief physician of Selene’s hospital. He was a cardiovascular surgeon, a large, imposing man with strangely small and delicate hands, wearing an impeccably tailored business cardigan of ash gray. His expression was serious but fatherly; he was accustomed to dispensing information and wisdom to distressed, bewildered patients and their families. He knew he had to maintain the upper hand with Humphries. Such a powerful man could be troublesome. None of the hospital’s lower ranking physicians dared to accept the task of breaking this news to Martin Humphries.
He spread his hands in a placating gesture. “That’s not an easy question to answer, Mr. Humphries. The baby has a defective gene, a mutation.”
Humphries glanced sharply at Victoria Ferrer, seated to one side of his desk. She kept her face impassive.
“It might have been caused by some stray bit of ionizing radiation,” the doctor went on condescendingly, “or even by the low gravity here. We simply don’t know enough about the long-term effects of low gravity.”
“Could it have been caused by drug use?” Ferrer asked.
Humphries glowered at her. The doctor’s self-confidence slipped noticeably for a moment, but he swiftly regained his composure. “We did find an elevated level of barbiturates in Mrs. Humphries’s blood, post-mortem. But I doubt—”
“Never mind,” Humphries snapped. “It doesn’t matter. The question now is, how will this affect my son?”
“Chronic anemia is treatable,” the doctor answered smoothly. “It can be controlled with medication. He’ll be able to lead a completely normal life as long as he takes his medication.”
“No problems at all?”
“Not as long as he takes his medication,” said the doctor, with his patented reassuring smile. “Oh, there might be some incidents of asthmatic attacks, but they should be amenable to antihistamines or adrenaline therapy. In severe cases we can even—”
“What else? Humphries snapped.
“I beg your pardon?”
“What else is wrong with him?”
The doctor’s smile dimmed, then reappeared at full wattage. “His genetic screening looks perfectly normal, otherwise. With proper diet he should get to the sixth or seventh percentile, size-wise. And if he—”
“You mean he’ll be a runt,” said Humphries.
Startled, the doctor stammered, “I, eh … I wouldn’t put it that way, Mr. Humphries. The boy will be well within normal standards.”
“Will he be six feet tall?”
“Six feet… that’s about one point eight meters, isn’t it? No, I doubt that he’ll get that tall.”
“Will he be athletic?”
“Well, that all depends. I mean, the anemia will certainly be a factor in his athletic abilities, of course. But it’s much too early…”
Humphries let him stumble on, half apologizing, half lecturing on what it takes to be a good father. Leaning back in his chair, keeping his hands deliberately in his lap to avoid drumming his fingers impatiently on the desktop, Humphries saw once again in his mind’s eye his newborn son: a scrawny, red-skinned, squalling little rat-like thing, eyes shut, mouth open and gasping, miserable little toothpick arms and legs waving pathetically. A runt. A helpless, useless runt.
He had seen the baby only once, just after Amanda had died. As he stared down at it, struggling to breathe in its incubator, Humphries had said silently to it, You killed her. You killed my wife. She died giving life to you.
He had walked out of the nursery and hadn’t seen the baby since that moment. He knew that if he did, if he went back into the nursery, he’d want to kill the brat. Smother it in its incubator. Turn off its air. Get rid of it.
He couldn’t do it. There were too many nurses and pediatricians and servants constantly hovering over the little monster.
Besides, it wasn’t really the baby’s fault, Humphries told himself. It’s Fuchs. Remember that. It’s his fault. He’s killed Amanda. He drove her to use the drugs that killed her and ruined my son. He’s hidden behind her protection all these years. Well, that’s over now. Over and done with.
“… and later on, in a year or two, we can attempt gene replacement therapy,” the doctor was saying. “Or even nanotherapy, since it’s legal up here.”