Maplecroft (The Borden Dispatches #1)(85)
So I did not bury it deep, and I did not hide it well. I only left it there for later, in case she should find some use for it—or have some interest on another day. I know where it is. I will retrieve it upon her request, should she make one.
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Sometimes she speaks to me so clearly. Sometimes her silence shames and worries me, though she tells me it should not. All I can offer her is my service, and my best execution of her will, as I understand it.
She says that we are right, and we are pleasing unto her. She says we are doing Her work, and that our journey will be completed soon enough.
I trust her, and I trust Her.
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(I have only recently come to understand that there is not one, but many. Likewise, there are many, and there is One. The many I have become, having taken her into myself—having been blessed with that task, a better vessel than a jar. And the One who waits for us, Physalia zollicoffris and Doctor Jackson alike, on the other side of this strip of dirt, where the ocean meets the rocks, and we will walk upon the sand. But briefly.)
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She tells me—not she who lives within me, but She who calls from without—She tells me that we are not alone together, the doctor and I. Through Her mind I sense another set of many, pinpoints of light that cluster together for warmth or comfort. I see them flickering as individuals, operating as one.
I know how this feels, but I do not know what this means . . . unless the doctor has become as I have become (this I have long suspected), and has taken on others with his form. Yet my gut suggests it isn’t quite so, that the small swarm of lights I feel at Fall River are too distinct to operate on one directive—but what do I know of the Mother’s wants? Perhaps the doctor has some greater favor in Her eyes, having found Physalia first, and shared her so kindly with me. It might be the proximity to the ocean. It might be anything.
It feels like a woman. Or if not a woman, than a womanlike thing—a creature or creatures who birth and bleed, and so it is fitting. So it is right, I have no doubt. I have only questions, and they are not important questions.
All will become clear in time. And not much time, at that. Only as much time as it takes me to make these last few miles into town, and inquire more precisely if I cannot follow the beacons She lays out before me, but I do not think it will come to that.
I do believe that the nearer I draw to the water, the louder Her voice will ring. And if I am wrong, I will only be a little wrong. If I am wrong, I will wear my professor skin and ask polite questions of polite people, who will politely provide the information I require; and if She tells me they should be left, I will leave them. If She tells me they are to return to dust, I will grant that, too. I will grant Her anything in my power, for I have no power except what She sees fit to lend me.
I owe Her all.
I will give Her all. I will be Her humble servant on land, a lamp unto the feet and a light unto the path of those whose ways have grown dark. And when She calls me back to the water, back to Her arms, I will sing hallelujah and praise Her name.
For all the rest of my days.
Forever and ever. Amen.
Christoff Dane, M.D., Ph.D., University of Rhode Island, Kingston
MAY 2, 1894
Hello in return, my long-lost colleague—and though I’m glad to hear from you, of course, I do find myself appalled at the circumstance, and I hope this response is timely enough to be some benefit to you. I’m including what samples I have on hand, and which I can afford to lose without compromising our ongoing experiments, so you will find included in this package, the following:
Three vials of tetanus immune globulin, which is not strictly a vaccine—but a preparation made from the serum of an infected horse. The antibodies ought to provide immediate short-term treatment and protection to any very recently afflicted (or potentially afflicted) person, but it is not a long-term prophylactic.
Three vials of tetanus toxoid, which is to say, a volume of the bacteria itself, treated with formaldehyde.
I’m also sending a sample batch of the live bacteria, carefully enclosed—though it should be noted, it cannot survive or grow for long without a steady supply of air. Handle it with the utmost care—I am trusting you to do so!—and see to it that it does not fall into the hands of any unsavory persons, as it is a dire poison. I would hate to see it transformed by some unsavory whim into a weapon.
But should you need to manufacture more treatments, you’ll find that having the live bacteria (separated from fecal and soil samples) will make your production faster and easier. Otherwise, the process is a great rigmarole of back-and-forth between infected hosts, and hosts with successful antibodies. (The process is time-consuming and it sounds like you don’t have time to start from scratch.) If you have access to a good laboratory, as you say, then the accompanying notes ought to help you get a fresh supply under way more or less immediately. Or within an afternoon, I should say instead.
The rest of what follows in this letter is an aside—should you feel like you lack the time to read or appreciate it, then put this note away and return to it later, and you’ll hurt no feelings of mine.
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The vaccine for tetanus is only recently derived, in the Koch laboratories—by a German named Behring, and a Japanese colleague named Kitasato. Together, they were seeking a solution to not only tetanus, but diphtheria as well. They developed their antitoxin in much the same way we do here, at our facility—by infecting a small research animal, collecting the blood, and then passing it along to a stronger animal, such as a horse. From the horse’s blood, the antibodies are extracted, processed, and developed into the vaccine.