Amazonia (Page 27)

Lauren took a few deep breaths to collect her thoughts. “Even so, the mass must be highly organized to develop a flinch reflex.”

“Undoubtedly…quite organized. I’ll have it sectioned and slides assembled ASAP.” Stanley straightened. “But I thought you’d appreciate personally seeing it in action first.”

Lauren nodded. Her eyes shifted from the tumor in the brain to the corpse’s arm. A sudden thought rose in her mind. “I wonder,” she mumbled.

“What?”

Lauren pictured how the mass had twitched. “The number of the teratomas and the mature development of this particular tumor could be clues to the mechanism by which Clark’s arm grew back.”

The pathologist’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not following you.”

Lauren faced him, glad to find something else to stare at than the ravaged body. “What I’m saying is—and this is just a conjecture, of course—what if the man’s arm is just a teratoma that grew into a fully functioning limb?”

Stanley’s brows rose high. “Like some form of controlled cancer growth? Like a living, functioning tumor?”

“Why not? That’s pretty much how we all developed. From one fertilized cell, our bodies formed through rapid cellular proliferation, similar to cancer. Only this profusion of cells differentiated into all the proper tissues. I mean, isn’t that the goal of most stem cell research? To discover the mechanism for this controlled growth? What causes one cell to become a bone cell and its neighbor a muscle cell and the one after that a nerve cell?” Lauren stared at the splayed corpse of Gerald Clark, not in horror any longer but in wonder. “We may be on our way to answering that very mystery.”

“And if we could succeed in discovering the mechanism…”

“It would mean the end of cancer and would revolutionize the entire medical field.”

Stanley shook his head and swung away, returning to his bloody work. “Then let’s pray your son and daughter succeed in their search.”

Lauren nodded and retreated back across the morgue. She checked her watch. Speaking of Frank and Kelly, it was getting close to the designated conference call. Time to compare notes. Lauren glanced back one last time to the ruin that was left of Gerald Wallace Clark. “Something’s out in that jungle,” she mumbled to herself. “But what?”

AUGUST 7, 8:32 P.M.

AMAZON JUNGLE

Kelly stood off from the others, trying her best to assimilate the news her mother had reported. She stared out into the jungle, serenaded by the endless chorus of locusts and river frogs. Firelight failed to penetrate more than a few yards into the shadowed depths of the forest. Beyond the glow, the jungle hid its mysteries.

Closer at hand, a group of Rangers knelt, setting up the camp’s perimeter motion-sensor system. The laser grid, rigged a few feet off the ground and established between the jungle and the camp, was meant to keep any large predator from wandering too near without being detected.

Kelly stared beyond their labors to the dark forest.

What had happened to Agent Clark out there?

A voice spoke near her shoulder, startling her. “Gruesome news indeed.”

Kelly glanced over and found Professor Kouwe standing quietly at her side. How long had he been there? Clearly the shaman had not lost his innate abilities to move noiselessly across the forest floor. “Y…Yes,” she stammered. “Very disturbing.”

Kouwe slipped out his pipe and began stoking it with tobacco, then lit it with a fiery flourish. The pungent odor of smoky tobacco welled around them. “And what of your mother’s belief that the cancers and the regenerated arm might be connected?”

“It’s intriguing…and perhaps not without merit.”

“How so?”

Kelly rubbed the bridge of her nose and gathered her thoughts. “Before I left the States to come here, I did a literature search on the subject of regeneration. I figured it might better prepare me for anything we find.”

“Hmm…very wise. When it comes to the jungle, preparation and knowledge can mean the difference between life and death.”

Kelly nodded and continued with her thoughts, glad to express them aloud and bounce them off someone else. “While conducting this research, I came across an interesting article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Back in 1999, a research team in Philadelphia raised a group of mice with damaged immune systems. The mice were to be used as a model to study multiple sclerosis and AIDS. But as they began working with the immune-compromised creatures, an odd and unexpected phenomenon developed.”

Kouwe turned to her, one eyebrow raised. “And what was that?”

“The researchers had punched holes in the mice’s ears, a common way of marking test animals, and discovered that the holes healed amazingly fast, leaving no trace of a wound. They had not just scarred over, but had regenerated cartilage, skin, blood vessels, even nerves.” Kelly let this news sink in, then continued. “After this discovery, the lead researcher, Dr. Ellen Heber-Katz, tried a few experiments. She amputated a few mice’s tails, and they grew back. She severed optic nerves, and they healed. Even the excision of a section of spinal cord grew back in less than a month. Such phenomenal regeneration had never been seen in mammals.”

Kouwe removed his pipe, his eyes wide. “So what was causing it?”

Kelly shook her head. “The only difference between these healing mice and ordinary mice was their defective immune systems.”

“And the significance?”

Kelly suppressed a grin, warming to the subject, especially with such an astute audience. “From the study of animals with the proven ability to regenerate limbs—starfish, amphibians, and reptiles—we do know their immune systems are rudimentary at best. Therefore, Dr. Heber-Katz hypothesized that eons ago, mammals made an evolutionary trade-off. To defend against cancers, we relinquished the ability to regenerate bodily limbs. You see, our complex immune systems are designed specifically to eliminate inappropriate cell proliferation, like cancers. Which is beneficial, of course, but at the same time, such immune systems would also block a body’s attempt to regenerate a limb. It would treat the proliferation of poorly differentiated cells necessary to grow a new arm as cancerous and eliminate it.”

“So the complexity of our immune systems both protects and damns us.”

Kelly narrowed her eyes as she concentrated. “Unless something can safely turn off the immune system. Like in those mice.”