Dr. Rothman had come and gone a couple of times. Pia knew from speaking with Dr. Yamamoto that the team was running complex and time-consuming studies concurrently, both here with the baths and in the biosafety level-3 lab on the other side of Rothman’s complex. Rothman’s work on salmonella had made his reputation, and he wasn’t about to abandon it, even if it meant working at superhuman levels of energy and concentration. He treasured his access to the highly virulent strains that NASA provided him with, and with the space shuttle program winding down, he didn’t know when he might get more.

Lesley and Will had left the room to find Dr. Yamamoto. It had been decided that in addition to helping Pia, they would initiate their own study of the effects of slight variations in the temperature of the baths. Unfortunately their study had reached a quick impasse, and they preferred to consult Dr. Rothman’s associate rather than the man himself.

Dr. Rothman entered the room, moving to the last row of baths.

“We seem to have a problem with number nineteen,” he said, apparently into thin air. Pia joined Rothman, who was fiddling with the monitoring unit under the bath.

“The blood flow is compromised. There’s a blockage, so we may have to section the organ to see if the problem is developmental or some kind of embolus. There are few journeys longer from in vitro to in vivo.”

“How long before you can start human trials?” Pia said.

Rothman flinched a little and looked around at Pia, apparently in surprise. Had he been talking to himself?

“We’re a little closer with the kidney than with the pancreas. The kidney is basically a filter. Quite simple. But the pancreas is very complicated. It’s fascinating to me that one gland would have so much to do, and such important tasks.”

“Hormones and enzymes,” Pia said.

“The islets of Langerhans. I always loved that name. They were discovered by a twenty-one-year-old German named Paul Langerhans in 1869. I remember when I was a teenager and first heard the term I thought they were named after some actual islands someplace.”

Pia had rarely heard Dr. Rothman sound so jovial. He seemed to revel in his lair. Pia thought it fitted his temperament to enjoy the name of the hormone-producing cells of the pancreas that pumped insulin and glucagon into the bloodstream to regulate sugar levels. Or at least, they were intended to.

“Of course it was necessary to locate the pancreas adjacent to the duodenum so it could inject its enzymes into the digestive system. The ampulla of Vater, another of my favorites.”

Rothman was referring to the junction of the bile duct and the pancreatic duct where food passing through the intestine was mixed with the agents necessary for its digestion and to control the level of acidity.

“But it’s so deeply buried in there. It’s very elusive. That’s why pancreatic cancer is so hard to detect and so lethal. The organ has such a large blood supply cancers tend to spread very quickly.”