He was having better luck with the IRB (Institutional Review Board). Its chairwoman was intrigued by the possibilities inherent to stasis and had given him a lot of suggestions that should help him get approval from the board. Unfortunately, the IRB wanted the results of animal studies confirming a lack of harm in animals before they’d approve human studies. That meant he’d had to start on IACUC (Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee) applications.
And he’d have to find funding for animal studies.
It was feeling like it’d be a couple of years before they got funding and did the animal studies, and more years before they got approval for their first human subjects, then years after that before stasis could be approved for human use.
Meanwhile, he kept thinking of emergent conditions for which stasis could be a godsend. This included anything—from traumatic injury to ruptured aneurysms—that resulted in massive blood loss. In those cases, they could put everything on hold until blood was crossmatched and available, then take stasis down just long enough to run the patient through a scanner to locate the source of the hemorrhage, then restaze the patient until the OR was ready to stop the bleeding.
Also, stroke, during which the brain sustained ongoing damage from blocked blood flow while awaiting treatment with so-called clot-busting drugs. And heart attack, where damage to the heart muscle increased while awaiting the restoration of blood flow to the heart itself.
Likewise, vascular injuries and obstructions where tissues were cut off from blood flow and needed urgent restoration of that flow—but where the surgeons and equipment weren’t immediately available.
And traumatic amputations where only a few surgeons had the skills to replant the limbs or fingers and where there was no doubt those surgeons worked better during the day when well-rested than at night when the injury occurred.
In fact, almost any injury requiring urgent surgery that occurred at night. Would you want your surgeon trying to perform delicate restorations of your body at three in the morning when he or she was exhausted?
Someone’s going to come to me one of these days and beg to use the stazer to save a life. What am I going to say? he wondered. Am I going to let people die who might be saved by the stazer? He had a sudden thought, I should talk to the hospital ethics committee!
Meanwhile, he thought, I’d better start getting my talk ready. The emergency department had asked him to give a talk about the stazer, its possibilities, and his research. And that bastard Warfield’s gonna be there loaded for bear. Warfield would ask unanswerable questions and sneer at Horton for not knowing the answers.
The SOB may be a hell of a good doctor, but he’s an unmitigated jerk. Horton laughed at himself, thinking, And, if I ever come into the ED in extremis, I hope Warfield’s the one who takes care of me…
***
When Kaem got to Staze after his classes there was a guy there working on the front door. He stopped, staring. “Um, what’s going on with the door?”
The guy looked around. “Someone broke in last night. I’m installing a reinforced door.”
“Oh,” Kaem said, “Can I get in?”
“Gimme a minute,” the guy said.
When the man allowed Kaem to get by, he walked over to the table Arya worked at. “Someone broke in?”
She nodded, “They got a stazer and its laptop this time.”
“Damn.” He quirked a grin, “I knew I shoulda been sleeping here every night.”
She gave him a basilisk stare. “Not funny, Kaem.”
“Oh, come on,” he said, rolling his eyes, “It was too.” He waited a moment for a smile but didn’t get one. He continued, “Don’t look so upset. These are probably the same guys that broke in last time. That Richter guy was supposed to be a member of some organized crime group. Pretty doubtful they have the skill set to be able to use a stazer for anything. If they figure out it has to be connected to a computer to use it, and they connect it to a computer that’s connected to the internet, we’re going to get a notification of where it is so we can call the cops.”
Arya shrugged, “I get that they won’t be able to use it and we’ll get it back. I just don’t like being the targets of criminals in the first place.”
Kaem gave her a little grin, “If Stade was worthless, we wouldn’t be.”
Gunnar came over, a disgusted look on his face. “All that time I spent putting Stade grates over the windows and the SOBs just pry the damned door open with a crowbar.”
Kaem said, “Reminds me of the way some people put extra strong locks on their doors when there’s a glass window right next to them.” He looked toward the door. “Maybe we shouldn’t be installing an ordinary reinforced door?” He looked back at Gunnar, “You could come up with some way to reinforce the door with Stade, couldn’t you?”
Gunnar rolled his eyes. “And when they cut through the wall beside the door with a plasma torch?”
Kaem laughed, “We’ve got to get Dez started on her all-Stade building, don’t we?”
Arya said, “A new building?! Just when I think we’ve got a big enough financial cushion that I don’t have to worry about running in the red, you two come up with ways to spend that too!”
Kaem turned to Arya, “Don’t worry. Next week Space-Gen’s going to fly the
