He just sat and waited, though he couldn’t help but be amused by how much work she wasn’t getting done on the financial software package she had open.
Finally—still without looking at him—she growled irritatedly, “What?!”
“I wanted to apologize. I know my little joke wasn’t funny to you.”
“Wasn’t funny period,” she said, still staring straight ahead.
“Okay. You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“You should apologize to Lee. Going out with her a couple of times, then having this very public debacle with Dez.” She shook her head as if dismayed.
“Lee says she’s not interested in me anymore, now that my head’s all lopsided.”
Arya whipped around to stare at his head. Turning away again, she hissed, “That wasn’t funny either!”
“You think I’m cute with a wonky head, don’t you?”
She sighed and turned back to her computer. “Grow up, would you? I’ve got work to do.”
Kaem headed back to try to catch up with all the crap that’d accumulated while he was gone.
Dez stopped by later to tell him she didn’t think he’d done a very good job of apologizing to Arya—but there was a twinkle in her eye when she said it.
***
Gerald Horton was a few minutes early. The room for his meeting with the ethics committee stood empty.
He didn’t know why he felt so nervous. They weren’t going to be passing judgment on any of his ideas or work. They wouldn’t decide whether his grants got funded. It’s just because they sit in judgment of people’s ethics, he decided. He reminded himself that he wasn’t being judged on the ethics of anything he’d done. I’m just here to ask their advice on the future ethics of using an unapproved device to save people’s lives because I fear I’ll encounter circumstances in which I think it might be unethical not to use it.
All I want is their help deciding whether my ethical instinct is correct.
After a couple of minutes with Horton alone in the room, two people came in. By the time he’d said hello and introduced himself, several more had entered. Soon, he found himself sitting down around a big table with almost everyone on the committee—a few were out of town.
Dr. Miles, the chairwoman of the committee called them to order and asked Gerald to go over what he was concerned about.
Although almost everyone there had heard of Staze and stasis, Gerald went over the fact that time was stopped inside a Stade and that crickets, chicks, dogs, and humans had survived being put in stasis. He showed a couple of video clips, focusing on how—if you clipped out the time in stasis—Norm’s dog appeared to go through his stazing as if nothing had happened. He told them how it was so unobtrusive that the two people who’d so far voluntarily stazed and unstazed themselves had both thought the stasis had failed and they hadn’t been stazed at all.
He was describing his applications for grants to do animal studies including lab work when he was halted by one of the committee members. “I don’t understand. The company that’s building this device hasn’t done these tests already?”
“No, sir,” Horton replied. “They’ve mostly been focused on the industrial applications of Stade to various engineering problems. You could think of it as if the company that developed the first lithium batteries came to us and asked us if we’d like to use them in pacemakers.”
“Wouldn’t they go to a medical device company that made pacemakers and ask them if they wanted the batteries?
“Well, yes, but there aren’t any companies currently putting people in some form of stasis who might like to improve their machines by using this new, better form of stasis.”
“Still,” the man said, “that’s the usual model for medical device development. A company sponsors tests to validate their device, then applies for FDA approval.”
“Ah,” Horton said, “but is this a medical device? It’s something that’s out there, being used in industry. It stops time and we physicians can see there could be tremendous benefits for our patients. If I could make another analogy, what if a golf cart manufacturer came to us and offered to make a modified golf cart for moving patients around the hospital?”
The man seemed taken aback, but after a moment, he said, “I think that’s entirely different from a machine that stops time around the patient. We don’t know for sure that stopping time has no adverse effects.”
“Golf carts do have adverse effects. They occasionally get in wrecks and kill people,” Horton said, then raised his hand in surrender. “Sorry. I agree testing should be done. That’s why I’m applying for grants to do so. Unfortunately, the company isn’t interested in doing the testing, but they are willing to make us prototypes. So—”
Another member of the committee interrupted, “They could sell their technology to other companies to develop as medical devices.”
“By which, I assume,” Gerald said, “you mean another company that would pay for the studies?”
The man nodded.
“And when those studies came out you wouldn’t complain that they were biased by the sponsorship? And when the products came out, you wouldn’t complain they were overpriced?”
“Well, sure, those are problems. But once they do the studies and get them through the FDA, people could apply for grants to do unbiased—"
Gerald interrupted in his turn, “Why not do those unbiased studies to begin with? Why wait until it’s approved based on biased studies? That’s what the company asks. I’ve volunteered to undertake the studies because I can see the benefits stasis could provide to medicine and our patients.”
Before anyone else could break in, Miles, the committee chairwoman held up her hands. “Please. We’re getting off track. Dr. Horton isn’t asking us who should pay for the studies. He’s
