Betsy Curtis

“ The first time was in a placenta from the garbage can. We had been culturing polio viruses in human placentas (very interesting personalities viruses are, too) and I'd been sent a whole placenta more than I needed. What can a mother tell a placenta which has been doing its work and is still in excellent shape, just like that civilization in the Phoenix Nebula some two and a half millennia ago? Does she say, 'There's nothing more for you in time or space; the baby is born, I abandon you to utter nothingness'? Very rarely. And even then she doesn't mean it. But the life does go out of the cells. ”

“ Kidney cells are busy little widgets doing a tremendous job night and day. Like the individual muscle fibers of the heart, they work on year after year with no vacations, no coffee breaks, secure in the knowledge of their purpose. ”

“ Now back to man as man, not God, for the next. While you and your eager predecessors were pushing outward to the stars, I and mine were exploring cells. And we found cells dying from simple lack of faith ... or, you might say, from an excess of faith in purposes which had been abandoned. ”

“ The discovery part of this investigation, however, is that man does act as a god to his cells, can tell them things and know that they hear his still small voice. And among other things which man has to say to his cells is his promise of immortality to each and every one. ”

“ You see, I think I know what's the matter with you, and it's definitely curable."
"It is not curable." His voice had a flat finality, and his lips drew into a thin firm line.
"Let me ask you the questions anyway, Father," I said. He gave no other sign, "Have you ever looked through a microscope?"
"At the little beasties? Yes, in college."
"Well, that's what I have just finished doing with a number of slivers of living tissue from your body. Do you know what I saw that would bring me up here?" ”

“ No, cancer cells have their own pattern of behavior which is very pretty and, of course, no longer at all deadly. You do not have cancer; but the cells of your kidneys, for instance, are doing something I've never seen live kidney cells doing. ”

“ Luke's as our "share" of the research project on the mysterious disease which afflicted most of the crew of the recently returned Phoenix Nebula expedition. News of the disease, of course, was not spread beyond the research teams, as the public seems to fear a plague worse than damnation itself. And it didn't seem to be a very serious disease: Father Phillip was easily the worst case of all; and although several members of the expedition had died, their deaths could be evaluated as due to secondary infections of common enough earth origin. Very few of the crew members were in actual pain ”

“ In this wing, you know, we are all in solitary, approaching no persons other than our patient and the doctors ... sometimes for as much as three months after the end of a case. It provides excellent time for a retreat, which is why most of us apply for such duty. ”