She told of the brethren of Lytechinus who, under the full moon, at the gentle urgings of the streaming tide, mutually awaken to a hormonal trumpet call and release clouds of sugarcoated sperm to swim stochastically toward the lure of gradients of their sisters’ unknown fragrances, seeking evaginated eggs for the complicated glycoprotein-regulated act of copulation and impregnation so necessary to sea urchin survival.

     Actually, Dr. Mary Pennington’s research seminar on intracellular events after sea urchin egg fertilization was properly mechanistic and impeccably correct. I must have been distracted by the third-year graduate student two seats to my left. She was one of the cutest gals I’ve ever seen — short, slim, with dark eyes, China Doll face and nice legs revealed by short skirts. She never seemed to bother with the top three buttons on her loosely fitting blouse, and it didn’t bother me, either. Before the seminar she had hit on me in an unmistakable way. Her name was Tsien Tsien, pronounced "Chen Chen."

     As the room emptied, we both lingered in our seats. She stood up in unison with me, bringing us face-to-face at very short range. She stood her ground, batted her eyes and asked, "You think cyclic AMP or protein kinase C more important for calcium mobilization process?"

     She smiled enticingly as I composed a fumbled answer. I glanced at the blackboard, as if drawing circles, arrows and crosses might rescue my composure. But Tsien Tsien’s question had nothing to do with molecules. I stood, frozen and helpless in her tractor beam.

     "Maybe we have in-depth discussion some time," she suggested with twinkling eyes and a bewitchingly nervous laugh.

     I sensed a hulking presence in the background and then felt a heavy hand grip my shoulder. "We’re late for our luncheon." It was Rob McGregor speaking in his all-seeing, all-knowing, big-brother mode. I muttered something as he slowly turned me towards the door.

     "Maybe you come visit me in Dr. Gunnison lab," Tsien Tsien tinkled.

     "Sure thing," I answered in confusion.

     In the privacy of the elevator, Rob looked down on me like I was a four year-old who’d just gotten himself lost at the department store. "Look here, little breeches. She’s a student, but she came here on a J-visa as a post-doc. J-visa, Ben. It’s an exchange visa, and she’s run out of time. In one month she’s got to go back to her Worker’s Paradise — the People’s Republic of China. Or she can throw away her dissertation research and start over in Canada. Or she can marry a U.S. citizen. Now guess what’s her preferred option."

     "Marriage-minded?"

     "And, how! Watch yourself, little breeches. It’s a jungle out there."

     "Thanks for saving me, Baloo."

     Over lunch, Rob toughened me up for life in the jungle. He told me how they judge grant proposals at the NIH in Washington. He told how a scientist spends three months writing a proposal, to have it spend several months in Washington going from desk to desk, before copies are finally sent to 15 scientists, only two of whom have to read it, spending at most an hour. He told how the 15 scientists fly to Washington to convene as a "Study Section," spending two or three days grading proposals — at the rate of one every 10 minutes!

     Two hastily written critiques are retyped onto a "Pink Sheet" and returned to the applicant together with the "priority score." Only one in six proposals is funded. One negative comment can shoot down a proposal, and often the reviewers are competing with you.

     "Do you have any chance for a rebuttal?" I asked.

     "Hell, no! You just submit another grant proposal and wait another year to hear how it comes out."

     Dr. Cooper had tried to use the Pink Sheets to judge the quality of a faculty member’s research. Yet, Cooper found the in-house faculty research seminars so uninteresting that they sometimes put him to sleep.

     "Rob, I’ve noticed that you older profs always call a spade a spade, even if it means disagreeing in public."

     McGregor nodded in affirmation. Now was the time for me to pop THE QUESTION.

     "It’s ironic that Cooper died right after meeting with a sizable group of people, half of whom hated his guts. They probably wished him dead. It’s almost like someone pronounced a Voodoo curse." I let this sink in. McGregor acted like it was the first time he’d heard anything like this. I laughed and asked, "Were any faculty members capable of casting a Voodoo curse?"

     "Yeah, I guess a few of us would have liked him dead."

     "Who’d get first prize?" I asked, hoping he’d name Ashton.

     "Probably Fleischman. Cooper literally destroyed his career."

     "And second prize?"

     "Well, Ledbetter hated his guts, and didn’t mind letting anyone know — including Cooper himself!"

     "Yes, I haven’t met him yet. He’s been away on a trip as long as I’ve been here."

     "Yeah, he’s a real trip. But smart! Probably the most cerebral member of the department"

     "And who gets third prize?"

     "For being cerebral?"

     "No. For hating Cooper’s guts."

     "Could be anyone, including me."

     "But Cooper must have really pissed off Ashton. I mean that guy doesn’t like being messed with."

     "Yeah. But it didn’t happen too often. Ashton was a master at outsmarting Cooper and working around him."

     It bothered me that Ashton was so low on McGregor’s list. We fell silent for a while. McGregor continued to smoulder and then once again burst into flame on the Cooper theme:

     "Paying himself $210,000 a year in hard money and then bragging to his friends at other institutions that he was the ‘highest paid pharmacology chairman in the U.S.!’ That was pretty hard for us to stomach, Ben."

     Old Man Westley was probably right: If you get a Scotsman talking about an old unrighted wrong, he won’t stop until he has talked himself out — or pulls a knife out of his sock.

     Rob recited a litany of Cooper’s crimes, including taking a kickback from a buddy who had a company on the side. He ranted about Cooper’s wife’s secondary appointment in the Department, describing her as a dietician with minimal scientific training. In the Department of Epidemiology she conducted NIH-sponsored research on "the effect of nutritional deficiencies on the mental and physical status of Afro-American homeless." She sent "data technicians" under expressway bridges to administer questionnaires.

     "She was testing a rinky-dink hypothesis that homelessness is bad for nutrition, which is bad for health. She didn’t bother to factor in alcohol use." McGregor made a fist, crushing his paper cup, ice and all. "Taylor calls it ‘a politically fueled boondoggle masquerading as science’."

     "I’ve never seen Cooper’s wife around the Department."

     "Peter Moore gave her the boot right after Cooper died, and the faculty closed ranks behind him."

     With the deconstruction of the Cooper empire, Rob’s sense of justice seemed to be satisfied. The fire smouldered and died out. Our chat ended abruptly when I noticed we’d taken 80 minutes for lunch.

     I hurried back to Ashton’s lab, when luck delivered a breakthrough for the case.