Macklin ran the back of his knuckles across his forehead. "I really would like to take you up on it. When I start making slips like that it means another attack of migraine. The drilling, grinding pain through my temples and around my eyeballs. The flashes of light, the rioting pools of color playing on the back of my lids. Ugh."
Ferris smiled. "Gynergen makes you sick, does it, doctor? Produces nausea, eh? The pain of that turns you almost wrong side out, doesn't it? You aren't much better off with it than without, are you? I've heard some say they preferred the migraine."
Macklin carefully arranged his pipe along with the tools he used to tend it in a worn leather case. "Tell me," he said, "what is the worst that could happen to me?"
"Low blood pressure," Ferris said.
"That's not so bad," Macklin said. "How low can it get?"
"When your heart stops, your blood pressure goes to its lowest point," Mitchell said.
A dew of perspiration had bloomed on Macklin's forehead. "Is there much risk of that?"
"Practically none," Mitchell said. "We have to give you the worst possibilities. All our test animals survived and seem perfectly happy and contented. As I said, the virus is self-stabilizing. Ferris and I are confident that there is no danger.... But we may be wrong."
Macklin held his head in both hands. "Why did you two select me?"
"You're an important man, doctor," Ferris said. "Nobody would care if Mitchell or I cured ourselves of headaches—they might not even believe us if we said we did. But the proper authorities will believe a man of your reputation. Besides, neither of us has a record of chronic migraine. You do."