His eyes narrowed then, as he looked at the chemist. “After all, why haven’t you isolated the stuff from the fruit?”
“There’s no clue as to what to look for,” said Petrelli, somewhat less bitingly. “The poison might be present in microscopic amounts. Do you know how much botulin toxin it takes to kill a man? A fraction of a milligram!”
Smathers looked as though he were about to quote the minimum dosage, so Petrelli charged on: “If you think anyone could isolate an unknown organic compound out of a—”
“Gentlemen! Please!” said Dr. Pilar sharply. “I realize that this is a strain, but bickering won’t help. What about your latest tests on MacNeil, Dr. Smathers?”
“As far as I can tell, he’s in fine health. And I can’t understand why,” said the physician in a restrained voice.
Pilar tapped one of the report sheets. “You mean the vitamins?”
“I mean the vitamins,” said Smathers. “According to Dr. Petrelli, the fruits contain neither A nor B1. After living solely on them for four weeks now, he should be beginning to show some deficiencies—but he’s not.
“No signs?” queried Dr. Pilar. “No symptoms?”
“No signs—at least no abnormal ones. He’s not getting enough protein, but, then, none of us is.” He made a bitter face. “But he has plenty of symptoms.”
Dr. Petrelli raised a thin eyebrow. “What’s the difference between a sign and a symptom?”