text: The fall Santa Ana winds wailed. In the BSL-3 cat lab, deep within the molecular-biology building, Vera and Kal could hear the shriek of moving air as it whipped around the building's corners.
  
  "I think Miranda's going to have her kittens tonight," Vera mentioned. "She's been pacing back and forth in her cage and rearranging the bedding."
  
  Kal nodded. "If I were the praying sort, I guess this would be the time."
  
  When Vera arrived at the lab the next day, there they were—three tiny newborns. Vera approached Miranda softly. The three wee kittens were nursing. Miranda, eyes closed, was purring softly. And they say that feral cats don't purr. Hah! Vera examined the other gravid queens, and, by the time she returned to Miranda, the neonates were asleep. I've got to sit down... I haven't seen a litter of kittens in two years. She held her breath and drank in the sight. Are these tiny creatures the last of their species? Or its resurrection? One at a time she removed the kittens from the cage, weighed them, and, with a sterile cotton swab, brushed the sides of their mouths to obtain cells that Noah and Gary would use to find if the kittens had acquired the bullet genes.
  
  Vera phoned Noah to tell him the news. He soon appeared, along with Gary and a few biochemistry students, and shortly, a small crowd had gathered outside the observation window. Vera dutifully held up the kittens for the onlookers' benefit, and, as she knew they would, the group applauded.
  
  Later, when Vera brought the three vials containing the kittens' cells to Noah's lab, she said, "It's time for your part, my dear."
  
  "Great! I'm glad to finally play a role in this drama."
  
  "How long will it take to find out if these cats have the bullet?" she asked.
  
  "Just a day or so. It's really not that much work. Gary, you want to get started on these?"
  
  "Sure thing, Doc."
  
  "It won't be too many days before we have more of these to process," Vera observed. I expect Gertrude is going to give birth any day."
  
  "That's fine. Once we're set up to do these tests, it's pretty simple to do repeated runs. By the way," he added, "how are you going to name the kittens? I see you've labeled these tubes A, B and C. Can't we be more imaginative than that?"
  
  "Hmmm. If we continue the Shakespearian theme, we may run out of names. Besides, I'm not sure of the sex of these kittens yet. I think we have two females and one male. It's hard to tell when they're just born. Let's wait until they are a few days old at least."
  
  "A, B and C it is, then." He started to join Gary, and then turned abruptly. "Hey! Let's name the kittens after famous scientists!"
  
  "I don't know if we could come up with enough female names," noted Vera.
  
  "Sure we could: Marie Curie, Barbara McClintock, Grace Hopper, Ada Lovelace..." Noah paused for breath "Madame Lavoisier, Lise Meitner, Mary Leakey, Roz Franklin, Lynn Margulis, Vera Barnett-Chamberlin. There're lots of them."
  
  "Oh, please. That last one doesn't belong."
  
  Noah replied, "Oh, I don't know. History may decide otherwise."
  
  "You're very kind, sir," she said, feigning a mock curtsey. "Anyway, as for the names, I'd rather stick to literature. Perhaps famous characters from novels." She laughed. "Can you imagine a cat saying 'Call me Ishmael'?"
  
  Noah laughed. "Listen to us. As if choosing names for the kittens was at all important. What matters is if they survive FHF."
  
  Tuesday morning of the following week, Vera relaxed at the clinic, reading the newspaper and sipping coffee, when a familiar figure entered. "Hello, Dr. Barnett, I hope I'm not disturbing you."
  
  "No, I'm just taking a break. Uh, I know you, but I can't recall where from."
  
  "Sorry. I'm Sandra McNally from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution."
  
  "Of course. Now I remember. You were here with Dr. Kraakmo last year."
  
  "That's right. I'm still the lead reporter for FHF at The J-C, and I'd like to ask you a few questions, if you have the time. I've visited the CDC from time to time, and I'm pretty much up to date on their efforts, but I thought I might acquire a different perspective from you." She pulled out her small recorder and, when Vera nodded her assent, turned it on. "After all," she continued, "this thing with using the leukemia virus to carry FHF genes into eggs is your idea."
  
  "Well, mine and Dr. Chamberlin's and his associate, Gary McKeever."
  
  At that moment, Vera's phone chimed. It was Kal from the cat lab. "Gertrude has given birth to three kittens," he said, "D, E, and F have joined us."
  
  "That's great," Vera exclaimed. "How do they look? Just a minute, Kal, I'm putting you on speaker. Sandra McNally from Atlanta is here."
  
  "Hi, Ms. McNally."
  
  "Sandra, please," she called out.
  
  "Sandra, I phoned to tell Vera that we have our second litter. Three more kittens were born last night. They seem to be in good shape. I'll weigh them before I leave."
  
  Vera said, "Don't forget to take mouth swabs for Noah."
  
  "Right. The swabs are right here. By the way, Naomi, Adam, and Eve have opened their eyes, and Naomi is exploring the cage." In the end, they had decided to use biblical names for the kittens.
  
  Vera laughed. "That's wonderful."
  
  After Vera hung up the phone, McNally remarked, "Well, it seems I arrived at a propitious time."
  
  Vera nodded. "Everything is going as well as we could have hoped. I understand that the other labs—Moscow, Paris, as well as the CDC—are making similar progress."
  
  "I guess the big question on everyone's mind is what are the chances for success... for survival of the domestic cat?"
  
  Vera shrugged. "As you know, nothing like this has ever been done before. We can only hope that we've got the science right... and that Mother Nature will give us a break."
  
  McNally raised her eyebrows. "Do you believe in God, Vera? Is it okay if I call you Vera?"
  
  "That's my name." Vera pursed her lips and pondered the question. "I guess I believe in some kind of God. Not the old bearded guy up in the sky, but a creative force that... oh, how can I put it... that started the big bang or something.
  
  "In any case, whether our efforts to save the cats are successful or not, will depend not on any supernatural force, but on the validity of our ideas and on our laboratory and veterinary skills."
  
  McNally's thumbs raced as she typed into her PDA. Vera stared. "Why all the typing?" she asked. "You're recording our talk, aren't you?"
  
  "Yes, but I'm adding ideas for a column. You know, I'm not the only reporter here in Camarillo. I ran into several reporter friends, one from The New York Times and one from Fox News."
  
  Vera chuckled. "Don't I know it! Almost every day, I have several show up, either here at my practice or over at the institute. I have to take time out to answer questions. I'm not complaining. The public has a right and a need to know what we're doing."
  
  "You sound like a journalist."
  
  Vera shrugged. "Fortunately, Lowell Stanaland has hired a PR pro to deal with the press so Noah and I aren't tied up. The guy puts out daily press releases on the institute's letterhead describing the previous day's developments, if there are any."
  
  McNally nodded. "I'd like to see some of them."
  
  "Sure," Vera said, "I'll transfer the entire batch to your PDA right now." She opened her laptop and hit a few buttons. "Done."
  
  "Thank you so much," uttered McNally. She eyed the small screen in her hand. "Nineteen of them. This is great!"
  
  Vera was pensive. "There's a huge amount of interest worldwide in the cat crisis. These press releases let everyone know when Adam the kitten opened his eyes, when Naomi could walk three feet without collapsing into a tiny ball of fur—every milestone."
  
  "Now you sound like a poet," McNally said.
  
  Vera was taken aback. "It's interesting," she observed, "that in the last fifty years we've had other calamitous declines in populations—some bat species, the Tasmanian devil, honeybee colonies—but in none of these did most people take such a keen interest. What's different this time?" She answered her own question. "It's obvious, isn't it? Cats aren't only our pets, they're... they're family."
  
  Noah was feeding baby Lilith mashed peas, managing to get about a third of the green pulp into her mouth. "We finished the DNA work on the first three kittens today," he said.
  
  Vera rushed in from the kitchen. "Why didn't you tell me? What did you find?"
  
  "It seems that two of them have the bullet, but we couldn't find any evidence for it in the third. I think that A and C might survive FHF but I don't think that B will."
  
  "They have names, now. Let me see... A is Naomi and C is Eve. Oh. The two females have the bullet, but the male doesn't. I wonder if that's significant. It would be ironic, in a horrific way, if only female zygotes were able to take up the bullet. All our work would be for nothing."
  
  "Three cats is hardly a statistically significant sample. Let's wait until the other cats are tested. I understand that the group at the Pasteur Institute is doing the same tests, and we should hear from them in a day or two."
  
  "You're right, of course. I guess I'm a bit anxious."
  
  "Aren't we all? Incidentally, I don't see the point of keeping the kittens in the cages any longer. Either they are resistant to FHF, or they aren't. What's the point of continuing to protect them?"
  
  "Yes, you're right, in a sense. However, I want to keep them secluded until they're old enough to immunize with the routine agents such as panleukopenia and calicivirus. It would be a terrible joke if we succeeded in protecting the cats against FHF with the bullet, only to have them die of some ordinary virus for which we have vaccines."
  
  Noah wiped Lilith's mouth for the tenth time. "Hadn't thought of that."
  
  The next day, Angelo sent Noah and Vera an e-mail summarizing the progress at the CDC, the Pasteur Institute, and the Moscow Veterinary Institute. Vera read aloud to Kal and Jane from her computer screen. "Four kittens have been delivered to date at the CDC. All are healthy."
  
  "Hey, that's great!" Kal declared.
  
  Vera read on. "Six kittens so far in Paris, but one died during delivery. André Fidèle suspects a congenital defect of some sort. The Moscow Veterinary Institute has five healthy kittens."
  
  "Well," Jane remarked, "it's a start."
  
  Over the next month, all the queens gave birth to their kittens. All were viable, except a few that had died during birthing—one at the institute and two at the CDC. In Paris, one of the queens died during parturition, and the three fetuses she was carrying were lost. All the kittens at the Moscow Institute for Veterinary Medicine had survived and were thriving. By November 18, there was a total of eighty-seven kittens housed in all four labs.
  
  On Monday, November 22, Vera was sitting in Noah's office when his computer signaled a new e-mail. "It's from Angelo," Noah announced. He read the message aloud:
  
  Noah and Vera
  
  I have heard from André Fidèle at L'Institute Pasteur regarding their tests for incorporation of the FeLV-FHF vector into DNA of the kittens. He reports that of the 33 kittens surviving so far, 27 test positive for the vector. Of these, twelve are males and the rest are females.
  
  Congratulations!
  
  Now only one question remains. Will the incorporated vector protect the kittens against FHF?