Similar to the room where Werner had given Wojciechowski the pill, the walls of the laboratory were white. The counters were glazed with glass or plexiglass, Werner couldn't tell. Except for the backwall which was free of any decorations, cabinets lined the white walls. They loomed over the doctor and his assistant. Werner didn't want to know what substances lurked behind the doors.
Dr. Ziegler bustled around the room, gathering eyedroppers, test tubes. Erlenmeyer flasks and other equiptement that Werner had never used in school and thus didn't know the names for. Werner shadowed him, following him at a distance. The doctor was in his element, he was focused, muttering under his breath. Werner could tell that he already was planning on what he was going to do differently on the vaccine this time. But his grim expression made it look more like he was plotting a murder; or at least involved in one.
"Werner, could you please get the frozen concotions from the freezer." Dr. Ziegler asked. Werner nodded. There was only one cabinet labelled "freezer" so he didn't need to ask Dr. Ziegler where he could find the präperate. He opened the door and was greeted by a breath of cold air. All the liquids in the little jars were frozen.
"Which ones?" Werner called.
"They're on a grey tray, I think the number is fourteen?"
"There's no fourteen, Herr. Doktor. But there's a grey tray with number twelve?"
"It's probably that one!" Dr. Ziegler called back. Werner carefully pulled the tray out of the freezer. He closed the door with his elbow and slowly walked the tray over to the doctor. He lay it down on the counter next to the tools that Ziegler had strewn out. "Thank you, Werner."
"What are we going to do today?" Werner asked.
"We can't do much, I need help from other doctors and chemists to truely work on this vaccine. All I am going to do is change the ratio of two of the components and see what that does."
"What do you mean see what that does?"
"I'm going to inject the vaccine into someone." Dr. Ziegler answered noncholantly. "And then see what it does. If it helps against smallpox or not."
"Won't the vaccine take a while to work?"
"Probably. We'll wait two days before testing it."
"And what happens if it doesn't help against smallpox? What if the people fall ill?"
"Then we keep working on the vaccine." Dr. Ziegler answered with a shrug. Werner narrowed his eyes at the doctor.
"And you help the people get over the illness, right?"
"Why would we?" Dr. Ziegler asked, baffled at his assistants question. "That would be much to expensive. Smallpox is infectious, we don't want to spread it to the personell, we'd be risking our lives."
"So you let them die?"
"Werner," Dr. Ziegler snapped, fed up by the moral-interrogation his assistant was hosting, "they aren't worth anything. It doesn't matter if they all die or not. And by the way; if we don't use them in the lab they'd die of labour or the fucking gas chambers. At least we can test things on them."
"You're a doctor for God's sake!" Werner cried. "How can you kill people?"
"You've killed people as well, Werner!" Dr. Ziegler shouted. "You've murdered hoards of people. I saw you that day, I saw you herd the fuckers into the gas chambers." Dr. Ziegler began to advance on Werner. Werner stepped back in horror. The doctor's eyes had a crazed light in them, he looked sick. "How do you think doctors used to work, Werner? People have always used other people as test subjects, medecine doesn't work without that. You can thank your life to fucking medecine. It doesn't matter if we kill thousands or even tens of thousands along the way if we save millions, right?" Werner didn't answer but he stopped backing up. Dr. Zieglers face was an inch away from his. Both men glared at each other. "If you don't want to turn into a test subject yourself, Werner, I advise you to shut your mouth and help me."
Werner was quite for a second. Then he started to smile. His smile scared the doctor. Why would the young man be grinning at him like a fool? Had his threat meant nothing to his assistant? Once again the terrible thought surfaced in his twisted mind; did Werner know that he was consulting Wojciechowski on the vaccine? Was Werner planning on gathering evidence to accuse him of being a spy? Werner didn't know what was nagging at the doctors brain, but he knew that the old man felt uncomftorable. "Are you alright, doctor?" Werner asked politely. But his harmless question seemed like a nazi-interrogation to Ziegler. Ziegler had been interrogated enough...he didn't want to think of the times he'd sat behind the wooden desks, staring into the faces of merciless killers...Werner's smile reminded him of the Lagerführers smile...it was charming and terrifying.
The door opened and a man in a lab coat entered interupting their stare-down. Dr. Ziegler stepped backwards and turned away from Werner. Werner smiled at the chemist who'd walked in and greeted him with an enthusiastic 'heil Hitler!'. The man repeated the salute a bit confusedly but with a smile on his face. Most of the doctors only used the salute when the SS-Officers came.