Lasher Page 8

  "Not unless they're like Rowan. They have to have the dormant forty-six chromosomes. Which is why we must reach Rowan, and test her in every way that we can."

  "But this thing could breed with Rowan, couldn't it?"

  "With its mother? Yes. It probably could! But surely she's not crazy enough to try that."

  "She said it had already impregnated her and she'd lost the offspring. She suspected she had been impregnated again."

  "She told you this?"

  "Yes. And I have to decide whether or not I can tell this to the family, the Mayfair family, the family that is about to build the largest single neurosurgery and research center in the entire United States."

  "Yes...Rowan's big dream. But to get back to this family. How many of them are there? Are we talking brothers and sisters who can be tested? What about Rowan's mother? Is she alive? Is her father alive?"

  "There are no brothers and sisters. The father and the mother are dead. But there are many many cousins in this family, and inbreeding has been rampant. No, inbreeding has been almost calculated, and these people are not exactly proud of it. They don't want genetic testing. They've been approached in the past."

  "But there could be others carrying this extra chromosomal package. What about the father of the creature...the man who impregnated Rowan! He has to have the ninety-two chromosomes."

  "He does? The man was her husband. You're certain of that?"

  "Yes, absolutely."

  "We'll get to him in a minute. There's lots of data on him. Talk to me about the creature's brain. What did you see in the CAT scans?"

  "It's one and one-half the size of a human brain. Phenomenal growth took place in the frontal lobes between the scans done in Paris and those in Berlin. I would bet it has immense linguistic and verbal abilities. But that's just a guess. And there is something also extremely complex about its hearing. Superficially there is every indication it can hear sounds humans can't hear. Rather like bats, or sea creatures. In fact, that's a very important point. Its sense of smell is also highly developed, or at least there is room for it to be. One never knows. You know what's so marvelous about this thing? That its phenotype is so similar to others. It evolved in a wholly different way, requiring three times the protein of a normal human being, creating its own type of lactase which is far more acidic, and yet it ended up looking pretty much the way we do."

  "How do you sum it up?"

  "I don't. Let's get back to the man who impregnated Rowan. What do we know about him?"

  "Everything we could want to know. He lived in San Francisco. He was famous before he married Rowan. San Francisco General tested him in every conceivable way. He just suffered a severe heart attack in New Orleans. His latest records can be accessed immediately. We can do it without asking him, but we're going to ask him. If he has the ninety-two chromosomes...well, if he--"

  "He has to have them."

  "But Rowan said something about an outside factor. She said the father was normal, she even said she loved the father. He was her husband. She started to get upset on the phone. That's about the time she ended the conversation. Told me to contact the family for money, and then rang off. I'm not sure to this day whether she and I were not cut off."

  "Oh, I know who this man is! Of course. Everyone was talking about this. This is the man Rowan rescued from the sea."

  "Exactly, Michael Curry."

  "Yeah, Curry. The guy who came back from death with the psychic power in his hands. Oh, how we wanted to run some tests with him. I even tried to call Rowan about it. I saw the articles on the guy in the papers."

  "Yes. That's the man all right."

  "He went back to New Orleans with Rowan."

  "More or less."

  "They got married."

  "Definitely."

  "Psychic ability. Don't you realize what that means?"

  "Well, I know Rowan was supposed to have it. I always thought she was a great surgeon, but other people insisted she had a healing gift and a diagnostic gift and God knows what. No, what does psychic ability mean?"

  "Forget the voodoo crap. I'm thinking genetic markers. This psychic ability could be such a marker. It could occur when the ninety-two chromosomes occur. Oh, this is a real chicken and egg question. God, if there were only records available on these people's parents! Look, you have to persuade this family to allow some testing."

  "Difficult. They're familiar with the genetic studies which have been done on the Amish. They've heard about studies of the Mormons in Salt Lake. They know what the Founders Effect is, and they aren't proud of all their inbreeding. On the contrary, it's sort of a big family joke and a huge family embarrassment. And they continue to inbreed. Cousins marry cousins constantly, just like the Wilkes family in Gone with the Wind."

  "They have to cooperate. This is too important. I'm wondering if this damned thing could skip a generation. I mean...the possibilities make me dizzy. As for the husband, we can get his records right now?"

  "Let me ask him. It's always best to try to be polite. But they are at San Francisco General and there's nothing stopping your picking up the phone as soon as I walk out of here. Curry let them study him. He wanted to know what this gift in his hands was all about. He might have let you study him if you'd reached him in time. The press kind of drove him underground. He kept seeing images, knowing things about people. I think he ended up wearing gloves to stop the images from popping into his head."

  "Yes, yes, I filed the whole story," said Mitch. He stopped, stymied for an instant, it seemed, then opened his desk drawer and drew out a huge yellow legal pad covered with scribbled messages and, taking a pen out of his pocket, began to scrawl some near-indecipherable message to himself. He started murmuring and then cleared his throat.

  Lark waited, and when it was clear that he had lost Mitch totally, he drew him back.

  "Rowan said something about interference at the birth of this thing. Possible chemical or thermal interference. She wouldn't explain what she was talking about."

  "Well," said Mitch, scrawling still, and running his left fingers through his pile of straight dry hair. "There was thermal activity, obviously, and the chemical activity was enormous. There's some other fluid on these rags. Lots of it. It's like colostrum, you know, what comes before women start nursing, only it's different, too. Much denser, more acidic, full of nutrients like the milk, but with a composition all its own. Much more lactase. But to get back to your question, yes, there was interference, but it's hard to say whence it came."

  "Could it have been psychic?"

  "You're asking me? And this is a private conference? We aren't calling the National Enquirer when we get out of here? Of course it could have been psychic. You know as well as I do that we can measure heat coming from the hands of people who have a so-called healing gift. It could be psychic, yes. God, Lark, I have to find Rowan and this thing. I have to. I can't just sit here and..."

  "That's exactly what you have to do. Sit here, with those specimens, see that nothing happens to them. Keep cloning the DNA and analyzing it from every standpoint. And I will call you tomorrow from New Orleans with permission from Michael Curry to test his blood."

  Lark rose, clasping the briefcase handle tightly.

  "Wait a minute, you said something about New York. That there was some other material in New York."

  "Oh yes, New York. When Rowan gave birth to this tiling, there was a great deal of blood involved. Then there was the question of her disappearance. It happened on Christmas Day. The coroner in New Orleans took all kinds of forensic evidence. This has found its way to International Genome in New York."

  "Good heavens. They must be going crazy."

  "I don't know that any one person has put it all together yet. So far, the family has had scattered reports that corroborate what you've found out--genetic abnormality in mother and child. Rampant amounts of human growth hormone; different enzymes. But you're one up on all of them. You have the X rays and bone scans."

 
"The family is sharing all this with you."

  "Oh yes, once they realized I'd spoken directly to Rowan; she gave me some code word to tell them so they would finance your work here. Once they realized I was the last person to talk to Rowan, they became very cooperative. I don't think they grasp what's involved here, however, and they may cease to be cooperative after I begin to explain all this. But right now, they will do anything and everything to find Rowan. They are deeply concerned about her. They're going to meet my plane, and since it was on time when last I checked, I have to get out of here. I'm on my way."

  Mitch came round the desk hurriedly and followed Lark out of the office and into the dim corridor, with its long decorative horizontal strips of lights.

  "But what do they have in New York? Do they have what I have?"

  "They have less than you have, by far," said Lark, "except for one thing. They have some of the placenta."

  "I have to get it."

  "You will. The family will release it to you. And nobody in New York is putting all this together yet, as I told you. But there is another group involved."

  "What do you mean? Where?"

  Lark stopped before the door to the outer corridor. He placed his hand on the knob. "Rowan had some friends in an organization called the Talamasca. Historical research group. They too took samples at the site of the birth and the disappearance."

  "They did?"

  "Yes. I don't know what's happened on that. I just know the organization is extremely interested in the history of the Mayfair family. They seem to feel they have a proprietary interest. They've been calling me night and day about this since I contacted the family. I'll see one of them--Aaron Lightner--tomorrow morning in New Orleans. I'll find out if they know anything else."

  Lark opened the door and walked towards the elevator, Mitch coming behind him hastily and awkwardly and then staring in his usual confused and unfocused way as Lark pressed the button and the elevator doors opened.

  "Gotta go now, old boy," said Lark. "You want to come with me?"

  "Not on your life. I'm going right back into the lab. If you don't call me tomorrow--"

  "I'll call you. In the meantime, this is all--"

  "--totally under wraps. I mean totally. Is there something in the Keplinger Institute that isn't under wraps? It's a secret buried in a forest of secrets. Don't worry about that part. No one has access to that computer in my office but me. No one could find the files if they did gain access. Don't worry. This is regular for Keplinger. Someday I'll tell you some of our stories...with names and dates changed of course."

  "Good man. I'll call you tomorrow."

  Lark took Mitch's hand.

  "Don't leave me dangling, Lark. This thing could breed with Rowan! And if this thing did..."

  "I'll call you."

  Lark caught one last glimpse of Mitch, standing there, staring, before the elevator doors closed. He remembered Rowan's words on the phone. "There's one guy at the Keplinger Institute who can be trusted with this. You have to get him. Mitch Flanagan. Tell him I said this is worth his time."

  Rowan had been dead right on that one. Mitch was that man all right. Lark had no fears there.

  But as he drove to the airport he had plenty of fears about Rowan. He'd thought she had gone insane when he first heard her voice long distance and her warnings that the call might abruptly be cut off.

  The whole problem was, all this was very exciting to Lark. It had been from the start. Rowan's phone call, the samples themselves, the subsequent series of discoveries, even this bizarre New Orleans family. Lark had never experienced anything like this in his life. He wished he could feel more worry and less exhilaration. He was off on an adventure, taking an open-ended holiday from his life at University Hospital, and he couldn't wait to see these people in New Orleans--to see the house there that Rowan had inherited, and the man she had married--the family for whom Rowan had given up her entire medical career.

  It was raining harder by the time he reached the airport. But Lark for years had traveled in all kinds of weather and this meant nothing to him, any more than snow in Chicago, or monsoons in Japan.

  He hurried to the First Class counter to pick up his ticket and was on his way to the gate within minutes, timing it just exactly right. The flight to New Orleans was boarding now.

  Of course there was the whole problem of this creature itself, he realized. He had not begun to separate out that mystery from the mystery of Rowan and her family. And for the first time, he had to admit to himself, he wasn't sure he believed that this thing existed. He knew Rowan existed. But this offspring? Then he realized something else. Mitch Flanagan absolutely believed this being existed. And so did this Talamasca which kept calling him. And so did Rowan herself!

  Of course this thing existed. There was as much proof of its existence as there is of bubonic plague.

  Lark was the last one to reach the gate. Great timing, he thought again, no waiting, no standing.

  Just as he handed his ticket to the young stewardess, someone took his arm.

  "Dr. Larkin."

  He saw a tall robust man, very young, blond with near-colorless eyes.

  "Yes, I'm Dr. Larkin," he answered. What he wanted to say was Not now.

  "Erich Stolov. I spoke to you on the phone." The man flashed a little white card in front of Lark. Lark didn't have a free hand to take it. Then the stewardess took his ticket and he took the card.

  "Talamasca, you told me."

  "Where are the samples?"

  "What samples?"

  "The ones Rowan sent you."

  "Look, I can't..."

  "Tell me where they are, please, now."

  "I beg your pardon. I'll do nothing of the sort. Now if you want to call me in New Orleans I'll be seeing your friend Aaron Lightner there tomorrow afternoon."

  "Where are the samples?" said the young man, and he suddenly slipped in front of Lark, blocking the entrance to the plane.

  Lark dropped his voice to a whisper. "Get out of my way." He was instantly and irreparably furious. He wanted to shove this guy against the wall.

  "Please, sir," the stewardess very quietly said to Stolov. "Unless you have a ticket for this flight, you'll have to leave the gate now."

  "That's right. Leave the gate," said Lark, his temper cresting. "How dare you approach me like this!" And then he pushed past the young man and stormed down the ramp, heart pounding, sweat pouring down under his clothes.

  "Damned son of a bitch, how dare he?" he muttered aloud.

  Five minutes after takeoff, he was on the portable phone. The connection was abominable and he could never hear a thing on airline phones anyway, but he managed to reach Mitch.

  "Just don't tell anybody anything about any of it," he said over and over.

  "Got you," said Mitch. "No one knows anything, I assure you. I have fifty technicians working on fifty pieces of the puzzle. I am the only one who sees the picture. No one will get into this building, this office, or these files."

  "Tomorrow, Mitch, I'll call you." Lark rang off. "Arrogant bastard," he whispered as he replaced the phone. And Lightner had been such a nice man. Very British, very Old World, very formal when they'd spoken on the phone. Who were these people, the Talamasca?

  And were they really friends of Rowan Mayfair as they claimed? Just didn't seem so.

  He sat back; he tried to think through his long conversation with Mitch, tried to relive his phone conversation with Rowan. Molecular evolution; DNA; cell membranes. All of it frightened and enthralled him.

  The stewardess put a fresh drink in his hand; nice double martini for which he had not even had to ask. He drank a good icy swallow.

  Then he remembered with a start that Mitch had told him he could produce a three-dimensional computer projection of what this creature looked like. Why the hell hadn't he taken a look, for god's sakes? Of course all he would have seen was some crazy neon drawing on the screen, an outline. What did Mitch know about the way the creature really lo
oked? Was it ugly for instance? Or was it beautiful?

  He found himself trying to picture it, this thin reed of a being with the large brain and the incredibly long hands.

  Four

  ONE HOUR UNTIL Ash Wednesday. All was quiet in the small house on the Gulf with its many doors open to the white beach. The stars hung low over the distant dark horizon, a mere stroke of light between heaven and sea. The soft wind swept through the small rooms of the house, beneath the low ceilings, bringing a tropical freshness to every nook and cranny, though the little house itself was cold.

  Gifford didn't care. Bundled in a long huge Shetland wool turtleneck, and legs snug in wool stockings, she enjoyed the chill of the breeze as much as the fierce and specific heat coming from the busy fire. The cold, the smell of the water, the smell of the fire--all of it was Florida in winter for Gifford, her hideaway, her refuge, her safe place to be.

  She lay on the couch opposite the hearth, staring at the white ceiling, watching the play of the light on it, and wondering in a passive, uncurious sort of way, what it was about Destin that made her so happy--why it had always been such a perfect escape from the perpetual gloom of her life at home. She'd inherited this little beach house from her Great-grandmother Dorothy, on her father's side, and over the years, she had spent her most contented moments here.

  Gifford wasn't happy now, however. She was only less miserable than she would have been if she had stayed in New Orleans for Mardi Gras, and she knew it. She knew this misery. She knew this tension. And she knew that she could not have gone to the old First Street house on Mardi Gras, no matter how much she might have wanted to, or how guilty she felt for running away.

  Mardi Gras in Destin, Florida. Might as well have been any day of the year. Clean and quiet, and removed from all the ugliness of the parades, the crowds, the garbage littering St. Charles Avenue, the relatives drinking and arguing, and her beloved husband, Ryan, carrying on as if Rowan Mayfair had not run away and left her husband, Michael Curry, as if there had not been some sort of bloody struggle on Christmas Day at First Street, as if everything could be smoothed over and tightened up, and reinforced by a series of careful legal pronouncements and predictions, when in fact, everything was falling apart.