Fragment

11:14 P.M.

“He catches on awfully quick,” Nell whispered after they had shut the hatch of Hender’s cabin.

“My God.” Geoffrey shook his head. He yawned, and he realized suddenly that thirty-one hours had passed since he’d last had a decent night’s sleep. “Uh, where exactly would one go to grab some shuteye on this ship, Nell?”

“Follow me.”

Nell led him through a corridor to the port pontoon and turned left down the passageway.

“Here,” she said. “My room. Don’t worry. I’m tired, too.”

“You’re full of surprises.” Geoffrey smiled wryly. “Aren’t there other empty cabins available?”

“Maybe…” she answered. “I really don’t know.”

She switched off the light as she climbed onto her double bed and pulled the pillows out from under the bedspread, tossing one to him.

“It’s horizontal… I’ll take it!” Geoffrey climbed on, too, and rolled over on his side away from her.

The air was chilly in the cabin and Nell turned and spooned against him.

“It’s all right,” she told him. “Go to sleep. It’s just a cuddle instinct, as practiced by the North American wolf.”

“Oh really?”

“It’s common to all mammals.”

He chuckled.

“Go to sleep,” she whispered. “It’s for warmth!”

“Hmmm,” Geoffrey wondered, feeling very good with this woman pressed against his back, her breath soft against his neck. Suddenly he felt the need to sleep tug him down hard and he yawned again. “Did you ever notice how many scientists’ names match their chosen field of study?” he asked drowsily. “I’m thinking of doing a statistical study and writing a trifling monograph on the subject…”

She giggled, yawning too.

“Bob Brain, the famous South African anthropologist who discovered all those big-brained hominids.”

“Steve Salmon, the ichthyologist.”

“Mitchell Byrd, the famous ornithologist.”

“I had a dentist named Bud Bitwell.”

“No.”

“Yeah.”

“Did he change it to that?”

“I don’t think so, but knowing him, he actually might have. That would have to be a statistical factor.”

“Then, of course, there’s Alexander Graham Bell.”

“Silly, but it qualifies.”

“That one always got me as a kid. Hey, and our own geologist, Dr. Livingstone.”

“I had a geology professor named Mike Mountain.”

“I had a botany professor named Mike Green.”

“Yeah, that qualifies.”

“Then there’s Charles Darwin.”

“Uh …?”

“A Darwinian biologist?”

“Yeah, almost too obvious. And Isaac Newton, the Newtonian physicist.”

“Let’s not even mention Freud.”

“Not even mentioning Freud is like mentioning Freud.”

She snuggled closer and sighed sleepily. “Exactly.”

“You are so outside the box.”

“Well, names do appear to be a common factor, Dr. Binswanger. You may be onto something,” she said against his neck, too tired to move her head. “Let’s see now. By your theory, I should be…”

“By my theory, if you were subject to being influenced by your name, Duckworth, which I believe derives from ‘duckworthy,’ or someone who tends ducks, today you might well be studying duck-billed dinosaurs.”

“I did go through a duck-billed dinosaur phase.” She chuckled.

“Aha! I rest my case.”

“You’re a genius. So what does Binswanger mean?”

“Well,” he said.

“I know: sometimes a Binswanger is just a Binswanger.”

“Ho, ho.”

Suddenly, for the first time in a long time, she felt safe, and she knew he was safe, and that the hendros were safe. She needed to feel safe again, she thought with a pang. In less than nine hours, life on Henders Island would be no more.

“You have to explain to me sometime why you think hen-dropods might be immortal…” she muttered.

“I will, I will,” he said. “Sweet dreams, darling.” The word came, astonishingly, naturally.

“Hmm, yes, thank you, you, too.” She smiled, and they both fell instantly asleep.