Lasher

Three

A DREARY ENDLESS winter rain poured down on San Francisco, gently flooding the steep-sloped streets of Nob Hill and veiling in mist its curious mixture of buildings-the gray ghostlike Gothic facade of Grace Cathedral, the heavy imposing stucco apartment houses, the lofty modern towers rising from the old structure of the Fairmont Hotel. The sky was darkening heavily and quickly, and the five o’clock traffic was about as unpleasant as it could get.

Dr. Samuel Larkin drove slowly past the Mark Hopkins, though whatever they called that hotel now he didn’t know, and down California Street, crawling patiently behind a noisy crowded cable car, wondering vaguely at the perseverance of the tourists who clung to it, in the dark and in the cold, their clothes soaked. He was careful not to skid on the car tracks-the bane of out-of-town drivers-and he gave the cable car a head start as the light changed.

Then he made his descent towards Market Street, block after block, past the pretty exotic wooden entrance to Chinatown, a route which he always found slightly frightening and very beautiful, and which often reminded him of his first years in this city, when one could ride the cable car to work with ease, and the Top of the Mark had indeed been the highest point in the city, and none of these Manhattan skyscrapers were here at all.

How could Rowan Mayfair have ever left this place? he thought. But then Lark had only been to New Orleans a couple of times. Nevertheless, it had been like turning your back on Paris for the provinces, and it was only one part of Rowan’s story that he did not understand.

He almost went by the unobtrusive gates of the Keplinger Institute. He made a sharp turn, plunged a little too fast down the driveway and into the dry darkness of the underground garage. It was now five-ten. And his plane for New Orleans left at eight-thirty. He did not have a moment to waste.

He flashed his identification card for the guard, who at once called up to verify the information, and then let him through with a nod.

Once again, in front of the elevator, he had to identify himself-this time to a woman’s voice strangled by a tiny speaker beneath a video camera. Lark hated it, being seen but unable to see who saw.

The elevator carried him soundlessly and quickly up the fifteen floors to Mitchell Flanagan’s laboratory. And within seconds, he had found the door, seen the light behind the smoked glass and knocked hard.

“Lark here, Mitchell,” he said in answer to a murmur on the other side.

Mitchell Flanagan looked the way he always did, half blind and utterly incompetent, peering at Lark through thick wire-rimmed glasses, his thatch of yellow hair the perfect wig for a scarecrow, his lab coat dusty but miraculously unstained.

Rowan’s favorite genius, thought Lark. Well, I was her favorite surgeon. So why am I so jealous? His crush on Rowan Mayfair was dying hard. So what if she’d gone south, gotten married and was now embroiled in some frightening medical mayhem? He’d really wanted to get her into bed, and he never had.

“Come inside,” said Mitch, apparently resisting the urge to pull Lark right into the carpeted corridor, where strings of tiny white lights softly outlined both the ceiling and the floor.

This place could drive me mad, Lark thought. You really expect to open a door and find human beings in antiseptic cages.

Mitch led the way-past the numerous steel doors with their small lighted windows, behind which various electronic noises could be heard.

Lark knew better than to ask to be admitted to these inner sanctums. Genetic research was entirely secret at Keplinger, even to most of the medical community. This private interview with Mitchell Flanagan had been bought and paid for by Rowan Mayfair-or the Mayfair family at any rate-at an exorbitant price.

Mitchell led Lark into a large office, with huge glass windows open to the crowded buildings of Lower California Street and a sudden dramatic view of the Bay Bridge. Sheer drapery, rather like mosquito netting, was fixed to the long chrome poles over the windows, masking and softening the night, and making it seem to Lark even more close and rather terrible. His memories of San Francisco before the era of the high-rise were simply too clear. The bridge looked totally out of proportion, and surely misplaced.

A wall of computer screens rose on one side of the large mahogany desk. Mitchell took the high-backed chair facing Lark and gestured for him to be seated in the more comfortable upholstered chair before the desk. The fabric was the color of claret, a heavy silk probably, and the style of the furnishings was vaguely oriental. Either that, or there was no style at all.

Beneath the windows, and their spectacle of the frightening night, stood rows and rows of file drawers, each with its own digital coded lock. The rug was the same deep claret as the chair in which Lark had made himself comfortable. Other chairs here and there were done up in the same color so that they all but vanished into the floor or into the darkly paneled walls.

The top of the desk was blank. Behind Mitchell’s head of scarecrow hair was a great abstract painting that resembled nothing so much as a spermatozoon swimming like mad to a fertilized egg. It was wonderfully colored, however-full of cobalt and burning orange and neon green-as if painted by a Haitian artist who, having stumbled upon a drawing of sperm and egg in a scientific journal, had chosen it for a model, never guessing or caring what it was.

The office reeked of wealth. The Keplinger Institute reeked of wealth. It was reassuring that Mitch looked sloppy, incapable and even a little dirty-a mad scientist who made no concessions to corporate or scientific tyranny. He had not shaved in at least two days.

“God, am I glad you finally got here,” said Mitch. “I was about to go out of my mind. Two weeks ago you dump this on me, with no explanation except that Rowan Mayfair sent it to you…and that I have to find out everything that I can.”

“So did you?” asked Lark. He started to unbutton his raincoat, then thought better of it. He eased his briefcase to the floor. There was a tape recorder inside but he didn’t want to use it. It would inhibit him and possibly scare Mitchell to death.

“What do you expect in two weeks? It’s going to take fifteen years to map the human genome, or haven’t you heard?”

“What can you tell me? This isn’t an interview with the science editor of the New York Times. Give me a picture. What are we dealing with here?”

“You want that sort of speculation?” Mitch gestured to the computer. “You want to see something three-dimensional and in living color?”

“Talk first. I distrust computer simulations.”

“Look, before I say anything, I want more specimens. I want more blood, tissue, everything I can get. I’ve had my secretary calling your office every day about this. Why didn’t you call me back?”

“Impossible to get anything more. What you’ve seen is what you get.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve got the only samples to which I have access. You have the only data which came to me. There is something else in New York…but we’ll get to that later. The point is, I can’t give you any more blood, tissue, amniotic fluid or anything else. You have everything Rowan Mayfair sent to me.”

“Then I have to talk to Rowan Mayfair.”

“Impossible.”

“Why?”

“Can you turn off that blinking fluorescent light up there? It’s driving me crazy. Do you have an incandescent lamp in this fancy room?”

Mitchell looked startled. He sat back as though he’d been pushed. For a moment, he seemed not to understand the words, and then he said, “Oh yes.” He touched a panel under the lip of his desk. The overhead light went out suddenly and finally, and a pair of small lamps on the desk were quickly illuminated, soft, yellow, pleasant. They made the deep green of the desk blotter come to life.

Lark hadn’t noticed the perfect, markless blotter, or its leather corners. Or the still, odd-shaped black phone hunkering there with its numerous and mysterious buttons like a symbolic Chinese toad.

“That’s better. I hate that kind of light,” said Lark. “And tell me exactly what you know.”

“First tell me why I can’t talk to Rowan Mayfair, why I can’t get more data. Why didn’t she send you photographs of this thing? I have to talk to her-”

“Nobody can find her. I’ve been trying for weeks. Her family has been trying since Christmas Day. That’s when she disappeared. I’m on an eight-thirty plane tonight to see her family in New Orleans. I’m the last one to have heard from Rowan. Her phone call to me two weeks ago is the only current evidence that Rowan is even alive. One phone call, then the specimens. When I contacted her family for funds, which is what she asked me to do, they told me about her disappearance. She has been spotted once since Christmas Day…maybe…in a town in Scotland called Donnelaith.”

“What about the courier service which delivered the specimens? Where was the pickup? Trace it.”

“Done. Dead end. The service picked them up from a hotel concierge in Geneva, to which they were given by a female guest as she was checking out. The woman does fit Rowan’s description, somewhat, but there’s no proof that Rowan was ever a guest in this hotel, at least not under her own name.

“The whole thing was surreptitious. She’d given the concierge info as to the destination of the package several days before. Look, the family has investigated all this, believe me. They’re more eager to find Rowan than anybody else. When I called to tell them about all this, they went nuts. That’s why I’m going down there. They want to see me personally, and it’s their nickel, and I’m happy to oblige. But these people have had detectives all over Geneva. No trace of Rowan. And believe you me, when this family can’t find someone, that person cannot be found.”

“How come?”

“Money. Mayfair money. You couldn’t have not heard of Rowan’s plans last fall for Mayfair Medical. Now talk, Mitch, what are these samples? I have to make that plane. Count on my common sense. If you don’t mind the expression, let yourself go!”

Mitchell Flanagan reflected quietly for a moment. He folded his arms, his lower lip jutting a little, and then absently he pulled off his glasses, stared into space, then put his glasses back on, as though he could not think except when he was behind them. He stared intently at Lark.

“OK. It’s what you said,” said Mitch, “or what you said Rowan said.”

Lark didn’t respond. But he knew that he had registered his reaction before he could stop himself. He bit his tongue. He wanted Mitch to go on.

“This offspring isn’t Homo sapiens,” Mitch continued. “It’s primate, it’s mammalian, it’s male, it’s potent, it has a dynamite immune system, it appears in the final tests to have reached maturity, but this is by no means certain, and it has a baffling way of using minerals and proteins. Something to do with its bones. Its brain is enormous. It may have profound weaknesses. Until I run more tests I don’t know.”

“Draw me a picture in words.”

“Based on the X rays alone, I’d say it is one hundred fifty pounds in weight or less, and that when the final tests were done in late January, it was six and one-half feet tall. Its height changed remarkably between the first X rays taken on December twenty-eighth in Paris, and those taken in Berlin on January fifth. There was no change between January fifth and January twenty-seventh. No change in any measurement. Which is why I’m saying it may have reached maturity, but I don’t know. The skull is not fully developed, but that may be as developed as it gets.”

“How much did it grow between December and January?”

“It grew three inches. Growth took place mostly in the thighs, with some growth in the forearms and a very slight lengthening of the fingers. Its hands, by the way, are very long. The head became slightly larger. Not enough to attract attention, probably. But it’s larger than a normal head. Say the word and I’ll show what I mean on the computer. I’ll show you how it looks, moves…”

“No, just tell me. What else?”

“What else?” Mitch demanded.

“Yes, what else.”

“That’s not enough? Lark, you have to explain all this to me. Where were these tests taken? This stuff is from clinics all over Europe. Who did these tests?”

“Rowan did the tests, we think. The family’s been working on it. But the clinics never even knew what was going on. Apparently Rowan slipped in with this creature, had the X rays taken and slipped out, before anybody ever realized there was an unauthorized doctor on the premises, or that her male subject wasn’t a patient. In fact, in Berlin, nobody remembers seeing her at all. It’s only the computerized date and time on the X-ray film that confirms she was there. Same with the brain scans, the electrocardiogram and the thallium stress test. She entered the clinic in Geneva, directed the laboratory herself for the tests she wanted, wasn’t questioned for obvious reasons-white coat, authority, speaks German-and then she took the results and left.”

“How incredibly simple that must have been.”

“It was. These were all public facilities, and you remember Rowan. Who would question Rowan?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

“The people in Paris who do remember her, by the way, remember her well. But they can’t help us find her. They don’t know where she came from or where she went. As for the male friend, he was ‘tall and thin and had long hair and wore a hat.’ ”

“ ‘Long hair’! You’re sure of that.”

“As sure as the woman in Paris who told this to the family’s detectives.” Lark shrugged. “When Rowan was seen in Donnelaith it was also with a tall thin male companion who had long black hair.”

“And you haven’t heard one word from her since the night before she sent you this stuff.”

“Correct. She said she’d get in touch as soon as she could.”

“What about the call? Any record? Did she call collect?”

“She told me she was in Geneva. She told me what I already told you. She was desperate to get this stuff to me. That she’d try to get it out before morning, that I was to bring it to you. She said that she gave birth to the subject in question. The amniotic fluid was in the pieces and bits of towel. Her own blood, sputum, and hair was included for analysis as well. I hope you did that analysis.”

“You bet I did.”

“How did she give birth to something that isn’t a human being? I want everything you’ve discovered, no matter how random or contradictory. I have to explain all this to the family tomorrow! I have to explain it to myself.”

Mitch curled his right hand and pressed it to his mouth to cover a slight cough. He cleared his throat.

“As I said, it isn’t Homo sapiens,” he began, looking directly at Lark. “It may look like Homo sapiens, however. Its skin is much more plastic-in fact, you only find skin like that in human fetuses, and apparently the creature will retain this plasticity, though only time will tell. The skull appears to be malleable, like that of an infant, and that too may be permanent, but it’s impossible to tell. It still had the soft spot, the fontanel, when it was last X-rayed; indeed there’s some indication the fontanel is permanent.”

“Lord God,” said Lark. He couldn’t resist touching his own head. The fontanels of babies always made him nervous! But then Lark didn’t have any children; mothers seemed to get used to it, having little critters around with skin-covered holes in their skulls.

“This thing was never a conventional fetus, by the way,” said Mitch. “The cells from the amniotic fluid indicate it was a fully developed diminutive male adult when it was born; it probably unwound itself with remarkable elasticity and walked away from its mother, the way a young colt or a young giraffe walks away after birth.”

“A total mutation,” said Lark.

“No, put that word out of your mind entirely. This is no mutation. This appears to be the product of a separate and complex evolutionary process. The end product of a whole different set of chance mutations and choices over some millions of years. If Rowan Mayfair hadn’t given birth to this-and it is certain now to me from the specimens that she did-my guess is we would be dealing with some creature developed in full isolation on some unknown continent, something older than Homo erectus or Homo sapiens, much older in fact, and with an entire spectrum of genetic inheritance from other species, which human beings don’t possess.”

“Other species.”

“Exactly. This thing climbed its own evolutionary ladder. It is not alien to us. It evolved from the same primal soup. But its DNA is much more complex. If you took its double helix and flattened it out, it would be twice the length of that of a human being. The creature seems-superficially at least-to have carried up the ladder with it all kinds of similarities to lower life forms which we as humans no longer have. I’ve only begun to break it down. That’s the problem.”

“Can you work any faster? Can you find out more.”

“Lark, this isn’t only a matter of speed. We’re just beginning to understand the human genome-what’s a junk gene and real gene. How can we break down the genotype of this thing? It has ninety-two chromosomes, by the way-that’s double the number of a normal human being. The makeup of its cell membranes is obviously very different from ours, but how I can’t tell you, since I can’t tell you very much about our own cell membranes since nobody knows what they’re made of, either. That’s the dominant theme here. The limits of what I know about this being are the limits of what I know about us. But it is not us.”

“I still don’t understand why it can’t be a mutant.”

“Lark, it’s far too much of a departure. It’s way beyond the orbit of mutation. It’s highly organized and complete in itself. It’s no accident. And it’s just too beautifully developed as it is. Think in terms of percentages of chromosomal similarity. Man and the chimpanzee are ninety-seven percent similar. This thing is no more than forty percent similar at most. I’ve already run simple immunological tests on its blood which prove this. That means it diverged off the human family tree millions of years ago, if it was ever part of the human family tree. I don’t think it was. I think it was another tree altogether.”

“But how could Rowan be the mother? I mean you can’t just-”

“The answer is as surprising as it is simple. Rowan also has ninety-two chromosomes. The exact same number of exons and introns. The blood, the amniotic fluid and the tissue samples she sent confirm it. I’m sure she’d figured out that much herself.”

“But what about Rowan’s past records? Didn’t anybody ever notice this woman had double the number of human chromosomes?”

“I’ve verified everything through blood samples on file at University from her last physical. She has ninety-two chromosomes, though there is no evidence in the rest of the physical picture to indicate the additional chromosomes were anything but dormant in her case. Nobody ever noticed because nobody ever took a genetic blueprint of Rowan. Who would? For what? Rowan has never been sick a day in her life.”

“But someone…”

“Lark, DNA blueprinting is in its infancy. Some people are totally opposed to doing it on anyone. There are millions of doctors all over the world who have no idea what’s in their own genes. Some of us don’t want to know. I don’t want to know. My grandfather died of Huntington’s chorea. My brothers don’t want to know if they carry the gene for it. Neither do I. Of course sooner or later I’ll have myself tested. But the point is, genetic research has just begun. If this creature had surfaced twenty years ago, it would have passed for human. It would have appeared to be some kind of freak.”

“So you’re telling me Rowan isn’t a human being?”

“No, she is human. Absolutely. As I was trying to explain, every other test taken on her throughout her life has been normal; her pediatric records, all normal, growth rate normal. Which means that this entire set of extra chromosomes was never switched on during her development…until this child started to grow in her womb.”

“And what happened then?”

“I suspect its conception triggered several complex chemical responses in Rowan. That’s why the amniotic fluid is full of all kinds of nutrients. The fluid was dense with proteins and amino acids. There is some evidence that a substantial yolk remained with this developing creature long after the embryonic stage. And the breast milk. Did you know there was breast milk? It’s not normal density or composition. It contains infinitely more protein than human breast milk. But again, it’s going to take me months, maybe years, to break all this down. It’s a whole new type of placental we are dealing with here. And I barely have what I need to begin.”

“Rowan was normal,” said Lark. “Rowan carried a package of apparently useless genes. When conception occurred these genes were switched on to start certain processes.”

“Yes. The normal human genome functioned consistently and well in her, but she had these extra genes intertwined within the double helix, waiting for some sort of trigger to cause their DNA to begin its instructions.”

“Are you cloning this DNA successfully?”

“Absolutely. But even at the rate that these cells multiply it takes time. And by the way, there is another curious aspect to these cells. They’re resistant to every virus I’ve hit them with; they’re resistant to every strain of bacteria. But they are also extremely elastic. It’s all in the membrane, as I said before. It’s not human membrane. And when these cells die-in intense heat or intense cold-they tend to leave almost no residue at all.”

“They shrink? They disappear?”

“Let’s say they contract, and there you have one of the most provocative aspects of this thing. If there are others like it on this earth, they have left no evidence in the fossil record for the simple reason that the remains tend to contract and disintegrate much more quickly than human remains.”

“Fossil record? Why are we suddenly talking about a fossil record? One minute we have a monster…”

“No, we never had a monster. We have a different sort of placental primate, one with enormous advantages. Its own enzymes dissolve it at the moment of death, apparently. And the bones, that is another whole question. The bones don’t appear to have hardened. I don’t know for sure. I wish I had a team of men working on this. I wish I had the entire Institute-”

“Is this stuff compatible with our own DNA? I mean can you split the strand and combine it with our-”

“No. God, you surgeons are geniuses. Forty percent similarity isn’t enough. You can’t breed rats to monkeys, Lark. And there’s some other violent reaction going on. Maybe just too much conflicting genetic instruction being given by its DNA. Damned if I know. But they sure as hell don’t combine. I haven’t been able to culture it with any human cells. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. The thing might have come about because of very rapid repetitive mutations inside of nucleotides in a given gene.”

“Back up, I can’t follow that. Like you just said, I’m a surgeon.”

“I always knew you guys didn’t really know what you were doing.”

“Mitch, if we did know what we were doing, how could we do it? When you need us, and pray you never do, you’ll bless us for our ignorance and our sense of humor and our sheer nerve. Now…this thing…it can’t breed with humans?”

“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 looked? 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.