Quickly, she explained how she had analyzed the fibers from the packing crate. She showed him the incised [280] disk with its harvest scene. She described the discovery and contents of Whittlesey’s journal and letter, and the talk with Jörgensen. And she mentioned how the hysterical old woman described in Whittlesey’s journal could not have been referring to the figurine when she warned the scientist about Mbwun.
Frock listened, gently turning the stone disk over in his hands. “It’s an interesting story,” he said. “But why the urgency? Chances are your sample just got contaminated. And for all we know, that old woman was insane, or Whittlesey’s recollections just got a bit scrambled.”
“That’s what I thought originally. But look at this,” Margo said, handing Frock the printout.
He scanned it quickly. “Curious,” he said. “But I don’t think that this ...”
His voice trailed off as his pudgy fingers ran down the columns of proteins.
“Margo,” he said, looking up. “I was far too hasty. It is contamination of sorts, but not from a human being.”
“What do you mean?” Margo asked.
“See this hexagonal ambyloid reovirus protein? This is the protein from the shell of a virus that infects animals and plants. Look at how much of it there is in here. And you have reverse transcriptase, an enzyme almost always found in association with viruses.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
Frock turned to her impatiently. “What you have here is a plant heavily infected with a virus. Your DNA sequencer was mixing them up, coding for both. Many plants carry viruses like this. A bit of DNA or RNA in a protein coat. They infect the plant, take over some of its cells, then they insert their genetic material into the plant’s genes. The plant genes start producing more viruses, instead of what they’re supposed to produce. The oak-gall virus makes those brown balls you see on oak leaves, but otherwise it’s harmless. Burls on maple and [281] pine trees are also caused by viruses. They’re just as common in plants as they are in animals.”
“I know, Dr. Frock, but—”
“There is something in here I don’t understand,” he said, laying down the printout. “A virus normally codes for other viruses. Why would a virus code for all these human and animal proteins? Look at all these. Most of them are hormones. What good are human hormones in a plant?”
“That’s what I wanted to tell you,” Margo said. “I looked up some of the hormones. A lot of them seem to be from the human hypothalamus gland.”
Frock’s head jerked as if he had been slapped. “Hypothalamus?” His eyes were suddenly alive.
“That’s right.”
“And the creature that’s loose in this Museum is eating the hypothalamus of its victims! So it must need these hormones—perhaps it’s even addicted to these hormones,” Frock blurted. “Think: there are only two sources: the plants—which, thanks to this unique virus, are probably saturated with the hormones—and the human hypothalamus. When the creature can’t get the fibers, it eats the brain!”
“Jesus, how awful,” Margo breathed.
“This is stunning. It explains exactly what’s behind these terrible murders. With this, we can now put the pieces together. We have a creature loose in the Museum, killing people, opening the calvaria, removing the brain, and eating the thalamoid region where the hormones are most concentrated.”
He continued to look at her, his hands trembling slightly. “Cuthbert told us that he’d hunted up the crates in order to retrieve the Mbwun figurine, only to find one of the crates broken open and the fibers scattered about. In fact, now that I think of it, one of the larger crates was nearly empty of fibers. So this creature must have been eating the fibers for some time. Maxwell obviously used the same fibers to pack his crates. The creature may [282] not need to eat much—the hormonal concentration in the plants must be very high-but it obviously needs to eat regularly.”
Frock leaned back in the wheelchair. “Ten days ago, the crates were moved into the Secure Area, and then three days later, the two boys are killed. Another day, and a guard is killed. What has happened‘? Simple: the beast cannot get to the fibers anymore, so it kills a human being and eats its hypothalamus, thus satisfying its craving. But the hypothalamus only secretes minute amounts of these hormones, making it a poor substitute for this fiber. Based on the concentrations described in this printout, I’d hazard a guess that it would require fifty human brains to equal the concentration found in half an ounce of these plants.”
“Dr. Frock,” Margo said, “I think the Kothoga were growing this plant. Whittlesey collected some specimens in his plant press, and the picture on this incised disk is of a plant being harvested. I’m sure these fibers are just the pounded stems from the lily pad in Whittlesey’s press—the plant depicted on this disk. And now we know: these fibers are what the woman was referring to when she screamed ‘Mbwun.’ Mbwun, son of the devil: That’s the name of this plant!”
She quickly brought the strange plant out of the press. It was dark brown and shrivelled, with a web of black veins. The leaf was thick and leathery, and the black stem as hard as a dried root. Gingerly, Margo brought her nose close to it. It smelled musky.
Frock looked at it with a mixture of fear and fascination. “Margo, that’s brilliant,” he said. “The Kothoga must have built a whole ceremonial facade around this plant, its harvest and preparation—no doubt to appease the creature. And no doubt that very beast is depicted in the figurine. But how did it get here? Why did it come?”
“I think I can guess,” Margo said, her thoughts racing. “Yesterday, the friend who helped me search the crates told me he read of a similar series of murders in [283] New Orleans several years ago. They’d occurred on a freighter coming in from Belém. My friend located the shipping records of the Museum crates, and he found that the crates were on board that ship.”
“So the creature was following the crates,” said Frock.
“And that’s why the FBI man, Pendergast, came up from Louisiana,” Margo replied.
Frock turned, his eyes burning. “Dear God. We’ve lured some terrible beast into a museum in the heart of New York City. It’s the Callisto Effect with a vengeance: a savage predator, bent on our destruction this time. Let’s pray there’s only one.”
“But just what kind of creature could it be?” asked Margo.
“I don’t know,” Frock answered. “Something that lived up on the tepui, eating these plants. A bizarre species, perhaps surviving since the time of the dinosaurs in tiny numbers. Or perhaps the product of a freak turn of evolution. The tepui, you see, is a highly fragile ecosystem, a biological island of unusual species surrounded by rain forest. In such places, animals and plants can develop strange parallels, strange dependencies on each other. A shared DNA pool—think of it! And then—”
Frock was silent.
“Then!” he said loudly, slapping his hand on the arm of the wheelchair. “Then they discover gold and platinum on that tepui! Isn’t that what Jörgensen told you? Shortly after the expedition fell apart, they fired the tepui, built a road, brought in heavy mining equipment. They destroyed the entire ecosystem of that tepui, and the Kothoga tribe with it. They polluted the rivers and swamps with mercury and cyanide.”
Margo nodded vigorously. “The fires burned for weeks, out of control. And the plant that sustained this creature became extinct.”
[284] “So the creature started on a journey, to follow these crates and the food it so desperately craved.”
Frock fell into silence, his head settling on his chest.
“Dr. Frock,” Margo finally said quietly. “How did the creature know the crates had gone to Belém?”
Frock looked at her and blinked. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “That’s strange, isn’t it?”
Suddenly Frock was gripping the sides of the wheelchair, rising up in his excitement. “Margo!” he said. “We can find out exactly what this creature is. We have the means right here. The Extrapolator! We�
��ve got the creature’s DNA: we’ll feed it into the program and get a description.”
Margo blinked. “You mean the claw?”
“Exactly!” He wheeled around to the lab’s workstation and his fingers began moving over the keys. “I had the printout Pendergast left us scanned into the computer,” he said. “I’ll load its data into Gregory’s program right now. Help me set things up, will you?”
Margo took Frock’s place at the keyboard. In a moment, another message flashed:
ESTIMATED TIME TO COMPLETION: 55.30 minutes.
Hey, Margo, this looks like a big job. Why don’t you send out for pizza? The best place in town is Antonio’s. I recommend the green chili and pepperoni. Shall I fax them your order now?
The time was quarter past five.
= 40 =
D’Agosta watched with amusement as two burly workmen unrolled a red carpet between two lines of palm trees in the Museum’s Great Rotunda, out through the bronze doors and down the front steps.
That’s gonna get rained on, he thought. It was dusk, and outside D’Agosta could see big thunderheads piling up to the north and west, rising like mountains above the wind-lashed trees along Riverside Drive. A distant roll of thunder rattled the artifacts in the Rotunda’s preview case, and a few stray drops began to pelt the frosted glass of the bronze doors. It was going to be a monster storm—the satellite picture on the morning news left no doubt. That fancy red carpet was going to get soaked. And a lot of fancy people along with it.
The Museum had closed its doors to the public at five o’clock. The beautiful people wouldn’t be arriving until seven. The press was there already: television vans with satellite uplinks, photographers talking loudly to each other, equipment everywhere.
[286] D’Agosta spoke into his police radio, giving orders. He had close to two dozen men stationed strategically around the Hall of the Heavens and in other areas inside and outside the Museum. It was lucky, he thought, that he’d finally figured out his way around much of the place. Already, two of his men had become lost and had to be radioed back out.
D’Agosta wasn’t happy. At the four o’clock briefing, he had requested a final sweep through the exhibition. Coffey had vetoed it, as well as heavy weapons for the plainclothes and uniformed men inside the party. Might scare the guests, Coffey had said. D’Agosta glanced over toward the four walk-through metal detectors, equipped with X-ray conveyor belts. Thank God for those, at least, he thought.
D’Agosta turned and, once again, looked around for Pendergast. He hadn’t been at the briefing. In fact, D’Agosta hadn’t seen him since the meeting with Ippolito that morning.
His radio crackled.
“Hey, Lieutenant? This is Henley. I’m here in front of the stuffed elephants, but I can’t seem to find the Marine Hall. I thought you said—”
D’Agosta cut him short, watching a crew testing what had to be the biggest bank of lights since Gone with the Wind. “Henley? You see the big doorway with the tusks? Okay, just go through that and take two hard rights. Call me when you’re in position. Your partner is Wilson.”
“Wilson? You know I don’t like partnering with a woman, sir—”
“Henley? There’s something else.”
“What’s that?”
“Wilson’s gonna be carrying the twelve-gauge.”
“Wait a minute, Lieutenant, you’re—”
D’Agosta snapped him off.
There was a loud grinding sound behind him, and a [287] thick steel door began to descend from the ceiling at the north end of the Great Rotunda. They were starting to seal the perimeter. Two FBI men stood in the dimness just beyond the doorway, short-barrel shotguns not quite concealed beneath their loose suit jackets. D’Agosta snorted.
There was a great hollow boom as the steel plate came to rest on the floor. The sound echoed and reechoed through the Hall. Before the echo faded, the boom was duplicated by the descending door at the south end. Only the east door would be left up—where the red carpet ended. Christ, thought D’Agosta, I’d hate to see this place in a fire.
He heard a loud voice barking at the far end of the Hall and turned to see Coffey, pointing his scurrying men in all directions.
Coffey spotted him. “Hey, D’Agosta!” he shouted, gesturing him over.
D’Agosta ignored him. Now Coffey came swaggering up, his face perspiring. Gizmos and weapons D’Agosta had heard about but had never seen were dangling off Coffey’s thick service belt.
“You deaf, D’Agosta? I want you to send two of your men over here for a while and watch this door. Nobody goes in or out.”
Jesus, thought D’Agosta. There are five FBI guys just hanging around in the Great Rotunda, picking their noses. “My men are tied up, Coffey. Use one of your Rambos over there. I mean, you’re deploying most of your men just outside the perimeter. I have to station my forces inside to protect the guests, not to mention the traffic duty outside. The rest of the Museum’s going to be almost empty, and the party will be under-patrolled. I don’t like that.”
Coffey hitched up his belt and glared at D’Agosta. “You know what? I don’t give a shit what you don’t [288] like. Just do your job. And keep a channel open for me.” He strode off.
D’Agosta swore. He looked at his watch. Sixty minutes and counting.
= 41 =
The CRT on the computer went blank, and another message came up:
COMPLETED: DO YOU WANT TO PRINT DATA, VIEW DATA, OR BOTH (PNB)?
Margo hit the B key. As the data marched across the screen, Frock wheeled his chair to a stop and brought his face close to the screen, his ragged breath misting the terminal glass.
SPECIES: Unidentified
GENUS: Unidentified
FAMILY: 12% match to Pongidae; 16% match to Hominidae
ORDER: Possibly primata; 66% common genetic markers lacking; large standard deviation.
[290] CLASS: 25% match to Mammalia; 5% match to Reptilia
PHYLUM: Chordata
KINGDOM: Animalia
Morphological characteristics: Highly robust
Brain capacity: 900-1250cc
Quadrupedal, extreme posterior-anterior dimorphism
Potentially high sexual dimorphism
Weight, male, full grown: 240-260 kg
Weight, female, full grown: 160 kg
Gestation period: Seven to nine months
Aggressiveness: extreme
Estrus cycle in female: enhanced
Locomotor speed: 60-70 kph
Epidermal covering: Anterior pelt with posterior bony plates
Nocturnal
Frock scanned the list, running his finger- down. “Reptilia!” he said. “There are those gecko genes appearing again! It appears that the creature combines reptile and primate genes. And it has posterior scales. They must also be from the gecko genes.”
Margo read down the list of characteristics as they became more and more obscure.
Gross enlargement and fusion of metacarpal bones in rear limb
Probable atavistic fusion of forelimb No. 3 & 4 digits
Fusion of proximal and middle phalanx on forelimb
Extreme thickening of calvaria
Probable 90% (?) negative rotation of ischium
[291] Extreme thickening and prismatic cross-sectioning in femur
Nasal cavity enlarged
Three (?) highly involute conchae
Enlarged olfactory nerves and olfactory region of cerebellum
Probable external mucoid nasal glands
Reduced optic chiasm, reduced optic nerve
Frock slowly backed himself away from the monitor. “Margo,” he said, “this describes a killing machine of the highest order. But look how many ‘probables’ and ‘possibles’ there are. This is a hypothetical description, at best.”
“Even so,” said Margo, “it sounds an awful lot like the Mbwun figurine in the exhibition.”
“No doubt. Margo, I particularly want to direct your attention to the brain size.”
“Nine to twelve hundred and fifty cubic centimeters,” Margo said, retrieving the printout. “That’s high, isn’t it?”
“High? It’s unbelievable. The upper limit is within human range. This beast, whatever it is, appears to have the strength of a grizzly bear, the speed of a greyhound, and the intelligence of a human being. I say appears; so much of this is conjecture on the part of the program. But look at this cluster of traits.”
He stabbed his finger at the list.
“Nocturnal—active at night. External mucoid nasal glands—that means it has a ‘wet’ nose, possessed by animals with a keen scent. Highly involute conchaealso a trait of animals with enhanced olfactory organs. Reduced optic chiasm—that is the part of the brain that processes eyesight. What we have is a creature with a preternatural sense of smell and very poor eyesight that hunts nocturnally.”
Frock thought for a moment, his brows contracted.
“Margo, this frightens me.”
“If we’re right, the whole idea of this creature frightens me,” Margo replied. She shuddered at the thought that she’d been working with the fibers herself.
“No, I mean this cluster of olfactory traits. If the program’s extrapolation is to be believed, the creature lives by smell, hunts by smell, thinks by smell. I’ve often heard it said that a dog sees an entire landscape of smell, as complex and beautiful as any landscape we see with our eyes. But the olfactory sense is more primitive than sight, and as a result, such animals also have a highly instinctual, primitive reaction to smell. That is what frightens me.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“In a few minutes, thousands of people will be arriving in the Museum. They will be congregating together in an enclosed space. The creature will be smelling the concentrated hormonal scent of all these people. That may very well irritate or even anger it.”
A silence settled in the lab.
“Dr. Frock,” Margo said, “you said that a couple of days elapsed from the locking up of the crates and the first killing. Then, another day to the second killing. It’s been three days since then.”
Relic Page 24
