Jake affirmed it was good enough and asked about Roger’s kid.
“Seventh grader,” Roger said. “Can you believe it? Everything I tell him, he says ‘I know’ and then does it different. But hell, he’s a good kid, playing football like he was meant to do it.” A pause, and Jake smiled, knowing that Roger was pushing up his glasses on his nose, something he did every few sentences. “Marie’s a bitch about everything else but letting me see him, so we make it work.” Another pause, longer this time. “Are you . . . ?”
Jake shuffled his feet, waiting for Roger to finish the question. He had called from the Whitehorse general store, one of the only places in Whitehorse that had a phone he could use, and the owner was watching him out of the corner of his eye. Outside, a late spring flurry was showering snowflakes down onto Main Street.
“Are you okay?”
“Hanging in there,” Jake said. “Thanks, Roger.”
“Sometimes it’s beautiful,” Roger said, the old words sounding the same as they had back in the days when they both had been young in body, their minds and souls aging faster every day, baking in the hot desert sun. Roger hadn’t had glasses then, he’d had goggles and a Kevlar helmet, and his son had still been in diapers.
“But usually it’s shit,” Jake replied automatically, and hung up the phone.
Now he walked up to Rachel. If he’d had a hat, he supposed he would have been holding it in both hands. He had to step around in front of her to make her look at him. As she did, her face lost its careful, cheery look. “What?”
“Upstream?” he asked.
“I can manage,” she replied, slinging her backpack over her shoulder.
“Okay.” He turned and gestured upstream. “A little feeder creek comes in upstream; I can’t remember how far. If you follow it for a ways, it opens up and there’s a little wetland, different from this.” He gestured at the low, boggy ground leading down to the river. The dark green tamaracks were starting to turn yellow, and behind them the gunmetal river lay flat, without so much as a ripple. “There were some marsh marigolds, a few ladyslippers around the edges. Seemed a lot more colorful than what we have here.” He toed a group of small mushrooms that had emerged overnight, a fairy ring of gray-capped fungi. “You want some animal life, too, right?”
She nodded cautiously. “You’ve been here before?”
“Years ago. Scouting for a trapline. It’s one of those places not many people visit. I thought I might take a pile of fur.”
“Did you?”
“I didn’t set a trap,” he said. “There’s not much here to hold critters.”
“Did you ever . . .” she paused, chewed at the bottom of her lip. “Did you see anything unusual when you were here? Animals acting strangely?”
“How do you mean?”
Behind them, the diesel engine started, and a faint whiff of exhaust passed over them. He stepped out of the plume and she moved with him. “How much do you know about what we’re after?” she asked. “Has Warren briefed you, or are you just . . .”
“I’m just the help,” he said. “I don’t know anything.”
“I can’t tell you specifics,” she said, “but you should know how important this is.” She leaned in closer to him, close enough that he could smell her, a bit sweaty after several days in the bush but pleasant nonetheless.
Concentrate, Jake. Jesus.
“The material we’re looking for has incredible biomedical potential. It interacts with living tissue, particularly the nervous system. If I can find evidence that the phenomenon is occurring naturally, we can use that information as a boilerplate for duplicating it in the laboratory.”
“Regenerative properties?”
Rachel’s eyes opened a bit. “You’re not just the help.”
“I am,” Jake said. “I just have some experience with nerves and the brain. Personal experience, nothing professional. Anytime someone says ‘biomedical’ and ‘nervous system,’ the Holy Grail is always trying to repair lost connections. Deserae’s doctor always said . . .” His sentence trailed off. He had not said her name aloud for over a year, not since the last time he had seen her. “Never mind.”
She stood looking at him. “I’m not here for an environmental review,” she said at last. She glanced behind her, saw that Warren was busy talking to Greer, and turned back to Jake. “And we’re not just taking samples. Every ounce we take out of here could save thousands of lives, could help people walk again. And it’s more than regenerative, Jake. It’s transformative.”
“How do you mean?”
Her eyes flitted across his face. “I’m being literal. The material we’re after has a carrying capacity, a way to retain properties from one medium to the other. Or from one organism to another. And it not only transfers the properties, in certain cases it magnifies them.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“Think about scar tissue,” she said. He could tell she was impatient, not necessarily with him, but in the way that all intelligent people could be when forced to explain something they already knew and accepted as basic fact. “It grows back to replace damaged tissue. But it’s stronger, has a different cellular composition. In a way, it demonstrates that our body has learned. Learned it is susceptible to damage, so it makes sure we don’t make the same mistakes. Do you understand?”
“We won’t get fooled again,” he said, nodding.
“The Who? Really?”
“British band? I’m Canadian, Rachel. Come on, put two and two together.”
“I’m being a bit of a nerd, aren’t I?”
He had to smile. “Nerds are usually a bit . . . softer . . . when they’re lecturing us rubes.”
“Geek, maybe? No? An ass, then. I’m sorry,” she said, “I just get excited about this. See, the material not only imprints properties from one organism to another of the same kind, it can transmute. So the properties of a highly mobile organism can be transferred to a more stationary one. When the trees started shaking . . .” She paused, smiling at herself, at her silliness, her teeth flashing. Jake felt his breath shorten a bit. “I thought that it was what we were looking for.”
“The reaction.”
“Yes.”
“You thought the trees had come alive.”
She glanced at him, searching for mockery, and found none. “We’ve seen it in the lab. Not trees, but algae.”
“No shit?”
“No shit. We set up different nutrient concentrations. When they’re exposed to the material—we only have a few grams—they actively seek out their food. But only when the material is exposed to bacteria or invertebrates first. It takes the neurological properties from the first organism it’s exposed to, the sensations and processing abilities, and transfers them to other organisms.” She paused. “It turns them into sentient beings.”
They were quiet for a moment. Behind them, voices from the crew came through the purr of the diesel engine and the soft scraping of the new core tube. Far off, a raven croaked its news into the azure summer sky.
“Can I ask you another question?” he said.
“You can ask.”
“Are you working for the military?”
She held his gaze. “I’m working to advance the science,” she said at last. “That’s enough. Now me.”
“Go ahead.”
“Will you help me?”
* * *
He moved slowly, not dawdling but giving her enough time to survey the land. There was little to be found in the way of life on the valley slope, sentient or not, just lichen-covered rock and sedge grasses, the occasional stunted birch, more of the gray-colored fungi. He was glad he had sprayed his hiking boots with water repellent before they’d left. It had been unusually wet this summer, and the ground around the valley was a combination of clay and gravel that held moisture like a sponge. Their boots squelched as they walked upstream, the sound of the drill rig growing fainter behind them.
He found the feeder creek within an hour, the w
ater clear and cold where it cascaded out of a notch in the valley slope. Alders clung to the creek edges, and he backtracked a few steps to more open ground, then turned upstream. The wetland was less than a hundred yards away, an acre-sized marsh dotted with color. The marigolds were no longer blooming, but there were irises and lilies near the edges of the water, and farther back Jake could see a small patch of what looked like pink ladyslippers. There were ripples on the far end of the little pond, and he held up his hand. They waited, and a moment later two green-winged teal emerged from the vegetation, the drake with a bright orange head streaked with stripes of green over its eyes, the hen drab but exquisitely feathered. They saw Jake and Rachel, frozen at the far end of the pond, and swam back into the reeds.
“Those ducks used to be cattails,” Jake whispered.
“Shut up,” she said, slapping his arm. She looked at the water’s surface, which was marked by water striders and other bugs. “This is perfect. I’m going to be here awhile.”
She was excited, he saw. Not just by the place but by the chance to test out her hypothesis. Jake leaned back against a tree, watching. She moved slowly, snapping pictures and consulting her field guides, tapping notes into the tablet at regular intervals. She reminded him of a blue heron stalking the edge of the water. He smiled and sat down against the trunk of the tree, and dozed. He woke in the mid-morning sunshine and saw her on the far side of the pond, her boots off and her pantlegs rolled above her knees. He waved at her, but she was intent on some plant lying flat on the surface of the water. He slept again, and when he woke she was sitting a few yards away, pulling her socks back on.
“Mibosa candelabra,” she said excitedly. “Can’t be sure, but I think I’m right. Also known as the candle-flower.”
He blinked, looking at her sample bags. “Where is it?”
She gestured to the far side of the wetland. “They are over there. A few dozen, all past bloom, so I can’t be completely sure of the species. But they moved, Jake. I’m almost certain of it. I even have video.”
He stood, feeling oddly off-balance by her presence. “They moved?”
“As I was approaching.” She pulled her boots on and stood. “They’re anchored by their roots, but they swiveled away from me. The levels of... the levels of the material up here, in this end of the valley, are very low, if the geomag pattern from the satellites is correct. But it’s still a high enough concentration to allow the candleflowers to take on the evasive response of the insects in the pond. Or the fish, or the ducks. My god,” she said, flopping back on the ground and clenching her fists. “Do you know what this means?”
“I don’t think so.”
She sat up. “If we can take the material back and replicate this, then we can take something slow and make it fast, or take something growing too fast and slow it down. That’s just the beginning. Jake, we might be able to take something that’s stopped entirely and make it start back up again.” She paused, looking at him and frowning. “I shouldn’t be talking this much.”
“Like someone with a spinal injury, you mean?”
“Yes,” she said. “And we could take something that is moving too fast and make it slow down.”
He considered this. “Now we’re curing cancer,” he said at last. “What else can we get done this afternoon? We need to keep going, Rachel. Quit resting on your laurels.”
“You know it’s not that simple,” Rachel said.
“I know,” he said. “Congratulations.”
“If we do make a breakthrough, it won’t be for years.”
He nodded, staring at the far end of the pond. The ducks had not reemerged from the reeds, and he wondered if they had taken flight while he was sleeping. It had been years since he had taken a true nap, and to do so now in this wilderness, with a near-complete stranger as his only company, was odd. Perhaps it was the ibuprofen, or the reprieve from the inflammatory pain. Or perhaps it was simply feeling comfortable, and content. And he was content, working on something other than guiding outsiders to the next walleye, the next moose.
“Who’s Deserae?”
“What?”
“You mentioned her earlier. Something about her doctor.”
He brushed the leaves and dirt from his clothes and stretched. “You want to keep going up the valley?”
“No, we’re good for the morning.” She looked at him. “I’m sorry, Jake. I didn’t mean to pry.”
He waved it off. “Is there anything else?”
“No. Thank you so much. I mean that. This could be the beginning of something very big.”
He slung his backpack over his shoulder. It was the first time she’d said thank you, the first time he’d heard someone else say Deserae’s name in a very long time. “Let’s go.”
* * *
When they crested the next slope, they saw the crew huddled around the drill rig, the core tube retracted so that it looked like a single large antenna poised above the main structure. Jake paused, Rachel beside him, catching her breath from the ascent. They were less than two hundred yards from the drill site. Cameron and Jaimie were still inside the tarp lean-to Jake had constructed using the camouflage tarp that had covered the drill rig and fuel containers, their heads bent over as they worked inside the shadows. Warren’s voice came floating to them, the words indistinct but the tone insistent, barking some order or another.
“Looks like he finally got some samples,” Rachel said, watching Cameron and Jaimie separating out several lines of dark brown soil, or mineral.
“Samples of what, exactly?” Jake asked. “Some kind of ore?”
She turned to him. Her hair was tangled, and she was sweating a little in the afternoon heat. “Have you heard of Prometheus?”
“The Greek god?”
“Close. He was a Titan, the creator of man, the one who breathed life into creation. The one who supposedly stole fire from Mount Olympus and gave it to mankind, instead of only the gods having it.”
“A socialist god. Okay.”
She smiled. “We’re looking for a form of promethium. It’s a rare earth element, usually used to make magnetic imaging devices. The particular mineral it forms here makes this type of promethium very, very special.”
Jake looked out across the valley, passing over the unremarkable river to the steep bluffs on the northern end. To the south, there was just the green swarm of northern forests and bog, the same bush they had waded through for days. The sky above them was unmarked by jet contrails. The closest thing to civilization was the village of Highbanks seventeen miles away, his hometown, where he’d lived until he was sixteen years old. “And this is the only place you can find promethium?”
“No,” she said. “China has some significant deposits. Russia and Iran, too.”
“Ahh, all of our good friends. I bet they like sharing. Tell me something, Rachel.”
“I’ve already told you too much. If Warren finds out—”
“He won’t,” Jake said. “Tell me, are there other applications for promethium?”
Below them, the diesel engine hummed back to life and the core tube descended quickly, pausing with two feet of tubing above the top of the rig. She turned to watch, and Jake studied her face, then turned back to the operation. Greer threaded a new tube into the one already in the ground, and the next section of tubing went down, moving faster, almost plunging into the earth. Whatever stratum they were in now was much softer than the soils above it.
“Rachel?”
“Yes,” she said. “There are other applications. Can we get back to camp, please? I’m tired, and I need to log what I’ve found while it’s still fresh in my mind.”
They started toward the drill site. They were halfway down the valley slope when the ground began to tremble. At first he thought it was a landslide and he craned his head upslope, an old mountain habit. But there weren’t any rocks coming down on them. It was another shaker, a mini-earthquake, similar to what they had experienced the night before.
“It�
�ll pass,” he said. “Just wait it out.”
The shaking intensified, the rumbling growing, and then the ground rippled under them, lurching one way and then the other. Rachel slipped and he reached out and caught her by the sleeve, the jackhammer vibrations from the ground almost tearing her from his grip. There was a small copse of stunted birch rooted into a ledge of bedrock nearby, and they stumbled toward it, the ground convulsing beneath them.
“Grab on.” He motioned toward the largest birch, only about four inches in diameter. He grasped a slightly smaller tree a few feet away, the trunk shaking wildly. He noticed Rachel had wedged her boots against the base of the trunk of another birch, and he did the same. From downslope they could hear Warren’s frantic cries for Greer to shut the machine down.
“Jake?”
“Hold on,” he said, his voice shaking from the constant thrumming coursing through his body. “I don’t know.”
Greer lurched to the drill rig, which was now tilted at a ten-degree angle. He was only a few yards away when the ground buckled under him and he pitched forward. The drill rig tilted at a steeper and steeper angle, the diesel engine sending a plume of clear, rippling exhaust into the air. The core tube shrieked as the metal crimped, then sheared off. Greer got to his feet, his beard wet with blood, and stumbled forward for the kill switch. The ground jerked violently and he pitched forward, his forehead striking the corner of the rig’s frame, tilted two feet off the ground. Greer fell to the ground, shuddering either from his injury or the gyrations of the ground. Parkson had been crawling toward the rig but now seemed frozen, crouched on his hands and knees and staring at Greer. Warren was trying to get to his feet but seemed to be stuck. A small seam of mud had appeared next to him, the slick brown earth quivering and rippling.
“Jake?” Rachel asked again. “It’s an earthquake, isn’t it?”
“I don’t think so,” Jake said. The diesel engine, no longer laboring against the bent core tube, was revving at a much higher rate than it would normally idle, and the angle of the rig kept increasing. The exhaust was turning dark as engine oil spilled into the cylinders. “Stay here, Rachel.”
Resurrection Pass Page 7
