The Back of the Turtle

by Thomas King

  Riel.

  “Here I am, Auntie Mara,” Lilly had written in a cartoon balloon above the baby’s head. “Hurry home and change my diaper.”

  Mara had been stunned by the picture. She hadn’t realized that Lilly had been pregnant. How could that have happened? Where had the time gone? How had she lost track of her best friend? Lilly with a child. It was impossible to imagine. And wonderful. Auntie Mara. God, it sounded like something you would put on a wound.

  Maybe Riel could call her something else.

  MARA added cerulean and ochre to the board as she tried to remember the evenings the two of them had walked to town and back, talking about the futures they imagined for themselves. Lilly was going to raise horses in Alberta. Mara was going to go to France and become a world-famous artist.

  Those were their dreams.

  But even then, realities had begun to hem them in.

  Lilly’s mother had injured herself in a fall. The recovery had taken longer than anticipated, and, along with the pain, there had been unexpected moments of forgetfulness and sudden rages.

  “Mum’s not well,” Lilly had told Mara. “It’s not just the hip.”

  By the time Mara was fifteen, it was clear that Rose wasn’t going to get better.

  “I can raise horses anywhere,” Lilly had told Mara. “But you have to go to Paris. Don’t even think about staying.”

  THE light vanished, and the colours dimmed and died on the canvas. Mara put the brush down. She hadn’t accomplished much, but tomorrow she would do a little more. And, after that, a little more. Until Lilly and Rose and baby Riel came back to life.

  Life.

  There it was.

  Standing at the easel, looking at what she had created, Mara realized that she might have found a purpose, something that would help her push past the numbing sorrow, something that would help her make the world whole again.

  22

  AS IT TURNED OUT, DORIAN DIDN’T GET TO THE GYM UNTIL well after seven. Miscellaneous conference calls, a disagreement with the agricultural ministers of several European Union countries over seed-licensing agreements, news that Silhouette, a weight-loss product Domidion had released three years ago, was being linked to kidney failure in teenage girls and young women, and a less than encouraging report on the corporation’s expansion efforts into China.

  Domidion’s health club was on the ground floor of the complex. Dorian tried to spend at least an hour in the facility each day. Thirty minutes on the rowing machine, an assortment of free weights, followed by twenty minutes on one of the elliptical trainers. When he had time, he would swim laps in the salt-water pool as well.

  He was on the elliptical trainer when an older woman carved her way through the barbells and the machines. Dorian was sure he recognized her, but he couldn’t place the face.

  “Mr. Asher.”

  Dorian maintained his speed.

  “Victoria Lustig. Public Relations,” said the woman. “Your assistant said I might find you here.”

  Dorian glanced at the monitor. “Three minutes. I’d like to finish my workout.”

  The woman looked around the gym as though she had just realized where she was. “Certainly,” she said. “We can do that.”

  The monitor had his heart rate at 142. He would like to get to 150 and hold it there for twenty minutes, but that would have to wait until next time. Dorian shortened his stride and began slowing the pace, allowing his body to cool down.

  Victoria Lustig from Public Relations waited patiently, working the cellphone with her thumbs.

  Dorian glided to a stop, wrapped the towel around his neck, and stepped off the machine. “All right, Victoria Lustig, what can I do for you?”

  “The major networks are lining up, and they’re being quite insistent.”

  Dorian wiped the sweat off his face. “They don’t waste any time, do they.”

  “They do not.”

  Lustig was a tall woman with broad shoulders and stout legs. She was neither pretty nor handsome, but looked quite capable of bringing down large antelopes and small deer all on her own.

  “Let’s find a celebrity who can go on camera and talk about our efforts to preserve wilderness habitat. Somebody sympathetic. Someone the public likes.”

  “This isn’t about the fish kill,” said Lustig. “It’s about an employee.”

  Dorian could feel his heart pick up speed, as though he were still on the machine. “An employee?”

  “One of our scientists,” said Lustig. “A Dr. Gabriel Quinn.”

  WINTER had rearranged Dorian’s office so that the three of them could watch the television at the same time.

  “CBC’s En Garde,” said Lustig, as she worked the remote. “The topic is genetically modified foods.”

  Dorian watched as the host of the show, a stunning darkhaired woman named Manisha Khan, introduced her guest, a middle-aged man with glasses and a bald head that glistened under the studio lights.

  “Thicke?”

  Manisha started the discussion by asking the perennial question. Were genetically modified foods safe for consumers?

  “Well, Manisha,” said Thicke, leaping in with no encouragement. “Humans have been modifying their food for centuries. It’s nothing new. The Egyptians created hybrid varieties of wheat.”

  “So Domidion is doing the same thing the Egyptians did.”

  Dorian wondered if anyone had ever told Thicke that when he smiled, he looked like a dolphin.

  “Not exactly, Manisha. We’ve come a long way since the Egyptians.”

  “But are industry safeguards sufficient to protect the crops we depend on?”

  “Absolutely,” said Thicke, smiling his goofy dolphin smile. “Nothing leaves our research facilities until it has been thoroughly tested.”

  “What about Klebsiella planticola? Wasn’t that modified with disastrous results?”

  Dorian resisted the urge to strangle the armrests on the chair.

  “Yes,” said Thicke, without breaking stride. “That’s the example critics always dredge up. Klebsiella planticola is a beneficial and benign organism, and, yes, one of the modified versions did have potentially unacceptable side effects, but the important thing to remember, Manisha, is that because of the safeguards the industry imposes on itself, that virus never got out of the laboratory.”

  “A bacterium,” said Dorian, under his breath. “A bacterium, you idiot.”

  “But isn’t Klebsiella planticola a bacterium?”

  “Absolutely,” said Thicke, his voice going thin and reedy. “Slip of the tongue. Yes, of course, it’s a bacterium.”

  “And it wasn’t the industry that recognized the danger the bacteria posed, was it? It was the work of an independent team of scientists at a university that saved the day.”

  “All part of the safeguards, Manisha. All part of the safeguards.”

  “We’re talking with Dr. Warren Thicke, a senior scientist with Domidion’s Biological Oversight. After the break, we’ll continue our talk with Dr. Thicke about genetically modified foods.”

  Dorian stared at the screen. “How long is the show?”

  “Half an hour.”

  “When he smiles,” said Dorian, “he looks like a damn dolphin.”

  “That’s good,” said Winter. “People like dolphins.”

  Lustig held up the remote. “Shall I fast-forward through the commercial break?”

  The colours jumbled and flashed across the screen, and then the show was back, Manisha sitting alertly in the easy chair, Thicke relaxing on the sofa.

  “Today we’re talking with Dr. Warren Thicke, a senior scientist at Domidion, about the dangers of genetically modified foods.”

  Thicke nodded his head and chuckled. “That will be a short conversation, Manisha, because the dangers are almost non-existent.”

  Dorian saw it immediately. The flash in Manisha’s eyes, the look of a cat who’d come across a chubby rodent.

  “Still, a year ago, when En Garde talked wit
h Dr. Gabriel Quinn about this same subject, he told us that genetically modified foods were not being adequately tested.”

  Thicke reddened and sat up straight. “That’s a matter of opinion, Manisha.”

  “But isn’t Dr. Quinn the head of Biological Oversight at Domidion?”

  Dorian could see the sweat bead up on Thicke’s head.

  “You have to understand, biogenetics is a field that changes daily.”

  “So, Dr. Quinn is … out of date?”

  “‘Out of date’ is rather harsh, Manisha.” Thicke relaxed again. Dorian watched as the man leaned back against the sofa, his legs drifting away from his body. “I think the kinder explanation is that he was just tired.”

  “Was?”

  “What?”

  “You said ‘was.’”

  “Well, he did … disappear.”

  Dorian was on his feet. “Has this been broadcast yet?”

  “At six this evening,” said Lustig. “It was live.”

  “Disappear?” said Manisha, looking directly into the camera. “The head of Domidion’s Biological Oversight has disappeared?”

  Even now Dorian could see that Thicke didn’t realize that he was circling the drain.

  “Biological Oversight is a team effort, Manisha.” Thicke wagged a finger at his host. “Team effort.”

  “Have the authorities been notified?”

  Thicke’s dolphin smile vanished. “The authorities?”

  “I mean,” said Manisha, “this must be troubling.”

  “What?”

  “That Domidion’s top scientist has gone missing?”

  “Dr. Quinn is not Domidion’s top scientist. I …”

  And then Thicke was gone and the camera was on Manisha. The show’s theme music began playing in the background.

  “A breaking story,” intoned Manisha, as the credits scrolled on the screen. “A major scientist at one of the world’s largest biotech corporations is missing. Stay tuned to CBC for Wheel of Fortune, which follows immediately. I’m Manisha Khan, and you can stay current with En Garde.”

  It took a minute for the air to find its way back into the room.

  “Is that all of it?”

  Lustig put the remote on the table. “Yes.”

  Dorian kept an eye on the bright blue screen, in case Thicke reappeared to shoot himself in the other foot. “Has the Board seen this?”

  Winter straightened her glasses. “I would imagine.”

  Lustig retrieved the DVD. “All of the networks have asked us to comment on our missing scientist.”

  “He’s not missing,” said Dorian. “We simply don’t know where he is. At present.”

  “Several reporters have suggested that we’re hiding him or that we have flown him to another country to keep him from talking to the press.”

  “About what?”

  “We have several options,” said Lustig. “We can stand behind our confidentiality policy and say that we cannot comment on a Domidion employee.”

  “That won’t get the genie back in the bottle,” said Dorian.

  “Does Dr. Quinn happen to have a wife who died recently?”

  “He wasn’t married.”

  “Any hospitalizations for anxiety or stress?” asked Lustig. “Any prescription or recreational drug abuse?”

  “He kept to himself.”

  “So he was anti-social.” Lustig paused for a moment and took a deep breath. “Do we know where Dr. Quinn is?”

  “No.” Dorian held up a hand. “What I want to know is, does his disappearance present us with any potential problems?”

  “Legal or civil?”

  “Either,” said Dorian. “Both.”

  “We don’t know yet,” said Lustig. “But in the meantime, I’d recommend invoking employee confidentiality. It doesn’t tie us to anything that can come back on us later.”

  “All right. Employee confidentiality it is.” Dorian turned to Winter. “Make sure that no one, and I mean no one, talks about Quinn on the record or off.”

  “I’ll speak to Dr. Thicke personally,” said Winter.

  Lustig stood up and straightened her skirt. “There’s an upside,” she said with a flick of her head. “So long as the press has a missing scientist to chase, we might be able to keep the Athabasca off the news.”

  23

  WHEN GABRIEL STEPPED ONTO THE DECK THE NEXT MORNING, he found that a weather front had sailed in from the northwest. The sky was high grey and hammered steel, and a flotilla of rain clouds was holding formation on the horizon, looking for a reason to come ashore.

  Soldier was nowhere to be seen.

  Gabriel had discovered an old waffle maker at the back of one of the cupboards. The results had been mixed. Even though he had oiled the iron, the waffle stuck to the top and bottom plates, and he had had to pull the two halves off with a fork. The presentation was scrappy, but the taste was fine.

  The second waffle had been better.

  However, the result of an all-carbohydrate, butter-and-syrup breakfast had been a general lethargy. Gabriel remembered reading that exercise helped to reduce blood sugar and increase alertness. He had never had an interest in organized exertion and compulsory sweating. But a walk along the shore had much to recommend it. Fresh air. The calming voice of the surf. The soft sand beneath his feet.

  The chance that a rogue wave might come along and crush him when he wasn’t looking.

  He stepped off the deck, took the marker from his pocket, and wrote “Turkmenistan” on the wood skirt and “The Gates of Hell” next to it.

  Then he started down the trail to the beach.

  THE first time Gabriel saw the ocean was when he went to Stanford University to check out their graduate program. He had been offered a full scholarship, and one of the conditions was that he first come to Palo Alto to see the place.

  “We like to have our scholarship students visit the campus before they make their decision,” the voice on the phone told him. “Stanford will pay all your expenses.”

  It took Gabriel most of the first day to convince himself that Stanford was actually a world-class university. It was the architecture. The University of Minnesota had had an abundance of old, ivy-covered, brick-and-limestone buildings, and even the newer glass and steel high-rises had an austere dignity to them that maintained the aura of academic excellence.

  Stanford, with its sprawling acreage of low-slung adobe stylings, tile roofs, palm-tree-lined boulevards, gardens, and fountains, looked more like an affluent housing development. Or an upscale, open-air shopping mall.

  And there was a casualness to the place that left Gabriel feeling apprehensive. Maybe it was the extra sun that fell on Palo Alto or maybe it was the Bay Area’s history of counterculture enthusiasms. Whatever the reason, students and faculty alike tended to dress as if they were on an extended vacation at an all-inclusive resort.

  Floyd O’Neil was the graduate student assigned to show Gabriel around. “Don’t let the place fool you,” Floyd told him. “School’s world class.”

  Gabriel’s concerns were quickly dispelled with a tour of Biology, Chemistry, and Applied Physics. While Stanford might not have lived up to his visual notions of a university, the faculty and the research facilities in the hard sciences more than made up for any reservations.

  On the third day of the visit, Floyd suggested a trip to Santa Cruz. “Have you ever seen the Pacific?”

  “No.”

  “Before I came here,” said Floyd. “Neither had I.”

  THE sea was flat with hardly any roll, and the waves struggled to make it to the land. Gabriel took off his shoes, hung them around his neck by the laces, and walked along with the tide at his ankles. The water was sharp and unpleasant, colder than he had expected, but he could feel a new alertness as his body began burning through breakfast.

  The Apostles were still there, waiting for him. Set against the high water, with only the tops of the spires showing, they looked frail and insignificant.

&nbs
p; He considered going back to the reserve. By himself this time. Without Mara and certainly without the dog. He didn’t need company. He should do that. Before he died, he should do that.

  Or not.

  Either way, there was no salvation, no forgiveness, no hope for redemption. Not that he believed in such abstracts. If he believed in anything, he believed in the laws of chemistry and biology and physics. He could see these gods, negotiate with them, anticipate what they would do. He liked that kind of certainty, liked knowing that if you mixed twelve atoms of carbon with twenty-two atoms of hydrogen and eleven atoms of oxygen, you got sugar. Or that beans from the castor plant could be processed into a deadly gas.

  If you were so inclined.

  An organized and regulated world. He had been happy in that universe.

  BY the time they got to Santa Cruz, Gabriel was sure that he would never voluntarily make that drive again. Highway 9 through the Santa Cruz Mountains had been an evil twist of a road. Floyd had stayed below the speed limit, but even so, the drive had been harrowing. Bungee jumping off a roller coaster would have felt safer.

  “You get used to it.”

  To his credit, Gabriel hadn’t thrown up, and he hadn’t tried to jump out of the moving car. And, as they made the final winding drop to the coast, he had to admit that getting to the ocean had been worth it.

  “So,” said Floyd, as they stood on the beach below the boardwalk. “What do you think?”

  AT first he thought it was the wind freshening off the ocean, but as Gabriel came away from the surf line and moved to higher ground, he heard it again.

  Someone singing.

  Ahead the beach was darker and humped up, and before Gabriel could put the pieces of the puzzle together, something large rose out of the sand and shook itself with a bellow.

  “Master Gabriel!”

  Nicholas Crisp was on his knees in a hole, next to a wooden trunk that was buried in the sand.

  “Do ye know the words?”

  “No.”

  “Well then,” said Crisp, “we’ll manufacture verses as we go.”