EVOLUTION.
It did not reply.
Timothy cleared the screen and typed more: YOUR MIND SEEMS TO HAVE A VERY HUMAN STRUCTURE — EGO, SUPEREGO, AND SO FORTH.
CATTLE, it replied.
Blink.
PIGS, it said.
Blink.
GROVELING ANIMALS, it said.
Blink.
YOU BORE ME, it said.
And then all the screens went dark.
Timothy leaned back in his chair and sighed.
Sheriff Hammond said, “Nice try, Dr. Flyte.”
“Such arrogance,” Timothy said.
“Befitting a god,” Dr. Paige said, “And that's more or less how it thinks of itself.”
“In a way,” Lisa Paige said, “that's what it really is.”
“Yeah,” Tal Whitman said, “for all intents and purposes, it might as well be a god. It has all the powers of a god, doesn't it?”
“Or a devil,” Lisa said.
Beyond the streetlamps and above the fog, the night was gray now. The first vague glow of dawn had sparked the far end of the sky.
Sara wished Dr. Flyte hadn't challenged the shape-changer so boldly. She was worried that he had antagonized it, and that now it would renege on its promise to give them more time.
During the short walk from the field lab to the Hilltop Inn, she kept expecting a grotesque phantom to lope or scuttle at them from out of the fog. It must not take them now. Not now. Not when there was, at long last, a glare of hope.
Elsewhere in town, off in the fog and shadows, there were strange animal sounds, eerie alienating cries like nothing that Sara had ever heard before. It was still engaged upon its ceaseless mimicry. A hellish shriek, uncomfortably close at hand, caused the survivors to bunch together.
But they were not attacked.
The streets, although not silent, were still. was not even a breeze; the mist hung motionless in the air.
Nothing waited for them inside the inn, either.
At the central operations desk, Sara sat down and dialed the number of the CBW Civilian Defense Unit's home base in Dugway, Utah.
Jenny, Bryce, and the others gathered around to listen.
Because of the ongoing crisis in Snowfield, there was not just the usual night-duty sergeant at the Dugway headquarters. Captain Daniel Tersch, a physician in the Army Medical Corps, a specialist in containing contagious disease, third in charge of the unit, was standing by to direct any support operations that might become necessary.
Sara told him about their latest discoveries — the microscopic examinations of the shape-changer's tissue, the results of the various mineral and chemical analyses — and Tersch was fascinated, though this was well beyond his field of expertise.
“Petrolatum?” he asked at one point, surprised by what she had told him.
“The amorphous tissue resembles petrolatum only in that it has a somewhat similar mix of hydrocarbons that register very high values. But of course it's much more complex, much more sophisticated.”
She stressed this particular discovery, for she wanted to be certain that Tersch passed it along to other scientists on the CBW team at Dugway. If another geneticist or a biochemist were to consider this data and then look at the list of materials she was going to ask for, he would almost certainly know what her plan was. If someone in the CBW unit
She couldn't just tell Tersch what she had in mind, for she was certain the ancient enemy was listening in. There was an odd, faint hissing on the line…
Finally she spoke of her need for additional laboratory equipment. “Most of this stuff can be borrowed from university and industry labs right here in Northern California,” she told Tersch. “I just need you to use the army's manpower, transportation, and authority to put together the package and get it to me as quickly as possible.”
“What do you need?” Tersch asked, “Just tell me, and you'll have it in five or six hours.”
She recited a list of equipment in which she actually had no real interest, and then she finished by saying, “I will also need as much of the fourth generation of Dr. Chakrabarty's little miracle as it's feasible to send. And I'll need two or three compressed-air dispersal units, too.”
“Who's Chakrabarty?” Tersch asked, puzzled.
“You wouldn't know him.”
“What's his little miracle? What do you mean
“Just write down Chakrabarty, fourth generation.” She spelled the name for him.
“I haven't the vaguest idea what this is,” he said.
Good, Sam thought with considerable relief. Perfect.
If Tersch had known what Dr. Ananda Chakrabarty's little miracle was, he might have blurted something before she could stop him. And the ancient enemy would have been forewarned.
“It's outside your area of specialization,” she said, “There's no reason you should recognize the name or know the device.” She spoke hurriedly now, trying to move away from the subject as smoothly and as rapidly as possible.'don't have time to explain it, Dr. Tersch. Other people in the CBW program will definitely know what it is I need. Let's get moving on this. Dr. Flyte very much wants to continue his studies of the cream, and he needs all the items on my list just as soon as he can get them. Five or six hours, you said?”
“That should do it,” Tersch said, “How should we deliver?”
Sara glanced at Bryce. He wouldn't want to risk yet another of his men in order to have the cargo driven into town. To Captain Tersch, she said, “Can it be brought in by army helicopter?”
“Will do.”
“Better tell the pilot not to try landing. The shape-changer might think we were attempting to escape. It would almost certainly attack the crew and kill all of us the moment the chopper touched down. Just have them hover and lower the package on a cable.”
“This could be quite a large bundle,” Tersch said.
“I'm sure they can lower it,” she said.
“Well… all right. I'll get on it right away. And good luck to you.”
“Thanks,” Sara said, “We'll need it.”
She hung up.
“All of a sudden, five or six hours seems like a long time,” Jenny said.
“An eternity,” Sara said.
They were all clearly eager to hear about her scheme but knew it couldn't be discussed. However, even in their silence, Sara detected a new note of optimism.
Don't get your hopes too high, she thought anxiously.
There was a chance that her plan had no merit. In fact, the odds were stacked against them. And if the plan failed, the shape-changer would know what they had intended to do, and it would wipe them out in some especially malicious fashion.
Outside, dawn had come.
The fog had lost its pale glow. Now the mist was dazzling, white-white, shining with refractions of the morning sunlight.
