Teece suddenly stood up, his finger in the air. “Dr. Singer? May I have another word—?”
Singer nodded, and Teece stepped up to the podium again. “The reopening of Level-5 was not my idea,” he said, “but perhaps it will aid the investigation, after all. I must say I’m a little surprised that we were not joined today by Mr. Scopes. It was my understanding he likes to be present—in an electronic sense, at least—at meetings of this sort.” He paused expectantly, but neither Singer or Nye said a word.
“That being the case,” Teece continued, “there’s one question I’ll offer up generally. Perhaps you’ll offer me your thoughts on it when we do meet individually.”
He paused.
“I’m curious to know why Brandon-Smith’s autopsy was conducted in secrecy and her remains cremated with such unseemly haste.”
There was another silence. Teece, still gripping his briefcase, gave another quick, thin-lipped smile and followed Singer out the door.
Although Carson took his time arriving at the ready room the following morning, he was not surprised to find most of the bluesuits still on their racks. Nobody was anxious to go back into the Fever Tank.
As he dressed, he felt a knot tighten slowly in his stomach. It had been almost a week since the accident. As much as he’d been haunted by it—those gashes in Brandon-Smith’s suit, the red blood welling up through the rents in her scrubs—he’d blocked the Fever Tank itself from his mind.
Now it came back to him in a rush: the cramped spaces, the stale air of the suit, the constant sense of danger. He closed his eyes a moment, forcing fear and panic from his mind.
As he was about to duck his head into his helmet, the outer door hissed open and de Vaca entered through the air lock. She looked at Carson.
“You’re not looking particularly chipper,” she said.
Carson shrugged.
“Me neither, I suppose,” she said.
There was an awkward silence. They had not spoken much since Brandon-Smith’s death. Carson suspected that de Vaca, sensing his guilt and frustration, had given him a wide berth.
“At least the guard survived,” said de Vaca.
Carson nodded. The last thing he wanted to do now was discuss the accident. The stainless-steel door with its oversized biohazard label loomed at the far end of the room. It reminded Carson of what he imagined a gas chamber to look like.
De Vaca began suiting up. Carson hung back, waiting for her, eager to get past the initial ordeal but somehow unable to go through the door.
“I went riding the other day,” he said. “Once you get out of sight of Mount Dragon, it’s actually very nice out there.”
De Vaca nodded. “I’ve always loved the desert,” she said. “People say it’s ugly, but I think it can be the most beautiful place in the world. Which horse did you take?”
“The liver-colored gelding. He turned out to be a pretty good horse. One of my spurs was broken, but it turned out I didn’t even need to use them. Good luck getting a spur rowel fixed around here.”
De Vaca laughed, slinging her hair. “You know that old Russian-guy, Pavel Vladimiro-something? He’s the mechanical engineer, runs the sterilizing furnace and laminar-flow system. He can fix anything. I had a broken CD player that he opened up and fixed, just like that. He claimed he’d never seen one before.”
“Hell,” said Carson, “if he can fix a CD player, he could fix a rowel. Maybe I should go see him.”
“Any idea when that investigator’s going to get around to us?” de Vaca asked.
“Nope,” said Carson. “Probably won’t take him long, considering ...” He stopped.
“Yamashito, the video technician, said the investigator was planning to spend the day watching security tapes,” she said, twisting into the arms of her suit.
They donned their helmets, checked each other’s suits, and went through the air lock. Inside decontam, Carson took a big swallow of air and fought down the nausea that inevitably rose as the poisonous yellow liquid cascaded down his faceplate.
Carson had hoped the elaborate decontamination procedures after the accident would have rearranged the interior spaces of the Fever Tank, made them look somehow different. But the lab seemed just as Carson had left it the minute Brandon-Smith walked in to announce the chimp’s death. His seat was pulled away from the desk at the same angle, and his PowerBook was still open, plugged into the WAN socket and ready for use. He moved toward it mechanically and logged on to the GeneDyne network. The log-in messages scrolled past; then the word processor came up, displaying the procedure write-up he’d been finishing. The cursor came into focus at the end of an unfinished line, blinking, waiting with cruel detachment for him to continue. Carson slumped in his chair.
Suddenly, the screen went blank. Carson waited a moment, then hit a few keys. Getting no response, he swore under his breath. Maybe the battery had gone dead. He glanced over to the wall plug and noticed that the laptop was plugged in.
Something began to materialize on the screen.
A small picture came into focus: the image of a mime, balancing the Earth on his finger. The Earth was slowly revolving. Mystified, Carson punched the Escape key without success.
The small figure suddenly dissolved into typed words.
Guy Carson?
Here, Carson typed back.
Am I speaking with Guy Carson?
This is Guy Carson, who else?
Well, looky here, Guy! It’s about time you logged in. I’ve been waiting for you, partner. But first, I need you to identify yourself. Please enter your mother’s birthday.
June 2, 1936. Who is this?
Thank you. This is Mime speaking. I have an important message from an old homeboy of yours.
Mime? Is that you, Harper?
No, it is not Harper. I would suggest that you clear your immediate area so that no one inadvertently sees the message I am about to transmit. Let me know when you’re ready.
Carson glanced over at de Vaca, who was busy on the other side of the lab.
Who the hell is this? he typed angrily.
My, my! You had best not dis the Mime, or I might dis you back. And you wouldn’t like that. Not one bit.
Listen, I don’t like—
Do you want the message or not?
No.
I didn’t think so. Before I send it, I want you to know that this is an absolutely secure channel, and that I, Mime, and none other, have hacked into the GeneDyne net. No one at GeneDyne knows about this or could possibly intercept our conversation. I have done this to protect you, cowboy. If anyone should happen by while you are reading the following message, press the command key and a fake screen of genetic code will pop up, hiding the message. Actually, it won’t be genetic code, it will be the lyrics to Professor Longhair’s “Ball the Wall,” but the patterns will be correct. Press the command key again to return to the message. Whoopie-ki-yi-yo, and all that sort of thing. Now sit tight.
Carson again glanced in de Vaca’s direction. Perhaps this was one of Scopes’s jokes. The man had an odd sense of humor. On the other hand, Scopes hadn’t sent a single message to the laptop in Carson’s quarters since the accident. Perhaps Scopes was pissed off at him, and was testing his loyalty with some kind of game. Carson looked uneasily back at the laptop.
The screen went black for a moment, then a message appeared:
