tissues.”
“Not in their blood?” Michael asked, remembering Darryl talking about some of this before their first dive. “They have no hemoglobin?”
“So you do pay attention,” Darryl said. “I'm impressed. Since they have no red blood cells, their blood is clear, but it does carry a natural antifreeze, a glycoprotein that's made of repeating units of sugar and amino acids. The glycoprotein depresses the freezing point of water two hundred or three hundred times more than would normally be the case.”
Michael could follow only the gist of the explanation. “So, they've got their own natural antifreeze, like you put in your car?”
“Not exactly,” Darryl said, at the same time delicately extracting the fish's heart and plopping it with tweezers into one of the jars. Michael got a whiff of formaldehyde. “Unlike the ethylene gly-col you put in your radiator, the molecules of fish antifreeze behave differently; yes, they do protect the fish from freezing, even in supercool water, but just so long as the fish is careful not to-”
There was a loud banging on the door, and when Michael turned he could see the improvised rope handle stretch.
“Now what?” Darryl complained.
“It's probably Calloway-they're doing a complete search of the base.”
Darryl grudgingly got off his stool. “But why come here? To search the scene of the crime?”
“They're not looking for the bodies,” Michael warned him. “Murphy's keeping all that as quiet as he can.”
Darryl stopped and looked at Michael. “They think I've got the dog team in here?” Shaking his head, he unlooped the rope.
“Hey, mate, what you afraid of?” Calloway said as he barged in, with the grunt in the long-brimmed cap close behind.
They stood just inside the lab, pounding the snow off their coats and boots.
“I just prefer it when people call ahead.”
“I'll do that,” Calloway said, clapping him on the shoulder, “next time.” He caught sight of the lab bench and its eviscerated subject.
“Icefish?” Calloway said. “You know, the bigger ones make some pretty fine filets.” He moseyed over, and scanning the specimen jars said, “But I think I'll take a pass on what's left of this mess.”
The grunt in the cap-Michael recognized him now, his name was Osmond and he worked with Uncle Barney in the kitchen- trailed along after, poking his nose into some cabinets and under some counters. What on earth, Michael wondered, could he possibly think he would find there?
“But this fish here, this fella's still fresh,” Calloway said, sticking with his customary outback impression, and gazing down into the cooling tank. “Judging from those bony lips, I'd say this one is a Charcot's icefish.”
“You would be correct,” Darryl said, sounding mollified; he was always appreciative when anyone displayed some knowledge of marine life. “We just caught it in the last batch of traps.”
Michael came around to the other side of the table to get a better look, and he saw a long fish with an armor-plated head and a flat nose, like a duck's bill. Its skin was so thin that he could see the complex pattern of plates and bones just inside. Darryl, too, came around, perhaps to point out some of its unusual features, but bumped into Osmond, who'd completed his rudimentary inspection of the premises and had decided to join the party.
“You can see right through it,” Osmond said, slowly; Michael didn't think he had a lot going on upstairs. “It's like he's Casper the friendly fish.”
There were smiles all around as Osmond bent his head over the tank to get a closer look, but then Darryl suddenly glanced at the brim of his hat, and shouted, “No! Get back!”
Darryl swiped at the cap, but it was already too late-a great blob of snow and ice, shimmering like a cascade of diamonds, slid down off the brim and splashed into the tank. The fish moved, surprised by the movement, and, possibly thinking that some food source had wandered by, raised its head toward the surface. The rain of ice crystals pattered on the surface, some bobbing a few inches down, and touching the fish on its nose and gills.
“Goddammit!” Darryl cried, and a second later Michael could see why-the quivering fish stopped moving, its body straightened out, and as Michael looked on with amazement, a fine latticework of ice swiftly rippled across its entire length in a chain reaction, turning it as stiff as a board and as dead as a doornail. Slowly it floated, staring and transparent, back to the surface of the tank.
Michael was confused. “But I thought you said these fish had antifreeze in their blood.”
“They do,” Darryl said mournfully, “and that's what keeps them alive in supercool water, at the lower depths. But ice floats, remember, and so it doesn't penetrate the benthic regions. If these fish actually come into contact with ice, the ice crystals act as a nucleus, a propagating agent, and overwhelm their defenses.”
“Geez,” Osmond said, holding his wet cap in his hands now. “I'm really sorry. I never knew something like that could happen.” He looked around at the others to see if he was in serious trouble.
“It's all right, mate,” Calloway said. “If it's no good to the beakers, it's still fine for the bouillabaisse.”
“Not this one,” Darryl said. “I can still thaw it out and drain the blood.”
“The blood,” Calloway said, dubiously. “That's what you want?”
“That blood, my friend, contains secrets the world will be very glad to have one day.”
Calloway tapped Osmond on the sleeve, as if to say ‘Let's leave the loonies to their crazy experiments,’ and they skulked off toward the door. “I'm sure you're right about that, Doc,” he said, then they ducked out into a blast of howling wind and whirling snow.
Darryl picked up a pair of tongs, lifted the icefish out by its tail, and laid it on the counter. It was so hard it actually wobbled in place.
“Now I can see why you don't exactly put out the welcome mat to the lab,” Michael said.
“And why I wanted that lock,” Darryl replied. But then, picking up a scalpel, he plunged right back into his work as if Michael wasn't even there. A minute or two later, Michael pulled on all his gear and went out into the teeth of the gathering storm.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
December 15
The gale, rather than passing through, seemed to have settled down over the base, and Murphy's lockdown order, to Michael's frustration, was still in effect. No one was leaving the compound for any reason. “Wherever those bodies are, they're frozen stiff,” Murphy told him, “and the dogs, well, they know how to survive.”
Michael had to take his word on that.
Word of Danzig's death had of course cast a dismal pall over the base, and the memorial service, held in the rec hall, was crowded. The Ping-Pong table was folded up and pushed out into the corridor, and an assortment of desk chairs was wheeled in to join the sofas, but there still weren't enough for everyone to sit on. The rest of the grunts and beakers simply sat around on the threadbare wall-to-wall carpeting, their arms wrapped around their knees, as Murphy stood up in front of the blank plasma-screen TV He was wearing, in acknowledgment of the occasion, a dark necktie over his denim shirt.
“I know a lot of you knew Erik a lot better than I did, so I want to leave time for all of you to say something.”
Michael had almost forgotten that Danzig had a first name; in the fratlike atmosphere of the base, most everyone went by a last name, or a nickname.
“But personally, I never knew a guy who was more up for anything, anytime-except for maybe Lawson.”
There was some low laughter, and Lawson, who was sitting against the wall with Michael and Charlotte and Darryl, smiled shyly.
“And those dogs-man, did he love those dogs.” He lowered his head and shook it sadly. “Whatever went wrong there, whatever happened to make Kodiak go off like that-a brain tumor, a fever-the weird thing is, I know that, even now, Danzig-Erik- would have understood it. Those dogs loved him as much as he loved them.” He ran a hand over his own head. “And that's why we are going to find the other dogs. I promise you-we're going to find
