by Jerry
Chavez felt the disorientation return, felt exhausted, felt—damn it!—old. He fumbled the container of pain pills out of his trouser pocket, then returned it unopened. “Hungry?” he said.
“You better believe it. I had to leave before breakfast.”
“I think we’ll get some lunch,” said Chavez. “Let’s go downtown. Try not to startle Ms. O’Hanlon as we leave.”
O’Hanlon had encountered them in the downstairs hall, but reacted only with a poker face. “Would you and the young lady like some lunch, Dr. Chavez?”
“Not today,” said Chavez, “but thank you. Ms. Bridgewell and I are going to eat in town.”
O’Hanlon regarded him. “Have you got your medicine?”
Chavez patted his trouser leg and nodded.
“And you’ll be back before dark?”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes. And if I’m not, I’ll phone. You’re not my mother. I’m older than you.”
“Don’t be cranky,” she said. “Have a pleasant time.”
Bridgewell and Chavez paused in front of the old stone house. “Why don’t we take my car?” said Bridgewell. “I’ll run you back after lunch.” She glanced at him. “You’re not upset about being driven around by a kid, are you?” He smiled and shook his head.
“Okay.”
They walked a hundred meters to where her car was pulled off the blacktop and hidden in a stand of spruce. It was a Volkswagen beetle of a vintage Chavez estimated to be a little older than its driver.
As if reading his thoughts, Bridgewell said, “Runs like a watch—the old kind, with hands. Got a hundred and ten thousand on her third engine. I call her Scarlett.” The car’s color was a dim red like dried clay.
“Do you really miss watches with hands?” said Chavez, openingthe passenger-side door.
“I don’t know—I guess I hadn’t really thought about it. I know I don’t miss sliderules.”
“I miss hands on timepieces.” Chavez noticed there were no seatbelts. “A long time ago, I stockpiled all the Timexes I’d need for my lifetime.”
“Does it really make any difference?”
“I suppose not.” Chavez considered that as Bridgewell drove onto the highway and turned downhill.
“You love the past a lot, don’t you?”
“I’m nostalgic,” said Chavez.
“I think it goes a lot deeper than that.” Bridgewell handled the VW like a racing Porsche. Chavez held onto the bar screwed onto the glove-box door with both hands. Balding radial tires shrieked as she shot the last curve and they began to descend the slope into Casper. To the east, across the city, they could see a ponderous dirigible-freighter settling gracefully toward a complex of blocks and domes.
“Why,” she said, “are they putting a pilot fusion plant squarely in the middle of the biggest coal deposits in the country?”
Chavez shrugged. “When man entered the atomic age he opened a door into a new world. What he may eventually find in that new world no one can predict.”
“Huh?” Bridgewell said. Then: “Oh, the movie. Doesn’t it ever worry you—having that obsession?”
“No,” said Chavez. Bridgewell slowed slightly as the road became city street angling past blocks of crumbling budget housing. “Turn left on Rosa. Head downtown.”
“Where are we eating? I’m hungry enough to eat coal byproducts.”
“Close. We’re going to the oil can.”
“Huh?” Bridgewell said again.
“The Petroleum Tower. Over there.” Chavez pointed at a forty-storey cylindrical pile. It was windowed completely with bronze reflective panes. “The rooftop restaurant’s rather good.”
They left Scarlett in an underground lot and took the highspeed exterior elevator to the top of the Petroleum Tower. Bridge-well closed her eyes as the ground level rushed away from them. At the fortieth floor she opened her eyes to stare at the glassed-in restaurant, the lush hanging plants, the noontime crowd. “Who are these people? They all look so, uh, professional.”
“They are that,” said Chavez, leading the way to the maitre d’. “Oil people. Uranium people. Coal people. Slurry people. Shale people. Coal gasification—”
“I’ve got the point,” Bridgewell said. “I feel a little under-dressed.”
“They know me.”
And so, apparently, they did. The maitre d’ issued orders and Bridgewell and Chavez were instantly ushered to a table beside a floor-to-ceiling window.
“Is this a perk of being maybe the world’s greatest molecular biologist?”
Chavez shook his head. “More a condition of originally being a local boy. Even with the energy companies, this is still a small town at heart.” He fell silent and looked out the window. The horizon was much closer than he remembered from his childhood. A skiff of brown haze lay over the city. There was little open land to be seen.
They ordered drinks.
They made small-talk.
They ordered food.
“This is very pleasant,” said Bridgewell, “but I’m still a correspondent. I think you’re sitting on the biggest story of the decade.”
“That extraterrestrial ambassadors are shortly to land near Albuquerque? That they have picked America as a waystation to repair their ship?”
Bridgewell looked bemused. “I’m realizing I don’t know when you’re kidding.”
“Am I now?”
“Yes.”
“So why do you persist in questioning me?”
She hesitated. “Because I suspect you want to tell someone. It might as well be me.”
He thought about that awhile. The waiter brought the garnish tray and Chavez chewed on a stick of carrot. “Why don’t you tell me the pieces you’ve picked up.”
“And then?”
“We’ll see,” he said. “I can’t promise anything.”
Bridgewell said, “You’re a lot like my father. I never knew when he was kidding either.”
“Your turn,” said Chavez.
The soup arrived. Bridgewell sipped a spoonful of French onion and set the utensil down. “The New Mexico Project. It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with New Mexico. You wouldn’t believe the time I’ve spent on the phone. All my vacation I ran around that state in Scarlett.”
Chavez smiled a long time, finally said, “Think metaphorically. The Manhattan Project was conducted under Stagg Field in Chicago.”
“I don’t think the New Mexico Project has anything to do with nuclear energy,” she said. “But I have heard a lot of mumbling about DNA chimeras.”
“So far as I know, no genetic engineer is using recombinant DNA to hybridize creatures with all the more loathsome aspects of snakes, goats, and lions. The state of the art improves, but we’re not that good yet.”
“But I shouldn’t rule out DNA engineering?” she said.
“Keep going.”
“Portuguese is the official language of Brazil.”
Chavez nodded.
“UBC’s stringer in Recife has it that, for quite a while now, nothing’s been coming out of the Brazilian nuclear power complex at Xique-Xique. I mean there’s news, but it’s all through official release. Nobody’s going in or out.”
Chavez said, “You would expect a station that new and large to be a concern of national security. Shaking down’s a long and complex process.”
“Maybe.” She picked the ripe olives out of the newly arrived salad and carefully placed them in a line on the plate. “I’ve got a cousin in movie distribution. Just real scutwork so far, but she knows what’s going on in the industry. She told me that the U.S. Department of Agriculture ordered a print from Warner Brothers dubbed in Portuguese and had it shipped to Brazilia. The print was that movie you’re apparently so concerned with—Them! The one about the ants mutating from radioactivity in the New Mexico desert. The one about giant ants on the rampage.”
“Only a paranoid could love this chain of logic,” said Chavez.
Her face looked very serious. “If it takes a para
noid to come up with this story and verify it,” she said, “then that’s what I am. Maybe nobody else is willing to make the jumps. I am. I know nobody else has the facts. I’m going to get them.”
To Chavez, it seemed that the table had widened. He looked across the linen wasteland at her. “The formidable Formicidae family . . . “he said. “So have you got a conclusion to state?” He felt the touch of tiny legs on his leg. He felt feathery antennae tickle the hairs on his thigh. He jerked back from the table and his water goblet overturned, the waterstain spreading smoothly toward the woman.
“What’s wrong?” said Bridgewell. He heard concern in her voice. He slapped at his leg, stopped the motion, drew a deep breath.
“Nothing.” Chavez hitched his chair closer to the table again. A waiter hovered at his shoulder, mopping the water with a towel and refilling the goblet. “Your conclusion.” His voice strengthened. “I asked about your theory.”
“I know this sounds crazy,” said Bridgewell. “I’ve read about how the Argentine fire ants got to Mobile, Alabama. And I damned well know about the bees—I told you that.”
Chavez felt the touch again, this time on his ankle. He tried unobtrusively to scratch and felt nothing. Just the touch. Just the tickling, chitinous touch.
“Okay,” Bridgewell continued. “All I can conclude is that somebody in South America’s created some giant, mutant ants, and now they’re marching north. Like the fire ants. Like the bees.”
“Excuse me a moment,” said Chavez, standing.
“Your face is white,” said Bridgewell. “Can I help you?”
“No.” Chavez turned and, forcing himself not to run, walked to the restroom. In a stall, he lowered his trousers. As he had suspected, there was no creature on his leg. He sat on the toilet and scratched his skinny legs until the skin reddened and he felt the pain. “Damn it,” he said to himself. “Stop.” He took a pill from the case and downed it with water from the row of faucets. Then he stared at himself in the mirror and returned to the table.
“You okay?” Bridgewell had not touched her food.
He nodded. “I’m prey to any number of ailments; goes with the territory. I’m sorry to disturb your lunch.”
“I’m apparently disturbing yours more.”
“I offered.” He picked up knife and fork and began cutting a slice of cold roast beef. “I offered—so follow this through. Please.”
Her voice softened. “I have the feeling this all ties together somehow with your wife.”
Chavez chewed the beef, swallowed without tasting it. “Did you look at the window?” Bridgewell looked blank. “The stained glass in the library.”
Her expression became mobile. “The spiral design? The double helix? I loved it. The colors are incredible.”
“It’s exquisite; and it’s my past.” He took a long breath. “Annie gave it to me for my forty-first birthday. As well, it was our first anniversary. Additionally it was on the occasion of the award. It meant more to me than the trip to Stockholm.” He looked at her sharply. “You said you did your homework. How much do you know?”
“I know that you married late,” said Bridgewell, “for your times.”
“Forty.”
“I know that your wife died of a freak accident two years later. I didn’t follow-up.”
“You should have,” said Chavez. “Annie and I had gone on a picnic in the Florida panhandle. We were driving from Memphis to Tampa. I was cleaning some catfish. Annie wandered off, cataloguing insects and plants. She was an amateur taxonomist. For whatever reason—God only knows—I don’t—she disturbed a mound of fire ants. They swarmed over her. I heard her screaming. I ran to her and dragged her away and brushed off the ants. Neither of us had known about her protein allergy—she’d just been lucky enough never to have been bitten or stung.” He hesitated and shook his head. “I got her to Pensacola. Annie died in anaphylactic shock. The passages swelled, closed off. She suffocated in the car.”
Bridgewell looked stricken. She started to say, “I’m sorry, Dr. Chavez. I had no—”
He held up his hand gently. “Annie was eight months pregnant. In the hospital they tried to save our daughter. It didn’t work.” He shook his head again, as if clearing it. “You and Annie look a bit alike—coltish, I think is the word. I expect Patricia would have looked the same.”
The table narrowed. Bridgewell put her hand across the distance and touched his fingers. “You never remarried.”
“I disengaged myself from most sectors of life.” His voice was dispassionate.
“Why didn’t you re-engage?”
He realized he had turned his hand over, was allowing his fingers to curl gently around hers. The sensation was warmth. “I spent the first half of my life single-mindedly pursuing certain goals. It took an enormous investment of myself to open my life to Annie.” As he had earlier in the morning when he’d first met Bridgewell, he felt profoundly weary. “I suppose I decided to take the easier course: to hold onto the past and call it good.”
She squeezed his hand. “I won’t ask if it’s been worth it.”
“What about you?” he said. “You seem to be in ferocious pursuit of your goals. Do you have a rest of your life hidden off to the side?”
Bridgewell hesitated. “No. Not yet. I’ve kept my life directed, very concentrated, since—since everyone died. But someday . . .” Her voice trailed off. “I still have time.”
“Time,” Chavez said, recognizing the sardonicism. “Don’t count on it.”
Her voice very serious, she said, “Whatever happens, I won’t let the past dictate to me.”
He felt her fingers tighten. “Never lecture someone three times your age,” he said. “It’s tough to be convincing.” He laughed and banished the tension.
“This is supposed to be an interview,” she said, but ‘didn’t take her hand away.
“Did you ever have an ant farm as a child?” Chavez said. She shook her head. “Then we’re going to go see one this afternoon.” He glanced at the food still in front of her. “Done?” She nodded. “Then let’s go out to the university field station.”
They stood close together in the elevator. Bridgewell kept her back to the panoramic view. Chavez said, “I’ve given you no unequivocal statements about the New Mexico Project.”
“I know.”
“And if I should tell you now that there are indeed monstrous ant mutations—creatures large as horses—tramping toward us from the Mato Grosso?”
This time she grinned and shook her head silently.
“You think me mad, don’t you?”
“I still don’t know when you’re kidding,” she said.
“There are no giant ants,” said Chavez. “Yet.” And he refused to elaborate.
The field station of the Wyoming State University at Casper was thirty kilometers south, toward the industrial complex at Douglas-River Bend. Two kilometers off the freeway, Scarlett clattered and protested across the potholed access road, but delivered them safely. They crossed the final rise and descended toward the white dome and the cluster of outbuildings.
“That’s huge,” said Bridgewell. “Freestanding?”
“Supported by internal pressure,” said Chavez. “We needed something that could be erected quickly. It was necessary that we have a thoroughly controllable internal environment. It’ll be hell to protect from the snow and wind come winter, but we shouldn’t need it by then.”
There were two security checkpoints with uniformed guards. Armed men and women dubiously inspected the battered VW and its passengers, but waved them through when Chavez produced his identification.
“This is incredible,” said Bridgewell.
“It wasn’t my idea,” said Chavez. “Rules.”
She parked Scarlett beside a slab-sided building that adjoined the dome. Chavez guided her inside, past another checkpoint in the lobby, past obsequious underlings in lab garb who said, “Good afternoon, Dr. Chavez,” and into a sterile-appearing room lined with elect
ronic gear.
Chavez gestured at the rows of monitor screens. “We can’t go into the dome today, but the entire installation is under surveillance through remotely controlled cameras.” He began flipping switches. A dozen screens jumped to life in living color.
“It’s all jungle,” Bridgewell said.
“Rain forest.” The cameras panned past vividly green trees, creepers, seemingly impenetrable undergrowth. “It’s a reasonable duplication of the Brazilian interior. Now, listen.” He touched other switches.
At first the speakers seemed to be crackling with electronic noise. “What am I hearing?” she finally said.
“What does it sound like?”
She listened longer. “Eating?” She shivered. “It’s like a thousand mouths eating.”
“Many more,” Chavez said. “But you have the idea. Now watch.”
The camera eye of the set directly in front of her dollied in toward a wall of greenery wound round a tree. Chavez saw the leaves ripple, undulating smoothly as though they were the surface of an uneasy sea. He glanced at Bridgewell; she saw it too. “Is there wind in the dome?”
“No,” he said.
The view moved in for a close-up. “Jesus!” said Bridgewell.
Ants.
Ants covered the tree, the undergrowth, the festooned vines.
“You may have trouble with the scale,” Chavez said. “They’re about as big as your thumb.”
The ants swarmed in efficient concert, mandibles snipping like garden shears, stripping everything green, everything alive. Chavez stared at them and felt only a little hate. Most of the emotion had long since been burned from him.
“Behold Eciton,” said Chavez. “Drivexants, army ants, the maripunta, whatever label you’d like to assign.”
“I’ve read about them,” said Bridgewell. “I’ve seen documentaries and movies at one time or another. I never thought they’d be this frightening when they were next door.”
“There is fauna in the environment too. Would you like to see a more elaborate meal?”
“I’ll pass.”
Chavez watched the leaves ripple and vanish, bit by bit. Then he felt the tentative touch, the scurrying of segmented legs along his limbs. He reached out and tripped a single switch; all the pictures flickered and vanished. The two of them sat staring at the opaque gray monitors.