“You’re that scientist fella. Dr. Nagle.”
“Guilty, of that at least.”
“Well lucky for you I know that wee skidder’s been sneaking around longer than you been here. I think I know who he is but I just haven’t caught him yet.”
“Student?”
“Not of mine. This is why I teach the wee-uns. Less likely to get the hots and come looking for a peek at what they been fantasizing about in class.”
“He looked nearly full grown.”
“Near enough. Dirty little bastard. How’s your hand?”
John attempted to reclaim some measure of masculinity if not dignity. “It didn’t really hurt. I just thought I frightened you.”
“Liar. Bring it in ‘til I have a look at it.”
Under the circumstances, John wanted very much to decline and walk away. But the invitation was exactly what he’d hoped for, so he followed her into the house.
She wore tight-fitting jeans that complemented her slim build. The tee shirt was clearly worn solely for comfort. John couldn’t help but notice how she walked confidently in her bare feet indoors or out, yet they appeared so soft and pink that they seemed almost child-like. “Someday I’ll catch that wee skidder and he’ll regret it,” she said as she led John into the kitchen and took his hand unsympathetically. The back of it was textured with straight rows of tiny punctures. She could see the corner of her tenderizer but none of the tiny wounds were bleeding. She looked up at his head and saw the same pattern just above his hairline. “You’ll bruise, but you’ll live. At least that one won’t show much.”
“You pack a mean wallop. I’d hate to be in your class.”
“But you were in my class, Dr. Nagle. And now you’re in my home. I suppose it’s time for me to ask why.”
“In truth, I wasn’t looking for you at all. I was tracing a line of travelers from New Zealand. They had an uncanny ability to circumvent the globe hundreds of years before anyone else could. They would come down there and leave their mark, then travel all the way up here. I need to know how they did that, and why.”
“Well, I’m teaching the alphabet right now and some of my time is spent teaching them to color inside the lines. But if you hang around, we might get up to global travel and ancient history. How much time do you have?”
“We believe the family had a trait of passing their secrets on from one generation to the next. I know this was still going on a few generations ago. Then it died. It just stopped.”
“And this has to do with me because…?”
“I think you’re the end of the bloodline.”
“So you think I know how to row a canoe around the world? Sorry to disappoint you, doctor.”
“Please call me John. And they did much more than that. According to their record in the southern hemisphere, these people could—”
“Talk to the beastie?”
John smiled in spite of himself. “Then it’s true. How else would you know?”
Aisling left him and walked toward the front door. “The only thing true is that my grandfather used to tell me about it. He believed his grandfather could call them. He thought the monster would get lost without him. He even went out and tried it a few times.”
“So he was a caller?”
“Please don’t say that. It almost makes it sound like he wasn’t off his cart. When my father didn’t come home, Granda got kind of unbalanced. He spent too much time around me. He was always trying to teach me songs and how to whistle. Stupid thing about that was he couldn’t whistle himself. He made some weird sounds, whatever he could make, and then tried to make me do it.”
“Did you make the sounds?”
She looked at him with clear annoyance. “Some of them. I was a child and he was my granda. But my mother told me to forget them.”
“Aisling. I need your help. Do you think you can remember any of what he told you?”
“Do you think you can find your way out? We’re about through here, doctor.”
John looked at her with dejection starting to set in. “You’re truly a paradox.”
“Am I?”
“An educator who hates science.”
“I don’t hate science. Just scientists.”
“I’d expect that from an old schoolmarm. But how can you justify closing your mind to new discoveries or experimentation?”
She turned on him with that. Her tone was angry. “Call it self-defense. Your kind gets tunnel vision when they’re on the trail of a new discovery. They live by the rule that the end will justify the means. If a life is sacrificed to save a million, you feel it’s your right to take that life.”
John tried to keep up without volunteering to join the group she was lashing out at. “Are we talking about lab animals? I don’t use them. Never have.”
“You would if it came down to it. You all do.”
“Some of us are just trying to make the world a better place.”
“You don’t. Science doesn’t make things better. Just different. You decide how the world should be and then change it. I wonder how often your kind looks back and wonders how things got along all these years without your meddling. You know it wasn’t scientists set the world spinning.”
John silently stared at the floor. Any answer would be wrong. Any defense would be a challenge and surely accepted. He came to gain trust, not win a fight. “I’m just here to learn. I’m sorry for whatever we’ve done to your family in the past.”
“Sorry doesn’t quite do it, doctor. And I’m afraid I don’t have time to teach you.” She turned her eyes away from him for the first time with this statement. Her body language gave something away. He reached back for a tool he’d almost never used. He had studied human nature and psychology but humans were never a source of forced interaction to him; he had to actually recall the textbook instructions for this. He recounted the entire attack on his character. The ruining of lives. The lab rats. Taking a life if he had to.
“Was it a family member?” he chanced.
She turned with bitter scowl. “Yes. My mother was just about all the family I had.”
She saw nothing but sincere regret in John’s face as he took a step closer. “I’m sorry, Aisling. How long ago?”
After a thoughtful pause, “She died when I was six. But the damage was done long before that.”
“Do you mind if I ask?”
“Well, it wasn’t you personally. Just your kind. She was pregnant with her first. Would have been my brother had he lived. They were worried about her blood pressure so they gave her some experimental drug.”
“While she was pregnant?”
“Yeah. They told her it was new but assured her it was safe. It wasn’t. Did something to her metabolism. She lost the baby. Stillborn, sure he was.”
“And she never recovered?”
“She tried. Took the pills and tried to keep her blood pressure down. Every time it went up she started having attacks.”
“What kind of attacks?”
“Just attacks. Not a lot. My granda told me she was a lot more energetic before. I never knew her like that. She was just easy going.” She smiled a bit. “I honestly thought she was just lazy.”
“Then she died?”
“Never knew my father. He was killed in Australia when I was an infant. My granda took me in and raised me since. Couldn’t have wanted for more love but I missed my mother. I miss her today. There’s your experiment. Good night, doctor.”
John thought hard in the three seconds he had. No means of prolonging this meeting came to him.
“Thanks for your time. I’d like you to at least consider it. I won’t use your name and won’t do anything but complete my study. Just a recording of everything you can remember. The calls. The stories. How and when. It doesn’t matter if you believe it or even if it makes sense. Just tell me what you remember. Think about it. Okay?”
“And what will you do with these stories that don’t make sense?”
“File them wit
h all the other senseless bits and pieces I’ve collected that no one will ever care enough to look at.”
She studied him as he exited and stepped slowly into the dark night. “Since you did try to come to my rescue, feeble attempt that it was, I suppose you should get something in return.”
He stopped and looked back at her. “Like I said, I’m no knight in shining armor but that doesn’t make me a bad guy.”
“I’ll think about it. Fair enough?”
He answered only with a sincere smile and a nod of approval. Then he thanked her for looking at his hand and took his leave. He didn’t look back and no way of knowing how long she stood in that doorway peering after him. She thought about him the least. He brought her to recall her mother. She remembered the illness. Her grandfather with his odd accent always blowing odd sounds at her and making her repeat them. And she tried to remember her father. His image had faded so long ago. She remembered nothing of him other than what her grandfather taught her. Sometimes it seemed to her that the only real memories of her childhood were the nonsensical ravings of a silly old man.
Chapter Thirteen
Louisa seemed perplexed by the readings coming up on her monitor. She jotted a few notes and tapped the keypad five times in rapid succession. Then she looked at the readings again. “This doesn’t add up.”
“What doesn’t?” Beau asked from the doorway behind her.
She was startled only for a second. “We’re following an undersea migratory path. Right?”
“Hopefully. Why?”
“So why is the sonar focused behind us? Whether we’re charting or scanning for contacts, the signal should be out in front of the hull. Not where we’ve already been.”
Beau came calmly to her side and pretended to look at her findings. “We’re scanning all around. I think that’s the best way.”
“No. This animal would have to be a pretty cautious species to have avoided us all these years. If we just passed over, it would be long gone. Scanning behind is a total waste.”
“Well, I don’t know about—”
“And what’s with the ULF? This frequency is so low it could swim right through the blips. Why bother if you’re not going to look?”
Beau sat on the desk and turned the monitor away from her. “We want to find it, not drive it away. The higher the frequency, the more likely it is to see us before we see it.”
“But this way is…”
“Our best shot. We have the advantage, Lou. We’re looking for it. It doesn’t know that. By the time it realizes we’re not just a passing shrimper, we’ll have spotted it and turned up the juice.”
“But why is—”
“Hey,” Beau interrupted, placing an overly familiar finger on her lips. “Trust me here. We’ve got one shot at it if we’re lucky. If this thing smells us looking, it’s gone for another cycle and we’re through.”
“I just wish we were scanning off the bow. That part still makes sense.”
“You’re right. I thought we were.” He picked up the radio and called to one of the techs. “Mister Harvey. The senders across the bow are shut off. Turn them back on for full scan.”
“Yes, Dr. Spencer. Same rep as the aft?”
“Same thing. Keep me posted on the findings.” He closed the radio and looked at her. “Good spot. I’m already glad we brought you along.”
Louisa forced a less-than-convincing smile but couldn’t help but wonder why she had to think of something so fundamentally obvious. The frequency was indeed too low to scan an object effectively; it was barely enough to be sensed by other than a creature of similar tonality. The ULF signal rippled down and through the water for nearly half a mile before losing intensity. The Discovery Princess was set to scan anything in this range.
Just outside this range and matching their speed, a giant predator followed the low growl. It knew the sound. It didn’t sound quite right but was familiar enough to stalk.
* * * * *
On the shore of the loch, ten miles south and across from where John had set up his base, a golden retriever stood midway out on a wooden pier and barked incessantly at the murky water. Inside the nearby cottage, Myron Parker grew increasingly annoyed. After waiting until he could wait no longer, Myron crumpled his yet unread newspaper and summoned his son.
“Chris!” he bellowed.
The ten-year-old boy came instantly. “What, Dad?”
“What do you mean what? Can you not hear that dog of yours?”
Chris cocked his head to listen. “Sounds like he spotted a cat or fox or something. Don’t be afraid.”
“I ain’t afraid ya wee twit. That was twenty minutes ago. Now go and put a stop to it so I can enjoy my paper, will you?”
The dog was focused on a particular spot in the water. From below the water, wide green eyes stared back, slowly approaching the surface. It could hear the dog, and now it could see it.
Chris walked confidently out into the darkness. He knew the ground like a favorite book and moved toward the sound of the barking. As the pier and the dog came into view, Chris called out to his watchful pet. “Dolly! Shut it, Dolly!” The dog ignored him. “I mean it, girl. Shut up.”
The dog suddenly stopped barking and stood rigid on the pier, snarling at the water. Chris stopped at the unusual gesture. He’d never heard the gentle retriever growl like this before. There was something in it that frightened him.
“C’mere, Dolly,” he called apprehensively to her. “C’mere girl. Here, girl. Here!” He stopped calling and waited for her to move. Something in him told him not to go farther yet he couldn’t bring himself to back up. Finally Dolly stopped growling and looked back at him and he exhaled his relief.
At that instant the surface of the water five feet out from the pier exploded. In a split second Dolly was grasped and lifted from the wooden planks. She was dead before she had chance to yelp even once but the enormous serpent shook her vigorously for good measure.
Chris watched, unable to breathe let alone move. He was terrified the creature would sense his trembling and come after him. His mounting terror climaxed as the beast turned and looked him directly in the eye. The lifeless body of his dog hung ominously from its jaws as it slowly and silently backed into the dark water. Chris stood still another long thirty seconds before he found the courage to back away from the now—and for this lad forever after—terrifying loch.
* * * * *
John’s new team proved as relentless as they were creative. They seemed to be just a group of techno-geeks in need of a leader but once there was work to be done, John had to marvel at the devotion and professionalism that shone through. They were specialists and needed no encouragement to delve into their assignments.
Mac was the chemist and was responsible for analyzing and identifying samples, cleaning away debris, and carbon-dating. Kyle Murphy was the technical specialist of the group. His expertise with sonar reclamation and data analysis was at least four years beyond the Navy’s and they knew it. The government stopped trying to buy or discredit him some time ago and simply hoped to learn from his research once it was made public. Murphy could identify a species at greater range than even he let on and in many cases could tell you the speed, weight and even the gender of the target. He quipped that he was working on color and mood but few who knew him dared doubt it.
Frank Inness was the behavioral specialist. He researched the patters and origins of any species and knew the diet and reproductive cycles of all reptiles, amphibians and aquatic mammals. They had been compiling and studying reptilian habits and theorized that if there was a nest nearby, the beast was likely to come around it only twice: once to lay eggs and once to protect the hatchlings. It was unusual for reptile fathers to be overly protective which made the seclusion all the easier. One key was that the beast came this far just to lay eggs. The common conclusion was that this kept them safe from predators. They assumed that some time ago, the Ples had predators—as it was far from the largest creature in the seas—bu
t those were all gone now, so it may have been acting on pure instinct. Like salmon returning to their spawning grounds, these animals came here simply because they always had and would likely continue until they no longer could.
While hypothesizing on the matter, John noticed one of his fossils had been tampered with. The jaw and eye socket of an extinct crocodile had been embedded in rock. He noticed it was nearly free.
“Hey. Who did this?”
Mac dryly replied, “Oh. I had a little time on my hands while my system was downloading your research data. Hope you don’t mind.”
“Mind? That would have taken me two months to clean. How did you get it out of the rock so fast?”
Murphy held up a quart jar of white powder. “Mac and I came up with stuff back at Stanford. It’s a sulfur-based flammable that becomes highly volatile once you mix it with water. In paste form, it can be ignited, and flash-burns for up to seventeen seconds at more than 2,200°F. This temperature for this period turns most rock types into molten rock or ash, kinda like a really fast volcano. Once it cools it’s a piece of cake to chip it away.”
“It burns rock?”
“We had to do a lot of tests on different types of rock,” Mac added. “Some burn faster than others. If this stuff gets to the bone, it’s over, so we need to know exactly what we’re ashing and how deep it is. Once we know that, we can usually remove a couple of months’ worth of rock in a few hours.”
“Minutes, sometimes,” said Murphy.
“So why haven’t I heard of this? Seems like every digger on earth would be using it. Is this some kind of Russian secret?”
“How should I know? I was born in Canton, Ohio,” Kyle responded with no trace of an accent.
“Well it’s not exactly legal,” Frank said. “Seems tests were done and it was found to be unstable and erratic. A watered-down version turned out to be about as useful as a kitchen match. We had to agree not to make it or use it until it was approved.”
Loch Ness Page 13