What a surprising revelation today had been. The very fabric of reality had changed. A cloud had lifted. He considered pinching himself. The contract signing had taken less than fifteen minutes. Not a hint of trouble. At precisely seven o’clock the remaining parties to the agreement, including Innovac’s Purchasing VP, a nondescript little man whom Lyköan had never met before, had all retired to a small antechamber. They signed without ceremony, had their signatures witnessed and notarized, and left. After months of angst, the final detail had been the easiest. Past experience had led him to expect at least one last fly to drop into the ointment. He was genuinely surprised when it had failed to materialize. Everyone he had met today had treated him with respect, as a professional. He was learning to accept that assessment. Had his karma really entered some new and decidedly better phase?
This afternoon had opened other doors as well. Some pleasant, others the kind he generally kept closed, tightly locked in fact. He knew he would ultimately have to deal with those issues, but for the moment the universe felt relaxed and full of possibility.
Cairncrest’s grand dining room was a cavernous hollow, filled with silverware striking china in a clamorous percussive dissonance. Against this baseline din, a delicate syncopation of fine crystal played cymbal-like, incisive counterpoint to the great organic rumble of more than a hundred mouths engaged in conversation. As the hour approached, this symphony of voices and utensils built rhythmically towards a final crescendo and then abruptly softened as the dining room chandeliers were dimmed, subtly announcing the approaching ceremony. At the back of the great hall the chamber quartet that had been playing quietly throughout dinner fell silent and the musicians began packing their instruments.
Across the room, dressed in white eveningwear, Pandavas was leaning between two chairs speaking softly into the British Foreign Minister’s ear. Politely ending his conversation, he withdrew from the table and walked to the front of the hall, stepping behind a darkened podium. A soft spotlight came up, setting his tuxedo ablaze.
“Good evening ladies and gentlemen, honored guests,” he began, the feverous chatter immediately falling off. “Before we get started, I would first like to recognize the artists who provided dinner’s wonderful ambiance, the St. Martin’s Chamber Quartet. Flawless as ever.” The room, now silent, fell into polite applause.
Oh, this is rich! The irrepressible thought and an accompanying twisted grin arrived together. Hoping no one else at his table had noticed, Lyköan fought to suppress the rakish smile. A circus like this deserves a glitzy ringmaster. The guy’s perfect.
The rest of the audience, however, in hushed deference, was hanging upon his every utterance. They had come expecting pronouncements from on high and here was just the prophet to deliver them. The only sound in the vast hall, other than Pandavas’s well-modulated voice, was the occasional clink of crystal or muffled cough. In concert with his delivery, an army of waiters floated unobtrusively through the room continuously refilling glasses, dark burgundy and pale peridot apparently issuing from inexhaustible fonts.
Following brief introductions and recognition of the worldwide peerage in attendance, to which Lyköan paid little attention, the angels of the hour were introduced and made to feel as self-conscious or unabashedly proud as their personalities permitted. Ms. Yin took the podium first. Her nervous stream of technical description emerged in accented barebones English, blanketing the room like a muffling snowfall. Appropriately punctuated by applause and perhaps explaining the very nature of the universe, Lyköan was not the only one relieved when she finally vacated the spotlight.
As the pomp and circumstance continued, Lyköan began to see that while he had approached this evening with anticipation, the real thing was proving tediously burdensome, on the order of a second rate TV awards ceremony.
So what? I’ve got nothing better to do right now. No crises or demands ― nothing but relaxed ambiance, outstanding food and drink ― even the stitches have settled down.
Pandavas, a master of such ceremonies, was in his element, wooing and wowing his audience with surgical precision. For their part, the crowd would have eagerly crowned him by acclamation, if only in praise of his mastery over them. He seemed to understand them intimately. Through the very people who had achieved this medical miracle, he offered the spotlight in total humility and genuine appreciation for their achievement. As he admitted, he had done no more than allow them to follow their genius.
Lyköan watched all of it with bored disinterest, only perking up when the self-admitted scared rabbit of this afternoon took the dais. And Nora was magnificent. Just the right mixture of humility and deferred credit, augmented by a fascinating synopsis of The Trail of the Anti-Telomerase Trigger, conveyed in precise detail, but told at a layman’s level of understanding, acquitting herself admirably. When her eyes finally searched for and found his during those fifteen minutes in the spotlight, he winked, receiving a knowing smile in return.
The wine, the span of days and ill slept nights, it was all catching up with him. He had succeeded in his primary goal for the evening, collaring the British and Thai officials and getting their signatures. If his body was crying out for rest, why not give in to the urge? So long as he didn’t fall asleep right here at the table.
Nora left the podium and other less involved but more self-important dignitaries began a long and boring parade to second the accolades Pandavas had already offered. Lyköan stopped paying attention. A glance at his watch only confirmed his suspicions, that the rulers of the universe had turned on Old Chief Broom’s slow machines and cranked the speed way down.
The gabfest following the ceremony, however, proved more than he could bear. He was barely conversant at this level of science, medicine or politics. The lights had dimmed on Pandavas’s closing remarks, but Nora was still surrounded by a bevy of petty potentates, secure in their belief that proximity to the lady of the hour would elevate their own stature. By eleven o’clock the winds had turned from fair to foul.
After a little small talk and idle contact, recognizing she was unapproachable, he decided to slip up to his room and find the sleep that seemed to beckon. By doing so he would save himself from possibly voicing his personal opinion about her admirers, which he knew would serve only as an invitation to argument.
But for some reason, when he reached his bedroom, sleep’s allure had evaporated. Midnight arrived and passed and the echo of celebration in the great house slowly faded. After an hour of fruitless tossing upon the mattress he gave up, left his room and exited the building, located an isolated seat on the steps of the manse’s expansive rear patio, as guests excused themselves and, bidding their host adieu, left through the front foyer.
By one A.M. only a handful of diehard stragglers remained. It was a long drive back to London, a couple of hours even on deserted roads. Some of the more luminary dignitaries, keeping to strict schedules, had departed on military flights from the nearby Boscombe Down RAF base. The grand celebration was ending ― a mere blip on this summer’s busy diplomatic social calendar.
Lyköan looked up at the horned crescent moon shinning down from the star-strewn cloudless heavens. Waning towards extinction, it would be entirely dark in less than a week.
“I see you had to find your own spotlight, Mr. Lyköan. And a better one by far.”
Nora had finally shaken the last sycophant and come out into the cool of the evening, back to where she had begun the day.
“Yeah, a celestial spot. An empty stage ripe for the taking. A quieter audience too. You finally give your admirers the slip?” he asked.
“Abandoned at last. Thank God I’m the star of only one evening.”
“Want to come and sit by me?” He patted the cold stone next to him. “A duet for a different venue?” He opened both hands to the dark gardens and open shadowland beyond. She walked towards him, the fabric of her dress shimmering iridescently in the moonlight, rustling in concert with the whispering song of the summer insects. Sitting down
very close, the slick satin brushed smooth and cool against his naked forearm, electric in the nocturnal stillness. She shivered.
An invitation or just an opportunity? he wondered, slipping his arm around her shoulders. She pulled even closer.
“I was just noticing,” he said, moving his lips to her ear, “that dolmen we found today ― you can see it shining in the moonlight from here.” He pointed across the gardens at a spot of light on the horizon. “See it?”
“I’ve eaten breakfast out here almost every morning,” Nora explained, “even come out at night a few times in the past few weeks, but never noticed it.”
“Must be a couple of miles away, even as the crow flies. But in the moonlight it looks like a beacon, sitting on the highest hill in this whole area. Even Cairncrest stands at a lower elevation.
“Bet if you dug down far enough at the foundation here,” again he pointed, this time directly between his knees, “before you hit bedrock there’d be evidence of Neolithic habitation.”
“Pandavas might know,” Nora suggested. “Bet he’s been down to the bedrock. Even farther. The research labs under the mansion go down at least four stories.”
Lyköan was about to ask about this when he noticed a shadow fall across the pinpoint of reflected moonlight in the distance. He strained into the blackness with eye and ear and was rewarded shortly when a fluttering sound, fainter than the background whir of insects, arrived upon the bare breeze. Not the original sound, he thought, an echo. Half a dozen deep-throated beats and it was gone. Lyköan looked up into the cloudless sky.
“How far away is that RAF base? You know?” he asked.
“Boscombe Down, you mean? Maybe fifteen miles. Why?”
“Thought I heard something. Probably one of theirs, coming or going.” But he had seen no running lights. Only the beacon on the hilltop miles away grow dark for an instant.
“‘Hearken! It hums,’ she said,” Lyköan announced in an affected baritone. “He listened. The wind, playing upon the edifice, produced a booming tune, like the note of some gigantic one-stringed harp.’”
“What’s that?” Nora asked. It had struck a chord.
“It’s Hardy’s description of Stonehenge from Tess of the d’Ubervilles. A feeling I had just now dredged it up.”
“That’s so strange.” Nora said. “I’ve never read Tess ― maybe I’ve seen a BBC adaptation or something ― but I had exactly the same feeling when we were at the dolmen today. That it was playing some kind of single note, but not one meant for human ears.”
“Aliens you mean?”
“No,” she answered sharply. “That maybe it played for some other sense. One that modern humans no longer use. It’s just so odd, you know? That someone else ― you... might have been harboring the same suspicion. Was that quote something you looked up after we got back?”
“No, I read it sophomore year in college,” Lyköan answered pointedly. He was a little offended. What did she take him for, some uneducated slob?
“And you still remember it verbatim? I’m impressed. Honestly.” Nora could see she had struck a nerve.
“You should be,” he said, but this time, through a pleasant, kidding smile. “I was experiencing the same damned thing. Especially that indefinable one note ― whatever it was.”
“My God, Egan, you’re really a well of knowledge aren’t you? Any other secrets – hidden info you want to tell me?”
“Maybe one. It was George Fanju, the French director.”
“What was? I mean, who was?”
“Who said ‘the source of beauty is a wound.’” Then he added, “I had a wonderful time today, Nora. Even if I had to lose a horserace to experience it. For some time now I’ve been convinced I used up all my fun when I was young. Today totally changed my mind.”
“When you were young? Jeez, Lyköan, you sound like you’re preparing for assisted living or something. How old are you?”
“Old enough to believe in second chances, I guess.”
“You in need of second chances, boy?” she asked, her own smile beaming.
“Desperately.”
Her expression changed suddenly. “Did you feel that?” she asked.
“What?”
“That rumble. The same sensation I had at the monument today. A low-pitched hum? Best I can describe it. It’s gone now – only lasted a second or two.”
“I didn’t hear anything.”
“A vibration ― the ground or something. Not there anymore.”
“The earth moving?”
“I had a great time today too, Egan. Maybe we should leave it there for now.”
“Or we could kiss passionately in the English moonlight and see where that leads.”
“A lovely offer, Mr. Lyköan. Right now, though, earth moving or not, I’m going inside. It’s freezing out here. But you are sweet...” Turning her head, she kissed him full on the mouth. A taste of futures, pasts, could and might have beens, even desires already recognized, all wrapped in one note of unmeasured anticipation.
“Let’s walk in together,” Lyköan suggested.
He stood and helped her up. She was warm and lithe in his hands, the summer night delicious in his eyes and ears, its odor both earthy and sublime. Lights still glowed from a few of the manor house windows, stretching the couple’s tangled shadow as they went back inside together.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The L-9 Genome
It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.
Sherlock Holmes : A Scandal in Bohemia
Once inside, the dizzying emotional gears inexplicably downshifted. While a few lights still burned, Cairncrest was silent. Their hushed voices echoed in the empty corridors like sandpaper scudding across stone. Nothing else stirred.
Returning to their earlier agreement to observe every possible detail of the night’s proceedings Nora had to admit that she hadn’t noticed anything suspicious all evening. Not even a hint of the nefarious. Lyköan was forced to agree. Keeping an eye on their quarry had been about as interesting as watching grass grow. The laird of Cairncrest had been nothing but a gracious and forthcoming host. He hadn’t committed a single indiscretion, not so much as a minor breach of etiquette.
But they were both in total agreement that the evening had accomplished everything the sly rascal probably intended. He had effortlessly distributed credit for the vaccine’s success to people and agencies around the globe and, at the same time, announced to the worldwide scientific and political communities that Innovac was ever vigilant, had supported the effort at every turn, and was their staunchest ally in the eternal struggle against the microbial world. A perfect delivery. Who could argue with the underlying business strategy? There was nothing wrong with it. Nothing at all. But that appeared to be the full extent of any ulterior motive.
While walking the hall towards Nora’s room, the conversation turned full circle, both of them now expressing their guilt for ever being suspicious. Pandavas probably was using everyone to further Innovac’s business agenda, but they were all being duly compensated ― one way and another. No one was in any way being coerced.
The conversation had drifted towards a sputtering conclusion when they reached Nora’s door. An awkward, almost painful pause descended, holding them in the hallway. Nora stared unfocused at the carpet. Lyköan felt frozen in the conversational pallor.
Nora broke the silence first. “So much for our amateur sleuthing.”
“I’m deferring judgment,” Lyköan replied. “There’s still the rest of the weekend. Maybe in a more relaxed setting...” he trailed off without completing the sentence, overcome by its senselessness. Their little investigative cabal was disintegrating. Another sad self-deception ― his laughably futile attempt to draw closer to this woman ― to anyone. Not too much longer now, he knew, and it would all be over.
“The CDC figures I’ve completed my assignment,” Nora mentione
d, which only reinforced his anxiety. “They’re right, of course. They’ll expect me back soon.” The observation exposed the basic folly lurking in her own nascent emotions. How had she allowed this to happen? Where could it possibly lead?
“We’ve still got another day or two, right?” Lyköan sought desperately with a wan grin, trying to put a positive spin on the same unspoken difficulty, what they had started and where they seemed to be heading. “There are plenty of ways we can keep in touch. We both travel. We could make plans. I’d at least like to try.”
“Me too,” Nora agreed. But what were the odds? Too bad, it’s really too bad, she thought and, avoiding his eyes, looked past him down the hall. Life was just too damned complicated. Never act on a whim.
Mutual desperation sparked a last passionate embrace at the open threshold, enwrapped arms and mouths, bodies pressed just close enough to express unspoken yearnings. But in the end Nora knew she would be bunking alone. Lyköan didn’t argue or attempt to press.
With a final, “Until tomorrow then?” he left her at the doorway and headed for his own room. By the time he reached it, only a trace of second-guessed reflection remained.
Why argue with progress? It had still been an eye-opening day in so many ways. Although he knew he was rationalizing, it didn’t take much to convince himself a cooling off period at this point made sense, that he needed time to assimilate everything. Intellectually, he was perfectly content letting the current of this unanticipated river of events determine the speed with which life should proceed downstream. No need digging in his paddle, meddling with the timing of an unknowable future. “Let the pace of existence dance to its own rhythm,” as Sun Shi might say.
While that might have been the method his conscious mind employed attempting to reconcile the here and now, his emotions were an entirely different matter. Maybe an alarm should have sounded when three in the morning found him still awake, stripped down to his boxers and sitting cross-legged on the bed, the yíb open and warm in his lap. But none did. Instead of an alarm, the high-ceilinged room was abuzz with the incessant string of chords announcing app-functions shuttling on and offline, a monotonous medley of repetitious notes. He was hardly paying attention to the tune. After an agitated hour at the butterfly keyboard he had become its integrated extension and the yíb was acknowledging this by responding nicely to his rapid four finger parry and lunge. No longer requiring precise instruction, the cyber-song had taken on a life of its own.
The SONG of SHIVA Page 17