by E. Coulombe
She started to answer, but his genuine look of surprise mingled with confusion stunned her.
“Honestly,” he went on “what do you want me to say?”
“Nothing. Believe me Andrew, you’ve already said it,” she said as she left the lab.
Chapter Forty Seven
“Lono, you’ve got George so excited he can’t think straight.” Michael laughed, watching George leap across the naupaka to get to his newly transplanted specimen table.
“I can see that,” Lono smiled, “and probably not a good thing for an expedition leader.”
George practically knocked the table over in his haste to retrieve one of the books he had brought with him from the Collier’s library. He brought it back over to Lono, who was still nursing his wound at the water’s edge. “Look at this Lono; did it look anything like this?” George showed him a pen and ink drawing of the creature.
“That’s it George, sort of, only it was brightly colored, and the tentacles were twice as long. What in the world is a ‘Nautiloid’?” Lono read the caption.
“Oh nothing much,” George feigned disinterest, “just a common squid like organism that swam in shallow warm seas, and fed on crustaceans on the ocean floor.”
“But not here. I’ve never seen it before.”
“No, probably not, seeing that they’ve been extinct for 380 million years!”
Lono frowned. “Well your books wrong then. They’re definitely still alive.”
“Apparently so, and trilobites as well. That crab-like thing which you saw it eat, did it look like this?”
“Yep, that’s it.”
“Trilobites,” George read from the page, “over 15,000 species known to have existed until the Permian extinction 240 million years ago!”
“What in the hell is going on here George?”
“I don’t know. It’s like those sci-fi movies when a fissure opens up in the ocean floor and the ancient sea monsters escape. Only this is not quite like that. This is different,” George hesitated, “because it’s as though they’re coming out of the fissure in the exact order in which they evolved!”
George prepared lunch while Lono stayed at the water’s edge using wet sand to soothe the pain of the sting. Feeling better, he surveyed the cove, and surprised even himself when he announced he was going back out. He felt foolish for having lost his cool, embarrassed that he’d dropped his spear. It was one thing to respect the ocean, that was okay, but to fear it? That was bad. The ocean was his home, his livelihood, and he had to go back, he thought, but to George he only said he was ready to return.
“What? When?” George asked, as they ate the leftover fish and rice.
“As soon as this damn stinging stops,” Lono answered.
“Wish I could help with that,” George casually remarked.
“Oh, but you can help,” Michael grinned at Lono, “all you need to do is to pee on his leg.”
George looked at both of them dubiously, “Yeah, right.”
“No really, it’s true. Uric acid stops the reaction faster than anything else.”
George shook his head. “Well, I like you Lono,” George smiled, “and I want to help,” he added, pretending he was willing to oblige. Suddenly he turned and shouted at Lono, “but hell will freeze over before I’ll stand here and pee on your leg!”
“And I’ll be dead before I let you do it!” Lono shouted back with a huge grin across his face. Michael laughed so hard he rolled down the dune.
George didn’t think the squid creature would harm them. “Says here orthocones are not swift creatures. They use a kind of propulsion to move, and they swim faster backwards than forwards.”
“Yea, I saw it do that. It swam smack into the reef!”
“Then, to move up and down in the water, they have to regulate the amount of air in the chambers of the shell, kind of like a submarine. Not too swift at all.” Still, it didn’t take much persuading for George to convince both the boys to wear the full body wet suits. Jellyfish usually occur in blooms, there’d be more.
The fisherman in Lono was aroused. If he could catch one of those things alive, and take it back to the village, that would convince Grant something extraordinary was happening in this water.
“You know, Lono,” George said as the boys geared up, “I remember reading somewhere, although I can’t find it any of these books, that orthocones could get pretty big, maybe seven or eight feet long..”
“Eight feet? No shit. That might be big enough to attack us.”
“No, I don’t think so. I don’t think it would. And what you saw was a different species of nautiloid, but still…I thought I should mention it.”
“Anything else you thought you should mention before we go?” Lono asked, half-jokingly.
Andrew was surprised to see her opening the door to the lab. She rarely came inside, and always, even back in Boston, seemed uncomfortable doing so. Must be something on her mind, he thought. He breathed deeply, stepped around the central lab bench and guided Emma into Kerri’s vacant chair next to the scope. Instinctively he knew, as husbands usually do, to wait, and carefully consider each response, and above all control his tone of voice. Otherwise his knee-jerk reaction would be some dismissive comment, instantly regrettable, and that more than anything else, pushed her buttons.
Emma didn’t speak at first either, but instead smiled, and looked around the lab. She flipped a few pages of the periodical Kerri had left on the counter. She was letting him see her for a moment; she would always do this first, he thought, whenever she wanted the most difficult thing for him to give – his time. And it would often work. Her beauty was half her argument. He reached down and touched her stomach under the oversized dress she was wearing.
“Still there,” she smiled.
“Bigger. Getting pretty obvious now.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” she turned to face him. “I finally sat and wrote it all down, and I think the baby is actually six months old.”
Andrew frowned. “You don’t look six months. I seem to remember with Michael you were much larger at six months?”
“Yea, I was. It kind of worries me. I was thinking I should see a different doctor, one in Honolulu maybe. Kauai is known for bad medical care.”
Andrew couldn’t hesitate. The slightest hesitation on his part and she’d become defensive, blaming the lab and the work.
This was true. He was on the verge of repeating his experiment; the cultures would be ready in one more day, maybe two. The last thing he could do right now was leave the island for a trip to Honolulu. But he dared not argue, and immediately agreed, then spun his thoughts in every direction trying to figure out how to stall her for at least three days.
“The barge is scheduled to go over in three days. I’ll tell Grant we would like to be on it.”
Her face dropped. She obviously didn’t want to wait three days, but she believed him. “Okay,” she said, “that’s probably best because I want to wait for Michael to return from Ko`olau before we go. I don’t want to leave the island with him over there.”
“Now that seems a bit overprotective to me.”
“I don’t care,” she snapped.
“Look Emma, he’s sixteen years old, basically one year away from college, and you’re saying you don’t want to be away from him while he’s camping on the west side.”
“It’s not the camping, you know it’s not. It’s the ocean that scares me.”
“He’s fine Emma. Like Lono said, you’re afraid of it because you’re not used to it. We grew up in the water; it doesn’t frighten us in the same way that it does you.”
“That’s all well and good for you and Lono. You’re both experienced in these waters, but Michael’s not. He doesn’t have a clue about the dangers out there.”
“But Lono does, and he won’t let him do anything stupid. Besides, I told George to watch over him,” and added under his breath, “and that I would watch over you.”
“What’s that
supposed to mean?”
“I just didn’t want George concerning himself on your behalf any longer.” But from his tone of voice his insinuation was crystal clear.
“George is my friend…our friend,” she stammered, “and you should be treating him with more respect. It’s horrible the way your brother and all the other Nakoans have castigated him. And now you as well? What is wrong with you people?” She couldn’t hold back any longer. She bent her head down and covered her face, sobbing. After only a moment she forced herself to stop.
“Damn. I didn’t want to do that,” she said wiping away the tears, “every time you see me now I’m crying. And I can see the look on your face; you’re beginning to think of me as some overwrought ninny. And, what’s worse, I’m beginning to feel like one!” She stood and smoothed her dress, one of her self composing gestures.
“Dammit Andrew. I just feel so strung up, and just a few days ago it was the opposite. I was thoroughly calm and happy. Loving this place and these people. What’s happening here Andrew? Ever since George, and Kerri,” her voice tightened, “ever since they arrived, and Kane died, then the huikilau terrified me, and it all seems to have changed. Almost overnight. Now everyone distrusts my friend, including you, and I distrust your friend, and…” She completely broke down.
Andrew waited silently but didn’t move. Emma composed herself. “Dammit, I don’t want to be one of those overwrought pregnant women whom I know you detest. But I can’t take it Andrew. I just want to go out there and grab Michael, and you, and leave this place to go to….”
“Go where Emma?”
The coldness in his voice startled her. Her throat caught, and she jerked her head back and looked at him, questioningly. Andrew’s countenance had suddenly hardened, with a look on his face she seldom saw, but recognized from Grant. It was a resistance she’d seen in Grant’s face. He doesn’t want to leave the island, she realized, it’s the lab. The damn lab again.
She shook her head slowly back and forth. He breathed deeply and placed his arm under her elbow. “We’ll go to Honolulu,” he acquiesced, “we’ll see an obstetrician at Kapiolani, someone good, who can reassure you…” She jerked her head up. “Reassure us, I mean. Then we’ll both feel better. And please stop worrying about Michael. He’s fine. Trust me.”
Chapter Forty Eight
Without allowing time for doubts to enter his head, Lono swam directly to where he had seen the orthocone and retrieved his spear. He felt better with it in hand. But after a thorough search of the area, they could find nothing, neither the nautiloid or the trilobite, and only towards the end of the day when they were headed back in, did they find another of the striped cones lying on the ocean floor, this one smaller, only two feet long.
Lono signaled to Michael to surface. Using his fins to keep himself buoyant he took off his mask and cleaned it with spit. It was late, but before they went in, he wanted to check out the other side of the bay, he said. As always, Michael didn’t hesitate at another chance to do more diving. He bagged the cone shell, and they headed across the bay to the south side of Ko`olau iki.
George had decided to stay in shouting range in case he was needed by the boys. Seeing their bobbing snorkel tubes head across the bay, he was excited to follow them around the shoreline, and search the tide pools and beach cut-a-ways he’d not yet had a chance to explore. He hadn’t gone far when he spotted an odd cluster-shape on a part of the beach that had been hidden from view. Cautiously he moved closer to what looked like a pile of large shells, then more, and more, scattered along the shore, in groups of three or four, piled on top of one another, their tails whipping up and down, barbed claws lashing, the sound of scraping shells. What in the hell, George thought, these look like ancient sea scorpions! He scanned the beach and counted at least a hundred of them – they were mating on the shoreline!
As he looked out into the bay, the snorkel tubes were getting closer. The boys were headed this way. Without thinking, he shouted to stop them, to direct them away from this scene and get them to safety on shore, but his actions had the wrong effect. The boys didn’t hear him, the sea scorpions did. En masse, like frightened squirrels, they scattered. Their large ungainly shells were ill-equipped for life on land, and they quickly scurried back towards the safety of the sea. One after another they reached the water, splashed the surface as they pumped their tails, and took off in all directions. George continued to shout, unheeded by the bobbing snorkel tubes.
The boys cut across the mouth of the bay and the ocean floor fell away beneath them. Too deep to support coral life, the reef gave way to a sandy bottom sixty feet below. It had only taken them a few minutes to swim across the small cove, but it was already late and visibility rapidly diminished as the sun dropped down behind Lehua Island. Activity in the water changed with the setting sun – it was now feeding time on the reef. This was often Lono’s favorite time to fish, but it was also the most dangerous. Reef fish, even the eels and crustaceans, would come out to feed, but they were usually followed by the larger predators coming in to feed, the ulua and ahi, and these bigger fish then drew in the sharks. He was perplexed that this evening he saw very little activity. A few small goby darted in and out, but not many. He saw one trumpet fish, but rather than suspending itself horizontally in its normal feeding position, it was hiding in a crevice.
Was it the time of day, or was the reef even darker here, he thought. It seemed to be completely cleaned of algal growth. Like dead waters. Is this what it would look like after an oil or toxin spill, he wondered?
Rather than swimming ahead as he usually did, Michael swam behind. Lono knew the boy was tired, and he decided they would turn back soon. But a ten-foot reef wall, jutting out like a ship’s prow, loomed ahead, drawing Lono’s curiosity. The high tide enabled him to ascend a gradual slope and swim across the top.
The reef dropped off thirty feet on the other side.
He stopped, and peered into the deeper waters below, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Something wasn’t right, but he couldn’t quite see…..
Suddenly an immense pincer lashed out and took a swipe at him. He ducked his head just in time, and the claw disappeared into the black water below. He turned to find Michael, who was coming up behind him on the right, but just as Michael’s head appeared over the reef, the thing darted out of the deep black water again, and zoomed towards Michael’s head! Luckily Michael saw it, and pulled his feet up underneath just as the claw took a swipe at his polypropylene fin, slicing through the thick rubber as though it were dough.
For a second Michael didn’t move, suspended in shock. Lono grabbed his weight belt and kicked out, pulling the boy towards shore. Michael came alive and kicked in with him. Suddenly, moving like a lightening bolt, the creature shot straight up out of the dark waters. They could see its entire body now, at least four feet long. It looked like a giant lobster. But instead of lobster like claws it had massive pincers at the front end, bristling with spines, and a tail that curved up and over exactly like the scorpion’s stinger! It was immediately above them with its tail curled ready to strike, and its pincers slicing the water above their heads.
But then it stopped.
It tried to turn but it was too late, as the tentacles of a giant nautiloid roped around the sea scorpion’s claws, now rendered useless in the tentacle’s crushing grip. The scorpion whipped its tail up, trying to cut the nautiloid’s tentacles, but it was futile, and within seconds the giant squid-like beak pierced through the back of the sea scorpion’s shell, the rasping teeth crushed it from below. The scorpion lay limp.
Lono and Michael floated on their backs, unable to take their eyes off the horrific scene unfolding in front of them. When the nautiloid carried its prey into the deeper water, they finally turned and kicked as hard as they could, swimming for the beach. They touched bottom, stripped off their fins, and ran like hell over the slippery, algae-covered rocks, not even noticing as the jagged coral cut their feet. They didn’t stop until th
ey were high above the bay, far from the menacing waters. Michael dropped down onto the sand, went to remove his mask, and realized he still had the snorkel tube in his mouth. He laughed with fear and relief.
Lono panted beside him. “What in the hell was that?” Lono shouted.
“Did you see that fucking thing?” Michael screamed in response. Both boys were laughing and shouting at the same time, glad to be alive. Then Lono turned, and frantically searched the sand with his hands. “Shit man! That’s the second time today I’ve lost my spear.”
Chapter Forty Nine
Andrew stepped into his musty lab. His mind was heavy with anticipation, and with doubts. He’d waited three days for this new culture of bacteria to be in exactly the right phase, and if he and Kerri were correct, the transformations would finally be repeated.
But Kerri should be here.
He hadn’t been alone with her since the day before, when he’d snapped. He hadn’t meant to criticize so harshly. It wasn’t the first time he’d lost patience with a co-worker. Many grad students had complained to the dean about exactly that behavior. But in truth, it was her reaction which separated them now. She’d revealed deeper feelings, which he didn’t return, and he definitely hadn’t meant to do that again.
But he still needed her help. If the experiment worked today, as he expected it to, he wasn’t sure what to do next, what would be the most effective way to actually use the Mutator. For that he needed her. If he apologized and asked her to join in, she would; yet he found himself unable to do so. What was he so damned afraid of, he asked himself. He was undaunted by the prospect of recreating evolution, and terrified to talk to a woman. Yes, we are a complex species, he thought.
The transfer had occurred, and he watched with amazement, as the bacteria, stressed by the hot white light he positioned under the scope, were once again transformed, exactly as they had been before.