Island 731

by Jeremy Robinson

  “No, no,” he said. “I think we should get the ship out of this lagoon, anchor off shore—far enough to make swimming the distance tough—and come back in the small boats.”

  “Which is option number two,” Drake said. “Park off shore and return to search in shifts. We’ll set up a search grid, and—”

  “Won’t work,” Hawkins said, not lifting his eyes from the page as he added stripes to the lizard’s top view. “The island is too big to search a grid with so few people while returning to the ship every night. From what I could see, most of the island meets the sea with a cliff. The lagoon might be the only way to make land. We also have to assume that Kam—if he’s alive—or the people holding him, might be mobile. You can’t search an area and then assume he won’t be there later. We’d be better off leaving, getting help, and returning with a small army.”

  “And that would be option three,” Drake said.

  “I can’t believe you’re suggesting that,” Joliet said.

  “Makes sense,” Blok said, running his hands over his bald head. “It’s possible Kam is already dead and we’d be risking our lives for nothing. Returning with more people, and weapons, is the only way to be sure and not lose any more lives.”

  “You can stay on the ship,” Joliet said, growing angry. She turned to Hawkins. “Both of you can. Kam is our friend.”

  “I wasn’t suggesting we leave,” Hawkins said. “Only that a search grid wouldn’t be much better than leaving.”

  “Then what are you proposing, Mr. Hawkins?” Drake asked.

  “The sun set thirty minutes ago, so it’s too dark to take the Magellan out of the lagoon tonight. I’ll take the Zodiac back to the beach in the morning, while you take the Magellan off shore. I’ll pick up the trail again and find Kam. On my own. Come back to the beach in a week. If I find Kam, we’ll be there.”

  “And if neither of you are there in a week?” Bray asked.

  “Then do like I said, come back with an army.”

  “You can’t go alone,” Joliet said. “You were almost killed. We’re coming with you.”

  “When you say ‘we’re,’ are you including me?” Bray asked.

  Joliet glared at him.

  “Thought so.”

  Hawkins lowered his sketch pad. “I’m going alone.”

  Joliet locked eyes with him. “Bullshit.”

  “I won’t risk your life,” he said.

  “It’s mine to risk.”

  Hawkins sensed that arguing wouldn’t help, but if he’d known the island was populated, he’d have never agreed to let her join him the first time out. “You’ll slow me down.”

  “We did just fine before and I saved your life.” Joliet crossed her arms over her chest.

  The captain tapped a fork against his glass like he was about to give a toast at a wedding. Everyone turned to him. “I understand that this is a tense situation, but please try to keep your heads.”

  “Not the best choice of words,” Bray said.

  The captain ignored Bray’s comment. “I think we’ve ruled out leaving, and when it comes to finding Kam, I trust Hawkins’s opinion.” Drake raised his hand to Joliet, who was about to protest. He turned to Hawkins. “But I can’t let you go alone. Blok, what do we have for weapons?”

  “Ahh, there’s the rifle. Two spearguns.”

  “There’s a kitchen full of knives,” Ray Clifton said from the door, which he nearly filled. He dried his hands on a towel and stepped into the room. He paused behind Hawkins’s chair. “Overheard your conversation. We got cleavers, too. Keep ’em sharp.” He motioned to Hawkins’s drawing. “Make short work of those dracos there.”

  “Draco?” Hawkins said, looking up over his shoulder at the behemoth of a man.

  “That flying lizard,” Ray said. “It’s called a draco. Saw it on Discovery. That’s what you saw on the island, right?”

  Bray stood up across the table and reached out for the sketch pad. “Let me see that.” He took the pad and sat down with it.

  “Here’s how we’re going to play it,” Drake said. “In the morning, we’ll take the Magellan through the strait. I’m going to need every set of eyes to help us maneuver through there, so no one is leaving the ship until we’re out. Then Hawkins, Blok, Joliet, and if he chooses to, Bray, will return to track down Kam. Take whatever weapons you can find. I’ll give you three days to find him.”

  Hawkins began to protest. “Three days is—”

  “As much as you’re going to get,” Drake said. “When the sun heads for the horizon on day three, I’ll bring the Magellan closer to the island so you can rendezvous with us, with or without Kam. Understood?”

  Hawkins nodded, but didn’t speak. The three-day deadline wouldn’t give them enough time to cover a lot of ground, but whoever took Kam wouldn’t just be wandering the island aimlessly. That path would end somewhere, and he felt confident they could find out where inside three days. But he had no way of knowing if Kam would still be there when they arrived, or even if he’d still be alive. He did, however, have an idea.

  “What about you, Captain?” Hawkins said, looking at the old captain’s bulging muscles. “Let them take the ship out and you help me find Kam.”

  A wide grin formed on the captain’s face. “Much as I’d like that, I’m the captain of this ship, and this isn’t Star Trek. My duty is here.”

  Hawkins figured as much, but had to ask. While Bray was overweight, Blok a skinny rail of a man, and Joliet not much bigger than a fourteen-year-old boy, the captain was strong and in good shape. They’d cover a lot more ground and he had no doubt that the old sea dog would be good in a fight. Not to mention the fact that he wouldn’t worry about Drake as much as he would Joliet, or even Bray. His relationship with the captain had remained professional. He’d become attached to Bray and Joliet. Their welfare would be a distraction.

  “Are these teeth right?” Bray asked, looking up from the drawing.

  “Yeah,” Hawkins said. “Why?”

  “It had fangs?”

  “Yes. Like a snake, but shorter.”

  “What about color?” Bray asked.

  “Yellow with black stripes,” Joliet answered.

  “And you got the size right? It was this slender?”

  Hawkins lost his patience with Bray’s rapid-fire questions. “Yes. That’s what it looked like. Do you know what it is?”

  “I told you,” Ray said. “That’s a draco.”

  Bray stood and turned the pad around so they could all see it. “Your right,” he said to Ray. “But you’re also wrong. The wings are formed by a thin membrane stretched between ribs that the draco lizard can open. But they can’t fly, like a bird. They glide. Usually to escape predators. The wings, limbs, and head are all draco, but the rest … that’s something else.”

  “Something else?” Joliet asked.

  “You of all people should see it,” Bray said. He propped the sketch pad against his belly. Using both his hands, he covered the creature’s open wings and limbs in the top view Hawkins had drawn. “Remember the coloration. Ignore the size of the head, but take the fangs into account.”

  Joliet looked for just a moment before she gasped. “Hydrophis melanocephalus.”

  “Hydro-what?” Ray asked.

  “A sea snake,” she said, her voice suddenly full of dread.

  “That’s bad?” Hawkins asked.

  “Sea snakes have the most potent venom of any snake. Far more deadly than any land snake. In fact, it’s the most deadly natural substance in the world.” She looked at Hawkins. “If either of us had been bit…”

  “How come we don’t hear about people dying from sea snake bites?” Hawkins asked.

  “Because they’re docile,” Joliet said. “You can swim right up and play with them. Millions of years of not being screwed with have made them nice. Probably why their fangs are shorter than the average venomous snake, too. They don’t bite unless severely provoked.”

  “Like if you’re trying to eat
them,” Bray said. “But just about everything in the ocean knows not to bother.”

  Ray looked dubious. “Doesn’t look like a sea snake to me.”

  “Nor does it look like a draco,” Bray said. “Because it’s neither. And both.”

  “Just what the hell are you talking about, Bray?” Drake asked, raising his voice.

  “It’s a chimera,” Joliet said.

  The captain didn’t look impressed. “Which is?”

  “Two or more creatures merged to form something new,” Bray answered.

  “Something unnatural,” Hawkins added. His stomach twisted. There was another word he believed could describe the creature. “Another experiment.”

  16.

  “I don’t understand,” Hawkins said. “How is any of this possible?”

  He lay on his cot, staring up at the ceiling, hands clasped behind his head and feet crossed. Outwardly, he looked no tenser than a vacationer lying in a cot and sipping a mixed drink. But the tension gripping him made his body ache, never mind the fact that the jungle hike, and run, had worn him out. A month on board a ship with less exercise than he was accustomed to had taken a toll on his stamina.

  “Which part?” Bray asked. He sat at the room’s only desk, looking at Hawkins’s sketch of the draco-snake, which Bray had dubbed “minidrakes,” by combining “draco” and “snake,” but also because drakes were a type of dragon.

  Bray hadn’t used the term in front of Captain Drake yet, but Hawkins had a feeling the man wouldn’t appreciate being associated with the creatures, so he tried to refer to them as chimeras or draco-snakes. “Let’s start with the chimeras.”

  After the revelation that the draco-snakes were two creatures merged into one, and likely another experiment, the dinner group had gone silent. Perhaps sensing that a conversation based on the few, but frightening, facts they’d uncovered would lead to wild speculation, Drake had quickly dismissed the group. He asked them to go to bed early so that they might be rested for the search, but Hawkins suspected the dismissal was more for the benefit of the nonscience crewmembers. Their jobs required focus. Worrying about flying lizards and freakish experiments could slow their work, or result in sloppy work, which could endanger all of them in the long run. So they’d returned to their quarters, staying silent for nearly thirty minutes, each lost in thought. Joliet had left, saying she’d needed time to think and process, but she’d come see them soon. She had yet to return.

  Bray stood, turned around, and sat back down in the backward-facing chair. “First of all, the idea of a chimera is nothing new. Homer describes a creature in the Illiad that is part lion, part goat, and part snake. The Bible mentions creatures called the Nephilim, which are half-human, half-demon, but then goes on to say that all flesh—including animals—became corrupted. Some people actually believe that the Greek myths, which are full of chimeras, might be based on actual creatures alluded to in the Torah—the first five books of the Bible—as well as the Book of Enoch, an ancient text supposedly written by Noah’s great-grandfather, but not included in the Christian canon. The manticore—part human, part lion, and with three rows of shark teeth. The griffin—part lion, part eagle. The hydra—part serpent, part squid, which might explain its regenerative abilities.”

  “But that’s all myth, not reality,” Hawkins said. “Nephilim and hydras might make great fiction, but I can’t take them seriously.” He didn’t care if the pope himself believed chimeras were real. As far as he could tell, myths stayed in the past and he was much more concerned about the present. As much as Bray’s passion and knowledge about history impressed him, thinking about flying lions with shark teeth couldn’t possibly help him understand the draco-snakes.

  “Okay, let’s talk science.” Bray rubbed his chin for a moment, collecting his thoughts. “First, it’s important to understand that chimeras can form naturally.”

  “C’mon,” Hawkins said, fearing that Bray was about to make a case for the reality of mythological chimeras.

  “Just listen,” Bray said. “Chimeras are formed when two fertilized eggs, or embryos, fuse in the womb. I’m not talking cross-species chimeras here. A chimera can develop from a single species if two distinct embroyos become one.”

  “Like conjoined twins?” Hawkins asked.

  “In the loosest sense, sure, but what I’m talking about is a much deeper joining. Okay, here’s a gross example. A farmer in India went to have a massive tumor removed. Was so big it made him look pregnant. When the surgeons opened him up, the tumor had hands. And limbs. A jaw. Hair. Even nads. Wicked gross, right?”

  When Hawkins grimaced, Bray continued. “The body was seriously deformed, but lived inside the guy for thirty-six years. When he was an embryo, he wrapped around his twin brother and the two merged into one.” Bray raised his index finger. “Oh! There was this lady in Britain who merged so completely with her twin, down to the cellular level, that she actually had two different blood types. She was literally two people at once. What’s really crazy is that chimerism is becoming more common in people because of in vitro fertilization. So we’re doing it in labs all the time, just not on purpose.”

  “So we’re accidently merging twins,” Hawkins said. “I’m still not seeing how it applies to flying sea snakes.”

  “Minidrakes,” Bray said, “and it does apply. If you’d let me finish a thought, you might learn something.”

  “You have very long thoughts.”

  “Thank you,” Bray said.

  Bray had a habit of saying “thank you” whenever someone described something as being large, long, or delicious. He never said it, but everyone knew he was implying they’d been talking about his manhood. Hawkins had no doubt Bray had picked it up from one of his high school students. Had that vibe. It was funny at first, especially when he did it to Joliet, but the joke was getting old so Hawkins tried not to grin. It would only encourage the man. “Continue, Professor Bray. Educate me.”

  “Gladly,” Bray said. “This is where things get freaky.”

  “I thought we crossed into ‘freaky’ five minutes ago.”

  “It’s far freakier when it’s intentional,” Bray said.

  Hawkins couldn’t argue with that. The idea of someone merging a sea snake and draco lizard together just felt wrong. Never mind the fact that they’d also tried to transplant adult human limbs from one person to another.

  “The main difference between natural chimerism and laboratory chimerism is that the process can be controlled in a lab. Instead of randomly merging—which, by the way, most often results in both fetuses dying before birth. That the farmer was born and then lived thirty-six years with a twin in his belly is miraculous. Anyway, instead of randomly merging embryos, scientists can select specific embryonic cells from one organism—say, a bird’s wings and breast muscles strong enough to use them—and transplant them onto the embryo of something else. Like a lion.”

  “So griffins could be real?” Hawkins asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “In theory, yes.”

  “But isn’t that just a hybrid? What makes the draco-snakes chimeras?”

  “Hybrids are a fusion of gametes.”

  “Lost me already,” Hawkins said.

  “Did you ever take biology in school?” Bray asked, shaking his head. “Gametes are cells that merge with others cells during fertilization. Eggs. Sperm. Those kinds of things.”

  “So humans are hybrids?” Hawkins asked.

  Bray nodded. “Kind of, but not really, because we’re talking about gametes from different species, not Mom and Dad. So these gametes come together and form a single zygote. That’s a fertilized egg to the layman. This can pretty much only happen in a lab, or with very closely related species, like lions and tigers.”

  “Ligers,” Hawkins said. He’d seen some of the giant cats on TV. They occasionally made the news when an illegal private zoo got shut down. Lions and tigers kept together could mate and have offspring that were equal parts of both species, but often twice th
e size.

  “Exactly,” Bray said. “The end result is a new species with a single, merged genetic code. A chimera is different because each individual part has distinct genetic codes.”

  “Like the lady with two blood types?”

  “Right. The minidrakes aren’t a new species. They’re still two distinct species with separate genetic codes brought together as a single organism. Like the Trinity. God the Father. Jesus. Holy Spirit. Separate, but joined.”

  Hawkins just stared at him.

  “Sorry,” Bray said. “Raised Catholic. Forget it. Okay, here’s a question for you. Ever heard of a geep?”

  “No.”

  “’Course not,” Bray said. “Geep are lab-created goat-sheep. They were created in the eighties. Lived full lives. Gets worse. In China, a human-rabbit chimera was created. They claim to have destroyed the embryos, which I doubt, but the point is, the cells were successfully merged.”

  “That’s sick,” Hawkins said.

  “Seriously,” Bray said. “A rabbit? Were they trying to make an Easter Bunny? Why not give someone tiger claws? You’re probably thinking that shit went down because it was China. Well, guess what? The University of Nevada School of Medicine made a chimera that was eighty-five percent sheep and fifteen percent human. Now that’s nuts.”

  A dull sound suddenly reverberated through the ship. The low, rumbling tone sounded like a fog horn. The lone blast of sound lasted three seconds and then faded.

  “Someone must be testing the horn,” Bray said.

  A thud on the floor above them turned their heads up.

  “Sounds like the horn caught someone by surprise,” Bray said with a grin.

  Hawkins just looked at the ceiling like he could see through it.

  Bray gave a shrug. “On to the craziest thing you’ll hear all day. Spider silk. Stuff is stronger than steel, but fibrous. Lots of potential applications. Bulletproof vests. Airbags. Hell, someone could probably make space suits out of the stuff. But they can’t harvest it in large quantities. Spiders aren’t only small, but when researchers set up a spider farm, the spiders went on a Highlander-like killing spree.”