The Curiosity: A Novel
Page 17
“We’re not just killers,” I said, tapping in the next search. “We have our redeeming qualities.”
Judge Rice did not answer. The next clip showed a stunt pilot, smoke trailing from the tip of each wing as he soared straight up, tilted upside down, tumbled wing over wing as he plummeted earthward, then caught on the wind to spiral upward again.
“Oh, my goodness.”
“Finally, let me show you what can happen when we’re not being ‘stupid’ but instead work on a loftier purpose.”
Gerber sat back, hands behind his head. “I hope this is what I think it is.”
The footage was easy to find. A man in a bulky white suit with a square backpack descended a ladder, planted his boot in gray dust. “That’s one small step for a man,” his voice declared through radio static. “One giant leap for mankind.”
The video cut to two men erecting an American flag, bright sunlight behind them. One of them hopped leg to leg, eventually bouncing clear out of the frame.
“Where is that person located, please?”
“That’s Neil Armstrong, Judge,” Gerber said. “Totally dumb human if ever there was one. And the completely stupid place where he is standing?” He nodded at me with a big grin. “It’s the moon.”
“The moon.” Judge Rice slumped in his chair, all the wind out of his sails. He rubbed both eyes with his fingers. “Dr. Philo?”
“Right here.”
“Hm. Would you kindly help me to my room now? I am exhausted.”
I remember when Chloe had two teeth pulled before getting braces, how her eyes looked hooded by the dopey anesthesia. Judge Rice’s lids had a similar heaviness, which had come on in an instant. I lifted him nursing-home style, his arms around my neck. We stood a moment together, his body’s fatigue resting against my body’s alertness. Gerber watched but I did not care. We maneuvered away through the desks.
“The moon,” Judge Rice said. “They were standing on the moon.”
“Yes, your honor.”
As I led him into the chamber, the man from the past held me close against his side, like I was the only thing to keep him from falling off the face of the earth.
CHAPTER 17
One Who Lingered
(Erastus Carthage)
It is simple,” you say to him. “Either you contribute to the discoveries here, or the project cannot afford you.”
Billings nods ponderously. You peer at him over your glasses. He looks terrible, pale and fatigued. But then, he is a Brit, and in your experience that entire nation could use a few days of hot meals and naps in the sun.
When he speaks, though, Billings’s tone is unexpectedly firm. “Dr. Carthage, it would be my pleasure to describe for you, at whatever level of detail you desire, the relentless scope of discovery I have accomplished while every other person in this organization has been distracted by Jeremiah Rice.”
“If you dismiss Subject One as a distraction, you fail to understand the import of this entire project.”
“So sayeth the man who knows not half of what goes on in his lab.”
Touché. After all, you were surprised by negligence in the control room. Likewise you were unaware that Dr. Philo had been violating protocol and visiting Subject One, with the video monitors off no less.
Yet you smile. Is there anything on this earth more amusing, really, than an Englishman? Ever since the days of colonies in India and Hong Kong, they have possessed this odd sense of superiority, which they believe to be chivalric honor but you recognize as foolishness. Nobility to them, vanity to you. Why did a Norwegian beat a Brit to the South Pole? Because Scott, the Englishman, refused to use sled dogs. It wasn’t fitting for a gentleman to rely upon animals in such a quest, he wrote in his journal, as if he were pulling up a chair at the Round Table. Thus Amundsen not only reached the pole first, returning in one piece, but thus, also, was Scott’s journal recovered from a corpse.
Smile erased, you lay a palm flat on your desk. “I am delighted that you are finding your time well spent, Dr. Billings. Would you do me the honor of acquainting me with your progress? I tremble with anticipation.”
Billings marks your tone by sniffing a good British sniff. But he does not parry, only demonstrates the proverbial stiff upper lip and opens his notes. “The giant iceberg which provided us with Judge Rice also yielded nine hundred and fourteen lesser samples. They fall into eleven species. We have conducted assays on ten percent of each one. Within ninety-two samples therefore tested, across all species the results are consistent.”
“Thrilling,” you say, because you cannot resist your little fun. “Who doesn’t thrive on consistency?”
Billings closes the notebook in his lap. “Shall I stop here? There must be someone else you can condescend to.”
“Unless you intend to leave that notebook here as project property, and abandon all of your assays currently under way, I’d advise you to humor me.”
“Humor you, Doctor? Have I not already done so, well beyond the call of duty? Who tried to keep Dr. Philo from removing Judge Rice from the chamber? And who informed you first thing the next day about what had happened?”
“What I deduce from that incident is that you failed to persuade your colleague. And while I grant that Dr. Philo is one of the more annoying human beings on this earth, nonetheless I admire her pluck. Whereas for reasons that go back literally to my own parentage, I have always hated a tattletale.”
That scotches him. Billings has no reply. You continue.
“Dr. Billings, you assume I have not read your weekly reports. You assume wrongly. In reality I have been indulging you for all these months since the expedition returned from the north, waiting in vain for you to provide a single idea worthy of publication. Meanwhile the rest of the project is ‘distracted’ by redefining human mortality. If I am mistaken, now is the time for you to change my mind.”
“Metabolic rates,” he says. “All that motion in the later reanimation period? It’s not frenzy, it’s not fear. The creatures all start at an incredibly slow metabolism. Remember when Dr. Borden compared Judge Rice to a sleeping bear? Hibernating is a fair analogy for the early reanimation period. But then, and this is the fascinating part”—he hitches forward in his seat—“the creatures increase energy and motion at the same rate, because their metabolisms are increasing at that rate, too. Shrimp or lobster, krill or cod, they all start slowly and then accelerate.”
You straighten a paper on your desk. “The implications would be?”
“Breathtaking, were there not a human subject involved. We would be publishing papers by the dozen. Their shared thesis would be that the rate of acceleration is predictable. It varies only depending on the species’ size—bigger means slower. But the fundamental challenge for postanimation survival is metabolic.”
He has confirmed Borden’s findings, even enlarging upon them. And because it’s Billings, his documentation will be superior. But has he found anything more substantial than withholding salt? The digital clock says Subject One’s eighteenth day will commence soon. “Have you solved the problem of extending Subject One’s life span?”
“Not yet. I have two hypotheses. Minimizing his salt intake may work temporarily. But I suspect we would receive a lasting result by saturating his chamber with oxygen—”
A knock at the door prevents Billings from continuing. Thomas takes two steps into the room. “Sorry to interrupt—”
“Apparently that seems to be your primary duty these days, Thomas.”
“With apologies, Dr. Carthage.” He points at the window. “But I thought you would be interested to see what’s going on outside.”
You sigh. “I’m too busy for protesters right now, thank you. I know they’ve found an organizer—”
“Better than that, sir.”
“One moment.” Holding a finger up at Thomas, you turn to Billings. “Your little creatures. Have you found at least a way to keep them alive longer?”
Billings sags like an airless ball
oon. “Not yet.”
“Sir,” Thomas persists, a hand stretched toward the window. “I urge you to take just one minute.”
“Really now? Must I?” You slide back your chair, rise without hurry, and stroll to the wall of glass. “What can possibly be so urgent?”
Instantly you have your answer. Below, there is a spectacle: hundreds of people stand crowded around the front door. The amoeba of bodies spills down the sidewalk in both directions, with more people clustered in the street. The usual protesters have drawn back—intimidated by the noisy crowd, you’d wager. The group at the door looks unruly, possibly moblike.
One woman stands apart from both clusters. She wears a white beret, and there is something arresting about her. Some focus, some patience. But your attention returns to the rabble, where people shove and angle their way forward.
“Gad. Who are all these people, Thomas?”
He hastens to stand at your elbow. “Offspring, sir.”
“Excuse me?”
“That is what they allege, at least. Grandsons, granddaughters, cousins and nieces and nephews. They all say they are relatives of Jeremiah Rice.”
“Bloody nonsense.” It is Billings, looking down from your other side. “There are quite nearly a thousand people down there. Judge Rice would have to be the most prolific man since Methuselah.”
“Dr. Billings, why must I always explain the obvious to you?”
“I beg your pardon?”
You sigh audibly. Is every person you hired for this project secretly a dolt? “None of those people is a descendant of Subject One. Not one. Yet neither are they con men or fools. They believe something deeply, even if it is a fiction. What they express is the public’s yearning to connect with Subject One, and with the work of this project. Don’t you see? I don’t mean to dismiss your metabolic findings, Billings. In another time I might have found them compelling, especially if your results contributed to an increase in longevity. But today something of a different order is under way. We see evidence of it everywhere. This is clear empirical data, right here on our doorstep. Do you understand?”
“Three more months,” Billings replies. “Ninety days and I’ll provide you with long-term survival answers. I am incredibly close.”
“I’ll compromise,” you say. “But desist with the reports, gad. They clutter the mind, and my desk. Thomas, schedule Dr. Billings on my calendar for ten weeks hence.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Ten weeks? Well . . . well. I’ll do what I can. Thank you, Dr. Carthage.” Billings backs away. “Thank you.”
Why do people who fawn in gratitude make you wish for a breath mint? What is that unpleasant taste? After all, you have given him seventy days to produce what any realistic scientist knows could take years. Billings collects his notes and hurries off. But his very haste, when the human display at your feet is infinitely more interesting, undermines your confidence that he will find much of anything. After so many years with an eye pressed to a microscope, the man simply does not know where to look.
“Thomas, call the police and have these people removed.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Alert the media as well. I want this crowd on the evening news. The planet must know that this hunger in the public exists. We also must inform the world that the Lazarus Project is not some sort of popular club, which any proletariat is invited to join.”
“No, sir.”
And thus you stand there until the police arrive, the TV cameras only minutes later. A hundred or so people meander away; you imagine they do not want their folly broadcast to the world. The rest insist on being heard, meeting Jeremiah, being allowed inside. A policeman in charge climbs on a bench and reads something loudly enough that you can discern his tone through the glass. It is neither friendly nor patient.
The crowd disperses, first at the perimeter and then along the sidewalk. A few people near the entry appear reluctant to surrender their advantage, even when it becomes clear that no one will be going inside. One man shoves a police officer, but in post-terrorism Boston, the fool should know better. He’s immediately on the pavement, facedown while handcuffs are applied. A cameraman leans so close he could lock the cuffs himself. You smile a little, knowing his footage will certainly be on television that night.
The rest of the crowd needs no more incentive to depart. You take a call, you dictate a fund-raising letter, you return to your perch. The view, so it seems, has a gravitational pull. The rabble has left, the police and media are gone, the protesters remain quiet for the day. You give yourself a good glop of sanitizer, rubbing your hands one on the other as if warming them.
Only then do you notice that the woman in the white beret has remained in place all this time, standing on the green across the road. She has not moved. Now she takes off her hat, loosening a cascade of corkscrew curls. She casts her eyes over the facade of the building, as if looking for something in one of the windows. Her scrutiny continues a long time, whole minutes. Eventually she tucks her curls behind her ears, sets her hat snugly in place. She gives the building one more scan, her expression unquestionably in a minor key, then shuffles away with her head down.
And you wonder.
“Thomas?”
He pokes back in the doorway. “Sir?”
“The thrill of discovery has misled us somewhat. Our zeal for measurement and publicity has eclipsed another form of knowledge that may serve this project. Please tell Dr. Philo that in addition to her current duties, she is now to research the legacy of Subject One. Children, real estate, investments, the works.”
“Yes, sir. By the way, I notice we are now well into day eighteen.”
“Your point being?”
“Just three more days till we see Dr. Borden’s no-salt methods confirmed. We are almost out of the woods.”
“That, or ruined.”
“Yes, sir. Is there anything in particular you’d like Dr. Philo to seek?”
“All of it,” you say. “She deciphered his boot, and that was before we knew the man’s name or job. Now I want her to find out everything.”
CHAPTER 18
Seven Kinds of Apples
My name is Jeremiah Rice, and I begin to understand.
They did not expect to succeed. That remains the only plausible explanation for their failure to anticipate the awakening of a human being, with a personality, with attitudes and attributes, with desires. They made no accommodation because they were entirely unready for such a thing. They had no plan beyond ambition.
Perhaps a monkey accepts imprisonment in the zoo as the lot of the ignorant beast, but a man knows in his soul when he is not free. The passage of a century eclipses none of my perception of present realities: I am under constant observation. I have neither proper clothing nor cash. I pass my days and sleep my nights in a chamber more laboratory than boudoir. There is an electronic combination to enter or exit my quarters, and I have not been entrusted with the number. The people of here and now mean me no ill, I believe, but neither does the mule driver to his mule. Free man that I am by law and Constitution, I have no liberty to speak of. Until my overwhelming experience with Drs. Gerber and Philo about the progress of aviation, no one had bothered much to acquaint me with the brilliant and violent nature of the time in which I again live.
The exception, quite clearly, is Dr. Philo. She attends kindly to my needs at all times. She it was who told me where I am, and in which month and year. In rare moments she reminds me of my eldest sister, whose years of teaching school gave her a patient and instructive way. Dr. Philo’s efforts to ease my transition, to gentle my introduction to here and now, are compassionate. Whilst she answers to many in this enterprise, however, I surmise by observation that none answers to her. Normally I would need no ambassador, but these times are far from normal. I might advocate more effectively on my own behalf, had I the energy. Instead I frequently endure fatigue as severe as it is sudden. I remain optimistic, however; each day exhaustion afflicts me less.
Joan complained that I was spoiling her. Today, at this remove in time, I sincerely hope so. Who leaves this world having known too much love? Who departs this life having received an excess of kindness?
Besides, she was perpetually tired in those months. If I returned home for the midday meal, I might discover Joan upstairs napping. Evenings she retired early, such that I frequently savored my dram of port by the fire alone, wondering whether solitude might become the primary atmosphere of my parental life. Hm. I think now on those quiet hours, and better appreciate the inexpressible richness they contained: a true and loyal wife creating our child within herself.
Joan recovered from her exhaustion within minutes of bearing Agnes into the world, which I recall optimistically each time I now experience an episode of lapsed vigor. So, too, by degrees, did an intimacy return between us of surpassing tenderness, with Agnes beside us nursing, or murmuring in her bedside cradle. When I pause in my exertions to understand the here and now, and contemplate the severing of that kindness, that mercy, the ache is so acute I half expect to see some place on myself that is bleeding.
The magnitude of what I have lost eclipses my amazement at being alive again. I have been parted from Joan more than one hundred years, yet my confused heart feels only the passage of weeks since our ship sailed for the north. This is why, much as I desire to visit Lynn, I feel reluctance as well: it would be as though returning from our great voyage, but the additional reality of her absence would incapacitate me. Whenever my mind turns in that direction, my body literally shudders.