When we are through I return to my apartment. There is a note on the counter.
I got two mice and have removed all the traps but one. You shouldn’t have any problems.
Ulla
Chapter 18
I go looking for Lance but find that he and Victor have already departed for Bangladesh. It seems as if that was done rather quickly. I thought there were procedures before a body could be shipped overseas; a procedure that took days or even weeks. The sheriff must have closed the investigation? Animal kills man. What more could there be?
I return to the apartment, check that the CD is still in the box of Rice Chex and then bring up the laptop to summarize the last hour and a half. By the time that’s done, it’s late in the afternoon. But I have questions so I return to the library to do a little more reading on nuclear transplantation, the term for injecting a nucleus into an egg. I take the laptop with me so I can take notes directly. I read a case study. It says that even when they get cells to take hold they tend to grow smaller with each cell division resulting in an embryo which may not be viable. How does Zitnik keep the cells strong and healthy?
I keep reading and digging until the next thing I know it’s 8:00. I’m hungry.
I am also exhausted. Only a few hours of sleep is catching up to me. I return to the apartment, throw a ham sandwich together and consider if I should do the same as last night and send my file out to catalog.com. I decide there was nothing eventful during the day to warrant taking a lot of chance sneaking into the boardroom. I do add entries into my journal and then save it into my zj.doc file. I’m not nearly as paranoid as I was, but I’m still cautious. At the last second I decide to burn it to the CD, despite the fact that my face is about to hit the keyboard.
Then I undress in the dark and drop onto the bed.
My eyes pop open at 2:04 to a hand on my shoulder. I start to react and then realize it’s Aileen once again. I relax and roll onto my back.
“Hey,” she whispers and slides in next to me.
“You’re taking a lot of risk,” I say.
“I know my way around.”
“If you keep this up we’re going to wind up doing something we shouldn’t.”
“I know.” She doesn’t follow that with anything else.
“If Victor finds out I could be his next victim.”
“How do you know that? How is it you’re so sure he killed Peter?”
“I was there after you left with him and Traci. I assisted in getting Simon back in his cage before he woke up.”
“Oh.”
It’s a bit of a lie seeing as I ran out of there before exposing the contents of my stomach for all, but I’m not about to give up my source. “There wasn’t a speck of blood on him.” Would I have noticed if Boggs hadn’t mentioned it to me?
“Maybe Simon cleaned himself up really well before security got to him,” she said. “Cats do that.”
“Possibly, but there was no blood anywhere except where McCully lay. There would have at least been blood drippings wherever Simon went. Except in the area around McCully, the room was spotless. One other thing.” This I know from my research. “Simon was only some six or eight months old, right?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know that sabre-tooth mothers will continue to hunt and provide for their kittens until they are a year and a half or two years old?”
“Of course I know that.”
“Then you know that it’s about that age that she lets them do their own kill, something very small. Simon wouldn’t know how to kill without a teacher and probably couldn’t.”
“Maybe our cloned cats are different.”
I smile at her. “I think it’s time you stop the charade. You know better than me that Simon couldn’t have done it even if he wanted to.”
“But how would Victor do it and make it look like Simon did it. I saw Peter’s neck and I’ve seen what the triplets do to the pigs. It was the same.”
“Are you sure it was the same? What about the replica of the sabre-tooth jaw Victor keeps in his apartment?”
She doesn’t answer for a long time. I am not, by a far shot, unaware of her stillness in my bed. We are not touching but there is a magnetic-like force there. I have to consciously keep my hand and my arm from moving toward her, especially since I know she’ll respond if I do. It’s not like I can count on a little innocent flirting and that one of us will know where the limit is. My senses say there is no limit and the fact that we are this close is nearly sending me over the edge.
“Did Sheriff Shwartzberg do an investigation?” I add. “Was there an autopsy?”
“No, I don’t think so. What would an autopsy find?”
“If Simon did it there might be presence of his saliva, claw marks on his back.”
“The saliva would be hard to find with all the bleeding,” she argues, “but the claw marks . . . that would have been obvious.”
“If Victor did it there would probably be a sign of other trauma. I don’t think Doctor McCully would have just stood there while Victor positioned the device.”
There is another very long silence. I can hear her breathing and my heart beating. The bed moves and she is out, leaving I suspect. I am both relieved and disappointed. I watch her nightgown-clad figure walk past the dark pile of bathrobe on the floor and into the bathroom. In a moment there is a flush and she returns. This time she snuggles up close to me and says, “I need to be held, please?”
I don’t say anything, but I do open my arm to her and she rests her head on my shoulder, the comfortable way Tanya and I often lie together and talk. A wave of guilt rushes over me but not enough to overcome the pleasure I’m feeling.
“There was something on his head,” she whispers.
I pleasure in the mint on her breath and say, “What do you mean?”
“A contusion and a bump. I felt it when I helped lift him out of the helicopter. It was on the back of his head. I thought only briefly about it at the time, figuring it was from the fall when he was attacked.”
I consider that for a moment. “If Simon jumped on his back what are the chances he would have hit the back of his head on something?”
“That’s what I just thought of, too.”
“Did anyone else see it?” I ask.
“I don’t think so.”
“Did you mention it to the doctor, nurses, anyone?”
“No. I didn’t even remember it until your comment about signs of other trauma.”
I’m having a hard time ignoring the press of her near nakedness against me. There is another aroma about her, peaches and mango and a splash of White Diamonds. I recognize the White Diamonds as it’s the same that Tanya uses. This is not fair. It’s sending me into full sexual arousal and full guilt–as if I am not already there on both counts. I try to remain still, my one hand around her back, the other on her shoulder. I will my hands to not move because I know if they start moving they will gain a mind of their own and begin to explore places they should not.
“I’m scared that you’re right.” Her voice is broken by tears. “Peter’s death is my fault.”
“No, it’s not,” I say and barely notice that my hand is stroking her back. I feel a tear drip onto my bare chest. “You can’t take the blame for someone else’s actions.”
“If it wasn’t for my actions–flirting with Peter and then sneaking in to see him at night–he’d still be alive.”
“You did not kill him.”
“I’m as good as an accomplice.”
“No you’re not.”
Only breathing and heart beats break the ensuing silence. I continue to comfort her by rubbing her back through her silky nightgown. And there we remain for ages, my mind running crazy thoughts, crazy desires. I sense a shift in her breathing and look at the bedside clock.
2:31
How long can I lay here in full arousal? I feel the sleep monster rising from his dungeon and want to reach out with welcome arms to relieve me of this torture. In
stead I push him away for fear that we’ll sleep into the light of day and her presence with me will be discovered by security and thus the top dog. And so I keep pushing the sleep away until it sneaks in the back door and drops me like a rock.
7:15
I see the clock and come straight up in bed. Light is already sneaking in. I’m alone. The bathrobe is gone. The towel is still hanging over the camera. I leave it. I should be allowed my privacy.
I punch up my pillow, get a faint whiff of the woman of the night and feel the sexual rush. How many nights can I do this without being fulfilled?
I go back to sleep.
Chapter 19
“Psychic communications between humans is interesting; Psychic communications between animals that prey upon humans can leave one full of fear beyond his worst nightmares.”
– from the journals of Zechariah Price
The white world is shrinking.
There’s an unseasonably warm front moving through, according to the radio, and it has stalled over Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. “Spring is rushing toward us along the flooding waters of mountain snow melt,” the radio weatherman says. I wonder if the predicted flooding will affect us. It’s amazing how much the snow is receding. It’s still piled underneath my window, but I realize I am north-facing. The sun does not reach here.
I shower and dress, remove the towel that covers the camera and go for breakfast. I consume my bowl of cereal while sitting in the easy chair looking out over the landscape. I think I might like to take a walk outside today. The temperatures will be in the sixties, the news said, so maybe I won’t die if I go out there. The other thing I want to do today is learn of the other four cloning experiments Zitnik spoke about, as well as this human cloning thing. Lance is gone. I didn’t think of asking Aileen during the night and I doubt she’ll come near me during the day. Zitnik won’t tell me anything further. My best bet is the Australian. Where can I get together with Boggs without our conversation being overheard or observed?
After breakfast I walk up to the boardroom. It’s empty. I stand for a while looking out its big window and enjoying the sun. This is the southern exposure. The melting snow is reversed on this side, dropping away quickly near the building, still piled high along the far tree line. Other than that the view is much the same. The dome buildings stretch to the East so I’m not able to see them from either of my viewpoints. There are some other things I suddenly take notice of, which haven’t occurred to me before now. There are no roads or sidewalks. There is a high fence, barbwire at the top, probably fifty yards from the building. I return to my apartment and look out. Sure enough, there’s the fence. No roads. No sidewalks. I go downstairs and look out the front doors. There is a road that leads in from the tree line to the West and enters at a gate. There’s a very small parking lot. I do recall when we flew in that there was another gate further out.
So the entire area is fenced–high security–and there is a fenced inner compound, also high security.
Why?
Why do they need a high security area inside a high security area?
I put on my coat–the heavy one given to me by Aileen–and take the elevator to the roof. When I step out I can immediately tell I’m highly over dressed. I don’t care. I check the lock on the door–I’m not about to get locked out again, no matter what the weather–and proceed to explore the landing pad sporting one helicopter, and the open hanger holding a second helicopter. Both are Bell 212s. I see through a glass window into an office. There are two men. One is the pilot I met on my arrival, Randolph Spriggs. The other I have never seen before. Neither one of them looks my way. I leave the hanger and proceed to explore the edges of the top of the building and the grounds below.
There are no cars, not even what looks to be a parking lot except for the little one in the front on which there is unblemished snow. The one road that leads away has not been plowed. Nobody goes and comes from here by automobile. Only by helicopter. My curiosity about why overcomes my concern that I’m a prisoner, although I’m not ignoring that fact. I have had a sense for several days that there is no way to leave. Now it’s become obvious.
I move on to the East end of the building and look across the domed gardens. Instead of two gardens as I had assumed, there are three. I don’t know how I missed the third before. Each of them certainly is the length of a football field. The first, where the Bengals are kept, stretches straight out from the main building like the single leg of the letter “Y.” The other two are like the arms of the Y, stretching away from the top of the first. The right arm is the home of the triplets. I have a pretty good hunch there are four more sabre-toothed cats in the left arm. With Thomas dead and Wolf in India, I wonder who is taking care of the animals. Who is feeding them?
“You can’t be up here, Mister Price.”
I turn around to find one of the security people approaching, not Buster. “Why not?”
“It’s a restricted area because of the helicopters. Kind of like standing on an airport runway.”
“Huh. I was never told that.”
“No harm done.”
“Apparently there are several things I’ve not been told. It seems there is no way to leave here except by air. Is that correct?”
“Yes, sir. Please follow me off the roof.” With the word please, his hand goes to rest on the weapon strapped to his hip. What is there so important about not being on the roof that could require deadly force? Maybe I’m imagining it. Maybe he always stands around with his hand resting on his weapon. I allow myself to be escorted down to my apartment. He walks away without another word.
I spend some three hours trying to make progress on the novel I haven’t touched since arriving here. It grows maybe a couple hundred words. I set it aside and attempt to make progress on a nap instead, but my mind doesn’t allow sleep. How can I get to that third garden? Maybe all I have to do is ask. I go looking for Aileen.
I knock on her door, realizing at the same time that I haven’t seen an office since I’ve been here, other than what appeared to be one in Aileen’s apartment the day I came for lunch. Are all offices in the living quarters?
I knock again, but still no answer. Where does everybody hang out when they’re working? I go up one floor to the boardroom. Through the glass door I see five people sitting at one end of the conference table, their heads all turned my way. They are Doctor Zitnik, Henri Cassell, Aileen, and two others I have not seen before. I turn away.
I’m restless. I want to walk. I also want to talk to someone. I’m super-conscious of the cameras in every hall and am getting irritated by the cameras in my apartment. I keep getting hints of things going on and then nothing. Aileen will only talk to me in the middle of the night when she’s lying next to me in bed, near naked and driving me crazy. Lance keeps running off somewhere after promising to get together. I haven’t had a chance to meet with Victor Vandermill who requested my services to begin with. Maybe Henri. He gave me a warning to get out. Is there some way I can get clarification from him? I don’t know where his apartment/office is. I don’t know where anything is and I’ve been here over a week. How can I live in one building that long and not have explored every nook and cranny? I’ve gone from my apartment to the library, or to the boardroom, or to Aileen’s apartment, or to the gardens. Add in several trips to the front door and an unauthorized tour of the roof, and that’s it. Doors are always closed. People are never out and about.
Merwin Boggs! He might be in the lab by himself. I head down there.
The lab is empty. I stare through the glass for a while trying to decide what to do. I consider going into the library but at this point I cannot settle. I’m getting a hunch that all my research is for naught anyway. I go up to the ground floor and over to the room leading out to the gardens. I look out the glass window alongside the door. The gate is closed, locked I assume. I feel heaviness inside me, a tension as a result of knowing I am trapped. It’s been growing as I walked around and hit dead-ends. There is als
o the growing feeling that disaster for someone will happen soon. How soon I don’t know. It has come and gone for a day now. Will it be another animal attack? That seems to be a popular way to go around here, even if it’s faked.
The door opens behind me and I wait for a security officer to tell me I shouldn’t be here.
“What are you looking for?” It’s Aileen. Her voice is cold, unlike during her early morning visits when she whispered in my ear.
Conscious of the cameras, I turn around. “Tired of research and sitting around my apartment. Don’t even have a television to watch. I want to go for a walk but it seems everything is locked up.”
“Not many places to walk around here. I suppose you’d like to see the sabres again. You could do some research and walk at the same time. I’m sure by now you have a ton of questions.” I wonder if her official voice is for security’s ears or for mine. Maybe both. Then she winks as she walks toward me. “I have a couple hours and Mister Vandermill did say to give you whatever assistance you require.” She opens the door and then turns her back to it, makes a face of displeasure at me and says, “I guess I could do that.”
“Thanks.” I follow her out.
“Besides, they need to be fed.”
It’s a bit chilly without my coat, but feels better once she gets the gate open and I step from the shade of the building into the sun. It feels even better when we enter the first garden. “Who’s taking care of the animals?”
“I am,” she says. “There’s no one else here who has any idea what to do.”
Instead of going through the garden as we did before, I follow her through the opening in the trees where Thomas appeared. We end up in a work area not too much unlike that of a horticulturist.
Sabre-Toothed Cat Trilogy Page 14