Oliver joined them. “I’ve seen that,” he said. “WIRED doesn’t have much clout in Washington these days. The news is almost all grim, Kaye.”
“We know,” Kaye said, brushing back a wisp of hair as the breeze picked up.
“But here’s some good. Brock says National Geographic and Nature have finished peer review on his piece on the Innsbruck Neanderthals. They’re going to publish jointly in six months. He’s going to call it a confirmed evolutionary event, a subspeciation, and he’s going to mention SHEVA, though not prominently. Did Christopher tell you about Daney?”
Kaye nodded.
“We’re going to make an end run,” Oliver said, his eyes fierce. “All Christopher has to do is track down this virus in Mexico and out-think seven national laboratories.”
“You can do it,” Mitch said to Christopher. “You were there first, even before Kaye.”
The visitors were packing up for their long trip through the northern badlands and out of the reservation. Mitch helped Christopher into the passenger seat and they shook hands. As Kaye held a sleepy Stella and hugged the others, Mitch saw Jack’s pickup rolling down the dirt road.
Sue was not with him. The truck’s brakes squealed as Jack stopped in the drive, just to one side of the van. Mitch walked over to talk as Jack opened the door. He did not get out.
“How’s Sue?”
“Still holding,” Jack said. “Chambers can’t use any drugs to get her going. Dr. Galbreath is watching things. We’re just waiting.”
“We’d like to see her,” Mitch said.
“She’s not happy. She snaps at me. Maybe tomorrow. Now I’m going to smuggle your friends back out on the old wash road.”
“We appreciate this, Jack,” Mitch said.
Jack blinked and turned down his lips, his way of shrugging. “There was a special meeting this afternoon,” he said. “That Cayuse woman is at us again. Some of the casino workers formed a little group. They’re mad. They say the quarantine is going to ruin us. They wouldn’t listen to me. They say I’m biased.”
“What can we do?”
“Sue calls them hotheads, but they’re hotheads with a real cause. I just wanted to let you know. We all got to be prepared.”
Mitch and Kaye waved and watched their friends drive off down the road. Night settled over the country. Kaye sat in the last of the warmth in the folding chair under the oak tree, nursing Stella until it was time for a diaper change.
Changing diapers never failed to bring Mitch down to earth. As he wiped his daughter clean, she sang sweetly, her voice like finches among windblown branches. Her cheeks and brow flushed almost red with her new comfort, and she gripped his finger tightly.
He carried Stella around, swaying gently from his hips, and followed Kaye as she packed dirty diapers into a plastic bag to take them to the laundry. Kaye looked over her shoulder as they walked to the shed where the machines were kept. “What did Jack say?” she asked.
Mitch told her.
“We’ll live out of our bags,” she said matter-of-factly. She had been expecting worse. “Let’s pack them again tonight.”
91
Kumash County, Eastern Washington
Mitch awoke from a sound and dreamless sleep and sat up in bed, listening. “What?” he murmured.
Kaye lay beside him, motionless, snoring softly. He looked across the bed to Stella’s small shelf bolted against the wall, and the battery-powered clock that sat there, its hands glowing green in the dark. It was two-fifteen in the morning.
Without thinking, he pushed down to the end of the bed and stood, naked except for his boxers, rubbing his eyes. He could have sworn somebody had said something, but the house was quiet. Then his heart started to race and he felt alarm pump through his arms and legs. He looked over his shoulder at Kaye, thought about waking her, and decided against it.
Mitch knew he was going to check the house, make sure it was secure, prove to himself that nobody was walking around outside, preparing to lay an ambush. He knew this without thinking much about it, and he prepared by grabbing a piece of steel rebar he had stashed under the bed for just such an eventuality. He had never owned a gun, did not know how to use one, and wondered as he walked into the living room whether that was stupid.
He shivered in the cold. The weather was turning cloudy; he could not see any stars through the window over the couch. He stumbled on a diaper pail in the bathroom. Then, abruptly, he knew he had been summoned from inside the house.
He returned to the bedroom. Half in, half out of the shallow closet at the end of the bed, on Kaye’s side, the baby’s bassinet seemed somehow outlined in the dark.
His eyes were growing more accustomed to the dark, but he was not sensing the bassinet with his eyes. He sniffed; his nose was running. He sniffed again and leaned over the bassinet, then recoiled and sneezed loudly.
“What is it?” Kaye sat up in bed. “Mitch?”
“I don’t know,” Mitch said.
“Did you ask for me?”
“No.”
“Did Stella?”
“She’s quiet. I think she’s asleep.”
“Turn on the light.”
That seemed sensible. He switched on the overhead light. Stella looked up at him from the bassinet, tawny eyes wide, her hands forming little fists. Her lips were parted, giving her a babyish, pouting Marilyn Monroe aspect, but she was silent.
Kaye crawled to the end of the bed and looked down at their daughter.
Stella made a small coo. Her eyes tracked them intently, going in and out of focus and sometimes crossing, as was her way. Still, it was obvious she was seeing them, and that she was not unhappy.
“She’s lonely,” Kaye said. “I fed her an hour ago.”
“So what is she, psychic?” Mitch asked, stretching. “Calling us with her mind?” He sniffed again, and again he sneezed. The bedroom window was closed. “What is it in here?”
Kaye squatted before the bassinet and picked up Stella.
She nuzzled her and then looked up at Mitch, her lips drawn back in an almost feral snarl. She sneezed, too.
Stella cooed again.
“I think she has colic,” Kaye said. “Smell her.”
Mitch took Stella from Kaye. The baby squirmed and looked up at him, brows wrinkled. Mitch could have sworn she became brighter, and that someone was calling his name, either in the room or outside. Now he was really spooked.
“Maybe she is out of Star Trek,” he said. He sniffed her again and his lips curled.
“Right,” Kaye said skeptically. “She isn’t psychic.” Kaye took the baby, who was waving her fists, quite happy with the commotion, and carried her into the kitchen.
“Humans aren’t supposed to have them, but a few years ago, scientists found that we do.”
“Have what?” Mitch asked.
“Active vomeronasal organs. At the base of the nasal cavity. They process certain molecules…vomerophrins. Like pheromones. My guess is, ours just got a whole lot better.” She hefted the baby on her hips. “Your lips drawing back—”
“You did it, too,” Mitch said defensively.
“That’s a vomeronasal response. Our family cat used to do that when she smelled something really interesting — a dead mouse or my mother’s armpit.” Kaye lifted the baby, who squealed softly, and sniffed at her head, her neck, her tummy. She sniffed behind the baby’s ears again. “Sniff here,” she said.
Mitch sniffed, drew back, stifled a sneeze. He delicately felt behind Stella’s ears. She stiffened and started to be unhappy, giving little pre-crying gurks. “No,” she said quite distinctly. “No.”