She walked over to the wall and snapped off the overhead. Immediately, the room was plunged into darkness. A moment later, there was another snap, and the Fresnel came on, its spotlight aimed at the creatures on the worktable. The light, Logan noticed, was low, and of a pale, almost ghostly yellow — exactly like moonlight.
At first, nothing happened. Then the creatures began to show signs of restlessness. Within moments, this had turned to irritability. They began squabbling, emitting low squeaks and circling each other warily. Abruptly, one lunged at the other, which batted back with both sets of foreclaws.
Very quickly, Dr. Feverbridge turned off the Fresnel. At the same time, Laura snapped the overhead light back on. Immediately, the creatures returned to their docile state.
“Well?” Feverbridge said as he returned the creatures to their cage, then replaced it on the shelf.
“I—” Logan did not quite know what to say. It was all so unusual, so different from what he’d expected. Dr. Feverbridge and his daughter, he realized, were right: this was groundbreaking research — perhaps even revolutionary.
“You can reproduce this behavior at will?” he asked.
“On almost all occasions, yes. So far, we’ve only employed a variety of small mammals for our tests. I could repeat the procedure on a different species, if you wish — white mice, hooded rats, voles — but the result would be the same: marked deviation from normal behavior patterns.”
“Why does this particular light affect the brain so strongly?” Logan asked.
“Remember the question I asked about early hominids? My belief is that it is an evolutionary development that’s taken place over hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of years. Diurnal animals sleep at night to hide from predators, and the danger would be highest on the night of the full moon. It’s become hardwired into us. Subconsciously, the special quality of this light raises hormonal levels to a fever pitch. Adrenaline is dumped into the bloodstream; flight-or-fight behavior is triggered. Some creatures may flee. Others — like these shrews — become uncharacteristically aggressive… very aggressive. My own analysis shows that over the millennia, as our natural predators have died off, the aggressive behavior has become the norm.”
“And if our atmosphere was to clear of smog and particulate matter? Would these deviant behaviors return when the moon is full — return to human beings, I mean?”
“Yes. Yes, I believe they would — depending, I suppose, on the person’s physical and emotional makeup.”
Logan tried to organize his thoughts; tried to process what he had just observed. “Kevin Pace, and the late Mr. Artowsky,” he said. “Do they know about this?”
“Only indirectly. They are acting—were acting, in the case of poor Mark — as controls, studying the same creatures we are studying, but under normal atmospheric and environmental conditions.”
Feverbridge turned away for a moment. When he turned back, the lighthearted, didactic mood was gone and anguish was suddenly in his eyes. “Do you understand the problem now, Dr. Logan? My theories have already been ridiculed to a degree that I can no longer live with. What would they say if I released additional findings? I can see the taunting headlines now: ‘Scientist claims space dust causes madness.’ I couldn’t bear that.” The anguish on his face spiked. “I wouldn’t.”
“That’s why we need to be as thorough as possible in completing the research,” Laura Feverbridge said. She spoke in a calm, soothing voice. “Document everything. Continue as we have been, carefully, comprehensively. Amass sufficient evidence to pass any peer review they could throw at us. We’re close now, Father. All we need is time. That is… if Dr. Logan will give it to us.”
And with this, she fell silent. Both of them — father and daughter — looked at Logan.
Logan took a deep breath. This was clearly cutting-edge research. If it was halted prematurely, the world would be the poorer for it. And the world would also surely lose a brilliant scientist.
“Just give us a little time,” Laura said, almost pleadingly. Coming forward, she gripped his sleeve again. “Time to finish our work. Then you can do whatever your conscience tells you.”
Logan glanced from one to the other. He now realized something that had not occurred to him before: it was quite possible that the nature of this work could shed some light on the murders Jessup was trying so desperately to solve.
“I won’t speak of this to anyone,” he said in a low voice. “At least, not until the work is complete. It may help identify what’s been going on out there in the woods. Meanwhile, if there’s a way I can help you, I will.”
For a long moment, the building was silent. Then Chase Feverbridge smiled faintly, nodded. Laura released her hold on his sleeve and took his hand in both of hers.
“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you — for both of us.”
21
In the days that followed, what he’d seen — and learned — at the secret laboratory in the woods behind the fire station left Logan in a state of moral uncertainty. There was no doubt that the elder Dr. Feverbridge’s work was important. On the other hand, the manner in which he’d become, essentially, a walking dead man — although Logan fully understood the reasons for it — felt unsavory at best. However, the bottom line was that he simply could not, for the present, tell Jessup or anyone else about the circumstances. Not only would that put an end to the man’s research — it would, almost certainly, put an end to his life.
As the days went on, and he once again grew fully involved in his own work, he became increasingly comfortable with simply staying on the sidelines and letting the police do their job. True to his promise, Jessup backed off; when Logan was again invited to the ranger’s house for dinner, the conversation had focused solely on philosophy, French cuisine, and innocuous local gossip. Logan liked Suzanne already, and by dinner’s end the two were almost like old friends. As far as Logan could tell, Jessup was toeing Krenshaw’s line.
By the end of more than two additional weeks of solid effort, Logan managed to get most of the remaining work done on his monograph. His homebody behavior at Cloudwater clearly pleased Greg Hartshorn, the resident director, who — Logan now felt certain — had gotten wind of his inquiries into the recent deaths, to his evident displeasure.
One day, after driving into Saranac Lake for a few items, he ran into Harrison Albright, who had come into town to stock up at the local hunting and fishing store. Logan had enjoyed Albright’s lecture and reading at Cloudwater and was relieved the man hadn’t “ratted him out,” and now offered to buy him lunch. Albright declined, saying that he subsisted almost entirely on rabbit and venison he bow-shot — and brandished a freshly purchased packet of arrows to prove it. He agreed to have coffee, however, and the two quickly fell into a lively discussion of poetry and literature. Logan found himself enjoying Albright’s company: he had a truly unusual blend of literary education and a colorful life, combined with the outlook and skill of a born backwoodsman. Logan had never encountered anyone quite like him before. He stayed away from any questions about mysterious or unsettling forest lore, and Albright seemed to appreciate this in his rough-hewn way.
The only other times he ventured off the Cloudwater estate were, ironically, to visit the fire station where Laura Feverbridge had her lab. Despite his reservations about the old scientist’s secret life, he felt himself drawn for reasons he did not quite understand to both father and daughter; Laura had a quick, eager scientific mind and, despite himself, he was impressed by how she had sacrificed for the sake of her father’s well-being. The first visit was late one morning, when he found Laura alone in the main lab. They took a walk in the woods, chatting idly about how her work was proceeding, and — ironically — ended up at the base of Madder’s Gorge, the spot where she’d found the body of the dead hiker. On the way back, she told Logan she presumed he’d like to speak with her father again, and suggested he come back late the following Friday, when Pace, the lab assistant, would be taking the weekend off. Logan agreed; he could not help but feel a growing admiration for this smart, compassionate, loyal, and dedicated woman.