Holly's heart started to ache. She stared up at the cryocontainer. The stainless steel blocked her vision and she couldn't see inside it. But the brass plate mounted on its surface reminded her of the occupant.
"I miss you," she whispered. "I miss you so much."
Chapter 30
"I already told you." I stepped out of the Sno-Cat and slammed the door. "I came here to find the Amber Room. I'm not leaving without it."
"And I already told you we have nowhere else to look. Unless you're equipped to dig into those ruins — and I know you're not — we're done here."
"We've still got clues we can follow."
"Like what?"
"I grabbed some bone samples from the gas chambers."
He made a face.
"I'm going to ask Holly and Rupert to examine them. Maybe we'll learn something interesting."
"That won't get you to the Amber Room."
"Maybe not." I reached into my parka. "But this might do the trick."
He took the leather book from me. "What is it?"
"I found it near the dead soldier. I'm betting it tells us how to find Werwolfsschanze."
He stared at me. "You're really going to risk your life chasing some stupid artifact?"
"If that's what it takes."
He tossed the book at my face. "Then count me out."
Graham spun around and stormed out of the vehicle shed. His reaction surprised me. I knew he had mortality on his mind. I just didn't know it was impacting him this much.
I picked up the book and walked outside. Wind rushed at me. Large snowflakes pelted my head and shoulders. As I hiked toward Kirby, the blizzard gained intensity. The wind increased speed. The snowflakes gathered into sheets of snow and plummeted to the ground at a terrifying rate.
I could still see the horizon. And Kirby itself remained visible. But a wall of whiteness covered everything else. Even the Mühlig-Hofmann Mountains had disappeared.
I entered Kirby and took off my parka. Aaron Jenner was the only person in the common room. He sat on one of the couches, sketching furiously in a notebook.
"Hey Cy." He continued to scribble without pause. "Back so soon?"
"Soon? What time is it?"
"About two o'clock." He turned a page in his book. "How's your field camp coming along?"
"Not too good at the moment."
"Why not?"
"Let's just say there's a disagreement about process."
"Between you and Dutch?"
I nodded.
"That's what I figured. He walked in right before you. He didn't look particularly happy."
"He's not."
"Where's your other partner?"
I hadn't thought about Beverly Ginger for several hours. Obviously, she hadn't found the concrete bunker. So, where the hell was she?
"She's still out in the field." I threw myself into a chair. "You study evolution, right?"
"Evolutionary biology to be specific. But yes, I study evolution."
I thought about my speculations regarding the drugs, eugenics, and Nazi supersoldiers. "Did you ever study the dark side of evolution? You know, how technocrats once wanted to use it to, uh, improve society?"
He lowered his pencil. But his hand didn't stop moving. Instead, it trembled lightly. "You're talking about eugenics."
"Could it — I don't know — have worked?"
He frowned.
I held up my hands. "I'm not saying I like eugenics. I'm just curious about the science behind it."
"Well, it wouldn't have worked at that point in time. The Nazis only possessed a rudimentary understanding of genetics. For example, they didn't know about heterozygous recessive traits. So, even if they'd managed to eliminate a visible trait from the population, there would've still been plenty of other carriers who could've passed it onto future generations."
"I see."
"It's a little different today. Technology has improved. We could probably detect and eliminate a heterozygous recessive trait from the overall population. It wouldn't be easy or cheap. But it could be accomplished."
"That's a scary thought."
"I don't know about that. The Nazis were wrong, dead wrong. But they had the right idea."
Iciness crept into the back of my skull. "What?"
"I tend to think the United States — the whole world even — is facing a dysgenics crisis. To put it simply, bad genes are growing faster than good ones."
I had no clue how to respond. He looked ordinary. He seemed sane enough. And he obviously knew far more about the subject than me. "You're joking right?"
"In the past, natural selection favored certain traits. People who were healthy, smart, and law-abiding were more likely to survive and thus, pass on their genes. That's no longer the case. Advances in medicine have allowed those with unhealthy genes to live longer and have more kids."
"So, you're not joking."
"Studies show that poor people have more kids than rich people," he said. "Criminals have more children than law-abiding citizens. And low IQ couples out produce high IQ couples."
From a certain point of view, his words made sense. But they still seemed creepy. "There's more to life than genetics."
"Very true. Human nature is plastic to a degree. However, the genome imposes very tight constraints. Studies show effective nurture might be able to improve a person’s IQ. However, the effect is small, no more than a few points at best."
"It's one thing to say genetics are important. We all know that. But it's a whole other thing to say society should be engineered on a genetic level."
"Yes, but—”
"Look at the Nazis." I heard my voice grow louder. "They committed mass murder trying to do pretty much the exact same thing."
"Times have changed." His voice remained cool and calm. "A kinder, gentler form of eugenics is now possible. Some studies show that embryo screening could raise the intelligence quotient of a population by fifteen points in a single generation."
"Are you really comfortable with people pretending to be God?"
"The history of humanity is a history of progress. And we have yet to reach the limits of that progress, if such limits even exist. In a sense, all human achievement is a path toward perfection, a path toward God if you will."
"I’m not exactly the religious type. But I’m pretty sure God wouldn’t think much of eugenics."
"Actually, I have to disagree. If we take the Bible at face value, then God invented eugenics."
I gaped at him. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"Remember the story of the Great Flood?"
"What does Noah have to do with this?"
"Not Noah. The Nephilim."
"The who?"
"The Nephilim. They were a separate race of beings that inhabited Earth many centuries ago. No one knows what they were, but linguists often consider them to be giants."
"How come I've never heard of them?"
"Because they're only mentioned twice in the Bible. But according to Genesis, they played a major role in the Great Flood. It's implied that God sent the Flood specifically to wipe them out."
To my annoyance, his comment piqued my curiosity. "Why?"
"He considered them wicked. And do you know what great crime they committed? They were born via interbreeding. The Nephilim were the offspring of the sons of God, or angels, and the daughters of man. In other words, they lacked genetic purity."
"Forget the Bible." I couldn't believe I was having this conversation with a complete stranger. But I wasn't ready to back down either. "Eugenics is wrong. Look at its history. Ethnic cleansing. Compulsory sterilization. Nazi Germany."