“I’ll bet you forgot,” she said.
“It’s not that,” he said. “It’s . . . We don’t like to disturb them.” He was folding under her unrelenting gaze. “Well, I suppose it won’t do any harm.”
He opened the door and ushered Gamay into a room that was dark except for the light emanating from a tall, cylindrical transparent plastic tank four feet across and eight feet high.
The light came from a dozen or so jellyfish, each about the size of a cabbage, that glowed with pulsating blue lights. They were in constant motion, moving from the bottom to the top of the tank in a graceful, hypnotic underwater dance.
A figure on a ladder, bending over the top of the tank, turned toward their interruption. The unearthly light revealed the face of Dr. Bennett, the toxicologist. She opened her mouth in surprise.
“Dr. Mayhew, I didn’t expect-”
“I leaned on Dr. Mayhew to show me this part of the lab,” Gamay explained. “I hope I’m not disturbing you.”
Bennett glanced at Mayhew, who gave her a nod.
“Not at all,” Bennett said with a halfhearted smile. She brandished the long-handled dip net in her hands. “This procedure can be a little tricky at times.”
Gamay’s eyes took in Bennett’s protective gloves and clear plastic face mask and coverall, and then she shifted her gaze back to the undulating, vaguely cube-shaped forms and their strange acrobatic ballet. Threadlike tentacles were attached to lacy fringe that rimmed each diaphanous creature. Their bioluminescence was almost bright enough to read a book by.
“In all my years of diving,” Gamay said, “I don’t think I have ever seen anything this beautiful.”
“Or as deadly,” added Mayhew, who had come up behind her. “The medusae in this tank produce a toxin that would put a cobra to shame.”
Gamay dug into her memory.
“This is a box jellyfish, isn’t it?” she asked.
“That’s right. Chironex fleckeri, the sea wasp. There have been almost one hundred recorded deaths from its sting, which can kill a human being in under three minutes. I suggest that we stand back and give Dr. Bennett some room.”
Dr. Bennett pulled the mask over her face and dipped the net in the tank.
To Gamay’s surprise, the jellyfish didn’t shy away from the net but clustered closer to it, making it easy to snag one and transfer it to a beaker. In the process, the color of the jellyfish deepened and the pulsating became more frequent, as if they were agitated.
“I’ve never seen jellyfish act in that fashion before,” she said. “They’ll usually try to avoid any threat they perceive.”
“Jellyfish are predators,” Mayhew said, “but most species simply drift around, encountering their meals quite by chance. The eye in jellyfish is more acutely developed, which means it can see rather than sense its prey. Combined with its jet-propulsion capabilities, a jellyfish actually can chase down its intended meal.”
Slowly shaking her head, Gamay said, “I’m not sure I understand. You said ‘most species.’ Didn’t you say these were box jellyfish?”
Dr. Mayhew realized that he had said more than he had intended.
“I misspoke a moment ago,” he said. “Actually, it’s closely related to the sea wasp, but more highly developed and aggressive.”
“I’ve never seen a sea wasp quite that color,” she said.
“Nor I. We came up with all sorts of fanciful names before settling on blue medusa.”
“What is their potential pharmaceutically?”
“We’re in the early stages of study, but the chemical it produces is far more complex than anything we’ve encountered. Experimenting with this delicate creature is like riding an untamed stallion.”
“Fascinating,” Gamay said.
Mayhew glanced at his watch.
“Thank you, Dr. Bennett,” he said. “We’ll leave you alone now with your poisonous friends.”
Gamay offered no resistance as Mayhew guided her out of the room and back into the main lab. He showed her some other species under study, then they left the resource-cultivation building and walked a short distance to another cinder-block structure.
This lab had fewer tanks than the first one. Ocean scientists like to distinguish between wet labs, where specimens are housed and prepared, and dry labs, where computers and sensitive analytical instruments are kept. This was both, Mayhew explained. The wet part was where chemicals were extracted and placed with bacteria or viruses to see what the reaction might be.
They spent more time in this lab than the first one, and by the time Gamay was out of questions it was nearly midday.
“I’m as hungry as a horse,” Mayhew said. “Let’s break for lunch.”
The kitchen served up gourmet-quality hamburgers. Mayhew chatted nonstop about nothing in particular, and Gamay figured he was just stretching things out. After their long break, the tour continued to a third building, which contained almost all computers and no tanks.
Mayhew said the computers were matching chemicals to diseases faster than could be done by human beings. Gamay glimpsed Dr. Song Lee. Her eyes were glued to a computer.
The tour was over by midafternoon. Mayhew seemed relaxed for the first time since Gamay had met him. He excused himself, and asked if Gamay would mind if he didn’t accompany her back to the lodge.
“Not at all,” she said. “See you at happy hour.”
As she left the lab building area, Gamay felt as if she had been given the bum’s rush. Since setting foot on the island, she had been wined, dined, zipped through a packaged tour, and prepped to be sent on her way in the morning.
Mayhew had been correct to fear the attention of a trained observer. She might have passed off his close attention to her every move as a clumsy attempt at hospitality, but there was no doubt that he had tried a verbal bait and switch concerning the jellyfish tank’s occupants.
Gamay had easily seen through Mayhew’s smoke screen. The collegial little research group was a facade. No amount of bar-room cheer could hide the fact that the island was a secretive, hermetically sealed, pressurized environment. People laughed too hard, or, in the case of Mayhew, switched on his phony jaw-breaker smile.
GAMAY MADE HER WAY to the dock to get some fresh air. Dooley Greene was painting a skiff. He saw her approaching and removed the cigar stub from his mouth.
“ ’ Afternoon, Dr. Gamay. Dr. Mayhew give you a good tour of the labs?”
“It was short but interesting,” she said, keeping a poker face.
Dooley picked up on the unenthusiastic response.
“Thought so,” he said with his jack-o’-lantern grin.
“I saw Dr. Song Lee in one of the labs,” she said. “Doesn’t she go kayaking every afternoon about this time?”
Dooley nodded. “Like clockwork. She’ll go out later on.”
Gamay pointed to the kayak rack.
“Could I borrow one of those, Dooley? I’ve got a few hours, and thought it might be nice to explore the mangroves.”
Dooley plunked his paintbrush into a can of turpentine.
“I’d be glad to show you around in my boat, Dr. Gamay. You’ll see a lot more and save yourself some paddling.”
Having nothing else to occupy her time, Gamay got into Dooley’s boat. He headed away from the dock, and, once clear of the island, goosed the throttle. The double hulls cut through the flat water like scissors through silk. Within minutes, they entered a small bay enclosed by mangroves.
Dooley stood at the steering console, dead cigar clenched between his teeth. Squinting because of the sun’s reflection off the calm waters, he kept the boat pointed toward an old wooden cabin cruiser that lay off the tip of a mangrove island. The cruiser sat at an angle, with its stern in the water. The glass in the windows was missing, and there was a hole in the rotting wooden hull at the waterline that was big enough for a man to swim through.
“Hurricane pushed that wreck up onto an oyster bar,” Dooley said, slowing the boat to a fast walk. “Makes a good navigation point when you’re cruising around the mangroves. It can get confusing out here at times, even with a GPS and compass.”