New York City had a short memory for violence, and in the vast public spaces of the Museum streams of visitors could be seen once again. Groups of children crowded around exhibits, pressing noses against the glass, pointing and laughing. Parents hovered nearby, maps and cameras in hand. Tour guides walked along, reciting litanies; guards stood warily in doorways. Through it all, Pendergast glided unnoticed.
He walked slowly into the Hall of the Heavens. Potted palms lined two sides of the enormous room, and a small army of workers made last-minute preparations. The speaking platform on the podium was being sound-checked by two technicians, and imitation native fetishes were being placed on a hundred white linen tablecloths. A hum of activity floated up past the Corinthian columns into the vast circular dome.
Pendergast checked his watch: four o’clock precisely. All the agents would be at Coffey’s briefing. He walked briskly across the Hall toward the sealed entrance of Superstition. A few brief words were exchanged, and a uniformed officer on duty unlocked the door.
Several minutes later, Pendergast emerged from the exhibition. He stood for a moment, thinking. Then he walked back across the Hall and out into the corridors beyond.
Pendergast moved into the quieter backwaters of the Museum, out of the public spaces. Now he was in the storage areas and laboratories where no tourist was permitted. The high ceilings and vast decorative galleries gave way to drab cinder-block corridors lined with [278] cabinets. Steam pipes rumbled and hissed overhead. Pendergast stopped once at the top of a metal staircase, to look around for a moment, consult his notebook, and load his weapon. Then he moved downward into the narrow labyrinths of the Museum’s dark heart.
= 39 =
The door to the lab banged open, then eased back slowly. Margo looked up to see Frock backing himself inside, his wheelchair creaking. She quickly stood up and helped wheel him over to the computer terminal. She noticed he was already dressed in his tuxedo. Probably put it on before he came to work, she thought. The usual Gucci handkerchief protruded from his breast pocket.
“I can’t understand why they put these labs in such out-of-the-way places,” he grumbled. “Now what’s the great mystery, Margo? And why did I have to come down to hear it? Tonight’s foolishness is getting underway shortly, and my presence will be required on the dais. It’s a hollow honor, of course—it’s only due to my best-selling status. Ian Cuthbert made that abundantly clear in my office this morning.” His voice again sounded bitter, resigned.
Quickly, she explained how she had analyzed the fibers from the packing crate. She showed him the incised [280] disk with its harvest scene. She described the discovery and contents of Whittlesey’s journal and letter, and the talk with Jörgensen. And she mentioned how the hysterical old woman described in Whittlesey’s journal could not have been referring to the figurine when she warned the scientist about Mbwun.
Frock listened, gently turning the stone disk over in his hands. “It’s an interesting story,” he said. “But why the urgency? Chances are your sample just got contaminated. And for all we know, that old woman was insane, or Whittlesey’s recollections just got a bit scrambled.”
“That’s what I thought originally. But look at this,” Margo said, handing Frock the printout.
He scanned it quickly. “Curious,” he said. “But I don’t think that this ...”
His voice trailed off as his pudgy fingers ran down the columns of proteins.
“Margo,” he said, looking up. “I was far too hasty. It iscontamination of sorts, but not from a human being.”
“What do you mean?” Margo asked.
“See this hexagonal ambyloid reovirus protein? This is the protein from the shell of a virus that infects animals and plants. Look at how much of it there is in here. And you have reverse transcriptase, an enzyme almost always found in association with viruses.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
Frock turned to her impatiently. “What you have here is a plant heavily infected with a virus. Your DNA sequencer was mixing them up, coding for both. Many plants carry viruses like this. A bit of DNA or RNA in a protein coat. They infect the plant, take over some of its cells, then they insert their genetic material into the plant’s genes. The plant genes start producing more viruses, instead of what they’re supposed to produce. The oak-gall virus makes those brown balls you see on oak leaves, but otherwise it’s harmless. Burls on maple and [281] pine trees are also caused by viruses. They’re just as common in plants as they are in animals.”
“I know, Dr. Frock, but—”
“There issomething in here I don’t understand,” he said, laying down the printout. “A virus normally codes for other viruses. Why would a virus code for all these human and animal proteins? Look at all these. Most of them are hormones. What good are human hormones in a plant?”
“That’s what I wanted to tell you,” Margo said. “I looked up some of the hormones. A lot of them seem to be from the human hypothalamus gland.”
Frock’s head jerked as if he had been slapped. “Hypothalamus?” His eyes were suddenly alive.
“That’s right.”
“And the creature that’s loose in this Museum is eatingthe hypothalamus of its victims! So it must need these hormones—perhaps it’s even addictedto these hormones,” Frock blurted. “Think: there are only two sources: the plants—which, thanks to this unique virus, are probably saturated with the hormones—and the human hypothalamus. When the creature can’t get the fibers, it eats the brain!”
“Jesus, how awful,” Margo breathed.
“This is stunning. It explains exactlywhat’s behind these terrible murders. With this, we can now put the pieces together. We have a creature loose in the Museum, killing people, opening the calvaria, removing the brain, and eating the thalamoid region where the hormones are most concentrated.”
He continued to look at her, his hands trembling slightly. “Cuthbert told us that he’d hunted up the crates in order to retrieve the Mbwun figurine, only to find one of the crates broken open and the fibers scattered about. In fact, now that I think of it, one of the larger crates was nearly empty of fibers. So this creature must have been eatingthe fibers for some time. Maxwell obviously used the same fibers to pack his crates. The creature may [282] not need to eat much—the hormonal concentration in the plants must be very high-but it obviously needs to eat regularly.”
Frock leaned back in the wheelchair. “Ten days ago, the crates were moved into the Secure Area, and then three days later, the two boys are killed. Another day, and a guard is killed. What has happened‘? Simple: the beast cannot getto the fibers anymore, so it kills a human being and eats its hypothalamus, thus satisfying its craving. But the hypothalamus only secretes minute amounts of these hormones, making it a poor substitute for this fiber. Based on the concentrations described in this printout, I’d hazard a guess that it would require fifty human brains to equal the concentration found in half an ounce of these plants.”
“Dr. Frock,” Margo said, “I think the Kothoga were growingthis plant. Whittlesey collected some specimens in his plant press, and the picture on this incised disk is of a plant being harvested. I’m sure these fibers are just the pounded stems from the lily pad in Whittlesey’s press—the plant depicted on this disk. And now we know: these fibersare what the woman was referring to when she screamed ‘Mbwun.’ Mbwun, son of the deviclass="underline" That’s the name of this plant!”