"Uh-huh."
"Except no pelican has a skin like that."
"I see," Malcolm said.
"And there s no feathers."
"Uh-huh."
"Now," Gelman said, "we were able to extract a minute quantity of blood from the intra-arterial spaces. Not much, but enough to conduct a microscopic examination. Here it is."
The slide changed again. He saw a jumble of cells, mostly red cells, and an occasional misshapen white cell. It was confusing to look at.
"This isn't my area, Elizabeth," he said.
"Well, I'll just give you the highlights," she said. "First of all, nucleated red cells. That's characteristic of birds, not mammals. Second, rather atypical hemoglobin, differing in several base pairs from other lizards. Third, aberrant white-cell structure. We don't have enough material to make a determination, but we suspect this animal has a highly unusual immune system.
"Whatever that means," Malcolm said, with a shrug.
"We don't know, and the sample doesn't give us enough to find out. By the way, can you get more?"
"I might be able to," he said.
"Where, from Site B?"
Malcolm looked puzzled. "Site B?"
"Well, that's what's embossed on the tag." She changed the slide. "I must say, Ian, this tag is very interesting. Here at the zoo, we tag animals all the time, and we're familiar with all the ordinary commercial brands sold around the world. Nobody's seen this tag before. Here it is, magnified ten times. The actual object is roughly the size of your thumbnail. Uniform plastic outer surface, attaches to the animal by a Teflon coated, stainless-steel clip on the other side. It's a rather small clip, of the kind used to tag infants. The animal you saw was adult?"
"Presumably."
"So the tag was probably in place for a while, ever since the animal was young," Gelman said. "Which makes sense, considering the degree of weathering. You'll notice the pitting on the surface. That's very Unusual. This plastic is Duralon, the stuff they use to make football helmets. It's extremely tough, and this pitting can't have occurred through simple wear."
"Then what?"
"It's almost certainly a chemical reaction, such as exposure to acid, perhaps in aerosol form."
"Like volcanic fumes?" Malcolm said.
"That could do it, particularly in view of what else we've learned. You'll notice that the tag is rather thick - actually, it's nine millimeters across. And it's hollow."
"Hollow?" Malcolm said, frowning.
"Yes. It contains an inner cavity. We didn't want to open it, so we X- rayed it. Here." The slide changed. Malcolm saw a jumble of white lines and boxes, inside the tag.
"There appears to be substantial corrosion, again perhaps from acid fumes. But there's no question what this once was. It's a radio tag, Ian. Which means that this unusual animal, this warm-blooded lizard or whatever it was, was tagged and raised by somebody from birth. And that's the part that's got people around here upset. Somebody's raising these things. Do you know how that happened?"
"I haven't the faintest idea," Malcolm said.
Elizabeth Gelman sighed. "You're a lying son of a bitch."
He held out his hand. "May I have my sample back?"
She said, "Ian. After all I've done for you."
"The sample?"
"I think you owe me an explanation."
"And I promise, you'll have one. In about two weeks. I'll buy dinner."
She tossed a silver-foil package on the table. He picked it up, and slipped it in his pocket. "Thanks, Liz." He got up to go, "I hate to run, but I've got to make a call right away."
He started for the door, and she said, "By the way, how did it die, Ian? This animal."
He paused. "Why do you ask?"
"Because, when we teased up the skin cells, we found a few foreign cells under the outer epidermal layer. Cells belonging to another animal."
"Meaning what?"
"Well, it's the typical picture you see when two lizards fight. They rub against each other. Cells get pushed under the superficial layer."
"Yes," he said. "There were signs of a fight on the carcass. The annimal had been wounded."
"And you should also know there were signs of chronic vasoconstriction in the arterial vessels. This animal was under stress, Ian. And not just from the fight that wounded it. That would have disappeared in early postmortem changes. I'm talking about chronic, continuous stress. Wherever this creature lived, its environment was extremely stressful and dangerous."
"I see."
"So. How come a tagged animal has such a stressful life?"
At the entrance to the zoo, he looked around to see if he was being followed, then stopped at a pay phone and dialed Levine. The machine picked up; Levine wasn't there. Typical, Malcolm thought. Whenever you needed him he wasn't there. Probably off trying to get his Ferrari out of impound again.
Malcolm hung up, and headed toward his car.
Thorne
"Thorne Mobile Field Systems" was stenciled in black lettering on a large rolling metal garage door, at the far end of the Industrial Park. There was a regular door to the left. Arby pushed the buzzer on a small box with a grille. A gruff voice said, "Go away."
"It's us, Dr. Thorne. Arby and Kelly."
"Oh. Okay."
There was a click as the door unlocked, and they walked inside. They found themselves in a large open shed. Workmen were making modifications on several vehicles; the air smelled of acetylene, engine oil, and fresh paint. Directly ahead Kelly saw a dark-green Ford Explorer with its roof cut open; two assistants stood on ladders, fitting a large flat panel of black solar cells over the top of the car. The hood of the Explorer was up, and the V-6 engine had been pulled out; workmen were now lowering a small, new engine in its place -it looked like a rounded shoebox, with the dull shine of aluminum alloy. Others were bringing the wide, flat rectangle of the Hughes converter that would be mounted on top of the motor.
Over to the right, she saw the two RV trailers that Thorne's team had been working on for the last few weeks. They weren't the usual trailers you saw people driving for the weekends. One was enormous and sleek, almost as big as a bus, and outfitted with living and sleeping quarters for four people, as well as all sorts of special scientific equipment. It was called "Challenger" and it had an unusual feature: once you parked it, the walls could slide outward, expanding the inside dimensions.
The Challenger trailer was made to connect up through a special accordion passageway to the second trailer, which was somewhat smaller, and was pulled by the first. This second RV contained laboratory equipment and some very high-tech refinements, though Kelly wasn't sure exactly what. Right now, the second trailer was nearly hidden by the huge stream of sparks that spit out from a welder on the roof. Despite all the activity, the trailer looked mostly finished-although she could see people working inside, and all the upholstery, the chairs and seats, were lying around on the ground outside. Thorne himself was standing in the middle of the room, shouting at the welder on the roof of the camper. "Come on, Come on, we've got to be finished today! Eddie, let's go." He turned, shouted again, "No, no, no. Look at the plans! Henry: you can't place that strut laterally. It has to be crosswise, for strength. Look at the plans!"
Doc Thorne was a gray-haired, barrel-chested man of fifty-five. Except for his wire-frame glasses, he looked as if he might be a retired prizefighter. It was hard for Kelly to imagine Thorne as a University professor; he was immensely strong, and in continuous movement. "Damn it, Henry! Henry! Henry, are you listening to me?"
Thorne swore again, and shook his fist in the air. He turned to the kids. "These guys," he said. "They're supposed to be helping me." From the Explorer, there was a white-hot crack like lightning. The two men leaning into the hood jumped away, as a cloud of acrid smoke rose above the car. "What'd I tell you?" Thorne shouted. "Ground it! Ground it before you do anything! We've got serious voltages here, guys! You're going to get fried if you're not careful!"