“She didn't make it,” she said softly.
Sun had been the one who opened her up the second time. The woman had come in and asked for Sun by name. Had trusted her to help.
“You lost your job,” Andy said.
“The review committee was unanimous. Any first year intern could have done that suture. I screwed up. The Maryland Medical Board revoked my license. The Board had been taking some bad hits in the media, and they made an example out of me. I had over a hundred thousand dollars in student loans, and loss of my license meant I'd never pay them back. So I filed bankruptcy.
“I became a vet by studying at home. Not too big a leap, really. Animals and humans share a lot of the same medical problems. Then I met Steven, we got married, and he died, leaving me with another load of bills. I couldn't file bankruptcy again; you had to wait seven years. So I applied for a grant under a false name to study lions in Africa. Mainly to hide from my creditors.”
Andy said, “Why did you leave Africa?”
“They found out I wasn't who I said I was and pulled my funding. I applied for citizenship in South Africa but was denied. When I was deported back to the US I had about ten different groups trying to sue me. That's when the President stepped in. I think he found me through the US Embassy in South Africa. I made the headlines a few times while I was there, fighting for citizenship. He offered me a deal; Samhain for ten years or until the project ended, whichever came first. All of my debts would disappear if I agreed. Of course, I took it.”
“And here you are.”
“And here I am.”
Andy put his hand on her cheek.
“I'm glad you're here,” he said.
She looked up at him, saw the warmth, and hugged him.
“Thanks for fixing up my foot.”
Sun snorted. “Good thing you didn’t need stitches.”
“We all make mistakes, Sun. The hard part is forgiving ourselves.”
Sun pursed her lips. “Her name was Madeline. She had a husband. A son. She was only 60. I went to the funeral.”
“That took guts.”
“Her son spat in my face. It made me feel a little better.”
Andy said, “I could spit on you now, if you want.”
“Maybe later. Let's go feed the demon.”
They left Sun's room and headed for the Octopus. Race was there, hunched over a computer. He looked up when he noticed Sun and Andy.
“How is the speech lesson coming?”
“Great,” Andy answered. “Like teaching kindergarten, except snack time is messier.”
“So he'll be ready to talk tomorrow morning?”
“I don't see why not.”
Race beamed. “Excellent,” he said.
The General turned back to his monitor. Race always wore his good ole boy attitude like cowboys wore hats, but Sun hadn't seen him so genuinely pleased before. The man looked ten years younger.
Sun and Andy took the Orange Arm to Orange 12. Andy was more help in procuring a sheep this time. He held the cereal, assisted in putting on the harness, and Sun taught him that the most effective way to startle sheep wasn't yelling “Boo!” It was clapping your hands.
“I can't get enough of this earthy smell,” Andy said. “We should bottle it and sell it to urbanites.”
“Where there's a wool, there's a way.”
Andy made a show of rolling his eyes.
“You never told me,” Sun said, “about that problem you were having with the hieroglyphics on the capsule.”
“I'm still stuck on it. You ready for a mini lecture?”
Sun nodded. She was happy to be talking about something other than her broken past.
“Okay. You see, it's known that glyphs are based on spoken language, but for a long time Hieroglyphic Maya was thought to be logographic. Each picture was a word. But the current view is that it was a phonetic system; glyphs stand for sounds, like our own alphabet. So scholars have had to reevaluate everything. To make it even harder, current Maya language is filled with bits of Spanish, so to understand the ancient language, the language of the glyphs, you can't really use modern Maya.”
“So how do you decipher it?” Sun asked.
“Lots of ways. I have a few computer programs, I check the work of other scholars, I find similar references in previously translated passages. A lot of it is basic logic. Once you understand the sentence structure of a language, it's like a cryptogram in a crossword puzzle book. You just look for the context clues.”
Sun led the sheep over to the scale pen. “So what has the great translator perplexed?”
“There are several references to a tuunich k'iinal. The hot rock. I don't know what that means.”
“Volcano?”
Andy shook his head. “That's a different word.”
“Coals? For cooking?”
“No. A cooking pit is a piib. Different glyphs. There's also reference to Kukulcán. He's a flying warrior god who came from 'over the water'. Sort of the Mayan version of the Aztec Quetzalcoatl.”
“Could that be Bub?”
“That's what I'm thinking. Quetzalcoatl means feathered serpent. Bub doesn't have feathers, but he does fly, and he could qualify as a serpent. The thought that ancient people were offering our Bub human sacrifices is a little unnerving. More than 100,000 were killed to satisfy Kukulcán's lust for blood.”
“I should have paid more attention in history class,” Sun said.
Sun finished jotting down the sheep's specs on the chart and they led it out of Orange 12 and down the hallway. Race was no longer in the Octopus.
“What's your impression of our General Race?” Andy asked, holding open the Red Arm door.
“He's good at manipulating people. I wonder why he's here, though. The Army only has so many Generals, why stick one underground for forty years?”
“Something to do with his wife?” Andy suggested. “Dr. Belgium told me about her disease.”
“I don't think so. She didn't become symptomatic until a few years ago.”
“Maybe we should ask him. He seems honest. Well, as honest as the military can get. What's Dr. Harker's problem?”
“You noticed it too?”
“Yeah. The lady seems to have a large assortment of bugs up her ass.”
Sun punched in the code for the first gate. “She has problems relating to people, I think.”
“And Dr. Belgium... don't get me wrong. I like the guy. But he seems to be one slice short of a sandwich himself.”
“Yeah,” Sun agreed. “And the holies. Odd ducks, both of them. Father Thrist's little outburst didn't wear well with the Roman collar.”
Andy said, “Maybe we're not all here because we're perfect for the job.”
“Okay. Then why?”
“Well, you didn't have a choice. I really didn't either. The President saw fit to mention a little problem that I would have with the IRS if I didn't cooperate. Maybe everyone here is stuck as well. Think about it. Not just everyone would give up their life, families, friends, possessions, to live down here, even though Bub is an interesting subject. Only those people with nothing to lose.”
Sun punched in the code for the second gate and thought it over.
“It's so American,” she said.
“How so?”
“Here is the most top secret, and possibly the most important, project the world has ever known. And who's running it? Screw-ups and criminals.”
Andy smiled, closing the gate behind them. “Well, it's been a hundred years, and no problems yet.”
“Does that mean we should be encouraged?” Sun asked, “Or be worried that the problems are overdue?”
“What's the worst that can happen?”
“Bub kills us all, escapes, and destroys the world.”
“That takes some of the pressure off,” Andy said.
He opened the door to Red 14. Dr. Belgium was fiddling with the DVD, trying to shove a disc in.
“It helps if you turn it on,” Sun suggested.
“Suuuuun,” Bub said. “Aaaaaandy.”
Sun almost backed up. It still freaked her out a little that something so big and ugly could talk.
Andy said, “Hello, Bub. How was your nap?”