Magnus nodded a little, as if that statement had answered some longstanding question. “Go ahead and take off. I’m sure you’ve got something, or someone, to do.”
Colding walked out of the lounge. Not only were his personal problems magnified, but he’d been slacking on his main job—Jian. Magnus was watching her. Colding had to make sure the woman got the help she needed.
Rhumkorrf had to fix Jian’s meds, and fix them now.
NOVEMBER 24: YOU UNDERSTAND
Implantation +15 Days
THE SNOW HAD not come with a big, gale-force storm, but it most certainly had come. An inch here, another two overnight there, usually light but fairly steady over the past weeks. Only now did Colding really notice the accumulation of a half foot of snow that covered everything.
And still the flakes came.
He stood at the water’s edge, watching Claus Rhumkorrf try to skip stones. Above and behind them stretched the mansion’s sprawling back porch. In front of them: water, whitecaps, and Horse Head Rock.
Rhumkorrf picked up a flat stone from the water’s edge. It slipped out of his mitten-covered hand twice before he held it firmly enough to throw. The rock skipped once before plunging into a three-foot wave.
“Need flatter water for that,” Colding said.
“Now you’re a physicist?”
“Come on, Doc. Talk to me. We need to help Jian.”
Rhumkorrf shrugged. “Pressure and stress exacerbate her symptoms, and we’re under the gun, as they say. There is only so much we can do for her.”
“That’s a cop-out answer and you know it.”
Rhumkorrf kept staring out at the water, seeming to focus on Horse Head Rock some two hundred yards from shore.
“She was fine for months,” Colding said. “Now she’s struggling. Hallucinating. We have to stop it before she tries to kill herself again.”
“I increased her dosage.”
Rhumkorrf tried to pick up another rock, but it kept falling out of his oversized black knit mittens. He gave up after the third try, stood straight, and stared out at the choppy water.
Something was wrong here. Rhumkorrf was the visionary, the planner, but nothing in this project happened without Jian’s genius. And yet Doc didn’t seem remotely concerned that her biochemistry had changed, that he might have to scramble to find a new medicine that worked.
“I’ll bring in someone else if I have to,” Colding said. “Another physician who can help her.”
Rhumkorrf suddenly shifted into a visible state of anxiety just a few degrees below panic. “If you bring another doctor out here, or take her to the mainland, the Americans might find us and shut us down.”
Colding held up both gloved hands, palms up. “If you can’t help her, what do you want me to do?”
“Do your job,” Rhumkorrf shouted. “Keep us safe, keep us secret until I finish my work. Jian’s job is to help me create the ancestor, something that she’s doing exceedingly well right now, so maybe we just need to take the good with the bad.”
The prick didn’t give a rat’s ass about Jian. All he cared about was the experiment.
“You’re a medical doctor,” Colding said. “You’re supposed to help people.”
“That is exactly what I’m doing. Helping millions of them. Haven’t you noticed, P. J., that when she gets like this she is at her most brilliant? It’s for the greater good. You of all people should understand that.”
Colding stared down at the little man, the cold forgotten for the moment. Realization set in. Rhumkorrf wasn’t concerned about finding a new medicine, because he knew the current medicine would work just fine… if she got the proper dose.
“You motherfucker,” Colding said. “You shorted her meds.”
Rhumkorrf shrugged and again looked out at Horse Head Rock.
Suddenly it was hard to think. Colding wanted to kick Rhumkorrf right in the teeth. “How long has this been going on?”
“Five weeks. Had to be done, and it worked. You understand.”
Colding snapped out his left hand and grabbed the back of Rhumkorrf’s neck, squeezed it tight as he pulled the smaller man close.
“Don’t you touch—”
Rhumkorrf couldn’t finish his sentence, because Colding’s right hand locked on Rhumkorrf’s throat, pressing down on the Adam’s apple. Rhumkorrf’s gloved fingers tried to pry the hands away but couldn’t find purchase. Another memory flashed in Colding’s mind, this time of Magnus back on Baffin Island, squeezing just a little bit harder to get Andy to stop struggling. Colding’s hands tightened. He also gave one short shake, bobbling Rhumkorrf’s head.
Eyes wide with terror, looking up through glasses knocked askew, Rhumkorrf stopped moving.
“Fix it,” Colding said. “Or I’ll fix you.”
He pushed Rhumkorrf away, a little too hard. The man stumbled and fell, skidding across the snow-covered sand. Hand on the ground behind him, he looked up at Colding. Colding suddenly saw the scene through Rhumkorrf’s eyes—a bigger man, a stronger man, towering over him, ready to hurt.
Sanity snapped back into place, and with it, deep embarrassment.
“Claus… I…”
“Stay away,” Rhumkorrf said. “I’ll correct her medication, just stay away from me.” He scrambled to his feet and ran for the steps to the mansion, giving Colding a wide berth as he passed.
Colding didn’t know what bothered him more, that he’d flipped out and put his hands on Rhumkorrf, or that for a brief instant he’d used Magnus Paglione as a template for proper behavior.
“Fuck,” he said.
He waited a few seconds to give Rhumkorrf plenty of room, then walked toward the steps that would take him up to the mansion.
He’d check in on Jian, and then go find Sara.
NOVEMBER 25: STUPID COW
Implantation +16 Days
AT THREE IN the morning, Jian found herself alone in the C-5’s upper-deck lab. She blinked and looked at the work log she’d called up on her computer. It couldn’t be. But there it was, the keystroke log didn’t lie.
She’d just done a protein analysis. The results had looked familiar. Now she knew why—she had done the same analysis yesterday, and the day before. But she didn’t remember doing either of them.
She called up more logs, looking at her work. Some things she remembered doing, some she did not. Maybe it was the lack of sleep. She couldn’t even manage twenty minutes of sleep before the mishmash animal of her dreams came for her.
Doctor Rhumkorrf had brought her meds today, not Mister Feely. Rhumkorrf said he had made an adjustment. It would take a little while for her body to acclimate. Three days, maybe four, to get back to normal, he had said. She’d start feeling a little better as early as tomorrow. And when she did feel better, could she please please please make sure she told Mister Colding?
She knew she wouldn’t feel better. Doctor Rhumkorrf was lying. Everyone lied to her.
But the numbers didn’t lie.
Maybe her failure caused the dreams, the spiders. The rats. The mishmash. The numbers.
Movement on her left. She turned and took a step back all at the same time, then felt a dribble of pee trickle hot down her leg.
An orange spider.
Big as her whole head, staring at her. Jian’s hand shot to the desktop, where she’d left her Dr Pepper. She grabbed and threw all in one motion, the open bottle trailing brown and white froth as it shot toward the corner.