“Forget the voodoo crap. I’m thinking genetic markers. This psychic ability could be such a marker. It could occur when the ninety-two chromosomes occur. Oh, this is a real chicken and egg question. God, if there were only records available on these people’s parents! Look, you have to persuade this family to allow some testing.”
“Difficult. They’re familiar with the genetic studies which have been done on the Amish. They’ve heard about studies of the Mormons in Salt Lake. They know what the Founders Effect is, and they aren’t proud of all their inbreeding. On the contrary, it’s sort of a big family joke and a huge family embarrassment. And they continue to inbreed. Cousins marry cousins constantly, just like the Wilkes family in Gone with the Wind.”
“They have to cooperate. This is too important. I’m wondering if this damned thing could skip a generation. I mean…the possibilities make me dizzy. As for the husband, we can get his records right now?”
“Let me ask him. It’s always best to try to be polite. But they are at San Francisco General and there’s nothing stopping your picking up the phone as soon as I walk out of here. Curry let them study him. He wanted to know what this gift in his hands was all about. He might have let you study him if you’d reached him in time. The press kind of drove him underground. He kept seeing images, knowing things about people. I think he ended up wearing gloves to stop the images from popping into his head.”
“Yes, yes, I filed the whole story,” said Mitch. He stopped, stymied for an instant, it seemed, then opened his desk drawer and drew out a huge yellow legal pad covered with scribbled messages and, taking a pen out of his pocket, began to scrawl some near-indecipherable message to himself. He started murmuring and then cleared his throat.
Lark waited, and when it was clear that he had lost Mitch totally, he drew him back.
“Rowan said something about interference at the birth of this thing. Possible chemical or thermal interference. She wouldn’t explain what she was talking about.”
“Well,” said Mitch, scrawling still, and running his left fingers through his pile of straight dry hair. “There was thermal activity, obviously, and the chemical activity was enormous. There’s some other fluid on these rags. Lots of it. It’s like colostrum, you know, what comes before women start nursing, only it’s different, too. Much denser, more acidic, full of nutrients like the milk, but with a composition all its own. Much more lactase. But to get back to your question, yes, there was interference, but it’s hard to say whence it came.”
“Could it have been psychic?”
“You’re asking me? And this is a private conference? We aren’t calling the National Enquirer when we get out of here? Of course it could have been psychic. You know as well as I do that we can measure heat coming from the hands of people who have a so-called healing gift. It could be psychic, yes. God, Lark, I have to find Rowan and this thing. I have to. I can’t just sit here and…”
“That’s exactly what you have to do. Sit here, with those specimens, see that nothing happens to them. Keep cloning the DNA and analyzing it from every standpoint. And I will call you tomorrow from New Orleans with permission from Michael Curry to test his blood.”
Lark rose, clasping the briefcase handle tightly.
“Wait a minute, you said something about New York. That there was some other material in New York.”
“Oh yes, New York. When Rowan gave birth to this tiling, there was a great deal of blood involved. Then there was the question of her disappearance. It happened on Christmas Day. The coroner in New Orleans took all kinds of forensic evidence. This has found its way to International Genome in New York.”
“Good heavens. They must be going crazy.”
“I don’t know that any one person has put it all together yet. So far, the family has had scattered reports that corroborate what you’ve found out-genetic abnormality in mother and child. Rampant amounts of human growth hormone; different enzymes. But you’re one up on all of them. You have the X rays and bone scans.”
“The family is sharing all this with you.”
“Oh yes, once they realized I’d spoken directly to Rowan; she gave me some code word to tell them so they would finance your work here. Once they realized I was the last person to talk to Rowan, they became very cooperative. I don’t think they grasp what’s involved here, however, and they may cease to be cooperative after I begin to explain all this. But right now, they will do anything and everything to find Rowan. They are deeply concerned about her. They’re going to meet my plane, and since it was on time when last I checked, I have to get out of here. I’m on my way.”
Mitch came round the desk hurriedly and followed Lark out of the office and into the dim corridor, with its long decorative horizontal strips of lights.
“But what do they have in New York? Do they have what I have?”
“They have less than you have, by far,” said Lark, “except for one thing. They have some of the placenta.”
“I have to get it.”
“You will. The family will release it to you. And nobody in New York is putting all this together yet, as I told you. But there is another group involved.”
“What do you mean? Where?”
Lark stopped before the door to the outer corridor. He placed his hand on the knob. “Rowan had some friends in an organization called the Talamasca. Historical research group. They too took samples at the site of the birth and the disappearance.”
“They did?”
“Yes. I don’t know what’s happened on that. I just know the organization is extremely interested in the history of the Mayfair family. They seem to feel they have a proprietary interest. They’ve been calling me night and day about this since I contacted the family. I’ll see one of them-Aaron Lightner-tomorrow morning in New Orleans. I’ll find out if they know anything else.”
Lark opened the door and walked towards the elevator, Mitch coming behind him hastily and awkwardly and then staring in his usual confused and unfocused way as Lark pressed the button and the elevator doors opened.
“Gotta go now, old boy,” said Lark. “You want to come with me?”
“Not on your life. I’m going right back into the lab. If you don’t call me tomorrow-”
“I’ll call you. In the meantime, this is all-”
“-totally under wraps. I mean totally. Is there something in the Keplinger Institute that isn’t under wraps? It’s a secret buried in a forest of secrets. Don’t worry about that part. No one has access to that computer in my office but me. No one could find the files if they did gain access. Don’t worry. This is regular for Keplinger. Someday I’ll tell you some of our stories…with names and dates changed of course.”
“Good man. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Lark took Mitch’s hand.
“Don’t leave me dangling, Lark. This thing could breed with Rowan! And if this thing did…”
“I’ll call you.”
Lark caught one last glimpse of Mitch, standing there, staring, before the elevator doors closed. He remembered Rowan’s words on the phone. “There’s one guy at the Keplinger Institute who can be trusted with this. You have to get him. Mitch Flanagan. Tell him I said this is worth his time.”
Rowan had been dead right on that one. Mitch was that man all right. Lark had no fears there.
But as he drove to the airport he had plenty of fears about Rowan. He’d thought she had gone insane when he first heard her voice long distance and her warnings that the call might abruptly be cut off.
The whole problem was, all this was very exciting to Lark. It had been from the start. Rowan’s phone call, the samples themselves, the subsequent series of discoveries, even this bizarre New Orleans family. Lark had never experienced anything like this in his life. He wished he could feel more worry and less exhilaration. He was off on an adventure, taking an open-ended holiday from his life at University Hospital, and he couldn’t wait to see these people in New Orleans-to see the house there that Rowan had inherited, and the man she had married-the family for whom Rowan had given up her entire medical career.