The humiliation continued to hurt. If Jerry had overlooked her because he was prejudiced against women, as Bernice had suggested, she would have been more angry than injured. Inwardly she knew there was another reason, a failing of her own. She had allowed Don to steal the initiative in their research. In the spirit of the proposal to cooperate closely, she had made a gift to him of her results. Two years’ work. For him it had been a springboard. Already he was investigating a promising new hypothesis her preliminary results had suggested. To be just, he had several times offered to report progress on the work, but she had taken only a token interest. She had kept aloof in the belief that it would conserve her seniority. Instead, it had allowed Don — whose brilliance she could not deny — to take credit for progress she, left alone, would probably have made not long after. The impression had grown, and evidently got through to Jerry, that Don’s participation had breathed life into an otherwise moribund project.
She was going to be more positive from now on.
Jerry opened the door at ten-thirty-five. He could not fail to notice Sarah taking notes at the case containing Lycosidae, but he said nothing to her. He said, “Gentlemen, the place is at your disposal,” and the six members of the TV crew filed in, bearing a camera, cables, and lights.
Sarah turned and stared at them.
Jerry went on. “I guess you need time to set up your gear. I told Don Rigden to be here by eleven. For the present, if you need anything, Miss Jordan is here and I’m sure will be happy to assist.”
Sarah said flatly, “I would if I knew what this is about.”
“Hell — didn’t I tell you?” Jerry was clearly embarrassed. Not, she suspected, on her account.
The bearded man she took to be Laz intervened smoothly. His voice was soft, yet there was authority in it. “Professor, it will be my pleasure to explain to Miss Jordan why her lab is being invaded.”
Jerry thanked him and withdrew.
As the others started setting up the equipment, Laz crossed the lab to where Sarah was standing. He spread open his hands and grinned. “Would I be right in assuming you actually know all about us, but you didn’t hear it from an official source, and that remark of yours was more a reprimand than an appeal for information?”
She confirmed it by smiling.
“I’m Greg Laz. Come and meet the others.”
The transformation was incredible. From nonperson to VIP in seconds.
“This is Ed Cunningham. He’s the narrator. The voiceover.”
“And the shrink,” added Cunningham, a neat, silver-haired man in an expensively-cut gray suit. His eyes glittered amusedly. “In my occupation you learn to admit to it before someone else points a finger at you. I didn’t catch your first name, Ms. Jordan.”
She told him.
Laz completed the introductions. The last one made a point of stepping forward and formally shaking her hand. Under this guy’s cheesecloth shirt was a deep-tanned torso, and he wanted it appreciated. He had a silver ingot slung from his neck. He was only average in height and nothing special in looks, but that didn’t inhibit him. “Rick Saville.” He squeezed her hand. “They warned us it was scary in here, but you don’t scare me at all, Sarah.”
She gave him a level look. “What’s your function on the team?”
“What isn’t? Research, continuity, catering liaison—”
“Rick is my production assistant,” Laz cut in. “Sarah, I was told you keep some of the larger varieties of spider here. I don’t want to interfere with your research, but if we could shoot some film, say, of a tarantula on the move, that would make a dramatic sequence.”
She took them to the cases containing the tropical mygalomorph spiders. “These don’t figure in our current research, so you’re welcome to use them. The biggest specimen we have is the Lasiodora klugi in there. He’s from Brazil, and we christened him Pelé.”
No one came too close as she stood with her hand on the case.
“Hairy,” said Saville.
“Does he bite?”
“All spiders have fangs, Mr. Laz.”
“Yes, but is this one dangerous?”
“Not if you treat him with respect. Would you like me to take him out?”
“We’ll get ourselves organized first. If it isn’t too much trouble, I’d like you to show Ed and me around the lab. What exactly are you researching here?”
She told them about the project as they walked around, explaining how readily spiders adapted to environmental changes. She showed them how she compared specimens subjected to extremes of temperature with control groups. From their questions, they seemed genuinely interested, so she told them the story of the volcanic eruption on Krakatoa, the greatest in modern times, when two thirds of the island was destroyed and the flora and fauna were annihilated, and how nine months later not a blade of grass was visible, but a small spider was found there. “It must have traveled on a thread of gossamer, carried by the wind for ten miles, maybe twenty. A true pioneer. That was 1884, and there are now over a hundred separate species of spider on Krakatoa.”
“So, no place is safe from spiders,” said Cunningham, the psychiatrist.
“You can find them anyplace, from the tropics to the north coast of Greenland.”
“Bad news for arachnophobiacs. Yours is a field of study most of us wouldn’t contemplate, because we find spiders repellent. Obviously you don’t.”
“Once I did. They scared me a lot when I was a kid. I overcame the fear by studying them. If you become familiar with anything, its capacity to frighten you is lessened.”
Cunningham nodded. “That’s a point I intend to bring out in this program. What exactly made you face the fear?”
She smiled. “Kids go through some abominable stages growing up. I got in with a tough crowd who would have given me hell if they had found out my weakness. I knew I had to conquer it myself, so I forced myself to look at a small garden spider in our backyard. I observed it for hours, and came back the next day to see it again. Finally I was confident enough to coax it onto a piece of paper I was holding. By degrees I got to know what a spider really looked like. To a frightened person it’s just an ugly dark thing with lots of legs that moves fast, but when you really get close to one and see the way it’s made, how many eyes it has and how it uses those legs, you start to accept it for what it is, not what your fears have made it. In the end I think I had more affection for that spider than I had for my tough friends. Later I read some books about the behavior of spiders. I still kept a sheet of paper beside me to cover up some of the illustrations as I came to them, but in time I managed without it. Well, here I am.”
Laz turned to Cunningham. “Ed, I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I’d like to get Sarah on film. This is too good to pass up. If we had you walking through the lab with her, discussing her attitude toward spiders as a kid and how she conquered it, we could get it on the hand-held camera. With some shots of the cabinets, it would make a beautiful sequence.”
She felt a surge of excitement, but she controlled it. “Just a minute,” she put in. “You’re going to film my colleague, Don Rigden, not me. How will he feel if he comes in and finds the camera on me?”
“No trouble. We can film him just like we arranged. Your interview is extra.”
“I’m not sure I agree to it.”
“Why not, for God’s sake? There’s nothing to it. You simply move through the lab talking to Ed like you just did. We’ll pay you the standard fee. We can make that more if you pick up a spider.”
Cunningham, quick to sense that this wasn’t the moment to talk money, said, “The purpose of this series is to help people overcome basic fears. Your experience is ideal for this. You can convince the viewing audience that there is a way to remove irrational fears from their lives. That’s no bad thing to do, Sarah.”