The door to the lab banged open, then eased back slowly. Margo looked up to see Frock backing himself inside, his wheelchair creaking. She quickly stood up and helped wheel him over to the computer terminal. She noticed he was already dressed in his tuxedo. Probably put it on before he came to work, she thought. The usual Gucci handkerchief protruded from his breast pocket.
“I can’t understand why they put these labs in such out-of-the-way places,” he grumbled. “Now what’s the great mystery, Margo? And why did I have to come down to hear it? Tonight’s foolishness is getting underway shortly, and my presence will be required on the dais. It’s a hollow honor, of course—it’s only due to my best-selling status. Ian Cuthbert made that abundantly clear in my office this morning.” His voice again sounded bitter, resigned.
Quickly, she explained how she had analyzed the fibers from the packing crate. She showed him the incised disk with its harvest scene. She described the discovery and contents of Whittlesey’s journal and letter, and the talk with J?rgensen. And she mentioned how the hysterical old woman described in Whittlesey’s journal could not have been referring to the figurine when she warned the scientist about Mbwun.
Frock listened, gently turning the stone disk over in his hands. “It’s an interesting story,” he said. “But why the urgency? Chances are your sample just got contaminated. And for all we know, that old woman was insane, or Whittlesey’s recollections just got a bit scrambled.”
“That’s what I thought originally. But look at this,” Margo said, handing Frock the printout.
He scanned it quickly. “Curious,” he said. “But I don’t think that this ...”
His voice trailed off as his pudgy fingers ran down the columns of proteins.
“Margo,” he said, looking up. “I was far too hasty. It is contamination of sorts, but not from a human being.”
“What do you mean?” Margo asked.
“See this hexagonal ambyloid reovirus protein? This is the protein from the shell of a virus that infects animals and plants. Look at how much of it there is in here. And you have reverse transcriptase, an enzyme almost always found in association with viruses.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
Frock turned to her impatiently. “What you have here is a plant heavily infected with a virus. Your DNA sequencer was mixing them up, coding for both. Many plants carry viruses like this. A bit of DNA or RNA in a protein coat. They infect the plant, take over some of its cells, then they insert their genetic material into the plant’s genes. The plant genes start producing more viruses, instead of what they’re supposed to produce. The oak-gall virus makes those brown balls you see on oak leaves, but otherwise it’s harmless. Burls on maple and pine trees are also caused by viruses. They’re just as common in plants as they are in animals.”
“I know, Dr. Frock, but—”
“There is something in here I don’t understand,” he said, laying down the printout. “A virus normally codes for other viruses. Why would a virus code for all these human and animal proteins? Look at all these. Most of them are hormones. What good are human hormones in a plant?”
“That’s what I wanted to tell you,” Margo said. “I looked up some of the hormones. A lot of them seem to be from the human hypothalamus gland.”
Frock’s head jerked as if he had been slapped. “Hypothalamus?” His eyes were suddenly alive.
“That’s right.”
“And the creature that’s loose in this Museum is eating the hypothalamus of its victims! So it must need these hormones—perhaps it’s even addicted to these hormones,” Frock blurted. “Think: there are only two sources: the plants—which, thanks to this unique virus, are probably saturated with the hormones—and the human hypothalamus. When the creature can’t get the fibers, it eats the brain!”
“Jesus, how awful,” Margo breathed.
“This is stunning. It explains exactly what’s behind these terrible murders. With this, we can now put the pieces together. We have a creature loose in the Museum, killing people, opening the calvaria, removing the brain, and eating the thalamoid region where the hormones are most concentrated.”