Sprinklers were wetting down the fairway. The grass glistened in the glow of landscaping lights.
“I go to conferences a few times a year,” Dena said. “You should see some of the PowerPoint talks people give. There are animals that can naturally regrow limbs—newts can do it. Amputate a foreleg just below the shoulder, the newt grows the whole thing back. The elbow joint, the humerus, all the bones and muscles and nerves in the hand. All the skin. Everything. They’ve always been able to do it. There are researchers who think all vertebrates have it in their DNA to do that, too, including us. There are just other genes suppressing the ability. The trick would be to identify them and knock them out.”
Dryden turned from the sliding door. “That doesn’t make sense. Why would we have evolved away from being able to do something that important?”
“Best guess I’ve heard is that it’s better to just take the loss. A new limb is weak for a long time; the skin is raw, vulnerable to infection. Survival odds probably go up if you just scab over the stump and get by with three limbs instead. What’s that old line? Mother Nature’s a bitch but you gotta love her?” She shrugged. “But why evolution would ditch something like mind reading, I can’t begin to guess.”
On TV, a few emergency vehicles were still clustered around the Black Hawk. Dryden went back to the computer and stared at the image on its screen: the dry lake and the tiny speck of the tower’s shadow.
“You’re planning to go there,” Dena said. It wasn’t a question.
Dryden nodded.
“Why not just wait for her memory to come back?” Dena asked. “You can both stay here as long as you need to.”
“Can she stay here without me for the next day or two?”
“Of course. But why risk going to that place?”
Dryden’s eyes were still on the display.
“Because I don’t like flying blind. I don’t like spending the next week with these people knowing everything, and us knowing almost nothing. Rachel said herself the answers are there.”
“You’d only have to wait six or seven days—”
“And Gaul knows that. He knows that once she remembers, she’ll have a whole range of options, maybe something as simple as going public with her information—but Gaul has a full week to plan for every move Rachel can make, before she even knows what they’ll be. What he might not be prepared for is her making a move sooner than that.”
Dena indicated the tower. “Gaul knows about that place. Rachel told him. I wouldn’t think he’d expect her to show up there again, but how hard would it be for him to keep watch on it, just in case?”
Dryden thought of the satellites. “Not hard at all. But I’m going.”
“Not without me.”
Dryden and Dena both turned. Rachel stood at the mouth of the hallway. Dryden saw the bandage Dena had applied to her wound: heavy gauze pads on the front and back of her arm, wrapped together with white tape. Her new clothes, a pair of jeans and a purple T-shirt, were only a little too big on her.
Dena went to her. “Honey, you need to be lying down—”
“I’ll sit,” Rachel said. “This is important.”
Dena started to respond but held back. She could see the same thing in Rachel’s eyes that Dryden could: The girl was determined to make her point.
“I want you to take it easy,” Dena said.
Rachel nodded and followed her back to the island. Dena pulled out a chair, and the girl sat carefully in it.
“Did you hear the recording playback?” Dryden asked.
“In your thoughts, when you both listened to it.”
Dryden glanced at Dena. Despite her earlier exposure to Rachel’s ability, she still appeared shoved off balance by it.
When Dryden looked back at Rachel, he saw her eyes fixed on the computer. She put her fingertips tentatively to the screen and zoomed in until the cell tower filled it.
“You know I can’t take you there,” Dryden said. “It’s one thing to risk my own life. Yours, no way.”
“We can get within a few miles of it without any risk,” Rachel said. “If you want to look closer then, by yourself, I’ll understand, but you can’t leave me a thousand miles behind. Besides, there are good reasons to take me along. There might be things there that jump out at me that wouldn’t stick out to you at all. That place might jog a memory.”
For a long time Dryden didn’t respond. He looked at Rachel, then the computer screen, then nothing at all.
“I think there’s a lot more at stake here than us,” Rachel said softly. “Don’t you? I think we should go. Right now.”
Dryden rubbed his eyes.