“And that goes double for Sleeping Beauty.”
Michael was perfectly willing to keep the secret. What was one more? He was getting to be an old hand at keeping secrets. But he wondered how long it could really be kept. Even if the others at the camp didn’t find out about Sinclair, Eleanor might well be another story. For all Michael knew, there was some sort of psychic connection between them. A connection so strong that he would not have been surprised if she was already aware that Sinclair had been found…that he had been injured…and that he was on his way back to her.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
December 22, 7:30 p.m.
AS DARRYL TRANSPORTED THE FISH to the aquarium tank, it wriggled so hard in his hands that he nearly lost it.
“Hang on,” he muttered, “hang on,” then he plopped it back into the section of the tank carefully reserved for his previous specimens of Cryothenia hirschii. It swam a bit, nosing around, then settled slowly toward the bottom of the tank, to lie there—virtually motionless and all but transparent—like its companions. If the fish did prove to be an undiscovered species—and Darryl was all but sure that they would—it wouldn’t be the most exciting find to a civilian observer. They weren’t much to look at. But in the scientific community—where it counted—the discovery would make his name.
Quite apart from their general morphology, their blood alone would launch a thousand lab tests. The antifreeze glycoproteins the blood carried, slightly different from those in the other Antarctic fish he had studied, could one day be used for myriad purposes already under consideration, from deicing airplane wings to insulating deep-sea probes…and who knew what else.
But Darryl’s present experiments had an even more bizarre focus. The moment Charlotte Barnes had mentioned that a plasma bag had gone missing from the infirmary, neither of them had doubted for an instant what happened to it. Eleanor Ames had gotten to it. But if she were ever to leave the shelter of Point Adélie to take up residence again in the outside world, she would first have to overcome her dreadful addiction. Darryl was no fool—he knew the kind of media storm she would be the center of, and there would be no way to satisfy, much less keep secret, such an insatiable need.
He had taken additional samples of Eleanor’s blood and immediately begun to run assays, screens, and other tests, working on a hunch that was as outlandish as the problem. Her blood, like Ackerley’s, had a phagocytic index that was virtually off the charts, but instead of eliminating only the bacteria, foreign particles, and cell debris in the bloodstream, her phagocytes devoured the red blood cells, too—first their own, then whatever they could ingest from outside sources. But what if, Darryl thought, he was able to find a way to leave the normally toxic index level alone—clearly, it helped to sustain life under the most adverse conditions—while introducing an element that might obviate the need for foreign erythrocytes? What if, in short, Eleanor was able to borrow a trick or two from the cold-blooded, hemoglobin-free fish that filled Darryl’s aquarium and holding tanks?
He’d made up a dozen different blood combinations, all of which were kept in carefully marked test tubes, under a steady temperature in the same minifridge where he kept his soft drinks, and he regularly checked them to see what had developed. He was just about to do so again when there was a loud banging on the lab door.
When he opened it, Michael clomped in, his wet boots squelching on the rubber mat.
“Want a cold drink?”
“Very funny,” Michael replied, throwing his snowy hood back.
“I wasn’t joking.” Darryl went to the minifridge, popped the top of a root beer, and perched on top of his lab stool. “Where have you been?”
“Stromviken.”
Darryl knew there was only one reason to have gone there. “Did you find him?”
Michael hesitated, but that was enough to tell Darryl what he needed to know.
“Was he alive?”
Michael balked again, as he unzipped his parka and plopped down on a neighboring stool.
“Forget whatever Murphy told you,” Darryl said. “You know I’m going to have to be told eventually, anyway. Who else knows how to do a blood assay around here?”
“Yes,” Michael finally replied. “But he didn’t come easy. He got hurt, and Charlotte’s taking care of him right now.”
“How badly did he get hurt?”
“Charlotte thinks it’s just a mild concussion and a scalp wound.”
“So he’s in the infirmary?” Darryl said, ready to race over and collect some fresh blood samples.
“No, the meat locker.”
“That again?”
“Murphy doesn’t want to put the whole base at risk.”