Blood And Ice Part 38

Above the stiff collar of her blue dress, he could see the vein pulsing in her neck. She was looking down at her hands, crossed in her lap; he discreetly glanced at her fingers, but there was no wedding band.

"I saw you outside," she said, "with the bird."

"That's Ollie," he said. "Named after another orphan, Oliver Twist."

"You are familiar with the books of Mr. d.i.c.kens?" she asked in amazement.

"To tell you the truth, I've never read it," Michael confessed. "But I've seen the movie."

Now she looked blank again. And why not, he thought ... the movie?

"My father was quite radical in his ideas," she continued. "He allowed me to attend school as often as possible, and even frequent the parsonage, where there was a library."

Her eyes, he thought, were as green and glistening as spruce needles after a rainfall.

"They must have had two hundred books there," she boasted.

What, he wondered, would she make of a Barnes and n.o.ble?

"I so wanted to join you out there," she said, with a touch of sadness.

"Where?"

"When you were feeding Ollie."

He was about to ask her why she hadn't when he remembered that she was being kept a virtual prisoner. Her nervous pallor showed it. He surveyed the room, but there wasn't so much as a book or magazine here.

"Maybe tonight, late, we can sneak you into the rec hall," he said, "for another piano recital."

"I would like that," she said, but with less enthusiasm than he expected.

"What else would you like?" he said. "For one thing, I can definitely round up some decent reading material for you."

She hesitated, but then, leaning an inch or two forward, she said, "Shall I tell you what I would really like? What I would give anything for?"

He waited ... afraid, to his own surprise, that it might have to do with Sinclair. How long could he keep that a secret?

"I should like to walk outside-no matter how cold it is-and hold my face up to the sun. I had only a taste of it on my visit to the whaling station. More than anything, I want to see the sun, and feel it on my face again."

"Sun we've got," Michael admitted, "but it isn't exactly warm."

"I know," she said. "And isn't that strange? We've come to a place where the sun never sets, but it offers so little in the way of warmth."

Michael sat very still, considering what she had said, and rolling over in his mind an outlandish idea that had just occurred to him. The consequences, if he got caught, would be bad; Murphy would skin him alive. But the thought of it so thrilled him-what, he wondered, would Eleanor make of it?-that he couldn't resist.

"If I said I could give you what you're asking for," he said, cautiously, "would you agree to follow my instructions to the letter?"

Eleanor looked puzzled. "You can smuggle me outside?"

"That part's easy."

"And make the sun s.h.i.+ne hot, even in a place like this?"

Michael nodded. "You know what? I can." He'd been wondering what kind of Christmas present he could give her the next day ... now he knew.

"So?" Charlotte said, looking into the aquarium tank, where several dead fish floated in various compartments. "You've got some dead fish."

"No, no, not those," Darryl said. "Those were the failures. Look at the Cryothenia hirschii and the other antifreeze fish-the ones that are languis.h.i.+ng quite comfortably at the bottom of the tank."

Charlotte craned her neck forward, and she could see the pale, almost translucent, fish, some nearly three feet long, their gills beating slowly in the salt water. "Okay, I see them," she said, still unimpressed. "So what?"

"Those fish may be Eleanor Ames's salvation."

Now Charlotte was interested.

"I've mixed their blood with samples of hers, and some of them in the tank are carrying the hybridized blood in their veins right now." He grinned at Charlotte, his spiky red hair electric with discovery. "And as you can see, they're doing fine."

"But Eleanor's not a fish," Charlotte said.

"I'm aware of that. But what's sauce for the goose ..." he said, beckoning Charlotte over to the lab table, where the microscope was set up and a slide had already been inserted. The video monitor displayed another highly magnified picture of platelets and blood cells, the kind of thing that transported Charlotte back to her med-school cla.s.ses.

"You're looking at a droplet of concentrated, hemoglobin-rich plasma," he said, snapping on a pair of latex gloves. "My own, in fact."

Charlotte could see the red blood cells, pale pink in color, with little white spots in the center of each circle.

"Now, watch what happens."

Darryl bent low over the microscope and opened the slide tray. The video monitor went blank. With a syringe he deposited a tiny drop onto the slide, gently wiped it, and replaced it on the stage. "Normally, I'd fix it properly, but we haven't got time." He adjusted the view, and the image on the monitor returned.

And apart from the introduction of more leukocytes-the white cells responsible for defending an organism against disease and infection, along with some companion phagocytes-everything appeared the same. The white cells, larger and more lopsided, actively roamed around, as they were supposed to do, in search of bacteria and foreign agents.

"Okay," Charlotte said, "now we've got a more even mix. What did you just add?"

"A drop of Eleanor's first blood sample. Watch what happens."

For a few seconds, nothing did. And then all h.e.l.l broke loose. The white cells, with no bacteria to destroy, began to surround and attack the red, oxygen-bearing cells instead, gobbling them up until none were left. It was a wholesale slaughter. And no warm-blooded organism, Charlotte knew, could survive very long with the kind of blood supply that was left.

Charlotte looked over at Darryl in shock, who simply said, "I know. But watch this."

Again, he swiveled the slide tray, and used another syringe to take a sample from one of the many gla.s.s vials on the counter-the masking tape on that one, Charlotte noted, was labeled AFGP-5- and then altered the original slide again.

The picture on the video, which had been reduced to a wildly heaving ma.s.s of white cells and phagocytes scavenging for further prey, gradually calmed down, like a sea after the storm had pa.s.sed. Another element had intruded, and those particles moved like s.h.i.+ps sailing on the now becalmed waters.

Unattacked.

"Those are the glycoproteins," Darryl said, without waiting for Charlotte to ask, "from the Cryothenia specimens. Antifreeze glycoproteins-AFGP, for short. They're the natural proteins that bind to any ice crystals in the bloodstream, immediately arresting their growth. In the fish, they circulate like the oxygen does, within the plasma itself. It's a very neat evolutionary trick, and one that might save Eleanor's life."

"How?"

"If she could tolerate its periodic ingestion-and her blood counts look like she could tolerate anything short of strychnine- she could live a fairly normal life."

"Where?" Charlotte said. "At the bottom of the ocean?"

"No," Darryl said, patiently, "right here. Anywhere. She wouldn't need red cells and hemoglobin any more than the fish do. But there would be a couple of caveats," he added, with a helpless shrug. "For one, she'd essentially be a cold-blooded creature, only able to warm herself from external sources-the way, say, that a snake does, by lying in the sun."

Charlotte shuddered at the thought.

"And the second poses a more immediate threat."

"It's worse?"

"You be the judge." Darryl picked up a clean slide, rubbed it vigorously against the dry skin on the back of Charlotte's hand, then put it under the microscope. The living and dead cells appeared on the video monitor. Then, he added a drop of the AFGP-5. Nothing happened; it was a picture of peaceful coexistence.

"This is a good sign?" Charlotte asked, glancing over at Darryl.

He was holding an ice cube between two gloved fingers, his pinkie delicately extended. Gently touching the ice to the surface of the slide, he said, "Keep your eye on the magic monitor."

On the screen, even the tiniest corner of the ice cube was like a glacier, instantly blotting out half the field. Darryl promptly removed it, but the damage had been done. Like a wind blowing across a pond, a million tiny fissures rippled across the surface of the slide, touching each skin cell and radiating outward in all directions until, finally, all activity had stopped. What had been moving and circulating only seconds before was completely still. Frozen. Dead.

"As you can see, once you let ice come into direct contact with tissue, all bets are off."

"I thought the AFGP-5 would prevent that."

"It can prevent ice crystals from propagating in the bloodstream, but not from binding to the skin cells," Darryl said. "That's why antifreeze fish stay well below the ice cap."

"Eleanor should have no problem with that," Charlotte said.

"But can she make sure-absolutely sure-that she never touches ice in any form? That she never takes a cold drink and lets an ice cube graze her lips? That she never slips on a sidewalk and puts her bare hand down on an icy patch of ground? That she never reaches into a freezer, absentmindedly, to remove a bag of frozen vegetables?"

"And if she did?"

"She'd freeze so hard, she'd shatter like gla.s.s."

CHAPTER FIFTY.

December 25, 1:15 p.m.

MICHAEL HAD BUNDLED ELEANOR up in so many layers, even her own mother would not have known her. She was just a bundle of clothes, moving slowly across the frozen concourse. Michael kept a lookout in all directions, but there was no one around. That was the thing about going for a walk in Antarctica-you weren't likely to b.u.mp into many other pedestrians, even on Christmas Day. As they pa.s.sed the old meat locker, he hurried her along, then, when they got near Betty and Tina's glaciology lab, he did so again; in the core yard, he could hear a buzz saw going. Eleanor gave him a curious glance, but he shook his head and pulled her along. At the kennel, a couple of the dogs stood up, their tails wagging, hoping to be taken for a run, but fortunately they didn't bark. The lights were on in the marine biology lab, which was a good sign. Michael hoped that Darryl was hard at work, perfecting some solution to Eleanor and Sinclair's problem.

Off in the distance, apart from most of the other modules, he saw his destination, and guided Eleanor toward it. They pa.s.sed under the wooden trellis, then up the ramp. Even under all the clothes she was s.h.i.+vering.

Michael opened the door, parted the plastic curtains just inside, and ushered her into the botany lab proper. Hot, humid air suddenly engulfed them, and Eleanor gasped in surprise. He drew her farther inside and helped her to unzip her coat and pull off her hat and gloves. Her hair fell loose around her shoulders, but there was a welcome spot of color in her cheeks. And her green eyes shone.

Shrugging off his own outer gear, he said, "They study all kinds of plants in here-the local variety, to the extent that there are any, and foreign. Antarctica's still the cleanest environment on earth for lab work." He brushed away the long hair that was plastered to his forehead. "But the way things are going, it may not be for long."

Eleanor had already wandered away, drawn by the fragrant aroma of fat strawberries, ripening on the vines that hung from the hydroponic pipes that crisscrossed the ceiling. Their green leaves, with the serrated edges, were studded with white flowers and yellow buds, and the berries, wet from the misting tubes, glistened in the artificial light. Ackerley had rigged up the whole lab himself, so it was a mixture of high-tech equipment and jerry-built contraptions, aluminum tubes and rubber hoses, plastic buckets and high-intensity discharge lamps. At the moment, the lamps were on low, but as Eleanor, with her eyes closed, buried her face in the flowering vines, Michael flicked the lamps to high.

Instantly, the whole area was flooded with light, magnified by rows of reflectors that Ackerley had fas.h.i.+oned from coat hangers and tinfoil. The strawberries glowed like rubies, the white petals gleamed, the droplets of water clinging to the green leaves sparkled like diamonds. Eleanor's eyes sprang open, then she s.h.i.+elded them with her hand, laughing.

Michael hadn't heard her so happy since he'd introduced her to the miracle of Beethoven on the stereo.

"Didn't I tell you?" he said.

And she bobbed her head, still smiling, and said, "You did, sir, you did-though I still don't understand how it's been done." She quickly surveyed the glowing lamps and the silver reflectors, before once again protecting her eyes.

"Try a strawberry," Michael suggested. "The cook here uses them to make strawberry shortcake."

"Truly?" she said. "It's all right?"

Michael reached up and plucked a juicy one from the vine and held it toward her lips. She hesitated, a hot flush rising into her cheeks, then bent her head to the berry and neatly bit it in half.

The hot lights played across her hair as she savored it, and the golden rim of her brooch gleamed.

"Finish it," he said, still holding out the remaining half.

She paused, her lips moist from the berry, and their eyes met. His heart was overwhelmed by such a confusion of feelings-tenderness, uncertainty, desire-that he could barely hold her gaze.

But she held his, as she leaned forward and took the rest of the fruit into her mouth. Her teeth grazed the tips of his fingers before she withdrew, delicately plucking the green crown of the strawberry from her lips. He stood, transfixed.

And she said, "Thank you, Michael."

Was this the first time she'd used his name-for real and not just in a dream?

"That was a great treat."

"It's a Christmas present."

"It is?" she said, surprised. "Is this Christmas Day?"

He nodded, his shoulders positively aching from wanting to reach out and embrace her. But he didn't dare. That was not why he'd brought her to the lab. That was not in the game plan. There was no future in that.

So why did he have to keep reminding himself?

"At Christmas, we would decorate the house with mistletoe and ivy and evergreens," she said, meditatively. "My mother would make a pudding, stick a sprig of holly in the top, and douse it with brandy. When my father touched a match to it, the whole room would blaze like a bonfire."

After a few seconds, she turned around and stepped out of the glow from the lamps. "The light is very hot."

She moved down one of the aisles, the long blue dress with its billowing sleeves and high white collar emphasizing her slender frame; her fingers trailed across the rows of tomato plants on trusses, the lettuces and onions and radishes all being grown on tabletops and in shallow bowls of clear liquid.

"There is no soil," she said, over her shoulder. "How does anything grow?"

"It's called hydroponics," he said, following her up the aisle. "All the minerals and nutrients that the plants need are mixed into the water supply. Add light and air and you're done."

"It's miraculous," she said, "and rather like the hothouse at the Great Exhibition. My father took me there, with my sister Abigail."

"When was that?"

"Eighteen fifty-one," she said, as if it were generally known, "at the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park."