David Golemon - Legend

"What?" Sarah prompted.

"Hold on to your hats. It was also contaminated — with an enriched uranium source, most probably from a damaged tactical nuke that key represents and indicates may be down here. But there is a very strange factor at work here; the blood sample from the scale didn't show any long-term effects of it. Whatever creature this scale came from, it seems to even be impervious to radiation poisoning."

"That's impossible," Keating said at her side.

"It's my fucking field, Professor," she said quietly. "I am perfectly aware of what's possible and impossible, and radiation poisoning is an absolute; there are no immune species of animal. But if we could discover why this particular species is, or was, immune, it would be a find that would benefit mankind beyond belief."

"Why, so we could make nuclear war not only probable, but feasible, give governments the go-ahead to off everybody cleanly with no worries?" Keating argued.

Virginia lowered the scale and faced Dr. Keating. "No, not at all, I'm surprised that you would even think I would consider such an asinine theory," she said, staring Keating down until he looked away and shook his head. "But I was thinking, Professor, that maybe we could save hundreds of thousand of people suffering from cancer the indignity of the effects of radiation treatments. Maybe stop a little girl from throwing up every time modern science tries to help her, or keep her hair from falling out while stopping the pain of chemotherapy — not about making nuclear warfare feasible."

"My apologies, Virginia, stupid comment," Keating said, taking her right shoulder and squeezing.

"Show them the other item, Virginia, the reason why the burial team needs to be armed and watchful," Dr. Waltrip said.

Virginia closed her eyes for a moment and gathered her thoughts. Then she reached into her lab coat and brought out a photograph. "I enlarged this on the computer. I took it of the two statues the Inca had placed on the riverbank," she said as she again held the scale up to the light and then held out the picture for them to compare. "See the scales on the statues; they're lightly etched into the stone. Now look at the ridges on this scale," she held the plastic case back up to the light, "and compare them to what was carved hundreds or maybe thousands of years ago by a race that no longer exists."

"Oh, boy," Carl said.

"The ridges, they're identical. Why would the Incan stone carvers duplicate something on their statues that they could only know about by seeing it?" Sarah wondered.

"Maybe because they were carving from life experience, and the statues they carved were of a real animal," Virginia said as she passed around the scale and photograph.

"I guess Helen Zachary was onto something with that fossil," Jack said.

"Yeah, but it looks like she may not have lived to be congratulated," Danielle said, touching Carl's arm.

It had taken them another hour to land Jack and a shore party to bury the dead. The entire time it took, the sounds of the rain forest had ceased as if in respect for what was happening. The bodies were put deeply into the earth and covered quickly. Large rocks were placed over them to keep out predators and then Jack hastily hurried the shore party back. All the while, he felt the eyes of the Sincaro, or whoever the modern-day indigenous people were, upon them.

"Carl," Jack said, just before he reached the makeshift boat ramp.

The lieutenant commander stopped and looked around him in the semi-darkness. Sweat rolled down his face as he looked from the forest to the major.

"That key," Jack said.

"Yeah, it's worrisome, Jack."

The thought didn't have to be voiced as Carl was just as well trained in theater-style nukes as was Jack. He knew when you turn an activation key on one of the warheads to arm it, the bottom half of the key snaps off; that's what connects the circuit, creates a bridge, thus allowing the warhead to be activated. Then all you have to do is set the timer, or push a button.

"The key is intact, isn't it, Jack?"

Collins reached in his pocket for the activation key. He held it up and Carl saw the bottom section had a rough edge, just as if it had been snapped off.

"Oh, shit."

"I hate to say it, but we have a live nuke someplace in that lagoon."

They both knew that once the activation circuit has been completed, it couldn't be commanded to just shut off; it would have to be disarmed manually.

"Okay, we both have Broken Arrow training; we can disarm this thing," Jack said.

"Yeah, but where in the hell is it? A pissed-off monkey could set the damned thing off just by looking at it too hard."

"Our priorities have shifted once again, swabby."

Onboard Teacher , everyone was still on deck save for Danielle Serrate. She was alone in the navigation section, just sitting there. The main screen on the table was dark and she was currently using it as a large coffee coaster. She was so deep in thought she didn't hear Sarah enter.

"So, how are you and Carl getting on?" Sarah asked as she slid into one of the couches next to the exterior bulkhead.

"You're a curious woman, aren't you?"

"Only because I like Carl and I'm cursed with that mothering instinct, especially about him. He needs looking after, like most men do, I guess," Sarah said.

Danielle looked at her for the longest time without comment. Then she smiled. "I don't have that mothering instinct. Other instincts? Yes. But not that particular one."

Sarah returned the smile and slid out from beside the table. "I bet you have other instincts, Mrs. Farbeaux… Damn, I'm sorry, I hate that," she said, shaking her head and gently tapping her forehead, "Ms. Serrate, I mean, but I do bet your instincts are more toward the survival kind."

"That and many other kinds, my dear Sarah," Danielle said as she watched Sarah leave. She stood up, knocking her coffee over in the process, and then she forced herself to calm down. She looked around for a rag and found none, so she glanced quickly into the cockpit area and silently stepped inside.

The large boat was cruising along at five knots, matching the last known speed of Teacher . It had taken the captain far longer than he thought it would to get his main mast and antennas up again after exiting the cave. Since then, he had numerous repairs to make as he had inadvertently gouged his hull on several occasions in the darkness of the cave. It was only his sheer ability as a river captain that had kept him from ramming one of the jagged-edged walls. The Frenchman had been a tremendous help, as he had assisted on the bridge, calling out depths and making course correction. The man was indeed very knowledgeable about surviving difficult situations. That fool Mendez and his men were a different story. They had cowered in the total darkness of the cave — a fact they would never live down in the captain's eyes. From here on out, the men from Colombia would have to be watched.

Thus far they had had one casualty on this bizarre journey. While making a physical sounding when the fathometer had failed for an hour, one of his men had entangled the sounding rope on the bow anchor and had reached into the water to free it as two men held on to his ankles while he dangled over the side. The water had suddenly erupted and the man had started screaming. As the men pulled him back aboard, a long trail of blood splashed the white paint as he was lifted up. His hand had been totally bitten off. One of the men, Indio Asana, a man raised in the heart of the Amazon basin, had said that the large fish that did it was unlike any he had ever seen on the river before, with a large jutting jaw and a tail that looked strong enough to snap a two-by-four in half. He said that it had fins on it unlike any he had ever seen, and since it was Indio who had said it, the captain had no doubt as to its truth.