Robert Masello - Blood and Ice

“I haven't, have I?” Michael said, and Charlotte shrugged.

“Too soon to tell. But you still think there's two of them? One in front and one in back?”

“I couldn't tell for sure-it could be her cloak, or maybe just some kind of shadow or occlusion in the ice. We left a thick slab of ice in back, just to be on the safe side, so once Betty and Tina have carved away some of the excess, we'll finally know one way or the other.”

Behind Charlotte, Michael saw a hand wildly waving. He tilted to one side and saw Darryl, with his own tray in hand, making his way across the commons. He plopped himself down on the bench next to Charlotte, and said to Michael in a conspiratorial tone, “Congratulations! I just visited Sleeping Beauty in the core bin, and I can report that she is resting quite peacefully.”

Michael felt a vague discomfort-not only at the jocularity, but at the very notion of her being asleep. He couldn't forget that Kristin's parents thought she, too, was simply sleeping.

“But you know,” Darryl said, as he spread a whole bowl's worth of grated parmesan over a plate of spaghetti, “once Betty and Tina have done what they can do with the trimming, the best way to preserve the specimen would be to move it to the marine biology lab.” He said it so casually that Michael could tell he'd been thinking about it long and hard.

“Why?” Michael asked.

Darryl shrugged, again too offhandedly “It needs to be thawed slowly, and ideally in local seawater. Otherwise, you could inflict some damage, or it could disintegrate. I could empty out the aquarium tank-those cod aren't even my experiment-and lift the partitions. Then we'd be able to get the whole block of ice, or whatever remains of it, into a cool bath. We could melt it down very slowly, under controlled laboratory conditions.”

Michael looked at Charlotte for her expert opinion-after all, at least she was a doctor-but she seemed as much at sea as he was. “But why are you asking me, anyway?” Michael finally said. “Shouldn't all this be Murphy O'Connor's call?”

“He just runs the place,” Darryl replied, “and generally tries to stay clear of all the scientific issues. And like it or not,” Darryl said, raising a forkful of hanging spaghetti, “you're Prince Charming in this scenario. How do you think we should bring her back? With a kiss?”

It was hard for Michael to think of himself as Prince Charming in this, or any, scenario, but he was starting to feel that if anyone was going to protect Sleeping Beauty's interests, whatever those might be, it might just as well be him.

“If you think that's what's best,” Michael said, “I guess I do, too.”

Darryl, a bit of spaghetti dangling from his lip, looked very pleased. “Good call,” he said, sucking up the loose strand. “Especially in view of what I'm going to show you both after dinner.”

Michael and Charlotte exchanged a look.

“I haven't told anyone else yet,” he added, “and I'm not sure if I plan to. We'll see.”

With the mystery sufficiently deepened, Michael and Charlotte simply had to wait for Darryl to finish his meal. Michael filled the time with cherry cobbler, as did Charlotte, who followed hers with a decaf cappuccino. “Six months from now,” she said, pouring a sugar packet into her cup, “they're gonna have to fly in a cargo plane just to carry my fat ass back to civilization.”

Later, in the marine lab, Darryl flew around the place setting things up while Michael and Charlotte stripped off their parkas and gloves. Even the short trips from one module to another required protection from the elements; thirty seconds outside and exposed skin could be frost-nipped.

Darryl dragged two more stools over to the counter, where a microscope with a dual eyepiece and a video monitor stood. “I've got to say one thing for the National Science Foundation,” he said. “They don't skimp. This microscope, for instance, is an Olympus CX, with fiber-optic technology. The video monitor's got five-hundred-line resolution.” He gazed at the equipment with genuine fondness. “I wish I had this kind of setup back home.”

Charlotte, who could barely stifle a yawn, exchanged a look with Michael, and Darryl must have caught it. Like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, he produced the wine bottle, the cork sticking up from the top, and said, “Dr. Barnes, perhaps you would care to do the honors.”

Twisting the cork back out, she said, “I hope you're not planning to drink this stuff.”

“Not after you've seen what I have.”

With another flourish, he handed her a clean pipette and said, “Could I ask you to remove a few drops of the liquid from inside this bottle?”

Both Michael and Charlotte wrinkled their noses at the smell from the bottle, but she did as she was asked.

“Now, leave a drop on one end of this slide.”

The moment she had let one drop of the viscous fluid touch the slide, Darryl expertly drew another slide across it, leaving a deep purple smear that was thicker at one end and thinner at the other. Then he took an eye dropper and let several drops of alcohol fall on top of it. “In case you were wondering,” he said to Michael while closely attending to his work, “we're fixing the smear.” He glanced up at Charlotte. “Remind you of med school?”

“That was too long ago,” she said.

He continued to narrate the proceedings as he let the slide dry, then applied something called Giemsa stain. “Without the stain,” he explained, “many of the features would be impossible to see.”

“Features of what?” Charlotte asked, a note of irritation creeping into her voice. “Merlot? Cabernet sauvignon?”

“You'll see,” Darryl said.

Even Michael was getting antsy. It had been a very long day, his wrist still ached from the cold, and all he wanted to do was get into bed with the covers over his head. He needed time to process what he had done, and what he had seen, and he knew that he was starting to make some unhealthy connections between Kristin back home and the so-called Sleeping Beauty here. He knew it, but he still couldn't stop it. Maybe all he needed was a solid eight hours in the sack.

But Darryl was still chattering away, about stains and smears and something else, called Canada balsam, and Michael finally had to interrupt the flow long enough to say, “Okay, Darryl, enough with the hocus-pocus. You ready yet?”

“Not really. If this were being done by the book, we'd first let it set overnight.”

“Fine,” Michael said, starting to get up, “then we'll come back tomorrow.”

“No, no, wait.” Darryl mounted the slide under the microscope, and after examining it himself and adjusting the focus several times, he got up off his stool and invited Charlotte to have a look. Wearily, she moved over, bent her head down, then stayed very still.

Darryl appeared gratified.

She fiddled with the focus knob again, then finally leaned back, a puzzled look on her face.

“If I didn't know better,” she began, but Darryl put up a hand to stop her.

“Let Michael have a look first.”

Michael now assumed the center seat, and when he looked down through the binocular eyepiece, he saw a pink, particle-filled field; most of the field was dotted with free-floating circles. Some of the circles were round and fairly uniform in size and shape, though slightly depressed in the middle, like cushions that had been sat on. Others were larger, grainier, and more misshapen. Michael was no scientist, but for this you didn't have to be.

“Okay,” he said, “it's blood.” He looked up from the microscope. “You put blood in the wine bottle. Why?”

“Oy” Darryl exclaimed, throwing up his hands. “You were underwater too long. I didn't put anything in the wine bottle. Or on the slide. That's why I had you two come here and do the experiment for yourself. To see what I saw. That wine bottle, as you call it, is filled with blood. And I'll bet that the others that came up in that trunk are filled with it, too.”