Warren Fahy - Fragment

“Steve Salmon, the ichthyologist.”

“Mitchell Byrd, the famous ornithologist.”

“I had a dentist named Bud Bitwell.”

“No.”

“Yeah.”

“Did he change it to that?”

“I don’t think so, but knowing him, he actually might have. That would have to be a statistical factor.”

“Then, of course, there’s Alexander Graham Bell.”

“Silly, but it qualifies.”

“That one always got me as a kid. Hey, and our own geologist, Dr. Livingstone.”

“I had a geology professor named Mike Mountain.”

“I had a botany professor named Mike Green.”

“Yeah, that qualifies.”

“Then there’s Charles Darwin.”

“Uh …?”

“A Darwinian biologist?”

“Yeah, almost too obvious. And Isaac Newton, the Newtonian physicist.”

“Let’s not even mention Freud.”

“Not even mentioning Freud is like mentioning Freud.”

She snuggled closer and sighed sleepily. “Exactly.”

“You are so outside the box.”

“Well, names do appear to be a common factor, Dr. Binswanger. You may be onto something,” she said against his neck, too tired to move her head. “Let’s see now. By your theory, I should be…”

“By my theory, if you were subject to being influenced by your name, Duckworth, which I believe derives from ‘duckworthy,’ or someone who tends ducks, today you might well be studying duck-billed dinosaurs.”

“I did go through a duck-billed dinosaur phase.” She chuckled.

“Aha! I rest my case.”

“You’re a genius. So what does Binswanger mean?”

“Well,” he said.

“I know: sometimes a Binswanger is just a Binswanger.”

“Ho, ho.”

Suddenly, for the first time in a long time, she felt safe, and she knew he was safe, and that the hendros were safe. She needed to feel safe again, she thought with a pang. In less than nine hours, life on Henders Island would be no more.

“You have to explain to me sometime why you think hen-dropods might be immortal…” she muttered.

“I will, I will,” he said. “Sweet dreams, darling.” The word came, astonishingly, naturally.

“Hmm , yes, thank you, you, too.” She smiled, and they both fell instantly asleep.

Thatcher pressed the crown to light his Indiglo wristwatch in the dimly lit passageway and used the glowing watch face to illuminate the hatch handle.

He pulled the handle and crept into the storage room where he had helped stow the aluminum cases. He removed his watch. Using its glowing blue face, he inspected the cases until he found the one with label streaks on the side.

He took the case, then slipped quietly down the passageway to the Trident’s broadcast control room in the starboard hull.

He tapped first on the door, to make sure no one was there. Hearing no response, he slipped inside.

The room was dark. The troll that inhabited it had finally gone to his quarters directly across the hall to sleep, and had left his banks of machines in sleep mode. Their red status lights flickered in the shadows like eyes.

Thatcher unlatched the aluminum case and poured out the contents of Pandora’s box.

Six dead-looking Henders rats tumbled onto the floor. Their legs immediately started twitching and clawing.

“Welcome aboard the S.S. Plague Ship , you little bastards,” Thatcher whispered. “Go forth and multiply.”

He closed the door quietly behind him. The passageway was empty and silent except for the thrum of the ship’s engines. He ran toward the stern.

A minute later, he was jumping into the large Zodiac that still trailed the Trident between the port and central pontoons. He took out a Leatherman tool from pocket number eleven and used its serrated knife to slice through the nylon towline.

The Zodiac slipped away on the Trident’s wake into the spring night.

“Survival of the fittest, Dr. Binswanger,” he murmured triumphantly at the ship as it motored forward into the gloom.

He pulled out the satphone he had taken from the Hummer, then fished out a GPS locator from another pocket in his vest. Gazing at the shrinking Trident on the dark sea, he punched a number into the satphone.

A grouchy voice answered after a few rings.

“Stapleton! I just knew you’d be up, old friend! What’s that? Well you’re up now. It’s Thatcher. Yes! I need help, mon frere! I had to abandon ship and I am currently on a raft in the South Pacific. Yes, I’m serious! You can’t imagine how serious! It’s a long story. Take down my GPS coordinates before I lose you: Latitude 46.09, 33.18 degrees south, Longitude 135.44, 44.59 degrees west. Send the Navy! I’ll fill you in on the details later! I need your help, my friend! OK, you have a pen? Latitude…”

The spring sun of the southern hemisphere warmed the cheeks of the sleeping Thatcher Redmond as it rose.

The satphone in his vest pocket rang, waking him up from a strange dream in which he was floating in a raft on the open ocean…

He sat upright at the stern of the big Zodiac and was astonished to see the vast broadside of the guided missile frigate U.S.S. Nicholas cutting into the sea beside him. Stapleton had come through! He had to think fast.

“Yes, hello!” Thatcher said into the phone. “I am Dr. Thatcher Redmond. I must have hit my head and fallen overboard last night into this raft,” he improvised, breathlessly. “Unless someone else struck me!”

“Is that the ship, sir?” came the voice, apparently from the giant ship.

Thatcher turned and saw the Trident on the horizon. He had expected the damn ship to be miles away by now.

“Yes, that’s it!” he said, thinking fast as probabilities shifted in his mind. “That ship is infested with dangerous animals illegally smuggled off Henders Island. I am an award-winning scientist, and I’m simply appalled that this sort of thing can go on and no one is doing anything about it!”

“Did you say animals are being smuggled on that vessel, sir?”

“Yes, yes! Dangerous animals! From Henders Island!”