Текст книги "Ice Hunt"

Автор книги: James Rollins

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Текущая страница: 25 (всего у книги 30 страниц)

They wound back through the nest of buildings. The snowfall had stopped, but the winds continued to gust fiercely through the Jamesway huts. Jenny almost lost her footing, too worried with her goal so close. As they walked, she knew where they were being taken. To the same barracks from which she and Kowalski had escaped.

This thought generated more tears. She had thought herself done crying on the boat ride here, relieved, but at the same time full of grief. Kowalski was missing. Tom was most likely dead. Bane, too. And Matt…

Now all were gone.

She needed someone to still be alive.

Her pace hurried as the guard opened the door to the hut. Jenny crossed through, followed by Amanda. The soldier walked them down the hall to the double doors leading to the barracks.

Jenny noted the two armed soldiers posted by the doorway.

“For your protection,” their escort said as he led them past. “We’re trying to keep everyone in one place until we know the base is safe. And with the Russians entrenched only thirty miles away, nowhere else is safe.”

Jenny was not about to object to a little protective custody. After what she had just gone through, the more, the merrier.

The warmth of the barracks struck her like a wet blanket to the face. The heat was stifling from both the heaters and the number of bodies. Jenny quickly glanced through the crowds.

She spotted Commander Sewell immediately. He sat in front. Half his face was bandaged. His arm was in a sling. She stepped in front of him, her eyes wide.

He stared at her with the one good eye that peeked from the bandages. “You just couldn’t stay away, could you?”

“What happened?” Her gaze traveled over his beaten form.

“You ordered me to protect your father.” He shrugged. “I take orders seriously.”

The crowd parted and a familiar figure pushed through. Tired-eyed, but unharmed.

She hurried into his arms. “Papa!”

He hugged her tight. “Jen…honey.”

She could not say anything more. Something broke inside her. She began to sob. Not simply tears, but racks of pain and gulping breath. It was uncontrollable, rising from a well deep inside her. It hurt so much. She had survived. So many others had not. “M-Matt,” she managed to sob out.

Arms tightened.

She continued to cry while her father drew her back to a bed and pulled her down beside him. He didn’t try to console her with words. Words would come later. Right now she simply needed someone to hold and someone to hold her.

Her father gently rocked her.

After a period of time, she became aware of her surroundings again, emptied and numb. She slowly lifted her face. At some point, Craig had joined them. He was seated with Amanda, Commander Sewell, and a man in a storm suit.

This last fellow carried a helmet under one arm. His hair was black, short, slicked back. He appeared to be in his midthirties, but a hardmidthirties. His skin was ruddy with a wicked scar that trailed under his ear to the his neckline. He fingered the scar as he leaned beside Craig, studying something on a table that had been dragged over. “I don’t see that any of this matters,” the soldier said. “We should strike now before the Russians can entrench any further.”

Jenny extracted herself, concerned about what they were discussing. She patted her father’s hand.

“Jen…?”

“I’m better.” At least for the moment,she added silently. She stood and walked over toward the group. Her father followed.

Craig glanced up at her. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“As well as can be expected.”

He turned back to his discussion with the others. “These are the journals I was assigned to acquire. But they’re coded. I can’t make any headway deciphering them.”

Amanda glanced over to Jenny. “He can’t be sure he has the right ones.”

“What does it matter?” the storm-suited newcomer asked. “My team can take the station in under two hours. Then you can send in as many encryption experts as you’d like.”

Jenny eyed him. He must be the head of the Delta Force team.

Craig answered, “The Russian admiral is no fool. He’ll blow the station before letting us commandeer it. Before we go in shooting blindly, we need more intelligence.”

Jenny agreed. Intelligencewas definitely in short supply here. She stared down at the open book resting atop two others. The stolen journals. She glanced to line after line of symbolic markings, her eyes settling on the title line:

She leaned over and picked up the book. Craig frowned at her. She ran a finger over the lines. “This last word is Grendel.”

Craig swung around in his seat. “You can read the code?”

Jenny shook her head. “No. It makes no sense to me.” She turned and showed it to her father.

He shook his head. “I can’t read it.”

Craig stared between them. “I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I,” Jenny said, flipping through the book. “This is all written in Inuktitut – or rather the Inuit script, but it’s not the Inuit language. This last word, Grendel,I can read because it’s a proper name, spelled phonetically in Inuit symbols.”

Craig stood up next to her. “Phonetically?”

She nodded.

“Can you read the opening line? How it would sound spoken aloud?”

Jenny shrugged. “I’ll try.” She pointed to the title line and read it, slowly and haltingly. “ ‘Ee – stor – eeya – led – yan – noy – stan – zee Grendel.’ ”

Craig jerked straighter, listening with a bent ear. “That’s Russian! You’re speaking Russian.” He repeated her words more clearly. “Istoriya ledyanoi stantsii Grendel.It translates ‘History of the Ice Station Grendel.’ ”

Jenny stared up at him, her eyes widening.

Craig hit his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Of course, the doctor who ran the station would know Inuit. They were his test subjects. He would need to communicate with them. So he used their symbolic code to record his own Russian notes.” He turned to Jenny. “I need you to translate the books for me.”

“All of them?” she asked, daunted.

“Just some key sections. I must know if we have the right books.”

Amanda had been following their discussion intently. “To ensure the research data is secure.”

Craig nodded, barely hearing her, glancing down at the book in Jenny’s hands.

Edgy from all that had happened, Jenny risked a glance toward Amanda, unsure she understood all that was going on here. Over Craig’s shoulder, she mouthed words at Amanda. Not speaking, merely moving her lips: Do you trust him?

Amanda remained still, then gave the tiniest shake of her head.

No.

6:35 P.M.

ICE STATION GRENDEL

Viktor Petkov enjoyed the look of surprise on the prisoner’s face. He was so sick of Americans blithely ignoring their own histories, their own atrocities, while vilifying the same actions among other governments. The hypocrisy sickened him.

“Bullshit. There’s no way this is an American base,” the man insisted. “I’ve crawled all through here. Everything’s written in Russian.”

“That’s because, Mr. Pike, the discovery here in the Arctic was our own. The Russian government refused to allow you Americans to steal what we found. To claim all the glory.” He waved a hand. “But we did allow the United States to fund and oversee the research.”

“This was a joint project?”

A nod.

“We put up the dough, and you spent it.”

“Your government supplied more than just money.” Viktor pulled the small boy onto his knee. The boy leaned into him, sleepy, seeking the solace of the familiar. Viktor stared over to the American. “You supplied the research subjects.”

A horrified expression widened the man’s eyes as understanding dawned. His gaze took in the boy in his lap. “Impossible. We would never take part in such actions. It goes against everything the United States stands for.”

Viktor educated him. “In 1936, a crack unit of the United States Army was dropped near Lake Anjikuni. They emptied a remote village. Every man, woman, and child.” He stroked the boy’s hair. “They even collected dead bodies, preserved in frozen graves, as comparative research material for the project. Who would miss a few isolated Eskimos?”

“I don’t believe it. We wouldn’t participate in human experiments.”

“And you truly believe this?”

Pike glared, defiant.

“Your government has a long history of using those citizens it considers less desirableas research subjects. I’m sure you’re familiar with the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. Two hundred black men with syphilis are used as unwitting research subjects. They are not told of their disease and treatment is withheld from them so that your American researchers could study how painfully and horribly these men would die.”

The prisoner had the decency to glance down. “That was back in the thirties. A long time ago.”

“It didn’t stop in the thirties,” Viktor corrected him. “Nineteen-forty, Chicago. Four hundred prisoners are intentionally sickened with malaria so experimental drugs could be evaluated. It was this very experiment that the Nazis used later to justify their own atrocities during the Holocaust.”

“You can’t compare that to what the Nazis did. We condemned the Nazis’ actions and prosecuted all of them.”

“Then how do you justify Project Paperclip?”

The man frowned.

“Your intelligence branches recruited Nazi scientists, offering them asylum and new identities, in exchange for their employment into top-secret projects. And it wasn’t just the German scientists. In 1995, your own government admitted doing the same to Japanese war criminals, those who had firsthand involvement with human experimentation on your own soldiers.”

By now, the color had drained from Pike’s face. He stared at the Inuit boy, beginning to comprehend the truth here. It was painful to have one’s innocence ripped away so brutally. “That was long ago,” he mumbled, struggling to justify what was too hard to accept. “World War Two.”

“Exactly.” Viktor lifted his hands. “When do you think this base was built?”

Pike simply shook his head.

“And don’t delude yourself that such secret experimentation upon your own people was ancient history, something to be dismissed. In the fifties and sixties, it is well documented that your CIA and Department of Defense sprayed biological and chemical agents over major U.S. cities. Including spreading mosquitoes infected with yellow fever over cities in Georgia and Florida, then sending in Army scientists as public health officials to test the unwitting victims. The list goes on and on: LSD experiments, radiation exposure tests, nerve-gas development, biological research. It is going on right now in your own backyards…to your own people. Does it still surprise you it was done here?”

The man had no answer. He stared, trembling slightly – whether from his recent near drowning in the Arctic Ocean or from the truth of what really had gone on here, it didn’t matter.

Viktor’s voice deepened. “And you judge my father. Someone forced at gunpoint into service here, torn away from his family…” Viktor had to choke back his anger and bile. It had taken him years to forgive his father – not for the atrocities committed at the station, but for abandoning his family. Understanding had come only much later. He could expect no less from the man seated before him. In fact, he didn’t know why he was even trying. Was he still trying to justify what happened here to himself? Had he truly forgiven his father?

He stared into the face of the boy on his lap. His voice grew tired, fingers waved. “Take him away,” he called to the guard. “I have no further use for this man.”

The motion startled the little boy. A tiny hand raised to a cheek. “Papa,” he said in Russian. The child had imprinted to him like a gosling after first hatching.

But Viktor knew it was more than that. He knew what the child must think. Viktor still had a few worn pictures of his father. He knew now how much he looked like his father did. Same white hair. Same ice-gray eyes. He even wore his hair like the last picture of his father. For the boy, fresh from his frozen slumber, no time had passed. He awoke to find the son had become the father. No difference to the boy.

Viktor touched the child’s face. These eyes looked upon my father. These hands touched him. Viktor felt a deep bond with the child. His father must have cared for the boy to engender such clear affection. How could he do any less? He ran a finger along one cheek. After losing all his family, he had finally found a connection to his past.

Practicing a smile, the boy spoke to him, softly. It was not Russian. He didn’t understand.

The American did. “He’s speaking Inuit.” Pike had stopped by the door, held at gunpoint, staring back.

Viktor crinkled his forehead. “What…what did he say?”

The man stepped back into the room. He leaned toward the boy, bowing down a bit. “Kinauvit?”

The child brightened, sitting straighter and turning to Pike. “Makivik… Maki!”

The man glanced to Viktor. “I asked him his name. It is Makivik, but he goes simply by Maki.”

Viktor pushed a wisp of hair from his face. “Maki.” He tried the name and liked it. It fit the boy.

The child reached up and pulled a lank of his own hair. “Nanuq.”This was followed by a giggle.

“Polar bear,”the prisoner translated. “From the color of your hair.”

“Like my father,” Viktor said.

Pike stared between them. “He mistakes you for your father?”

Viktor nodded. “I don’t believe he knows how much time has passed.”

Maki, now with an audience, chattered blearily, rubbing an eye.

Pike frowned.

“What did he say?” Viktor asked.

“He said that he thought you were supposed to still be sleeping.”

“Sleeping?”

The men stared at each other, realization dawning on both of them.

Could it be?

Viktor’s gaze flicked off in the direction of the outer hall, toward the circle of frozen tanks. “ Nyet. It is not possible.” His voice trembled – something it never did. “A-ask him. Where?”

Pike stared silently at him, clearly knowing what he wanted, then concentrated on the child. “Maki,” he said, gaining the boy’s attention. “Nau taima?”

The exchange continued, ending with the boy crawling off Viktor’s lap.

“Qujannamiik,”Pike whispered to the boy, then in English. “Thank you.”

Viktor stood. “Does he know where my father might be?”

As answer, Maki waved. “Malinnga!”

Pike translated. “Follow me…”

7:18 P.M.

OMEGA DRIFT STATION

Amanda sat at the table as the decoding of the journals continued. Jenny read from the text, translating the Inuktitut symbols, speaking slowly so Craig could decipher the spoken Russian.

The first book was skimmed. It was the history behind the founding of the station, dating back to the infamous tragedy of the Jeannetteback in 1879.

The U.S. Arctic steamer Jeannette,captained by Lieutenant George W. DeLong, had been sent to explore for a new route between the United States and Russia, but the boat became trapped in the polar ice cap, frozen in place. The steamer remained icebound for two winters until it was crushed by the floes in 1881. The survivors escaped in three life rafts, dragging the boats over the ice until they reached open water. But only two boats ever reached landfall in Siberia.

The fate of the third was lost to history – but apparently not to the Russians. “Saturday, the first of October, in the year of Our Lord, 1881.” Jenny and Craig translated a bit of a diary entry included in the journal. “We are blessed. Our prayers have been answered. After a night of storms, huddled under a tarp, bilging our boat hourly, the day broke calm and bright. Across the seas, an island appeared. Not land. God is not that kind to sailors. It was a berg, pocked with caves, enough to get out of the storms and seas for a spell. We took what refuge we could and discovered the carcasses of some strange sea beasts, preserved in the ice. Starving as we were, any meat was good meat, and this was especially tasty. Sweet on the tongue. God be praised.”

Jenny glanced around the room. Everyone in the barracks room knew what “beasts” had been discovered on that lone iceberg. Grendels. Even the meat being notably sweet was consistent with Dr. Ogden’s comparison of the grendel’s physiology to that of the Arctic wood frog. Like the frogs, it was a glucose, or sugar, that acted as the cryoprotectant. But Amanda kept quiet about this as Jenny and Craig continued.

“October second…we are only three now. I don’t know what sins we cast upon these seas, but they have returned a hundredfold. In the night, the dead awoke and attacked our sleeping party. Creatures that had been are meals became the diners that night. Only we three were able to make it to the lifeboat and away. And still we were hunted. Only a fortuitous harpoon stab saved us. We dragged the carcass behind our boat until we were confident it was deceased, then took its head as our trophy. Proof of God’s wrath to show the world.”

This last decision proved not a wise choice. After three more days at sea, the survivors made landfall at a coastal village of Siberia, bearing their prize and story. But such villagers were a superstitious lot. They feared that bringing the head of the monster into their village would draw more beasts to them. The three sailors were slain, and the head of the monster was blessed by the village priest and buried under the church to sanctify it.

It wasn’t until three decades later that the story reached a historian and naturalist. He traced the tale to its source, exhumed the skull of the monster, and returned to St. Petersburg with it. It was added to the world’s most extensive library of Arctic research: the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute. From there, a search began to discover the whereabouts of this infamous ice island. But even using the maps of the slain sailors, it would take another two decades to rediscover the berg – now frozen and incorporated into the ice pack. But it was worth the search.

The sailors’ story proved true. The grendels were found again.

At that part of the story, Craig, growing impatient, had Jenny stop reading the history text and jump ahead to the last two journals, the research notes of Vladimir Petkov, the father of the admiral who had attacked Omega and the ice station.

“That’s what we really need to know about,” Craig said.

As the new translations began, the Delta Force team leader – who gave his name only as Delta One – entered the barracks room, pushing through the double doors, flanked by two of his men.

He strode over and reported to Craig. Amanda read his lips. “The bird’s ready to fly on your word. All we need is the go-ahead to proceed to Ice Station Grendel.”

Craig held him off with a raised hand. “Not yet. Not until I know for sure that we have all we need.”

As time was critical, they did a quick scan through the next sections, looking to make sure they had the final notes on the research here. But what quickly became apparent was that Dr. Vladimir Petkov was no fool. Even in the coded text, the researcher had been wary of revealing all.

His scientists had isolated a substance from the deep glands of the grendel’s skin, a hormone that controlled the ability to send the beasts into suspended animation. It seemed these glands responded to ice forming on the skin and released a rush of hormones that triggered the cryopreservation.

But all attempts to inoculate test subjects with this hormone had met with disastrous failure. There were no successful resurrections after freezing.

Craig recited, troubling over some of the words: “ ‘Then I made an intuitive leap. A…a cofactor that activated the hormone. This led to my first successful resuscitation. It is the breakthrough I had been hoping for.’ ”

The victim had been a sixteen-year-old Inuit girl, but she did not live long, dying in convulsions minutes later. But it was progress for Dr. Petkov.

Jenny paled with the telling of this last section. Amanda understood why. These were the woman’s own people, used so cruelly and callously.

According to the dates of the journal, Dr. Petkov spent another three years refining his technique, going through test subjects. Craig had Jenny skimmed these sections, much of it ancillary research into sedatives and soporifics. Sleep formulas that had no bearing on the main line of research.

But near the very end, Craig found what he had been looking for. Vladimir finally hit upon the right combination, as he stated, “an impossible concoction that would be maddening to reconfigure, more chance than science.” But he had succeeded. He synthesized one batch of this final serum.

Then the journal abruptly ended. What had become of those samples and the fateful end of the station remained a mystery.

Jenny closed the last book. “That’s all there is.”

“There must be more,” Craig said, taking the book.

Amanda answered, speaking from experience with scientists. “It looks like Dr. Petkov became more and more paranoid as his successes grew. He split his discovery into notes and samples.”

Craig frowned.

Delta One stood straighter. “Sir, what are your orders?”

“We’ll have to go back,” Craig mumbled. “We only have half the puzzle here. I have the notes, but the Russians control the samples. We must get to them before they’re destroyed by Admiral Petkov.”

“On your word, we’re ready to head out,” Delta One said gruffly.

“Let’s get it done,” Craig said. “We can’t give the Russians time to find the sample.”

Delta One barked orders to his two flanking men, heading away.

“I’ll join the team in a moment,” Craig called to him. “Ready the bird.” He continued to study the books, then turned to Jenny, wearing a pained expression. “I can’t leave the journals here. They must be protected. But I also need them reviewed in more detail. In case we’re missing any obvious clues.”

“What are you asking?” Jenny said.

“I need someone to come with us who can read the Inuktitut.” His gaze flicked between her and her father. “We must know if there are any directions or hints in the books.”

“You want one of us to go with you?” Jenny stepped in front. “Don’t you think we’ve put our necks out far enough in this matter? Sacrificed enough?”

“And your knowledge could still save lives. Dr. Ogden, his students, and anyone else holed up over there. I won’t force you to come, but I do need you.”

Jenny glanced to her father, then back to Craig. Her eyes were full of suspicion, but she was clearly a woman of strong reserves. “I’ll go under one condition.”

Craig looked relieved.

Jenny patted her empty holster. “I want my goddamn pistol back.”

Craig nodded. “Don’t worry. This time around, we’re all going armed.”

This seemed to relieve her.

Amanda stood to the side as final preparations were made. Through a window, she watched Craig hunch next to Delta One out in the snow. The storm was kicking up again, but she could almost make out their lips. She turned to Lieutenant Commander Sewell. He was overseeing his own men. They would defend the base until the Delta team returned. The entire team was leaving on this last mission.

“Commander Sewell,” she said. “Could I borrow your field binoculars?”

He frowned but passed her his pair from a pocket of his parka.

Amanda focused on Craig and Delta One as they conversed under one of the lamp poles.

“Is everything ready here?” Craig asked.

A curt nod. Amanda read the tension at the corner of Delta One’s eyes. She also read his lips. “All is ready. The Russians will be blamed.”

A figure stepped to her side, startling her. She turned. It was John Aratuk.

“What are you watching?” he asked.

Amanda prepared to answer, ready to voice her fear and suspicions. But as terror iced through her, a new sensation arose – a familiar one.

No…it wasn’t possible.

The tiniest hairs vibrated on her arms. She felt the telltale tingle behind her deafened ears. But it sounded like alarm bells to her now.

Could the grendels have traveled all the way here?

“What’s wrong?” John asked, sensing her panic.

She turned to him, rubbing the tingling hairs on her arms. “Sonar…”

7:31 P.M.

ICE STATION GRENDEL

Matt held the boy’s hand and followed him down the hall, back through the prison wing, and around to the outer circular hall.

“Malinnga!”the boy repeated. Follow me!

Behind Matt, the Russian admiral followed. Viktor Petkov was accompanied by the two armed guards. There was no chance of a quick escape. Matt feared for little Maki’s safety. He would not abandon the boy.

While they passed through the prison section, his fellow captives cast questioning glances toward him. Dr. Ogden’s gaze traveled to the boy. Matt saw the shock of surprise on his face.

Matt clutched the tiny fingers, so warm in his palm. It seemed impossible that this was the same child who’d been frozen in ice only hours ago. He flashed back on his own son, Tyler, walking with him hand in hand. Both boys had died in ice, but now one had returned.

As the two entered the curving wall of tanks, the boy stared at the hazy figures inside. Did he know what they held? Were his own parents inside one of these tanks?

Maki pushed a thumb in his mouth, eyes round and wide. He hurried past, scared.

Petkov spoke behind them. “Does he know where he’s going?”

Matt relayed the question in Inuktitut.

“Ii,”Maki answered around his thumb, nodding his head.

The hall curved to its end. A wall appeared ahead, blocking the way. They had circled the entire level. There was no way forward. No door.

The boy continued toward the passage’s end. To the right, the tanks finally ended. Maki led Matt toward the blank section of wall. It appeared seamless and solid, but the boy’s tiny fingers found a small hidden panel. It swung in, revealing a foot-wide brass control wheel.

Maki played with the panel, swinging it back and forth. He spoke in Inuktitut. Matt translated for Petkov. “He says past here is your secret room.”

The admiral gently moved the boy’s arm out of the way and stared at the brass wheel. He stepped back and waved Matt forward. “Open it.”

Matt bent to the hole and grabbed the wheel. It wouldn’t budge, frozen solid. “I need a crowbar,” he gasped as he struggled.

The boy reached under the wheel and flipped a hidden catch. The wheel immediately spun in his hand, well oiled and preserved.

As the wide handle revolved to a stop, seals popped with a slight hiss. A full section of the wall cracked open. A secret door.

Matt was guided back at gunpoint. Another of the guards stepped forward and pulled the door open.

The cold flowed out as if from an open freezer. Lights flickered on, revealing that it was indeed an icebox inside. Similar to the service huts, it was another room cut directly out of the island. But it was no maintenance closet, but a lab sculpted from the blue ice.

Abutting the three walls were worktables carved from the ice. Shelves of slab ice rose above them, covered with an assortment of stainless-steel equipment: crude centrifuges, measuring pipettes, graduated cyclinders. But the shelves of the back wall, lit by a row of bare lightbulbs, had cored receptacles drilled into them. Inserted into each of the holes were glass syringes, their plungers sticking up. The ice was glassy enough to see through to the amber-colored liquid filling each of the syringe’s chambers. There had to be over fifty of the loaded doses.

Matt stared around as he stepped into the ice lab. Work must have been done in a totally frozen state.

The boy entered, still sucking his thumb. His eyes grew wider. He stared into the room, then back out toward the Russian admiral.

Matt understood his confused expression.

“Papa,” the boy said in Inuktitut, then repeated it in Russian.

Upon the floor slumped a figure, seated, legs out, head lolled. Even through the frost on the features, there could be no doubt who it was. The family’s snow-white hair was unmistakable.

A gasp from Petkov confirmed the identity. He shoved forward, dropping to his knees before the body and reaching out.

The elder Petkov’s face was tinged blue, the clothes frosted with rime and ice. One sleeve had been rolled up. A cracked syringe lay on the floor. Blood trailed from a puncture on the inside of the arm to the needle.

Matt crossed to the wall of syringes. He pulled one free. The liquid was unfrozen, impervious to the subzero cold. He glanced down to the figure. “He dosed himself,” he muttered.

Petkov glanced between the boy and his father. Then to Matt. From his expression, his thoughts were easy to read. Like the boy, could my father still be alive?

Matt spotted a journal, like all the others, on the table under the shelves. He flipped open the brittle cover to find line after line of Inuktitut script scrawled across the pages, until the notes ceased. Taught by Jenny and her father to read the language, Matt could make it out, but it made no sense. He mumbled aloud, trying to determine the meaning.

Petkov glanced up to him. “You speak Russian.”

Matt frowned and indicated the book. “I’m just reading what’s written here.”

Still on his knees beside his father’s remains, Petkov gestured for the journal. He flipped through what was clearly the last of the journals. Petkov passed it to him. “Read it…” His voice cracked. “Please.”

Maki wandered to the admiral’s side and leaned into him, tired and needing reassurance. Petkov put an arm around the boy.

Matt was in no position to argue with two pistols pointed at him. Plus he was curious. He read as Petkov translated aloud. The admiral paused every now and then to question and to ask Matt to reread a section.

Slowly the truth came out.

The journal was the final testament of Vladimir Petkov. It seemed that in the decade he’d spent here, Viktor’s father had slowly grown a conscience. Mostly because of the boy Maki. The child was born here, orphaned when his parents died during the tests. Missing his own son back in Mother Russia, Vladimir had developed an attachment and affection for the boy, which was always a mistake in research. Never name your test animals. Through this lapse of judgment, however, Vladimir inadvertently rediscovered his humanity, losing his professional detachment.

This occurred about the same time he answered the puzzle of activating the grendel hormone. The hormone had to be collected from living specimens, thawed and unfrozen. If collected from dead specimens or frozen ones, it would be rendered inert. Furthermore, once a sample had been drawn by syringe directly from a living grendel, it had to be treated carefully, maintained at a constant temperature.