Basilisk (3 page)

‘I feel totally numb, to tell you the truth. Feel my hands, I’m freezing. I was convinced that by this time next week, there I’d be, on the front cover of
Scientific American
, grinning at all those skeptical bastards who said that I couldn’t even breed hamsters.’

‘What will you do now?’

Nathan swallowed beer, and sniffed. ‘In the short term, try to find out what the hell went wrong. It could have been a bacterial infection – it could have been something more fundamental.’

‘And in the long term?’

‘In the long term – I guess it all it depends on Henry Burnside. If he doesn’t cut off my research budget, I’ll try again. But he’s been making some pretty grumpy noises lately. As of yesterday we’ve spent over two-point-seven million, and I haven’t even given him a ratfish, leave alone a fully grown gryphon.’

‘Maybe you hyped it up too much,’ said Grace. ‘It’s an amazing idea, and I can see why Burnside bought it. But you never really told him how difficult it was going to be.’

‘Difficult? That’s the understatement of the twenty-first century. More like fricking impossible. For me, anyhow.’

‘Oh, come on, Nate. Give yourself some credit. If the embryo was fully grown, the basic genetics must have been sound, mustn’t they?’

‘Maybe. Maybe not. I won’t find out for certain until we’ve carried out a full necropsy. I would have started it tonight but I was too damn tired and too damn pissed.’

‘Have you told him yet?’

‘Burnside?’ Nathan shook his head. ‘No. It’s much too late to call him now. And I’m not
about
to tell him, either. Not until I know exactly what went wrong, and how to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.’

‘Are you hungry?’ Grace asked him. ‘There’s some vegetable chowder in the pot, if you feel like some. Or some cold chicken.’

‘Chicken – no, thanks,’ said Nathan. He could still smell the gryphon’s egg breaking open. He could almost
taste
it. ‘I’m fine, really. I think I need some sleep, more than anything else.’

Grace kissed him, very lightly, on the cheek. He turned to look at her. He suddenly realized that he hadn’t been seeing nearly enough of her lately. She had changed her hair and he hadn’t even noticed. It was very short now, and she had lighter brown streaks in it. He had almost forgotten how alluring she was, with that perfect oval face, like a medieval saint; and how greeny-gray her eyes were, like the ocean on a very dull day.

‘You do really believe that I can do this?’ he asked her. ‘I’m not really a New-Age lunatic, am I?’

She took hold of his hand and squeezed it. ‘I’ve never doubted you, Nate, you know that. But maybe you should try something less ambitious. Maybe you
should
try a ratfish.’

‘Well, maybe. But the genetics are just as complicated. And what do you end up with? Either a fish that can run up a drainpipe or a rat that can play water polo.’

Grace pressed her forehead against his, as if she wanted him to share her sympathy by osmosis. ‘You’re not going to give up, though, are you?’

‘No, I’m not going to give up. But I need to think this whole thing through, all over again, right from the basement upward. I keep feeling that I’m missing something.’

‘Such as what?’

‘Well – I’m sure that the biology is good. The genetic coding, the cell development, everything. But maybe it takes more than biology to create a mythical creature. Maybe – I don’t know – maybe it takes a certain amount of
myth
.’

Grace blinked at him. ‘Now you’ve lost me.’

‘Think about it,’ said Nathan. ‘All those medieval sorcerers who first bred gryphons, and hippogryphs, and chimeras, how did
they
do it?’

‘Nobody knows, do they?’

‘Well, one thing’s for sure. They didn’t know squat about IVF or egg transplantation. They didn’t have CT scanners or ballistocardiograms. But they still managed to breed all those monstrosities. So before I try to fertilize another gryphon’s egg, maybe I should find out how they did it in the Middle Ages.’

‘I think you’re right,’ said Grace.

‘You do?’

‘Yes – I think you
do
need some sleep. Let’s talk about it tomorrow.’

He came back into the bedroom after his shower, with a thick white towel wrapped around his waist. He had washed his hair, and shaved, and slapped on some Acqua di Gio, and he felt human again.

‘I didn’t ask you, sweetheart, I’m sorry. How was
your
day?’

‘Busy, but pretty ho-hum. That stomach bug doesn’t show any signs of letting up. But I had a
very
spooky conversation with old Mrs Bellman, at the Murdstone Rest Home.’

‘Mrs Bellman?’

‘You remember – that dotty old lady who tried to slide down the banisters and broke her thigh bone? She told me that she’s been hearing people dragging sacks along the corridor, in the middle of the night. And
screaming
. She’s convinced that Doctor Zauber is killing off his patients and grinding up their bodies for meat loaf.’

Nathan leaned over and peered at himself in her dressing-table mirror. ‘Maybe she’s right. Maybe they’re running that place like
Soylent Green
– you know, that sci-fi movie when they turned old folks into food.’

‘She’s lonely, that’s all, and delusional.’

Nathan peered at himself even more closely. ‘God, I’m handsome.’ He plucked a hair out of his left nostril between finger and thumb, and said, ‘
Ouch
.’

‘I just wish I could do more for women like her, that’s all. Her family never visit her. She’s sitting in that room, day after day, with nobody to talk to. It’s not surprising she gets weird ideas. And there must be millions of old people in the same predicament.’

Nathan climbed into bed, and kissed her shoulder. ‘The only answer is, not to get old. Why do you think I’m doing all of this research? The Egyptian bennu bird was supposed to live for over a thousand years. If we could share its genetic coding, then who knows how long
we
could live?’

‘Uh-uh. I don’t think I could bear to be married to you for another nine hundred and eighty-two years, thank you.’

‘Hey –’ he said, whacking at her with his pillow.

Just as he did so, though, he heard the front door slam, downstairs. He frowned at Grace and said, ‘Is that Denver?’

‘I forgot to tell you. He went out. He said he’d be back by eleven.’

Nathan checked his bedside clock. ‘It’s ten after one. Where the hell has he been?’

‘I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him. He said he was going bowling with Stu Wintergreen and that Evans boy.’

They heard clattering in the kitchen. Nathan climbed out of bed again, and took his bathrobe down from the back of the door.

‘Nate –’ said Grace, anxiously. ‘Don’t be too hard on him.’

‘I’m not going to be hard on him. What makes you think I’m going to be hard on him?’

‘Because you usually are, that’s why. Come on, Nate, he’s seventeen years old now. Think what
you
were doing when you were seventeen.’

‘Exactly.’

He went out on to the landing, just as Denver was climbing the stairs, with a can of beer in each hand. Denver looked almost exactly like Grace, with a pale oval face and dark shoulder-length hair. But he had inherited his default expression from Nathan – always serious, and interrogative, as if something was troubling him, but he couldn’t decide what.

‘Well, well!’ said Nathan. ‘The wanderer returneth! What the hell time do you calleth this?’

Denver swayed, and blinked. ‘I don’t know, Pops. Sidereal time?’

‘You’ve been drinking, for Christ’s sake.’

‘I sure hope so. I’d hate to feel like this if I hadn’t.’

‘You’re seventeen years old, Denver. Drinking alcohol is illegal until you’re twenty-one. Where the hell did you get it? You didn’t
drive
in this condition, did you?’

‘I had to, Pops. I was too drunk to walk.’

Nathan made a grab for the cans of beer. He managed to snatch one of them out of Denver’s right hand, but Denver hid the other one behind his back.

‘Give me that beer, Denver. There’s absolutely no way you’re drinking any more.’

By now, Grace had come to the bedroom door. ‘Denver, look at the state of you!’

‘Look at the state of me? Look at the state of me? I’m seventeen years old and I went bowling with my friends. I drank three cans of Miller and I pissed over a fence. I horsed around and I laughed and I had a stupid, ordinary time doing nothing but stupid, ordinary things. I didn’t steal anything, I didn’t vandalize anything, I didn’t rape any girls. Why are you being so goddamned cen-snorious?’

Nathan held out his hand. ‘Give me that can of beer.’

‘Oh, no.’ Denver shook his head. ‘This can of beer is your compensation to me for being such a dick. You know what I have to put up with, every single day? Has your dad hatched any good dragons lately? He sure succeeded in breeding a gargoyle, didn’t he? Just take a look in the mirror!’

‘Give me that can of beer, Denver, or else you’re grounded for the rest of the month, and I’m not kidding you.’

Denver swayed and almost toppled backward down the stairs. ‘I know you’re not kidding me. You
never
kid. You’re always so goddamned serious. But how can you be so goddamned serious when you spend all day trying to breed creatures that don’t even exist? That’s you, Pops! That’s you! You don’t care about reality! You don’t give a flying fuck about your own son! The trouble with me is, I’m
real
! I exist! I’m not a unicorn or a gryphon or a three-headed what-do-you-call-it! I’m just a boring, real, ordinary, stupid person!’

Nathan grabbed Denver’s sleeve, and heaved him forcibly up to the landing. Denver’s eyes were glassy but he raised his chin in defiance and said, ‘What? What are you going to do now? You going to hit me?’

Grace said, ‘Nate,
don’t
.’

Nathan stared back at Denver, trying to face him down. But then shook his head and said, ‘Why don’t you just get to bed, kid, and sleep it off? I can’t hurt you nearly as much as your head will, in the morning.’

‘Is that a joke?’ Denver challenged him. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve cracked a joke! Mom – did you hear that? Pops just cracked a joke! Must have been all that practice you’ve been getting, cracking eggs!’

Nathan seized Denver’s sweatshirt and pulled him so close that their noses were almost touching. He was trembling, but he knew that it wasn’t Denver’s fault. It was his own rage that nearly five years of painstaking laboratory work had come to nothing. Instead of a shining, preening gryphon, all he had was a trayful of sticky feathers and a few lumps of liquefying flesh.

‘Get to bed,’ he said, releasing Denver’s shirt.

‘You suck,’ said Denver. ‘You really, really suck.’

‘I said, get to bed. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.’

Denver lurched along the landing toward his bedroom door. As he passed Grace, he stopped for a moment, and said, ‘Give Pops some of your St John’s wort, Mom. That’ll calm him down. Natural medicine for ever!’

‘Don’t you talk to your mother like that!’ Nathan snapped.

‘Or what?’ Denver retorted. He staggered against the wall, knocking a picture crooked. Then he held up the can of beer and said, ‘Here! Take it back! I don’t need any compensation from you! Doctor Freakenstein!’

He threw the can of beer at Nathan, as hard as he could. It missed, and struck the antique china vase at the end of the corridor, chipping the rim.

Nathan didn’t say anything, and he didn’t move. He had taught himself several years ago not to let his temper overwhelm him. All the same, he had to grip the banister-rail very tightly as Denver spun around and staggered into his bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

Grace took hold of Nathan’s arm and led him back to bed. ‘He’s drunk,’ she said. ‘We all say things we don’t mean when we’re drunk. He’ll apologize tomorrow.’

‘Why should he? That’s exactly what I am – Doctor Freakenstein. I’m not even good at it, either. In five years, what have I actually managed to produce? Twenty-eight unfertilized eggs, and one dead gryphon. He’s absolutely right. I suck.’

They heard a loud crash, which sounded like Denver tripping over his own jeans as he tried to take them off. This was followed by the banging of a toilet seat, and then the unmistakable sound of Denver being torrentially sick.

At last Denver fell into bed, and the house was quiet. As exhausted as he was, however, Nathan couldn’t sleep, and lay with his arms around Grace, feeling her ribcage and listening to her breathing.

He kept seeing the gryphon’s orange eye, staring at him helplessly from the gray jelly of its own putrefaction. He thought about the wizards and the sorcerers who had first created such hybrids – not just rats crossed with salmon, or hawks crossed with cats, but much larger beasts, like dragons and hippogryphs – half gryphon and half horse.

He thought of the poem by Ludovico Ariosto, which he had quoted in his first presentation to the Philadelphia Zoological Society, when he was asking them for funds.

It sounded so bombastic now, so full of shit. How could he have thought that he could really breed a gryphon, leave alone a hippogryph? How could he have been so arrogant?

Grace murmured, and turned over. Nathan turned over, too. The illuminated clock on his nightstand said two seventeen. His eyes closed, and he started to slide into sleep. But then he heard Denver stumble into the bathroom again, and the toilet seat clattering, and the groaning of a young man who swears by all that’s holy that he will never drink alcohol again, like
ever
.