Relic (Pendergast, #1)

by Douglas Preston

“It truly was part reptile, part primate. I won’t go into the technical details—I’ll leave that to Gregory Kawakita, who I’ve put to work analyzing what data we do have—but it appears that the reptilian genes are what gave the creature its strength, speed, and muscle mass. The primate genes contributed the intelligence and possibly made it endothermic. Warm-blooded. A formidable combination.” “Yeah, sure,” D’Agosta said, laying the cast down. “But what the hell was it?” Frock chuckled. “My dear fellow, we simply don’t have enough data yet to say exactly what it was. And since it appears to have been the last of its kind, we may never know.

Once he reconstructed what Frock and Margo had done with his program, everything else fell into place.

He remembered the surge of triumph he felt when the little green node appeared on an agar-covered petri dish. And now he had a large and steady supply growing in the tanks, fully inoculated with the reovirus. The strange reovirus that dated back sixty-five million years. It had proven to be a perversely attractive type of lily pad, blooming almost continuously, big deep-purple blossoms with venous appendages and bright yellow stamens. The virus was concentrated in the tough, fibrous stem. He was harvesting two pounds a week, and poised to increase his yield exponentially.

they had found a double-arrow pendant belonging to John Whittlesey in the creature’s lair. Proof, they said, that the monster had killed Whittlesey. Proof. What a joke. Proof, rather, that the monster was Whittlesey.

The creature, the Museum Beast, He Who Walks On All Fours, was Whittlesey. And the proof lay within his grasp: his extrapolation program. Kawakita had placed human DNA on one side and the reovirus DNA on the other. And then he had asked for the intermediate form. The computer gave the creature: He Who Walks On All Fours.

By eating the fibers and becoming infected with the reovirus, Whittlesey had turned into Mbwun. Mbwun—the word the Kothoga used for the wonderful, terrible plant, and for the creatures those who ate it became. Kawakita could now visualize parts of the Kothoga’s secret religion. The plants were a curse that was simultaneously hated and needed. The creatures kept the enemies of the Kothoga at bay—yet they themselves were a constant threat to their masters. Chances are, the Kothoga only kept one of the creatures around at a time—more than that would be too dangerous. The cult would have centered around the plant itself, its cultivation and harvesting. The climax of their ceremonials was undoubtedly the induction of a new creature—the force-feeding of the plant to the unwilling human victim. Initially, large quantities of the plant would be needed to ensure sufficient reovirus to effect the bodily change. Once the transformation was complete, the plant need be consumed only in small quantities, supplemented of course by other proteins. But it was critical that the dose be maintained. Otherwise, intense pain, even madness, would result as the body tried to revert. Of course, death would intervene before that happened. And the desperate creature would, if at all possible, find a substitute for the plant—the human hypothalamus being by far the most satisfactory.

Perhaps the creature had been old, or enfeebled. Perhaps Crocker had killed the creature with the expedition’s gun as the creature disembowelled him. Or perhaps not. But when the Kothoga found Whittlesey, Kawakita knew there was only one possible outcome. He wondered what Whittlesey must have felt: bound, perhaps ceremonially, being force-fed the reovirus from the strange plant he himself had collected just days earlier. Perhaps they brewed him a liquor from the plant’s leaves, or perhaps they simply forced him to eat the dried fibers. They must have attempted to do with this white man what they had failed to do with their own kind: create a monster they could control. A monster that would keep out the road builders and the prospectors and the miners that were poised to invade the tepui from the south and destroy them. A monster that would terrorize the surrounding tribes without terrorizing its masters; that would ensure the security and isolation of the Kothoga forever.

Kawakita imagined the day it happened: the Whittlesey-thing, crouched in the jungle, seeing the fire come falling from the sky, burning the tepui, the Kothoga, the precious plants. He alone escaped. And he alone knew where the life-giving fibers could still be found after the jungle was destroyed: He knew, because he had sent them there. Or perhaps Whittlesey was already gone when the tepui was burned. Perhaps the Kothoga had been unable to control, once again, the creature they had created.

Perhaps he’d simply wanted to go home. So he had abandoned the Kothoga, and the Kothoga had been destroyed by progress. But, for the most part, Kawakita was indifferent to the anthropological details. He was interested in the power inherent in the plant, and the harnessing of such power. You needed to control the source before you could control the creature. And that, thought Kawakita, is exactly why I’m going to succeed where the Kothoga failed. He was controlling the source. Only he knew how to grow this difficult and delicate swamp lily from the depths of the Amazon jungle. Only he knew the proper pH of the water, the right temperature, the proper light, the correct mix of nutrients. Only he knew how to inoculate the plant with the reovirus. They would be dependent on him. And, with the genetic splicing he had done through the rabbit serum, he’d been able to purify the essential strength of the virus, engineering it to be cleaner while diminishing some of the more unpleasant side effects.

Everyone knew that viruses inserted their own DNA into the cells of their victim. Normally, that DNA would simply instruct the victim’s cells to make more viruses. That’s what happened in every virus known to man: from the flu to AIDS. This virus was different. It inserted a whole array of genes into its victim: reptile genes. Ancient reptile genes; sixty-five-million-year-old genes. Found today in the lowly gecko and a few other species. And it had apparently borrowed primate genes—no doubt human genes—over time, as well. A virus that stole genes from its host, and incorporated those genes into its victims. Those genes, instead of making more viruses, remade the victim. Reshaped the victim, bit by bit, into a monster. The viruses instructed the body’s own machinery to change the bone structure, the endocrine system, the limbs and skin and hair and internal organs. It changed the behavior, the weight, speed, and cunning of the victim. Gave the victim uncanny senses of smell and hearing, but diminished its eyesight and voice.

In short, the drug—the virus—turned a human victim into a terrible killing machine. No, the word victim did not fairly describe one infected with the virus. A better word might be symbiont. Because it was a privilege to receive the virus. A gift. A gift from Greg Kawakita. It was beautiful. In fact, it was sublime. The possibilities for genetic engineering were endless. And already, Kawakita had ideas for improvements. New genes the reovirus could insert into its host. Human genes as well as animal genes. He controlled what genes the reovirus would insert into its host. He controlled what the host would become. Unlike the primitive, superstitious Kothoga, he was in control—through science. An interesting side effect of the plant was its narcotic effect: a wonderful, “clean” rush, without the unpleasant down of so many other drugs. Perhaps that was how the plant had originally ensured its own ingestion and, thus, its propagation. But for Kawakita, this side effect had provided cash from which to finance his research. He hadn’t wanted to sell the drug originally, but the financial pressures he’d experienced had made it inevitable.

He had made the most stunning advancement in genetics since the discovery of the double helix. It would have won him a Nobel Prize, he thought with an ironic smile. Had he chosen that route. But who needed a Nobel Prize, when the whole world was suddenly there for the plucking? There came another knock at the door.