Relic (Pendergast, #1)

by Douglas Preston

Callisto Effect, after the Greek myth in which a young woman is suddenly transformed into a wild creature.

But you’ve displayed three gifts that are indispensable to a first-class researcher: a sense of what to look for, a sense of where to look for it, and the zeal to see your theories through.”

Lavinia Rickman, the Chief of Public Relations for the Museum, had hired Smithback to write his book.

“The hypothalamus regulates body temperature, blood pressure, heartbeat, and the metabolism of fats and carbohydrates. Also the sleep-wake cycle. We think it holds the centers of pleasure and pain. It’s a very complicated organ, Lieutenant.” She looked fixedly at him, anticipating a question. D’Agosta mumbled dutifully, “How does it do all that?” “Hormones. It secretes hundreds of regulatory hormones into the brain and bloodstream.”

Jost Von Oster ran the osteological preparation area, the Museum Laboratory in which animal carcasses were reduced to bones.

“what we have here is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

So I return rebuk’d to my content, And gain by ills thrice more than I have spent.

‘He that has a mind to fight, let him fight, for now is the time.’”

By eating the fibers and becoming infected with the reovirus, Whittlesey had turned into Mbwun.