Chapter Eight

 

 

 

STANDING ON THE DECK of her houseboat, moored at yet another quay, Isa inhaled deeply. Tension melted from her shoulders. Nothing surpassed the salty, fresh smell of the ocean at dawn. The first rays of sunlight glinted on the horizon, reflecting off the waves. Overhead seabirds called, some swooping low to skim the water’s surface. The world felt at peace.

It had been a demanding night, attending a long and complicated delivery. A breech birth. There were hours when she thought the woman might not survive but, in the end, her baby was born healthy. The mother was exhausted‌—‌and rightly so‌—‌but Isa saw no further cause for concern.

She’d held the swaddled infant, a warm, soft bundle of joy, and stared down into his bright, blue eyes and kissed his soft, downy forehead. In a few years, his parents might call her back to remove the webbing between his fingers, but they had also murmured to each other about seeing their son baptized in the sea. That gave her hope that the Finn people might find a way to preserve at least a few of their ancient traditions.

A year spent adrift, loosely connected to all the Finn communities, had revealed a pressing need for better medical care. But there was only so much a single woman could accomplish, particularly when her own medical education had stagnated.

It was time to return to Glasgow, to resubmit her application to medical school. She could be as good a physician as Anton ever was, if only the University of Glasgow would allow her to matriculate so that she might broaden her studies. With an official degree in hand, she hoped to convince more Finn‌—‌particularly women‌—‌to train as healers.

Glasgow.

A flush crept up her neck. If she were honest with herself, she missed Dr. McCullough. Missed‌—‌despite the morbid task he pursued‌—‌how he managed to swat away the gloom with flashing eyes and an easy smile. And teasing words. She’d spent the better part of that night awake, telling herself that his flirtations were empty and meaningless, akin to listening to the lure of sirens. To listen was to crash upon the rocks…‌

Isa snorted at her musings. Crash she might, but she certainly wouldn’t drown.

He’d left her a note, pinned to the table beneath a rock. He’d thanked her for her hospitality and care and promised to keep her abreast of any developments. A perfectly proper note, yet she’d run her finger over his scrawling script.

What was it she felt? Regret?

Three years of marriage. Three years of watching her vibrant dreams fade to a dull sepia. A year of widowhood, wearing black and gray, an itinerant healer at the beck and call of others. Not that she regretted providing remote Finn communities with quality medical services, but somewhere along the line, she’d lost herself.

But in Dr. McCullough’s presence, she felt a renewed sense of purpose. She grinned. Along with a renewed interest in functional male anatomy.

Isa refused to let recent events‌—‌fear of what might lurk beneath the water’s surface‌—‌keep her from a short swim near the shore. Setting the linen towel she held upon the deck, she removed her dressing gown. Such a perfect April morning ought not be wasted. She was no fool, however. Her dive knife was strapped to her thigh, its blade sharp enough to cut through any octopus tentacle, whether or not it contained a braided wire at its core.

Naked, she leapt into the water.

The water was cool, but not cold. Not to her. One of many physiological advantages all Finn shared.

Again her thoughts strayed to the well-muscled Dr. McCullough and his swimming abilities. He’d climbed onto her boat, water sluicing down his body…‌ Could there be Finn heritage in his family tree? Blood. The lint she’d used to blot the blood from his head wound might hold a clue. But only if she could analyze it using Anton’s equipment. In Glasgow.

She shouldn’t. To do so without his knowledge or consent crossed a certain boundary. But perhaps if he called upon her once more, she might find a way to breach such a topic. Cautiously.

As she bobbed at the surface, the salt spray misting her face, a gull landed upon the railing of her boat. A living creature, but it reminded her of the punch card she’d handed Dr. McCullough, its address programmed to send a skeet pigeon to her Glasgow home. Glasgow, because when next she saw him, she wished to wear a gown more appealing than the dull, gray wool suited to her role as an itinerant healer. How long since she’d last felt an urge to preen?

If she left now, she could dock there this very evening. She took a stroke back toward her boat, then paused. Forever at another’s beck and call, it had been too long since she’d allowed herself to swim in the sea, and she’d missed it. With a reputation to protect, Isa had denied herself this pleasure‌—‌too many pleasures‌—‌all in the name of professional dignity.

No more. The world could wait a few more minutes. Then she would attend to duty. Or‌—‌she smiled‌—‌Dr. McCullough.

Taking a deep breath, Isa flattened her nostrils and dove.

~~~

The metal brace about his knee caught at the inside of his formal uniform trousers as he limped down the hallway to the board meeting.

“A relatively simple repair,” Dr. Morgan had said, then fixed Alec with a narrow-eyed glare before sewing up the inch-long incision. “But no more pivoting. As I stated before, you no longer have an anterior cruciate ligament, and this artificial joint cannot take that kind of sheer strain. Next time you might not be so lucky. I’d hate to have to install an entirely new joint.”

“Is there a model capable of pivoting yet?” he’d responded, contemplating if he’d be willing to endure another six weeks of rehabilitation to replace this joint with a better model.

Dr. Morgan’s scowl informed him there was not. “Are you keeping up with the exercises? Swimming laps in the BURR training pool?”

Swimming, certainly, though he imagined the doctor would blow an artery if he knew Alec had been in the ocean. And he thought it best not to mention the work he’d been performing aboard fishing vessels. It wasn’t at all what the man had in mind.

“A brace,” the surgeon insisted with a sigh. “Until your muscles are capable of compensating.”

There was one more unpleasant task to wade through before he could return to the field on a hunt for the elusive biomech octopus. Meanwhile, he checked the rookery daily, hoping for a return skeet pigeon from Mrs. McQuiston. So far, nothing. Was she not back yet? Avoiding him?

He rubbed the back of his neck as he paced down the hallway. The Ichor machine had failed to indicate high levels of copper. It had, however, spit out a long strip of white paper, informing him of the presence of hirudin in the swab he’d taken from the man’s neck wound. Hirudin‌—‌an anticoagulant produced in the saliva of leeches‌—‌was most definitely a biological peptide that did not belong in human blood. It would, however, prevent human blood from clotting.

A vampiric octopus?

Except this thing was not alive. Not exactly. Neither was it machine. The fragments he’d examined contained living tissue, yet incorporated artificial elements.

Octopus. Mollusk. Leech. Ceramics. Carbon mesh.

This was…‌ biomech.

Alec was used to evaluating foreign biotechnological devices, but so far those had been mechanical in nature, interacting with living systems, but not incorporating them to the point where they were almost indistinguishable. The cube jellyfish gun he’d reverse engineered had integrated a nematocyst and its poison, but it was still ninety-percent mechanical and incapable of sustaining the nematocyst for more than a month’s time. After that, the biological material would degrade.

Could the same be said of this octopus-ceramic-wire mesh thing? Or was it more alive than he wished to contemplate? And what was the end game?

Five punch cards of tests remained to be run. If there were any more serum abnormalities, he’d find them. Not to mention the cards that Logan had carried away for analysis. Perhaps those might prove enlightening? Not that he’d heard from his brother since. Irritating, how Logan chose to ration out bits of information only at his own convenience.

Once this meeting was over and the final programs run, he could escape the laboratory and return to the field. No reason to stay. He had no interest in establishing an actual research project, a path that would doom him to a windowless laboratory and a staid existence. Neither did he wish to return home, where Mother lurked, eager to marry off her second son.

“Sir!”

Alec blinked and found a young man saluting him. Weary, he returned the courtesy. “Do I know you?”

“Jasper Sinclair, sir. Your replacement, sir.”

Already they’d replaced him. Alec suddenly felt old. At thirty. It struck him how young the new guy looked, his face still smooth, as yet unweathered by years of exposure to the elements, by exposure to the pressures of the job.

“You’re here for the board meeting?” Alec asked, striving for civility.

A nod. “Yes, sir. The entire BURR team was ordered to attend the inquiry, sir. About the aquaspira. Isn’t that why you’re here?”

A knot formed in his gut. Davis’s death was on the board’s agenda. They were convening to discuss his teammate’s death. Today. Now. “It was ruled an apoplexy,” Alec said. “Have new findings come to light?”

Sinclair kept his expression carefully neutral. “You’ve been hard to locate, sir.”

Once, he’d been inseparable from his crew. Now he was no more than a peripheral satellite hugging the edges, drifting further away with each circuit. His fault. It was time to correct such behavior. To start acting like the leader he hoped to become.

If he couldn’t operate at full capacity in the field, he could at least pass on all his hard-won knowledge. He could drill new operatives, organize and oversee training missions. He grimaced. And there was always paperwork.

No. He wasn’t ready to concede the winning point to his knee. Not yet. Not even if it meant more time on shore to pursue a certain widow.

Sinclair cleared his throat. “No. No new findings. But there are those on the board who wish us to declare otherwise.”

Glowering, Alec followed the young man into the room, watching as he strode to the front, passing the file he held to their CO, Fernsby.

At the front of the room, five men sat side by side behind a long table, grumbling at each other and the papers that rested in front of them. Three men, including Fernsby and Commodore Drummond, who wished to see Alec removed from service, were dressed in military splendor. The other two wore fine wool suits. All of them politicians to one degree or another. Occupying the chairs before them were a number of other military types and more politicians, including one Lord Roideach. BURR team members occupied the shadowed corners of the rooms.

Lord Roideach turned, fixing Alec with a glare. He pointed to his chest and mouthed, “Mine.”

Alec ignored him and slid into an empty chair in the back corner of the room beside Shaw. “Bring me up to speed,” he muttered under his breath.

“Glad you finally made it back because something fishy is going on,” Shaw said, dropping a hand on Alec’s shoulder. “Heard you scored an Ichor. Take this sample of Davis’s blood.” The palm of Shaw’s hand concealed a glass vial. “Analyze it. There must be more to the blood thickening drug he took than we know, or someone wouldn’t be so keen to have his death deemed an aquaspira breather failure.”

Alec took the vial and slid it in his pocket. “Who’s the man next to Drummond?”

“Commander Norgrove, the Navy commander who gave the orders for our mission to proceed.”

His opinion unvoiceable, Alec narrowed his eyes.

“The aquaspira breathers were all thoroughly examined prior to the mission,” Fernsby said, passing pages from the file to the row of men. “The barium hydroxide carbon dioxide scrubber shows no evidence of failure, though sudden blackouts are not unheard of even at shallow depths.”

A uniformed steam maid appeared at one end of the table, accompanied by a heavily loaded roving table. The old men on the board perked up, anxious for their afternoon tea. A switch was flipped, and the conveyor belt built into the long table began to move.

Working quickly, the steambot poured tea‌—‌occasionally adding sugar and cream‌—‌and placed teacups upon the belt alongside individual plates of biscuits, sending the fine china rattling across the table. The conveyor belt came to a stuttering halt, and the privileged availed themselves of a nibble and a sip.

Alec resisted an impulse to roll his eyes. Aether forbid his superiors missed a meal.

Commander Norgrove cleared his throat. “I recommend we discontinue working with the aquaspira breathers at depths greater than nine feet. Submersible approaches in open water are ill-advised.”

Alec nodded. Yes. Too late to save Davis, but at least the man would not put the BURR men at further risk.

“I must object again,” Lord Dankworth said, nibbling upon a biscuit before continuing. “With the upcoming Icelandic-Danish wedding, we must be prepared to stop the radicals who object to the new alliance. That involves policing our offshore waters.”

Alec’s jaw tightened. Shaw hissed a curse. Rowan leaned forward. Moray rumbled.

They’d lost Davis over a royal wedding?

Shaking his head, Commander Norgrove said, “It is a mistake to become involved in such foreign affairs. It’s a wedding, for aether’s sake.”

Exactly. Picking a side offered Britain no gain, only loss. The best course was to remain neutral.

Lord Dankworth pressed a hand to his head and swayed. “I disagree. The riot…‌” he swayed again, “in Reykjavik, last week…‌ our waters…‌” He lifted a trembling hand before his eyes, then pressed it to his chest. “I’m afraid‌—‌” He collapsed, boneless, to the floor.

The BURR men leapt to their feet, shoving past rows of seated onlookers that far outranked them, in a mad rush to Lord Dankworth’s side. Alec half-knelt on the floor as the man convulsed, while he checked his vital signs. Shortness of breath. Slow pulse. In minutes, he was dead.

“Do you smell that?” Alec asked Shaw, who nodded.

He lifted the gentleman’s tea to his nose. Nothing. His biscuits. There it was, a faint scent of bitter almond. He passed the plate to Shaw. “Poison.”

Shaw sniffed, then nodded. “Cyanide.”

Lord Dankworth had received the first plate of biscuits, a planned poisoning that had permanently silenced him.

“Find the steam maid!”

Chaos broke loose.