CRO-MAGNON (59 page)

“
I get the picture. I don’t . . . about getting him a work visa, though.”

“
You’re the foremost scientist in your field. Don’t they have an immigration category for critical-skills personnel?”

“
That’s true, I hadn’t . . . of that.”

“
Use your influence,” Calder said.

“
All right. Put Mr. Ayni back on.”

Ayni took back the mike. “Ayni.”

“
What do you suggest, Murzo? . . . you three make it through . . . Afghan territory in the Wakhan Corridor?”

Ayni considered the danger of discussing their plans over the air, but decided there was no other way. “We can try, although Ian is having trouble keeping up because of these ‘bends.
’
”

“
Bends?”

Calder leaned into the mike. “It’s a long story, Rolf.”

Ayni said, “It is not possible to hide in a
qishlaq
for more than a day, even my cousin’s. People will know. And that goes dual for the Corridor, even if it is technically Aghan. Considering the bribes that Mr. Salomon would offer, they would give us in.”

“
What, then?”

Ayni mulled the possibilities. “We could try to cross the Corridor into the Hindu Kush. That is in Pakistan. Delyanov’s helicopters, furnished by the Tajik government, would not dare to cross the border, unlike the lawless Afghan Corridor, for fear of setting off an international incident.”

“
Pakistan,” Mathiessen said. “Because of U.S. black ops along the Afghan border, they’re not too friendly right now. I’d never get permission—”

“
You would not need it,” Ayni said. “Those mountains are in the North-West Frontier province. They are largely uninhabited.”

He thought he heard a sigh. Or perhaps it was just interference. Then Mathiessen’s staticky voice: “Where will you go, then?”

“
We need a point of reference for a ren . . . renderview.”

“
You don’t have a GPS unit?”

“
GPS?”

“
A gadget that tells where you are.”

“
Fedor told me of such a thing. No, we do not have them.”

“
So where could we meet?”

“
The nearest
qishlaq
to the border would be Totiraz Noku. You can find the coordinates on a flight map.”

“
Is there a road, so you can find it?”

“
No, but I was there a long time ago as an assistant guide for hikers. I remember it is five or six kilometers southwest of Saraghrar Peak. I keep the highest peak in the Hindu Kush, Tirich Mir, to my right.”

“
What’s the time frame?”

“
Can you fly a helicopter into the Kush two days from now?”

“
If I can find an aircraft and a pilot.” The signal faded and came back. “. . . out of here should arrive by tomorrow. But I can hardly ask the U.S. consulate . . . into Pakistan. What do you suggest, Mr. Ayni?”

“
I do not know. The closest year-round road in Pakistan is the Mastuj. With Ian’s sickness, we cannot hope to reach it.”

This time, a definite sigh came over the air. “I’ve done a couple of digs in Uzbekistan. I know people in Tashkent who’ll do anything if the price is right. I suppose I can have the Institute wire funds, although the comptroller will tear out his hair, or mine when I get back.”

“
Khub.
We will try for Totiraz.”

“
If I get there early I’ll look for the three of you along the way. I’ll call from the village if they have a radio or from the helicopter if possible.”

“
I do not know if there will be anyone in Totiraz at this time of year, but there should be a helicopter pad. If there is storm, Dr. Mathiessen, do not try to land on the hillside. There is a smooth glacier one kilometer west.”

Calder took the mike from Ayni. “You won’t be the only one looking, Rolf. If we even get that far. You could be setting up for an encore by Salomon.”

“
I know. We’ll have to play by ear. I have to sign off. The village chief needs the radio . . . I’ll . . . Red Cross.”

Blaine grabbed the mike. “Bring four 24- can foam coolers, Dr. Mathiessen. Packed with Dry Ice, if possible.”

“
Understood . . . off, now.”

#

For Calder, the trek south proved a nightmare of steep gorges, rocky stream beds, and icy mountain passes, though Ayni carried his backpack in addition to his own while Blaine shouldered her pack and the two sacks of frozen heads. Even using the Neanderthal’s spear as a third leg did little to banish the hot knives that jabbed his knees with every step. Clouds scudded across the night sky, and whenever they blocked the pale moon, he was prone to slip. Several times he pondered whether the frozen heads were worth risking their lives and Mathiessen’s.

If they left them in plain sight for Salomon . . .

But he knew that Caitlin would never let them go.

In late evening a helicopter, probably the same that Ayni had seen earlier that day, swooped along a gorge they were descending, its powerful searchlight spotlighting the trail that skirted a rushing stream. Led by Ayni, the hikers scrambled up a rocky slope and squirmed beneath juniper shrubs. Calder hunched his back in anticipation of a barrage of fifty-caliber slugs, but the chopper passed, its lights disappearing over the glaciated pass they had just traversed.

Around midnight, they reached a patch of holly oak in a narrow bottom. Ayni called a halt and they collapsed amid dry branches and tattered leaves. There was a rustle, and Calder flinched at a sudden beat of wings. The staccato calls of a bird echoed between the canyon walls, diminishing as it gained altitude.

“
For a second I thought I’d sat on a snake,” he said. “Then I realized it’s way too cold.”

“
Right now, it is.” Ayni passed him a canteen and a cloth bag. “We do have the Himalayan pit viper and the occasional cobra, but they den for much of the year.”

Blaine said, “I didn’t think birds would winter here.”

“
Some do. That was a chukor partridge.”

Calder swigged silty water, dipping his fingers into the bag and scooping crumbly trail food. It had a pleasantly fermented taste, reminiscent of Feta and livened by dried berries. He chewed, swallowed, and chewed again. “Not bad.”

“
Qurut,”
Ayni said.” Goat-curd cheese my cousin Simin makes, and mulberries. When guerrillas occupied her village four winters ago, she and her family lived on a hidden supply.”

Calder, needing to rest his knees, cast about for a way to stall. Remembering his previous concern as to whether the frozen heads were worth their lives, he turned to Caitlin.

“
Have you and your team considered that a human brain is a couple orders of magnitude more complex than a mouse’s and that you won’t be able to fit the contents of an adult cortex into a newborn baby’s brain?”

“
Of course.” She swallowed a handful of mix. “That’s also true of mouse brains. Before we effect the transfer, we force-grow the new mouse to the same ‘age’ as the original.”

“
At risk of sounding like a straight man, how does one force-grow a mouse?”

“
We use IGF2R, the gene that was featured in
Newsweek.
”

“
My subscription must have lapsed. IGF2R?”

“
It stands for ‘insulin-like growth factor two receptor.
’
”

Calder massaged his right knee. “Thanks for clearing that up.”

“
It’s a gene that prevents fetal overgrowth, a condition that cloned animals sometimes develop in the womb, and that kills the mother and the fetus. We’ve learned how to switch it on and off by a process called RNA interference.”

Calder was happy to listen. He needed as much rest as he could get before tackling the punishing trail again. And he wanted his practical concern addressed. He felt it was probably too late to negotiate with Salomon; but if they got cornered, the more he knew, the more he’d have to bargain with.

“
Most mammals possess only one copy of the gene,” Blaine said. “But humans and other primates carry two, which apparently evolved as a safety measure. We’ll use the wolf for practice, to make sure the process scales up properly.”

“
And if it doesn’t?”

“
You can run into complicationslike Prader-Willi syndrome or Wilms’ tumor.”

Calder chewed some
qurut
and nodded as if he understood.
Let her talk.

“
Once the pup is out of the womb, we’ll switch the gene back to growth mode.” Blaine’s voice grew animated. “We’ll chill the brain to prevent spontaneous activity, supply the body with mega-nutrients and electrical muscle stimulation, and grow the new wolf to adult size about ten times as fast as under natural conditions”

“
Just like that?”

“
It’s complicated, but we’ve made it work for mice and there’s no reason it shouldn’t scale up. Finally, we’ll switch the gene back to normal and upload the stored memories of the original wolf’s brain.”

“
And that would work for humans?”

Blaine nodded, but Calder thought her self-assured air looked forced.

“
Have you tried it yet?”

“
Are you kidding?” Her lip curled. “The fundamentalists would be out with their torches. When we’re ready for that we’ll have to go outside the U.S., unless we want to spend the next century or two in Leavenworth. We’re talking some place like Nauru.”

Calder ran his fingers along his right knee where residual bubbles had been causing the most pain. The swelling seemed to have had receded since supper. At least he wouldn’t be permanently crippled, he thought.

He considered Caitlin’s explanation. He wanted to believe. But the idea, coming on top of the other ground-breaking procedures she had explained over the past few days, seemed beyond the pale.

“
We risked several lives for these specimens, Caitlin. Everything depends on a bunch of complicated procedures, integrated for the first time, coming together perfectly in order to generate a human being.” He sighed. “The whole megilla just doesn’t sound conceivable.”

“
Conceivable?
Did you just make a witticism?” She held up her hand. “Remember, only a few years ago, cloning was panned as something for the far future. But Ian Wilmut proved otherwise with Dolly. Now, with the robiticized method developed by the Danish Institute of Agricultural Sciences, it’s a piece of cake. We can clone just about anything, and they don’t walk funny or have a bolt through their neck .”

Calder watched Ayni rise to his feet and reach for the two backpacks. The ranger said, “But Caitlin, like Dr. Mathiessen wanted to know, can you actually do this thing with humans?”

“
IGF2R is the only tricky part. My team and I can do it,” Blaine said. “If we miss on the first try with the wolf, we’ll just clone a new body.”

“
Won’t it cost a bundle to do the brain-scanning and store the results?”

“
Yes,” she said, the word sounding even more forced.

“
How are you going to address that?”

“
Mathiessen.”

“
I’m just trying to keep your feet on the ground, Calder said. “Does Rolf have any idea of the kind of money it would take?”

Blaine did not answer.

Ayni stood. “We need to go.”

“
We
will
do succeed,” Blaine said. She stood, hitched her backpack higher and slung the two sacks. “That is, if you two outdoor types will help me get the heads out to civilization.”

“
That will be a high order,” Ayni said, helping Calder to stand. “The Hindu Kush is touched by the monsoon. Even the north-facing slopes are snowier than the Pamir. And where we are going, more open. Out there we will be, as you say, sitting birds.”

“
Ducks,” Blaine said, borrowing a note from Calder. “But we get the idea, Murzo.”

Calder stood on his sore knees, trying to adjust his posture to favor the right one. He doubted that he could outrun Salomon and his helicopters. If only there were some way to compromise, he thought. Maybe the industrialist would finance Caitlin’s scanning and cloning. Of course, there was the little matter of the two of them having killed his enforcer.

“
Salomon must already be richer than King Croesus,” he said. “Do you really think he’ll commit murder just to make more money?”

“
I know he will. And maybe not just for the money. He could actually think he’d be doing the world a service.”

Calder took a step, winced, leaned on the Neanderthal’s spear. “That’s absurd. How could anyone justify the use of military robots?”

“
How do they justify armed drones?”

“
Like Rolf suggested, we could leave the heads in a snow bank, walk out of here faster, and come back later. It might just save us.”

She shook her head. “There’d be no ‘later.’ He’d hunt us down like rats in a maze.”

“
Why?”

“
It’s not just the money any longer, or even his twisted logic. It’s his all-important self-image.” She stared at Calder and then at Ayni. “Laszlo Salomon will not permit himself to lose.”