“You get the feeling that civilization could be destroyed while you’re out here, and you’d never be aware of it.”

They hadn’t seen a house or other structure for two miles. They hadn’t passed another car in three miles.

Twilight descended into the winter forest, and Elliot switched on the headlights.

Ahead, on the left, a break appeared in the bank of snow that had been heaped up by the plows. When the Explorer reached this gap, Elliot swung into the turnoff and stopped. A narrow and forbidding track led into the woods, recently plowed but still treacherous. It was little more than one lane wide, and the trees formed a tunnel around it, so that after fifty or sixty feet, it disappeared into premature night. It was unpaved, but a solid bed had been built over the years by the generous and repeated application of oil and gravel. “According to the map, we’re looking for an ‘unpaved, nondirt’ road,” Tina told him.

“I guess this is it.”

“Some sort of logging trail?”

“Looks more like the road they always take in those old movies when they’re on their  way to Dracula’s castle.”

“Thanks,” she said. “Sorry.”

“And it doesn’t help that you’re right. It does look like the road to Dracula’s castle.”

They drove onto the track, under the roof of heavy evergreen boughs, into the heart of the forest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

33

IN THE RECTANGULAR ROOM, THREE STORIES UNDERground, computers hummed and murmured.

Dr. Carlton Dombey, who had come on duty twenty minutes ago, sat at one of the tables against the north wall. He was studying a set of electroencephalograms and digitally enhanced sonograms and X rays.

After a while he said, “Did you see the pictures they took of the kid’s brain this morning?”

Dr. Aaron Zachariah turned from the bank of video displays. “I didn’t know there were any.”

“Yeah. A whole new series.” “Anything interesting?”

“Yes,” Dombey said. “The spot that showed up on the boy’s parietal lobe about six weeks ago.”

“What about it?” “Darker, larger.”

“Then it’s definitely a malignant tumor?” “That still isn’t clear.”

“Benign?”

“Can’t say for sure either way. The spot doesn’t have all the spectrographic characteristics of a tumor.”

“Could it be scar tissue?” “Not exactly that.” “Blood  clot?” “Definitely not.”

“Have we learned anything useful?”

“Maybe,” Dombey said. “I’m not sure if it’s useful or not.” He frowned. “It’s sure strange, though.”

“Don’t keep me in suspense,” Zachariah said, moving over to the table to examine the tests.

Dombey said, “According to the computer-assigned analysis, the growth is consistent with the nature of normal brain tissue.”

Zachariah stared at him. “Come again?”

“It could be a new lump of brain tissue,” Dombey told him. “But that doesn’t make sense.”

“I know.”

“The brain doesn’t all of a sudden start growing new little nodes that nobody’s ever seen before.”

“I know.”

“Someone better run a maintenance scan on the computer. It has to be screwed up.” “They did that this afternoon,” Dombey said, tapping a pile of printouts that lay on the table. “Everything’s supposed to be functioning perfectly.”

“Just like the heating system in that isolation chamber is functioning properly,” Zachariah said.

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