Outlanders 63 - Genesis Sinister by James Axler

Author:James Axler
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Worldwide Library
Published: 2012-07-14T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

Back at the Cerberus redoubt, Mariah and Gus were still working with the crate of rocks. Mariah had tried heating them, initially to body temperature and then to a far greater heat, but there had been nothing notable about the rocks’ reactions in either case. She had tried adding water to them, using a pipette to drip liquid on one of the stones, one tentative drop at a time. She had tried applying pressure, running them through various solutions, testing and altering their alkalinity and acidity. She had tried all manner of analysis, but other than the acid—which had eaten away at two of the rocks she had tested it on—the gamut of reactions crossed a very narrow spectrum of “no reaction” to “as predicted.” In short, Mariah Falk, authority on rocks, had metaphorically hit a brick wall.

Reaching across the desk, Mariah took the clipboard where Gus had been logging the reactions and studied it. “There really is nothing here,” she said with a sigh. She shook her head, scanning the tick boxes again. It was so frustrating; she had seen what these stones could do to people, so to be met with no unusual reactions was enough to make her want to scream.

Beside her, Gus saw the way Mariah’s face had screwed up in annoyance, and he offered a word of consolation. “Maybe Kane’s crew brought us a faulty batch?”

Mariah shook her head. “Their potency is dwindling with the loss of Ullikummis, but Grant assured me that these were the right stones. Domi’s still in recovery after the way these things attacked her.”

Gus didn’t know what to say. “We can try the tests again,” he suggested. “I could make us a drink first if you think that might help?”

When Mariah didn’t answer, Gus got down from his stool and made his way over to the coffeemaker that waited in one corner of the lab. Like a lot of the nonessential equipment here, the coffeemaker was still covered in a spiderweb of stone veins from Ullikummis’s attack, but it worked fine so the cleanup was deemed nonurgent. Opening the chute, Gus filled it with grounds and flicked the switch that heated the water.

Mariah’s eyes were still on the top sheet of the clipboard when he came back with two cups of steaming java.

“Have you found something?” Gus asked, setting a cup before Mariah.

She nodded, pointing to the top line of the analysis. “They’re magnetic,” she said.

Gus read. The rocks had shown a little magnetism, nothing that would make them cling to anything, just an infinitesimal response to standard testing by a powerful electromagnet.

“Not very,” he observed doubtfully.

“No, but it’s something,” Mariah said. “Oxygenated blood—human blood—contains iron. When levels drop, one can actually become weak. That’s called anemia. These rocks attach themselves to humans, responding to living hosts to change their genetic makeup. I think they’re doing it through the iron—they’re drawn to the ferrous material in the human bloodstream.”

Gus nodded thoughtfully. “So, where does that put us?”

“Would the rocks react differently to someone with anemia?” Mariah posed.

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