The Descent

Yamamoto  noticed  the  sign  and  snatched  it  down.  'A  joke,'  she  said.  'It's  cold  in there.  The  room is refrigerated.  We call it the pit and the pendulums.'

Branch was gratified by  her blush. She was  a  professional.  What's  more,  she  wanted to look professional to them. She led them through the door.

Inside,  it  was   not  as  cold  as  Branch  had  expected.   A  wall  thermometer   read thirty-one  degrees  Fahrenheit.  Very  bearable  for  an  hour  or  two  of  work.  Not  that anyone was in here. The  work was all being done automatically.

Machinery  susurrated,  a  steady  rhythm.  Shh.  Shh.  Shh.  As  though  to  quiet  an infant. A number of lights pulsed with each hush.

'They  killed her?' Vera  asked.

'No,  it  wasn't  that,'  Yamamoto  said.  'She  was  alive  after  they  got  the  nets  and  rope on.  But  the  trap  was  rusty.  Sepsis  set  in.  Tetanus.  She  died  before  we  arrived.  I brought her here in a footlocker packed with dry  ice.'

There  were  four  stainless-steel  autopsy  tables.  Each  held  a  block  of  blue  gelatin. Each  block  was  positioned  against  a  machine.  Each  machine  flashed  a  light  every  five seconds.

'We named her Dawn,' said Yamamoto.

They  looked  into  the  blue  gelatin  and  there   she   was,   her   cadaver   frozen  and suspended in gel and cut crosswise into four sections.

'We  were  halfway  through  computerizing  our  digital  Eve  when  the  hadal  came  our way.'  Yamamoto  indicated  a  dozen  freezer  drawers  along  one  wall.  'We  put  Eve  back into storage and immediately went to work on Dawn. As you  can  see,  we've  quartered her   body   and   bedded   the   four   sections   in   gelatin.   These   machines   are   called cryomacrotomes.    Glorified    meat shavers.        Every                                                       few            seconds          they         cut      a half-millimeter  off  the  bottom  of  each  gelatin  block,  and  a  synchronized   camera photographs the new layer.'

'How long has it been here?' Foley asked.

It , not she, Branch  noticed.  Foley  was  keeping  things  impersonal.  For  his  own  part, Branch  felt  a  connection.  How  could  you  not?  The  small  hand  had  four  fingers  and  a

thumb.

'Two  weeks.  It's  just  a  function  of  the  blades  and  cameras.  In  another  few  months we'll  have  a  computer  bank  with  over  twelve  thousand  images.  She'll  end  up  as  forty billion bytes  of information stored on seventy  CD-ROM disks.  Using  a  mouse,  you  will be able to travel  through a 3-D image of Dawn's interior.'

'And your  purpose?'

'Hadal  physiology,'  Dr.  Yamamoto  said.  'We  want   to  know  how  it  differs   from human.'

'Is there  any way  to accelerate  your  inquiry?' asked Thomas.

'We  don't  know  what  we're  looking  for,  or  even  what  questions  to  ask.  As  it  is,  we don't dare miss anything. There's  no telling what might lie in the smallest detail.'

They  separated  and  went  to  different  tables.  Through  the  translucent  gel,  Branch saw a pair of lower legs and feet. There  was the place the trap  had snapped  her  bones. The  skin was fish white.

He  found  the  head-and-shoulders  section.  It  was  like  a  bust  in  alabaster.  The  lids were  half  shut,  exposing  bleached  blue  irises.  The  mouth  was  slightly  open.  Working from the neck upward, the machine's pendulum was still at throat level.

'You've  probably seen a lot like her,' Dr. Yamamoto  spoke  at  his  shoulder.  Her  voice was severe.

Branch   cocked   his   head   and   looked   closer,   almost   affectionately.   'They're   all different,' he said. 'Kind of like us.'

He  could  tell  she'd  expected  something  coarse  or  stormy  from  him.  Most  people took one look at him and assumed he couldn't get enough of Haddie's blood.

The  physician's  voice  softened.  'Judging  by  her  teeth  and  the  immaturity  of  her pelvic girdle,' she  said,  'Dawn  was  probably  twelve  or  thirteen  years  old.  We  could  be way  off  on  that,  of  course.  We  have  nothing  to  compare  her  with,  so  we're  simply guessing. Specimens have  been very  hard to get. You'd think after  so much contact,  so many killings, we'd be swimming in bodies.'

'That is odd,' said Vera.  'Do they  decompose faster  than normal mammal remains?'

'Depending  on  the  exposure  to  direct  sunlight.  But  the  scarcity  of  good  specimens has more to do with desecration.' Branch noticed that she did not look at him.

'You mean mutilation?'

'It's more than that.'

'Desecration, then,' said Thomas. 'That's a strong term.'

Yamamoto went over  to the storage drawers  and pulled out  a  long  tray  on  rollers.  'I don't  know,  what  do  you  call  it?'  A  hideous  animal  lay  on  the  metal,  scorched  black, teeth  bared, dismembered, mutilated. It  could have  been eight thousand years  old.

'Caught and burned one week  ago,' she said.

'Soldiers?' asked Vera.