Arachnosaur. Richard Jeffries

didn’t faze her. “Tell me about the detonation,” she urged. “How long did they convulse before it happened?”

      Key and Gonzales shared another collaborative look.

      “Less than a minute,” Gonzales offered, and Key didn’t dispute him.

      “Go on,” she advised. “Every detail you can remember.”

      For the first time since entering the room, Key lowered his gaze from hers. He looked at nothing in particular to see into his memory.

      “The first explosion happened in my peripheral vision,” he said. “A piece of the skull hit my forehead and knocked me out for a few seconds.”

      Rahal’s luxurious, well-shaped eyebrows rose.

      “I had to take cover from the second,” Key continued, raising his gaze back to hers. “But I’ll never forget the sound.”

      Her eyes held an equal mix of curiosity and concern. Key went on because she said nothing.

      “It was as if every internal part of their body was erupting,” he told her.

      “Every part?” she asked. “Bones, fingernails, body hair?”

      “No,” Key said while Gonzales nodded in agreement. “I heard the bones shattering into shards, but I’m certain they weren’t exploding. If they were, the skull piece that hit my forehead would’ve behaved differently.”

      Rahal nodded, her lips tightening, then she spun off the desk and grabbed a scroll that was wedged atop two piles of files. She spread it on the desk, motioning with her head for the two to join her. Key approached her from the right, and Gonzales from the left, though he kept his eyes mostly on the door.

      She was holding open a biological chart of a male anthropoid body. “The human circulatory system consists of three parts,” she said intently, her eyes darting around the complex map. “The cardiovascular, pulmonary, and the systemic.”

      Key remembered it from his mother’s teachings. “The heart, lungs, arteries, and veins,” he said, following her eyes.

      She glanced at him, her look of impressed approval reminding him of his mother. “You missed the coronary and portal vessels,” she said, “but yes. The system controls the flow of blood, gasses, hormones, nutrients, oxygen, and other vapors to and from the cells.”

      “Other vapors?” Key echoed, looking directly at her.

      She returned his gaze. “Yes. This system stretches for about ninety-six thousand kilometers.”

      Gonzales automatically translated it for Key. “Sixty thousand miles.”

      “So if one of those other vapors turned poisonous—” Key asked.

      “Not poisonous,” she corrected. “Not even venomous.”

      “There’s a difference?” Gonzales interjected, his mind reeling from all the new information.

      “A big difference,” she stressed, looking up at him.

      “Yes, the unnatural element would have to be volatile,” Key said. “As if the blood had been replaced with nitroglycerine.”

      When he looked back to her, she met his gaze with an expression that mixed concern with growing certainty. “And you want to know how that could have happened?” she asked him directly.

      “Yes,” he answered just as directly. “But maybe more importantly, whether it’s contagious, and if so, how it travels. Because we’ve been in Shabhut, and then in Thumrait. Now we’re here.”

      The import of his words were not lost on Rahal. Her eyes widened, but she neither recoiled nor became flustered. “How long ago did this last happen?”

      “Twelve hours ago.”

      “Male or female?”

      “What?” Gonzales reacted in surprise.

      “The victims,” Rahal elaborated. “Male, female, or both?”

      “Male,” Key answered, again glad that Daniels hadn’t come along. He probably would have, in his standard operating chauvinism, asked if that was important. Gonzales knew, like Key did, that it might be.

      “Do you have any possibilities that—” she started, but then the trio was surprised by a fourth voice.

      “Assistant Professor Rahal?”

      The three behind the desk looked up, Gonzales cursing himself for not maintaining his self-appointed lookout responsibility. It was a student, holding his books, looking at them all both expectantly as well as regretfully.

      Rahal recovered briskly. “Yes, Malik?”

      The student looked sheepish. “We had a meeting about my grades,” he said. “I’m sorry again that I had to schedule it so late in the day, but my make-up classes—”

      “Of course, of course,” Rahal said apologetically. She raised her right hand and the chart rolled up to her left hand. “Yes, your graduation depends upon it, doesn’t it?”

      The comment was for Key and Gonzales’s benefit, letting them know that she would not have truncated their talk if it wasn’t important. But she seemed to know that a young man’s future might be null and void if the problem Key was chasing wasn’t solved.

      As she started to follow the student out she quickly returned her attention to Key. “Where are you staying?” she whispered urgently.

      “The Five Centses Restort,” Gonzales answered, having to enunciate the unusual name carefully, and Key didn’t miss the way Rahal’s eyebrows raised in response. “Staff Suite Two-A.”

      “I will be there as soon as possible,” she assured them. She continued for the student’s benefit. “Thank you so much for conferring with me. From what Professor Davi tells me, you can find your way out without problem, yes?”

      “Yes,” Gonzales assured her, taking a reluctant Key by the crook of his arm. “Thank you, Assistant Professor.”

      The two made their way out the three-story, rose-colored building flanked by palm trees.

      “Everybody speaks English,” Key marveled.

      “Not everywhere,” Gonzales reminded him. “But Oman Medical College is in an academic partnership with West Virginia University. That’s why I saved it for last. I thought its rep as something of a ferenji—outsider—wouldn’t help us as much.” He shrugged. “Live and learn.”

      Once outside, despite everything on his mind, Key was again impressed by Muscat’s relaxed, charming, peaceful energy and beautiful surroundings. Gonzales had told him that the Sultan had decreed that new buildings couldn’t be more than seven stories, and everything had to be designed beautifully and traditionally, as well as compliment the mountains beyond.

      It would be a shame, Key thought, if all the residents started exploding.

      They stayed silent, that very possibility foremost in their minds, as they neared the parking lot.

      “Five Cent-ses Rest-ort?” Key finally repeated, just as carefully as Gonzales had said it to Rahal. “That should come with an automatic ‘sic’ after every mention. What are they trying to do, attract the hipster, who-gives-a-shit-about-spelling-anymore crowd?”

      “Good guess,” Gonzales said, “but they’re trying to be different. You’ll see.”

      “Assistant Professor Rahal’ll be okay there?”

      “She’ll be fine,” Gonzales assured him as they reached the Yaris. “She’s everything my contact said.”

      “And more.” Key ruminated as he waited for Gonzales to unlock his door.

      The mechanic was struck by the comment, so he just stood for a moment between