Maplecroft (The Borden Dispatches #1)(25)
“Ask her,” I pleaded, removing my hand and allowing him to resume packing his equipment.
He hesitated, then asked, “Is there any chance . . . that you could have a word with her, first?”
Oh, I had every intention of doing so. “Of course.” I smiled at him with sincere, if morbid, pleasure. “And next time you come, we’ll sit down together. All of us.”
At the ring of the bell beside my seat, Lizzie appeared from the basement to show the doctor out.
And I fell asleep before the fire before I could tell her any of what had transpired, even though the conversation had frankly invigorated me. My strength is finite, even if my interest is not.
I dreamed of my father, bloated and white, and hungry. I dreamed of him in my room, staring out my window, listening to the ocean.
AND IF YOU HAVE A HORSE WITH ONE WHITE LEG . . .
Phillip Zollicoffer, Professor of Biology, Miskatonic University
OCTOBER 29, 1893
The university thinks it might be done with me, but I’m beyond the point of caring. Right now, their reprimand feels positively uninteresting—as if it’s something I should be aware of, yes, but not a source of concern. They’ve put me on leave, and it’s a vacation of sorts. I’m sick of the students, as I told them quite frankly.
(They requested frankness, and they received it in abundance.)
Dr. Greer suggested I’m sick with something other than the tedium of teaching, but he’s a fool. It’s difficult to take his accusations personally.
The one concession I wrangled from their uniform displeasure with my performance was this: I am still allowed access to my office and the lab rooms, where my specimens and samples are stored. They are mine, and not property of the university in the first place; and in the second place, I’m working on an article for Marine Biology Quarterly with regard to the siphonophore specimen sent to me by Doctor Jackson earlier this year.
What little study I’ve had time to perform has raised fascinating questions about the nature of a single organism versus a colony that performs in a singular fashion, and where the line between those two might lie. A siphonophore by definition is just such a paradox: many small things that function as one large thing. But how paradoxical is it, after all? A collection of like-minded things, operating under the direction of a sole authority . . . or an individual, individually inclined. Just two ways of saying the same thing, perhaps. From a distance.
? ? ?
(Contrary to the president’s opinion, my study has been minimal—pitiably insufficient, really, and it has not “eaten up all of my time for students, papers, or grades.” Far from it. I still had time to attend their stupid little meeting to reprimand me, did I not? Well, then. I’m not so disconnected as they claim.)
? ? ?
Is the specimen a whole, or a portion of a larger whole? It’s nothing so simple as a Physalia physalis, that’s certain—and I’m beginning to wonder if I don’t have, in my own personal possession, an instance of Marrus orthocanna . . . which isn’t ordinarily seen anywhere near the shore. It’s a deep-sea varietal, and all but mythical until the most recent years, when fishermen turned up portions of one within a net. But I think that’s unlikely. No, I think we’re looking at a whole new animal (or a portion of one, as above noted).
If so, this could be a boon for the school.
Alumni might be persuaded to open their pockets, or the billfolds of grant donors might become loosened were there to be a new species coined after the university. Physalia miskatonis! Or Physalia zollicoffris—I haven’t decided yet.
Right now it’s merely “the siphonophore,” and it awaits its formal analysis and nomenclature. And no one is allowed to touch it but me.
I was a little surprised to get this slight concession on Greer’s part, but in the midst of the meeting I was seized with a terror that the specimen might be taken from me, and I could not bear the thought of losing it. Immediately, and from the depths of whence I cannot say, I informed them that the siphonophore was my personal property and I would consider it outright theft if the school tried to lay any claim to it. A lawsuit would undoubtedly ensue, thereby stripping the school of any honor by association, should the creature be proven unique or new. It was donated to me, courtesy of Doctor E. A. Jackson of Fall River, Massachusetts, and there was a trail of paperwork to support the transfer. Doctor Jackson would no doubt lend his considerable aid if anyone, anywhere, were to try to commandeer my work—or my materials—as his own.
At the reference to Doctor Jackson, they capitulated on the spot.
His reputation as a scholar and researcher is well-known, even among relative laymen like those who populate the school’s board of directors. They’re only marginally informed of scientific advances; theirs is to administrate, not educate—but even men unschooled in the finer biological arts had heard of him and his work.
At first, there was some measure of disbelief, as if it simply were not possible that I was friendly with the mysterious scholar. But I stomped free of their proceedings, to their noisy dismay, and traipsed down to my office (still my office, yes) to retrieve the letter that had accompanied the package.
I produced it with a flourish, gave them adequate time to read it, and watched at least Greer go a bit green when he realized I was telling the truth. I think it surprised him, though I can’t imagine why. When have I ever misled him, or made claims greater than those I could support? He has me confused with someone else, or he’s been listening to the slanderous lies spread by students and faculty.