As if he hadn’t heard me, he said, “Okay, dog, even if you won’t talk to me, you can have your nibbles.”
Orson risked eye-to-eye contact with his inquisitor, seeking confirmation.
“Go ahead,” Roosevelt urged.
Orson looked dubiously at me, as if asking whether I thought Roosevelt’s permission was a trick.
“He’s the host,” I said.
The dog snatched up the first biscuit and happily crunched it.
Finally turning his attention to me, with that unnerving pity still in his face and eyes, Roosevelt said, “The people behind the project at Wyvern…they might have had good intentions. Some of them, anyway. And I think some good things might’ve come from their work.” He reached out to pet the cat again, which relaxed under his hand, though he never shifted his piercing eyes from me. “But there was also a dark side to this business. A very dark side. From what I’ve been told, the monkeys are only one manifestation of it.”
“Only one?”
Roosevelt held my stare in silence for a long time, long enough for Orson to eat the second biscuit, and when at last he spoke, his voice was softer than ever: “There were more than just cats and dogs and monkeys in those labs.”
I didn’t know what he meant, but I said, “I suspect you aren’t talking about guinea pigs or white mice.”
His eyes shifted away from me, and he appeared to be staring at something far beyond the cabin of this boat. “Lot of change coming.”
“They say change is good.”
“Some is.”
As Orson ate the third biscuit, Roosevelt rose from his chair. Picking up the cat, holding him against his chest, stroking him, he seemed to be considering whether I needed to—or should—know more.
When he finally spoke, he slid once again from a revelatory mood into a secretive one. “I’m tired, son. I should have been in bed hours ago. I was asked to warn you that your friends are in danger if you don’t walk away from this, if you keep probing.”
“The cat asked you to warn me.”
“That’s right.”
As I got to my feet, I became more aware of the wallowing motion of the boat. For a moment I was stricken by a spell of vertigo, and I gripped the back of the chair to steady myself.
This physical symptom was matched by mental turmoil, as well, and my grip on reality seemed increasingly tenuous. I felt as if I were spinning along the upper rim of a whirlpool that would suck me down faster, faster, faster, until I went through the bottom of the funnel—my own version of Dorothy’s tornado—and found myself not in Oz but in Waimea Bay, Hawaii, solemnly discussing the fine points of reincarnation with Pia Klick.
Aware of the extreme flakiness of the question, I nevertheless asked, “And the cat, Mungojerrie…he isn’t in league with these people at Wyvern?”
“He escaped from them.”
Licking his chops to be sure that no precious biscuit crumbs adhered to his lips or to the fur around his muzzle, Orson got off the dinette chair and came to my side.
To Roosevelt, I said, “Earlier tonight, I heard the Wyvern project described in apocalyptic terms…the end of the world.”
“The world as we know it.”
“You actually believe that?”
“It could play out that way, yes. But maybe when it all shakes down, there’ll be more good changes than bad. The end of the world as we know it isn’t necessarily the same as the end of the world.”
“Tell that to the dinosaurs after the comet impact.”
“I have my jumpy moments,” he admitted.
“If you’re frightened enough to go to the mooring to sleep every night and if you really believe that what they were doing at Wyvern was so dangerous, why don’t you get out of Moonlight Bay?”
“I’ve considered it. But my businesses are here. My life’s here. Besides, I wouldn’t be escaping. I’d only be buying a little time. Ultimately, nowhere is safe.”
“That’s a bleak assessment.”
“I guess so.”
“Yet you don’t seem depressed.”
Carrying the cat, Roosevelt led us out of the main cabin and through the aft stateroom. “I’ve always been able to handle whatever the world threw at me, son, both the ups and the downs, as long as it was at least interesting. I’ve had the blessing of a full and varied life, and the only thing I really dread is boredom.” We stepped out of the boat onto the afterdeck, into the clammy embrace of the fog. “Things are liable to get downright hairy here in the Jewel of the