sturgeon to sea slugs. By the bottom landing the odour of mildew and rotting fish had mixed with the clammy air, and when I swung open the vestibule doors I got it full force, along with the sound of cascading water.
In another place — the northern rainforest or the Canadian shield — the sound would have been reassuring, even sublime, a perfect complement to the smell of moss and pine; here in the stark light of the basement corridors it was ominous and unfriendly.
I walked slowly down the hall, reading the names of professors posted beside lab doors. In the labs I caught glimpses of white-coated people moving between the tanks. When I saw Riesler’s name I slowed and glanced through the door. His lab was double the size of the others and alive with students and helpers. The central area housed tanks, but I could see offices along the back and a large glassed-in area to the left. It looked like a fully equipped high-end genetics lab. I moved on before I was noticed.
By the end of the hall I still hadn’t found Elaine’s lab, but I had found a door labelled Fish Museum. Someone was moving around inside. The door was ajar, so I pushed it open. It was like walking into the Coliseum when you’re the entertainment. A thousand malevolent eyes stared down from the shelves: preserved fish packed so tightly in jars that they strained against the glass. The place reeked, a combination of formaldehyde, lab alcohol, and fish. I decided against tuna for lunch.
The guy in the lab coat hadn’t heard my entrance. He had his back to me and was moving down a counter lined with dissecting trays. I stood quietly and watched. Jeans, high-top sneakers, about the right size and colouring. Under his arm he held a large, wide-mouth bottle: one of those mega-jars that holds bulk ketchup and mayonnaise for the restaurant trade. But instead of mayo, this jar was half filled with an aquatic version of E.T., a hideous little fish with bulging eyes, a misshapen head, and limb-like fins. The specimens were suspended in a greasy yellow liquid. The technician stopped, wiped his nose on his sleeve, then continued, dipping his gloved hand into the jar, pulling out a fish, and flopping it into a dissecting tray. As I watched his hand disappear into the liquid and pull out another fish, I decided against lunch altogether.
“What is it?” I said pointing to the bottle.
He swung around, surprised. I smiled. My mystery intruder. At first glance he was handsome, with blonde hair and luminous blue eyes framed by long, dark lashes, but he was older than I had thought, definitely not an undergraduate, and the first impression of him being handsome was due solely to his eyes. His face was, in fact, sharp and angular, giving him a hungry look verging on cunning. He made no attempt to hide his scrutiny of me. When he was satisfied with the examination, he pulled another fish from the jar, this one about forty centimetres long, and held it up by the tail. “A chimaera. Also known as a ratfish. Pretty wild, eh?”
I grimaced. “I wouldn’t want to see one staring up from my dinner plate, that’s for sure.” I looked him in the eye. “I’m looking for Dr. Okada’s lab. Is it around here?”
I saw a spark of interest in his eye. “Sure. See that little hall?” He waved the poor pickled chimaera in a vague over-to-the-left direction. I looked out the door. At the end of the hall there was a little corridor almost hidden by the wall. I nodded. “Down at the end. It’s sort of out of the way. You a new graduate student?” He threw the fish into an empty dissecting tray, but kept his eyes on me.
“Visiting post-doc. Just checking out the possibilities.”
“Really.” For some reason he wasn’t thrilled with the answer, but he put down his jar of fish and moved toward me. “Graham Connell. I’m a Ph.D. student with Dr. Riesler. I’m also the curator of this.” He swept his hand around the room and gave me a charming, lopsided, little-boy grin. “It pays the bills.”
Then he held out his hand, the same one that had been in the jar. I felt a cool, oily liquid on my palm.
“Morgan O’Brien, from the Canadian Genomics Institute. I’ve been working on E. coli, but I’m interested in moving over to fish, something a little more applied.”
When he released my hand I had to resist the urge to smell it or wipe it on my pants. I was sure I detected a smirk around his eyes, but his face remained serious and his tone was friendly. He must have decided that I’d be more useful as a friend than an enemy.
He produced another charm-the-pants-off-women smile. “Well, if you need a tour guide I’d be happy to oblige.”
I smiled back. Two could play at this game, and I had the advantage. I knew we were playing a game. “Really? Gosh. I’d love to find out more about Dr. Riesler’s lab. I’ve read some of his papers and they’re very impressive.” Then, just to make sure I didn’t threaten him, I said, “Of course, it’s not quite my area of interest, but it’s fascinating stuff. How about this. You take me for a tour, I’ll take you for a beer.”
“You’re on. I’m teaching a lab this morning, but I’m free after. How about twelve-thirty?”
“Great. We’ll have…” I tried to sound enthusiastic, “… lunch.”
“And you can tell me all about your research.”
“Love to.” Then I lowered my voice and leaned forward. “And I’d value your honest opinion on the department. I mean, not just the propaganda. You know … problems, tensions, egos… I’d kind of like to know before I…” I let my voice trail off and shrugged.
He laughed. “You want to know it now, not later.”
“Right. Like after I’ve committed myself. And it’s hard to get that kind of information.”
He pulled his lips back in something between a smile and a sneer. “I think I may be able to help out. If I’m not out here,” he jerked his head toward a door in the back corner of the museum, “check my office.”
“Perfect,” I said, and meant it. With that, I turned and started down the hall.
I could feel him move to the doorway behind me. “There is one thing…” he said. I stopped and turned. He was leaning against the door frame watching me. “You better learn to identify a chimaera before you switch to fish.”
It wasn’t until I was out of sight down the dead-end corridor that I heard the door to the museum close.
Elaine’s name was embossed on a metal plate just to the side of her lab door. That must give her a thrill, I thought, after all those years of graduate school and post docs. I tried the door, but it was locked. I banged on it, but there was no answer, so I let myself in with the keys Elaine had given me. Inside the lights were on.
“Dinah? Hello?” Still no answer.
The lab was a big open space, but so crowded with equipment that it looked like a rummage sale for used aquarium supplies. In the middle there were four huge tanks, the size of above-ground pools, swirling with water. To the left there was a glassed-in room with a large apparatus sitting in the middle. It had a dissecting microscope mounted on a mobile arm at one end, a delicate measuring device at the other end, and a bank of electronic equipment attached, including a computer and several oscilloscopes. Elaine’s single-cell recording equipment, probably.
The environmental chamber sat like a parked airstream trailer near the wall to my right. As an undergraduate I’d worked in one of those chambers over a frigid Winnipeg winter. We’d been raising jumping wabeens, a bizarre little unisex fish from the Florida everglades, so the temperature and humidity were set to tropical. The light inside was a soft blue, filtered through the water and glass. I would spend my days wrapped in the silent warmth of the chamber, cleaning aquariums, hovering over sick fish, preparing and doling out brine shrimp. Then every afternoon I would exit to the brilliant white of the prairie at twenty below. It made me wonder why people live in Canada.
Elaine had said that the offices were behind the chamber, and that took me by the big tanks. The first two were empty, just swirling water. I moved to the tanks behind, curious to see what might be in them. The one to my left was empty, but on my right, a dark, motionless form sat at the bottom of the tank. With the frothing water it