Nabi gave a small exclamation of understanding and pulled at Gerald’s arm enthusiastically.
“Boo gum!” she cried. “Boo gum!”
Grabbing the discarded stuffed bear, she laid it on its back with its legs in the air. Then, using the scissors, she mimed cutting it open.
“Boo gum!” she said gleefully, her eyes vanishing in her expansive grin.
“What was that?” Spencer asked, mystified.
“I think she’s just demonstrated an autopsy,” Gerald murmured faintly.
“Oh, well, that makes sense,” the boy said, not sure why the old man looked so afraid all of a sudden. “That’s what Choe’s going to do to the Shark, isn’t it? Although I’d have thought cause of death was pretty obvious, what with it happening right in front of you all.”
The old man made no response. He didn’t want to tell Spencer the doctor had used that word long before the Marshal had been shot. A ghastly chill crept along his spine and he shivered.
“I need to talk to Martin,” he said quickly. “We can’t stay here.”
Doctor Choe Soo-jin dismissed the stretcher-bearers and her technicians from the laboratory, which also served as an operating theatre, and put on a plastic apron.
The lab, like much of this base, wasn’t furnished with the most up-to-date equipment, but what it had still did the job efficiently. It was vaguely reminiscent of an old-fashioned, large and sinister kitchen and smelled sharply of antiseptic. Yellow tiles covered the walls, one of which was taken up by four great ceramic sinks. A blood analyser that looked more like a bulky photocopier stood in one corner and a cream-coloured refrigerator, showing signs of rust, occupied another. Cylinders of gas stood in a row like the artillery shells in the munitions section of the base. Electrophoresis apparatus, microscope, centrifuge, organ bath, steriliser and other instruments were stored neatly along two Formica counters, as if they were food appliances. Then there were metal trays containing surgical saws, serrated knives and scalpels, drill bits, retractors, clamps and rasps. Beneath the counters were built-in cupboards that housed the beakers, test tubes, flasks and Petri dishes. The glass-fronted cabinets fixed to the walls contained drugs, medicines and chemicals that were kept under lock and key.
Two stainless-steel examination tables, with leather restraints, were in the centre of the room. The body of Marshal Tark Hyun-ki occupied one of them; a cardboard box containing the remains of the spider creature he had shot near the demilitarised zone was on the other.
The doctor hooked a paper mask over her nose, mouth and ears. Her excitement caused her hands to tremble slightly. At last she would have a subject to study, in forensic detail. She needed an affected specimen such as this and she had never liked the man. He had been more than vocal in his scepticism of her competence and had insulted her more times than she cared to remember. Medicine was not considered a suitable occupation for women and she had worked and studied three times as hard as any man to get to where she was.
But there was no sense of triumph or acrimony involved as she looked forward to dissecting him. Her scientific hunger pushed any personal feeling aside. The Marshal was merely a resource now, an object to document and label. She was eager only to discover answers to this mystery. The power of that book simply had to change the biology. She had a theory about the hypothalamus that she was keen to explore, and other investigations would prove invaluable. She was glad also that the restriction had been lifted and she would presently be able to test those same theories on the English refugees.
Moving to the table, she lifted the blanket and extreme disappointment registered in her eyes. As a result of the gunshot wounds, there wasn’t a hypothalamus to examine. Letting the blanket fall once more, she looked up and her glance rested upon the cardboard box on the other table. Curiosity dispelled her frustration. The box had arrived in her absence and she approached it with interest.
A copy of the Newspaper of the Workers, Rodong Sinmun, covered the dead creature inside. Cautiously, Doctor Choe Soo-jin removed the paper and peered down.
Her surgical mask distorted as she inhaled sharply. The thing was unlike anything she had ever seen. It was the size of a small terrier and its eight spidery legs were wrapped in a tangle round a body covered in matted black fur. The repulsive face with its wide mouth, crammed full of sharp fangs, was upturned and the round, glassy eyes seemed to be staring straight at her. She couldn’t help shuddering and she wondered how it was possible – how could this have come from a book of children’s make-believe?
Her thoughts returned to the meeting and those introductory words the Marshal had read out. She recalled that they had sounded pleasant at the time. What was there to fear in them? A wide sea, dappled with silvery light, sparkled in her thoughts, giving way to a green land of thirteen rolling hills and, in the central plain, rising over a quiet, sleepy village, the turrets and high walls of a beautiful white castle.
Inside the vault, in the room adjacent to the lab, the wand of Malinda began to glimmer once more.
The doctor shook herself and her training regained control. She would record everything: tissue samples, blood, musculature, skeleton. This was a totally new species. A series of photographs would have to be taken before any examination could take place, however, and there simply wasn’t time for that at the moment.
Lifting the box and shying away from the pungent odour rising from the Doggy-Long-Legs within, she carried it to the fridge and deposited it inside. She would attend to this monster later. But first she had other experiments to conduct.
Pulling the mask under her chin, she went to the door and spoke to the guards outside.
“Bring one of the Western children,” she commanded, “immediately!”
The guards bowed smartly and hurried up the corridor.
Doctor Choe returned to the metal trays and began selecting the knives she would need, a razor to shave the child’s head – and a surgical saw.
GERALD HAD HASTENED out on to the terrace to find Martin. The thick fog had lifted a little and the bluish-grey blur of distant peaks could be glimpsed through the shifting vapour. Martin wasn’t wearing a coat. He’d been too wrapped up in his angry thoughts to feel the cold, but now it was beginning to bite. The dense mist drank up the noises of the base, distant voices sounded small and lonely and a truck departing down the rough mountain road was remote and strange. He was astonished to hear a helicopter landing on one of the pads. Even that sounded weirdly unreal and he found himself thinking it was a cretinous risk to fly in this sort of weather.
Gerald hurried past the female guard who was watching at the entrance and took his friend by the arm.
“We have to get out of here,” he told him urgently.
Martin looked at him in astonishment. “What’s happened now?” he asked.
“I know what that doctor is planning. She’s been impatient to do it since we arrived, the sadistic maniac.”
“Slow down. What are you on about?”
“Her argument with the Chief of the General Staff earlier: I understand what got her so irate. She’s done all the tests she can on us and found nothing.”
“So? We knew she wouldn’t find anything.”
“Exactly! Now she wants to take it further. She wants to have a go at some post-mortems. She wants to cut us up, to prove there’s