Chapter 23
23
“I’m not just a scientist,” Nyx said proudly. “I’m Indigenous, from a far-north branch of the Ahtna. Our stories have science embedded in them, you know?”
Ani gave him that encouraging smile that no man, in Gil’s opinion, would be able to resist. “That’s really fascinating. Did you tell Victor about some of these stories?”
“Oh yes. He loves that stuff. We still tell stories from the time the Russians first came in the fifteen hundreds. You know how usually when invaders encounter the native population, they bring diseases with them that the locals have no resistance to? If it’s a microbe you’ve never bumped into, your immune system doesn’t know how to handle it.”
“Right, that happened in the lower forty-eight, too.”
“It happens everywhere colonizers go. But this one time, the opposite happened. This area here.”
He gestured toward a map mounted on the wall, then jumped to his feet to show Ani the area he was referring to. Even from where he was at Victor’s desk, Gil could see it was incredibly remote. Even forbidding, an icebound expanse of tundra.
“It’s hard to believe anyone could live there,” Ani murmured.
“My ancestors were tough.”
“Are you from there?” Ani asked as she peered at the map.
Gil decided to join them so he could see exactly what Nyx was talking about. He got a quick resentful glance from the kid, but by now he was too into his story to stop.
“No,” Nyx admitted. “No one lives there anymore. My ancestors migrated farther south and got folded into the larger Ahtna community. But one of my great-great-grandfathers lived there, and I’ve heard stories. Before contact, they traded with the Ahtna who lived farther south, so they weren’t completely cut off. But they were pretty remote. And they always avoided this territory here. There was a legend that it wasn’t to be disturbed.” He spread his hand over a shaded section between two mountain ranges. “But that didn’t stop the Russians. They didn’t care about our legends. When the first group of Russian explorers came, they traveled all through here in the early sixteen hundreds. They’d set up camps, make fires. They dug deep into the permafrost looking for mineral deposits. Here in Fairbanks, the permafrost starts six feet down. Up there, it’s a foot. And then…they got sick. Half of them died.”
“Was it this same omegavirus?” Ani asked.
“That’s the theory, but it would be hard to confirm without testing a centuries-old frozen Russian explorer, and you can’t exactly order those on Amazon.”
Gil frowned at the map. “Is that the same area where they were doing core samples? Ninuk?”
“Different century, same area, same blowing off of indigenous knowledge. If y’all just listened to us once in a while, maybe you’d live longer and happier lives.” He gave them a cheeky smile.
“We’re listening now,” Ani assured him. “This is so interesting. You’re saying the northern Ahtna knew there was an ancient virus frozen in the permafrost?”
“They didn’t know about viruses, obviously. But they knew their ancestors got sick when they went that way. But here’s the thing. My people got sick, but they didn’t die.”
“They’d developed immunity to the virus?”
“Victor thought it might be due to some local plant that was part of their diet. He couldn’t get funding for that research, so he was tacking it onto his permafrost field trips. That’s why he went to Ninuk. Please don’t tell anyone. He’d kill me.”
Gil gave an impatient shrug. “Who would we tell? I don’t have a problem with any of that. It does explain why he didn’t talk about his research much. He didn’t want people to know he was misusing the grant funds.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
Gil looked at Nyx sharply. He got the sense there was another reason Victor hadn’t talked about it, something Nyx still wasn’t sharing. “So what was he doing at Smoky Lake?”
“Testing plant samples, trying to identify which one might provide the protection from the virus. He needed a place to work alone with no one watching over his shoulder like here.” He gestured to the surrounding department, with the occasional researcher wandering past.
“Did he have any success? Did he keep you updated on his research?”
“Not really. The last time I saw him, he told me he had the omegavirus. He felt like shit and he didn’t want to take a chance on infecting me. So he took off. That’s all I know.”
“Did he say if someone was after him? When I talked to him, he sounded worried about that.”
“Who would be after him?”
Nyx’s innocent expression didn’t convince Gil. He knew more than he was saying. Maybe a lot more. But the stubborn look on his face told Gil that was all they’d get from him.
Gil thought about Sergeant Thomson and that syringe, and tried one more question. “As far as you know, does anyone else have access to this virus?”
“You mean like the CDC?”
“Yes, them, but anyone else?”
He shrugged. “How would I know? It’s a big world out there.”
“Do you know where the mining group was from? Another country, maybe? Do you know anything about them?”
Nyx shook his head. “Just a random group of Westerners to me.”
Once again, Gil knew he wasn’t getting the whole truth from Nyx. “Okay. I think we’re good here. If you think of anything that could help us find Victor…”
“I’ll take your number in case I do.” Nyx addressed that to Ani, then reached for her phone. “I’ll punch it in?—”
She snatched her hand away. “No contact, it might not be safe.”
He snorted. “I’m not worried about the omegavirus. I’m Ahtna, remember?”
“You really want to take that chance—” She stopped abruptly. “Wait. You said Victor told you he had the omegavirus. Did he get tested?”
“Yes. We have an electron microscope in the lab. He showed me how to identify it.”
“How long does it take?” Gil asked.
“I mean…all I have to do is prick a finger and look under the microscope. So…a few minutes?”
That damn Dr. Christianson. She had been slow-rolling them. Making them cool their heels in a hotel room while she dragged out the testing process.
“Can you test us?” Ani asked. “We’ve both potentially been exposed.”
“Sure, but you don’t look sick. You both look good. Especially you,” he told Ani. “Do you ever date younger sexually fluid NDN men?”
“Um…” She looked flustered.
“Oh jeez, are you two together? Like, monogamy-style?”
Ani kept stammering uncomfortably until Gil came to her rescue.
“Let’s stay focused here. Would you mind testing us just to set our minds at ease?”
“Sure. Index fingers out, please.”
Gil got the sense that Nyx pricked his finger extra hard, but he didn’t complain.
Nyx smeared the samples onto two glass screens and disappeared into the lab. When he got back, he gave them the news. “Neither of you has the virus. It’s safe to have sex again. Or for the first time.” He waved his hand between the two of them. “I feel all that sexual tension, but I can’t tell if you’ve gone there yet.”
“I’m sure you’ll be the first to know if we do,” Gil said dryly.
“One more thing,” said Nyx as they rose to their feet. “Ani, it looks like you were exposed. Even though you have no sign of the virus, you do have the antibodies.”