17. Kaelus
KAELUS
Back in the main laboratory, Kaelus returned immediately to the blood samples. He pulled up the unidentified molecule once more—something about it nagged at him—wouldn’t leave me alone.
“You said Galandra found inconsistencies in the historical viral records,” he remarked.
Sendar sighed.
“Doctor Kaelus, please—”
“Was this compound present in old male samples?” Kaelus asked.
Sendar shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
“Then let me look,” Kaelus insisted.
Sendar frowned.
“I have already told you those records are restricted.”
Kaelus shot him a look.
“Isn’t that convenient.”
Sendar’s expression hardened.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means every question I ask that might actually explain why your males remain sane leads to records I am not permitted to see,” Kaelus growled, letting his frustration show.
Sendar frowned.
“May I remind you, Doctor Kaelus, that you are a guest here. We owe you nothing—we are allowing you to access our records as a matter of professional courtesy.”
“But your courtesy doesn’t extend to the one thing I really need to see. And in the meantime, women are dying.”
Kaelus enlarged the molecular structure again and pointed at it.
“This compound is not incidental. Every current Titus Four male carries it. The infected Glenvarren males do not. Your men have massive viral loads, yet they are behaviorally normal. Something is interfering with the virus downstream.”
Sendar frowned.
“You can’t know that yet.”
“No,” Kaelus growled. “But I know where I intend to look.”
He copied every permitted measurement onto his data slate—viral load…hormone levels…neurotransmitter patterns. And of course, the unidentified molecule. Then he closed the display.
“I need to speak with Clair,” he said shortly.
Sendar’s lips thinned.
“You have been separated from your goddess for less than half a day and already you feel the need to run back to her side? You really are as bad as a Titus Four male.”
Kaelus gave him a cold look.
“I need to speak with Doctor Donovan because she is a Xenobotanist and we are investigating a compound that may be dietary in origin.”
“Of course you do.” Sendar smirked.
Kaelus frowned at him.
“You say that as though you don’t believe me.”
Sendar raised his eyebrows.
“Oh, I believe you—I believe you are very eager to run back to your wife.”
Kaelus thought of Clair waiting back at Varell’s home. He thought of her smile…her scent…her soft, curvy body…the way she had looked down at him while he knelt between her thighs.
“Yes,” he said simply. “I am.”
Sendar looked almost disappointed that his goading hadn’t produced a bigger reaction.
Kaelus ignored him and glanced once more at the molecular structure glowing above the table.
A virus present in enormous quantities but producing none of the expected violence.
An unidentified compound carried by every Titus Four male he had tested.
Historical samples he wasn’t allowed to examine.
And a dead female scientist who had been studying those exact records before she somehow fell asleep and drowned in her own bath.
Individually, none of it proved anything…together, it bothered the hell out of him. And if there was one person Kaelus trusted to help him make sense of it, it was Clair.
He slipped the data slate into his pocket. For the first time that morning, he allowed himself to smile.
He couldn’t wait to see what his brilliant, maddening little goddess had discovered while he was gone.