the first worm of its kind that had been conceived since 1150 BC.
If the eighth-century alchemist J Ä bir was right, the worm was ready to enter the most dramatic stage in its life cycle, just as a chrysalis bursts open and a butterfly emerges. As the critical moment came nearer, however, Nathan was beginning to harbor a nagging suspicion that in The Book of Stones, J Ä bir might have simply been retelling a well-known Egyptian myth, rather than describing successful experiments that he had actually carried out in his own laboratory.
He held up the most recent CGI scan. âThis is what concerns me. Thereâs still no suggestion of any incipient bone structure inside the nematode, only these random clumps of fibrous tissue.â
âBut J Ä bir says that once the fire has reached a sufficiently high temperature, the birdâs skeleton is created by fusion,â said Aarif.
âWell, thatâs your interpretation. What he actually says is âat their hottest pitch, the flames of the inferno take on the shape of wingsâ. Thatâs if my ancient Persian serves me right.â
Aarif shook his head. âYou should not be so pessimistic, Professor. After all, this entire project came from your inspiration. We are standing on the brink of a defining moment in modern science.â
âI donât know,â said Nathan. He rubbed his face with both hands. âIâve been here too many times before, standing on the brink of a defining moment in modern science. And what happened? Last time I ended up with a rotten gryphonâs egg with a stink that hung around for a week.â
âThis will be different, Professor. I am convinced of it.â
âMe, too,â said Kavita. âItâs going to be fame at last! Weâll all be on the cover of next monthâs Time magazine. Or American Biology Today, anyhow.â
Nathan managed to smile. âYouâre right. I guess Iâm bushed, is all. Listen â I just want to call Grace and tell her Iâm going to be late. Aarif â can you make sure that all of the video and infrared cameras are up and running? And run another soundcheck, too?â
âOf course, Professor,â said Aarif, with a courteous nod of his head.
Aarif was in his late twenties, a tall Egyptian, thin as a rail, with a vertical shock of wiry black hair and near-together eyes and a hawk-like nose. He was a graduate in developmental biology from the University of Cairo. He was polite and good-humored, but almost terrifyingly academic. Nathan had first met him when he flew over to Egypt last summer to collect DNA samples of dragon-worms from the Nile basin at Ain Shams.
Aarif had helped him to collect his samples, and had then volunteered to return with him to Philadelphia so that he could assist with this experiment. After seven months, and more than three hundred tests, they had at last succeeded in fusing the DNA from a dragon-worm with the DNA from an Egyptian scavenger hawk, and the result had been this fat gray phoenix-worm. Half worm, half bird. Theoretically, anyhow.
âHow about you, Kavita?â Nathan asked her, laying his hand on her shoulder. âAre you all set?â
âAll set, Professor. I sorted out that glitch with the multi-gas monitor, and all of the other instruments are reading well within tolerance.â
Kavita was a young biochemist whom Nathan had wooed away from SupremeTaste Pet Foods in Pittsburgh. Now that he was privately funded by Schiller, he had been able to tempt her with nearly double the salary that she had been making at SupremeTaste. But it wasnât only the money that had attracted her; the cutting-edge stem cell research that Nathan was working on was infinitely more glamorous than dog-food development.
Kavitaâs mother was a full-blooded Mohawk, and Kavita had inherited her glossy black hair, her sharp, distinctive cheekbones, and her full, pouting lips. She also had a