Aqua Sapiens

Chapter No. 18 The Fifth Angel

Chapter No. 18 The Fifth Angel

Damn it! I hate being in the dark! I can't see a goddamned thing. What's that sniffing? Is that damn rat around here?

Marian Stram sat up in bed like a jack-in-the-box, sweat glistening on her face, her heart racing, and her lungs expelling short but violent breaths. She reached out and fumbled around on a nightstand, knocking things over, rapping her knuckles on a hard wooden edge before finding a light switch

.

Light! Wonderful eye-filling, soul-soothing light.

Her husband was not in the bed across from hers.

She sighed, not from discontent but from relief. Gingerly, she swung her legs out from under beige satin sheets and planted her feet on a dark blue Ferahan carpet with repeating herab designs. Her bandaged feet were inserted into plush fur-lined slipper. She reached out to retrieve her cane--a long walnut stick with a handle carved into a large sea horse--and slowly lifted her fragile body up from the bed. She struggled to the door and turned the knob.

"Franklin!" Her eyes widened in surprise, but they quickly narrowed.

Franklin looked her over but said nothing, nor did his face indicate anything.

"Where's my husband?"

"He's in the aquarium lab."

She gave him a disinterested look before starting down the hall.

"Do you require assistance?" Franklin asked as he chased after her.

"I'm not an invalid . . . yet."

Franklin followed her but kept his distance.

He dispassionately watched her make her torturous way down a long hall to a double door and then balance on the cane so that she could move the door's latch with both hands.

The instant he saw the door crack open, Julius rushed to her side. "What are you doing up, my Pet? The doctor told you to rest."

She managed a weak smile. "You should know me by now, Julie. I can't stay cooped up for any length of time. I need excitement."

Julius looked at her with disapproving eyes, but he knew it would be a waste of time to argue with her. In a way he was glad to see her up and about after her brush with oblivion.

Marian hopped over to a bench and leaned on it, using the cane to prop her delicate frame.

"What are you doing, Julie?"

He walked over to a binocular microscope with a video pickup. The image of a dissected specimen filled a large flat monitor.

"Oh, I'm just examining some new specimens from the Aqua Lab."

Marian's eyes swiveled wildly, trying to take in every new thing in the lab at once. Her eyes soon riveted on the denizens of a small aquarium.

She placed her hand on the side and rubbed it around as if she could feel the specimens contained within. "What are these?"

"I'm not sure, my Pet," her husband said without looking up from the microscope. "They found them somewhere in the Micronesia archipelago."

She examined the rapidly swimming creatures for several minutes. They were nearly a foot in length and had flesh colored top halves with gray bottoms ending in rudimentary flukes. Their heads appeared fish-like with the usual gills, but there was a curious round aperture in each of their foreheads.