Cat Magic by Whitley Strieber Read Free Book Online Page B

He’s everywhere. If a fundamentalist preacher can get something going on a modem college campus, he’s all but unstoppable. And Brother Pierce owns Maywell State. Simple as that.”
    “So what’s our alternative? Shut down the lab and go home?”
    “It amounts to a further impetus to work fast, in my opinion. Even beyond the funding problem. The longer we take, the more trouble he can cause us.”
    “What do you suggest?”
    “Damn the experimental protocols and go for the big win. I think the way to go is to move directly to the rhesus experiment.” Clark’s eyes were hollow. “Despite the problems we’re bound to encounter.”
    “But what about the Stohlmeyer people? We’d be violating our own experimental protocols.”
    “We have an obligation.” His voice shook. “Constance tells me that time is short. She can’t wait much longer.”
    “It’s a hell of a risk.”
    “What if this place is bombed or burned down? The risk of that could be even greater.”
    Since the monkeys were already under health-status observation, it would take less time to work one of them up than to recast the frog experiment. In addition to proving an experimental animal’s health, they had to measure the tiny voltages in its brain and adjust all of their instruments to them so that the creature wouldn’t be in effect shorted out when they nullified its internal electrical field. It was a long, complex task. But they had been measuring the monkeys regularly for weeks, Clark had a point. It would indeed be faster to go straight to the monkeys and forget the frogs. The risks were clear: if they failed, Stohlmeyer would cut them off. Then there was the equipment difficulty. “Monkeys are a lot bigger than frogs. How do we get money to expand the field?”
    With a rueful look Clark withdrew his wallet, pulled out a VISA card. “All I have.”
    “Three thousand dollars on a credit card?”
    “One thousand, sadly enough. And you’re good for another, unless I miss my guess. Or did Kate pick your bones?”
    George’s bitter reply echoed through the dank, animal-scented lab. “I’m good for another thousand only if I can get a loan on my car.”
    “We could try Constance. It’s just a little cash. Surely she can give us that without exposing the link between the lab and the Covenstead.”
    Bonnie called from the animal room, “You know how conservative she is, George. You’ll never get it out of her.”
    “She wants speed, yet she doesn’t like us to kill a few animals. And she won’t give us any money!Constance either has to commit to this or forget it. You tell her that, Clark. Unless she gives me the money to expand the cages, I’m throwing in the towel.”
    “No, George. No, you aren’t. You know we can’t risk a financial link between the Covenstead and this lab. And you need your Stohlmeyer. Otherwise, how will you gain legitimacy in the outside world?
    Research funded by witchcraft? Come on.”
    “Constance could find a way,” Bonnie called. “She’s just tight with money.”
    Clark ignored her. “We’ll manage, George, somehow. I wish I was rich, I’d kick in the whole amount.
    Since she’s so committed, maybe Bonnie can kick in.”
    George’s eyes brightened. “Hey, Bonnie, that’s a wonderful idea. You’ll surely invest money in your brilliant professor.”
    A loud guffaw from the animal room. George opened the door between the two rooms, letting an even more powerful burst of odor into the lab. Swamp water and frog piss, sour bananas and monkey shit.
    “It’s our rice bowls, Bonnie. All three of us.”
    “I seem to recall that I’m on a scholarship. Where am I supposed to get money?”
    “You buy plenty of dope over at Bixter’s, my dear girl,” Clark said. “I’ve seen you score a quarter-k at a time.”
    “What’re you, the house dick? Do they keep conduct cards on us out at the Covenstead now? Eh, Mr.Starch?”
    “You poor woman. You’re a witch, and you’re still not free. We