Second Nature

Chapter 15

As deeply as Gen cared about Cade's reaction to discovering the truth about her, she admitted there was a far more serious problem. Eberhard. She remembered the two fighter jets tracking her through the sky like hunting hounds locked on a scent. Eberhard would not give up the chase, and he had the support of the U.S. military to help him track and corner his prey.  

"I have to leave here," she told herself, "for their sake." To protect Cade and the others from the danger that would trail her wherever she fled.  

"I have to leave," she repeated, more forcefully. But the idea of leaving made her feel unbearably empty and lost. She loved her dolphin pod, but she wished more than anything to stay with Cade. And with Haven and Lana, and Jimi, too. To be human among human friends. 

She wanted to stay. 

She had to leave. 

"I hate fairy tales!" she whispered harshly. 

While her insides churned with conflict and despair, light continued to wash over the world. A thick grove of bamboo, which in the dark had looked like a hunch-backed giant, now reflected green and gold. The sea and sky lent their colors to each other generously. The Earth looked new and resplendent. Which made Gen recall the other reason she had chosen to leave the dolphin pod and go ashore with Cade. She felt compelled to connect with these living things, in the realm of sun and rain and soil. 

It took a moment to realize that the bird statue in the corner of her view, standing motionless at the edge of an ornamental water garden, was alive. She recognized the bird as a great blue heron. Its color exactly matched the slate-blue of the pond's liner. It poised, stone-still, on ridiculously tall legs, its snake-like neck curved in an S against its powerful breast. In a blur, its neck shot out like a whip and its long, thin beak snatched a small frog from the pond. The heron threw back its head, gulped and swallowed. Gen saw the lump of frog travel down what looked like three feet of soft tubing. 

Gen leapt toward the bedroom door before she even realized what she was going to do. She needed to touch the bird. She ran through the hallway into the foyer, yanked open the front door, and was outside, bounding down the porch steps. 

The heron spread broad wings, beating the air, whuff-whuff-whuff, and took off. It pumped hard to climb over a stand of palms, then banked and swam through the air with long, graceful strokes, neck tucked tight and yellow legs held straight out behind like yardsticks. 

The intensity of Gen's emotions surprised her. As she watched the bird disappear, a desperate sense of loss clutched her chest; then, when she searched the ground at the pond's edge and spotted a large slate-blue feather, she sighed loudly with relief. 

She picked up the feather and immediately drank into her cells the heron's essence. The pleasure made her gasp. But the satisfaction lasted only a moment. 

Hunger. That's what drove her. Not hunger of the belly, but a deeply interior need to record the essence of life forms. It was not fulfilling simply to gaze upon the beautiful creatures of the world. The animals and plants that appeared to her eyes were mere vessels for the genes, the inner code. Individual creatures served to transport and transmit genes, while the genes themselves stored the vast memory of entire species. A simple touch enabled Gen to access the ancient archives at the core of each living thing. 

Her desire to touch seemed insatiable, yet it was not like the craving of an addict for a drug. It resembled more the longing one feels when separated from a lover; the soul-felt appetite for the loved one to come home. Gen felt as if her cells were crying out to her missing sisters and brothers-all the creatures of the world-and she must gather the essence of every living thing to become, herself, complete.