The Hunger by Whitley Strieber Page A

experienced as an administrator. In part that was a proper professional attitude, but not the way she allowed it to sweep aside even the slim chance of survival that the politics of the situation might allow.
    Yet he found himself seeking alternatives on her behalf. Her lust for success was contagious. There was something almost visceral in her belief, in her will. No doubt her faith in the value of her work mirrored that of others who had approached discoveries with great impact on humankind. But there was some deep thing in Sarah, a kind of cruel yearning, heedless of herself and others, that swept beyond the norms of duty or even scientific curiosity and colored her hope with the tint of obsession.
    Tom looked at her, the brown hair, the frequently pretty face, her curiously flat pallor, and the rich, unquenchable sensuality of her compact body. He wanted to hold her again. After she had broken his last embrace she had hidden her feelings in gruffness.
    He wished that she did not feel victimized by her femininity. To his way of thinking, her tough, brilliant mind should be satisfactory compensation for all that was wrong with what she referred to as her sexual conditioning. But it was not enough, not for her.
    Tom was embarrassed for her. More, he felt sad. With the rhesus dead she was seriously set back. She couldn’t possibly make a case for continued project funding before the budget committee. She was a small, fuming woman, her eyes flashing prettily as she faced the cancellation of an experiment to which she had given five years of her life.
    Something ungenerous — a kind of glee — seemed to be hiding beneath Tom’s genuine sorrow. He knew it was there; it had been a long time since he had taken his own surface feelings at face value. The destruction of her project would hurl Sarah back into the depths of her relationship with him, would make her seek the comfort of being a junior partner again — and a part of him welcomed the power her need would confer.
    “I’ve got a meeting with Hutch now,” he said. “We’re reviewing the allocation requests.” His mouth was dry. The stench of the apes was sickening. “Sarah,” he said. He paused, surprised. Why had he used such a bedroom tone of voice? She whirled at him. Defeat had made her pugnacious. He wanted to comfort her, knew the condescension of it would outrage her. The touching a few minutes ago had been an unwilling concession.
    “Well?”
    For an instant the bluster in her eyes gave way. Then, with a tilt of her chin she was off, ordering a tranquilizer for Methuselah so they could get the cage open and pull out Betty’s remains.
    Tom left unnoticed, going slowly through the equipment-cluttered lab. Every item, every inch of space, had been pried out of Riverside Medical Research Center by the force of Sarah’s determination. Her discovery had come as an accident, incidental to some conventional work on sleep deprivation. The fact that the inner rhythm of the sleeping process also contained the key to aging was a totally unexpected result. Her initial findings had been published in her book, Sleep and Age . It had caused certain stirrings; the rigor of her methods could not be questioned, nor could her skill in her experiments. The implications were so large, though, that they hadn’t really been appreciated. Sarah’s view that old age was nothing more than a disease, potentially curable, was just too enormous a change. Her book had brought her much congratulation, little support.
    Tom exited into the wide tile hallway of the lab floor and took the staff elevator to the Sleep Therapy Clinic above. He occupied a small office beside Dr. Hutchinson’s suite. The old man had founded the clinic ten years ago. After eight years the board had hired Tom Haver to step in “when the director elects to retire.” It had been nothing more than sales talk; Hutch had not so elected. They had wanted a scientist-administrator with powerful credentials to draw