"Main operating lab," the guard said.
Frowning, Harker moved past and headed across the clearing to the lab building. A late-spring breeze whistled down through the spruces, chilling him momentarily; the sun was a dying swollen reddish ball hovering near the horizon. Harker felt a strange foreboding sense of fear.
Three white-garbed medics guarded the lab entrance. Harker started to go past; one of them shook his head and said, "Very delicate work going on in there, Mr. Harker. If you're going in, be sure to keep quiet."
Harker tiptoed past.
Inside, he saw a tense group clustered around the operating-table: Raymond, Vogel, Lurie, little Barchet, and a surgeon Harker did not know. There was a figure on the table. Harker could not see it.
Raymond detached himself from the group and came toward him. The lab director's face was pale, almost clammy; his lips hung slack with tension, and his eyes bulged. He looked frightened half into catatonia.
"What's going on?" Harker whispered.
"Ex-ex-pe-riment," Raymond said, shivering. "God, I wish we hadn't started this."
Raymond seemed close to collapse. Puzzled, Harker edged closer to the table, shunting Barchet to one side to get a better view. Five guilt-shadowed faces turned uneasily to stare at him.
For a long moment Harker studied the exposed face of the cadaver on the table, while billowing shockwaves clouded his mind, numbed his body. The enormity of what had been done left him almost incapable of speech for a few seconds.