Predator 2 Novel 6

An image flickered on the video screen, moving through several stages of magnification as she made the fine adjustments.

"This is a bone sample," she explained, "taken from what was left of the vertebral column. We're at 150,000 times normal magnification. That gray-black haze you see over the cell structure is some kind of residue left by the weapon."

"Like metal traces left by a bullet?" Lambert asked.

"Yes," she said, "but I believe this material is not from the weapon itself, but some kind of lubricant, adhering to the blade, creating a more efficient medium of cutting. Like honing oil on a sharpening stone." She stepped back and shook
her head, staring at the image on the screen. "But the rest defies analysis."

Harrigan stared at the screen for a moment, then took a strange-looking metal dart out of his pocket and handed it to her.

"I pried this from Danny's hand," he said. "This is what took him into the rafters." He moistened his lips, swallowing hard and then added, "He died for it."

Dr. Edwards took the dart from his hand and examined it with fascination, then hefted it experimentally in her palm. "It has almost no
weight," she said, with astonishment.

"But cuts like steel," Harrigan said.

She removed the slide from the microscope and made some more adjustments, then she slid the dart into place on the stage and stared, frowning, at the image that appeared on the screen.

"Astonishing," she said. "Properties that al-
most defy description. It's not metal, but a crystalline compound, similar to diamond, but much, much harder. And it seems to possess the same self-lubricating qualities as the weapon that killed Detective Archuleta."

She pointed at the screen. "What you're seeing is the vapor of this material breaking down, evaporating-" She shook her head with confusion and looked at Harrigan. "This material doesn't correspond to anything on the periodic table."

"What the hell are you saying?" Lambert asked. She looked at him, blankly.

"I don't know what I'm saying."

There was an awkward silence for a moment. The periodic table, Harrigan repeated silently to himself, thinking back to his high school science classes. That's the table of all the elements in nature. So what the hell is she saying? That whatever this thing is made of doesn't exist in nature? How is that possible?-pg.117-118 chpt.4