The Curiosity Read Online Free

opinion of yours truly, our respected Professor Carthage is running the greatest snow-job money grab this country has seen since P. T. Barnum. Look, take it from a guy who pulled his parents out of a burning house when he was fourteen—poster people, by the way, for the stupidity of smoking in bed. Here is what that kid discovered when he stopped coughing his lungs out and looked at them there on the lawn, Mom curled into herself like a fifty-year-old fetus, Dad’s teeth wide like he’s biting the air for a decent breath. The lesson: there is nothing deader than dead. Over. Done. Final. Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars.
    I don’t care if Carthage can jolt some shrimp into jumping around for half a minute. You can do the same thing with certain rocks, if they contain enough tin. I aim to blow this joker’s cover, plain and simple. Show the world what a sham it is, last week’s headlines be damned.
    That is the only reason I took this gig—to tear that arrogant prick down. And may I just say, the trip has had precious few compensating amenities. Dull food. No booze. About two people on board capable of telling a decent joke. The only perk, come to think of it, the only real bonus for a dog like me, is the perfectly shaped, wonderfully toned, and tragically unattainable derriere of one Kate Philo, Ph.D.
    Add in the smarts and the kindness and yours truly is a lost cause. The woman is the whole package, plus dessert. Sometimes I don’t know whether to whimper or drool.
    This one night on the ship I can’t sleep. Blame the usual stew of loneliness and lust, I’m all but sucking my thumb. Then they find another candidate berg. Excuse me if I hold the confetti. I do my usual lurk and scribble, but no one talks much because the ocean’s heaving like a roller coaster. When we motor into sight of the iceberg, it’s a stunner. Bigger than an aircraft carrier, and brilliantly white. Funny when you grow up knowing the Titanic story, how seeing these things is about as comfortable as strolling up to a rattlesnake. There’s a weight in your gullet. The crew goes mute, which does not exactly make for scintillating copy. Eventually they call Dr. Kate to the bridge, and I’m figuring the least it will do is improve the scenery.
    She arrives in a yellow T-shirt and one of those blue polypropylene outfits, the supertight kind they wear under the wet suit for diving in frigid water. The crewmen, most of them as young as daffodils, take a good long gawk. One catches my eye and shakes his head, like Can you believe it?
    Scientists, sailors, reporters, priests. Say what you like but we are all still male.
    Now it’s two hours later. Dawn coming but no one’s going to bed. They’re poring over this latest find, in the research room downstairs of the bridge. Basically they perform a sonar scan of the entire iceberg, a process as exciting as the discovery of vanilla. But David Gerber is seated at the console, which means there may be some laughs yet.
    â€œCome into my palace,” he says, waving to me and Dr. Kate without taking his eyes from the screen. He has crazy curly long gray hair like some drug-addled jazz pianist, held back by a communications headset at an odd angle, and a three-day beard. “Come see what free association has done for our bold expedition this fine day.”
    Gerber is not a water guy, nor even biology. He’s all theoretical math, Princeton trained with Stanford computer science thrown in, a legitimate maniac, and I’ve met him before. He led the repair team when the Mars Rover broke down with a few thousand miles left on NASA’s warranty. Goddamn massive problem to solve, with programming, by radio, from 55 million miles away. He did it, though, the Rover restarted, and that is a pretty neat trick. I covered that story for three weeks and never once saw evidence that Gerber had troubled himself to sleep. Getting a guy