“I was in the hold, trying to secure the meteorite. But it finally broke out of its cradle and split the ship in half. There was an explosion. It seemed as if the meteorite, when it came into contact with salt water, reacted in an unusual way, generating a shock wave. I was thrown clear of the ship. I remember coming to on a raft of floating debris. I was badly injured. They found me a day later, close to death.”
Glinn lapsed into silence, toying with his cup of coffee.
“So now the thing’s just lying on the seabed. Why all the worry, the talk of danger? And…of aliens?”
Glinn pushed the coffee cup away. “It was McFarlane, the meteorite hunter, who figured out what it really was.”
This was followed by a long silence.
“There’s a respected theory in astronomy called Panspermia,” Glinn finally continued. “It holds that life may have spread through the galaxy in bacteria or spores carried on meteorites or in clouds of dust. But that theory assumed microscopic life. Everyone missed the obvious idea that life might be spread by seeds. A gigantic seed would better survive the cold and intense radiation of outer space by its sheer size and resistance. It’s the same reason why coconuts are so large: to survive long ocean voyages. The galaxy has many water-covered planets and moons in which such a seed might fall and then sprout.”
“You’re saying this meteorite was actually just such a seed? And when the Rolvaag sank, it went to the bottom and was…planted?”
“Yes. Two miles beneath the surface. And then it sprouted.”
Gideon shook his head. “Incredible. If true.”
“Oh, it’s true. It sank roots and grew upward like a giant tree—rapidly. Seismic stations around the world noted a number of shallow quakes on the seafloor at the site. Several small tsunamis raked the coasts of South Georgia and the Falkland Islands. But it was all happening two miles deep, and the seismic signature of the quakes looked like the product of undersea volcanic eruptions. So did the mini tsunamis. Since it was in an area far outside of any shipping lanes and posed no risk to anyone, the ‘undersea volcano’ was generally disregarded. Even volcanologists ignored it, as it was simply too deep and too dangerous to study. And then it went quiescent. All of which explains why nobody figured out what was really going on—except me, of course. And Sam McFarlane. And Palmer Lloyd.” He shifted in his chair. “But over the past five years, we’ve developed a plan to deal with this problem. Manuel will summarize it for you.”
Garza looked at Gideon. “We’re going to kill it.”
“But you said it had gone quiescent. Why go to the trouble and the expense—not to mention the danger?”
“Because it’s alien. It’s huge. It’s dangerous. Just because it’s quiescent doesn’t mean it will remain so—in fact, our models predict exactly the opposite. Think about it for a moment. What will happen if it blooms, or produces more seeds? What if these plants spread to cover the bottom of the oceans? What if they can also grow on land? No matter which way you look at it, this thing’s a threat. It could destroy the earth.”
“So how are you going to kill it?”
“We have in our possession a plutonium core of about thirty kilograms, a neutron trigger device, fast and slow shaped HE, high-speed transistors—everything needed to assemble a nuke.”
“Where in hell did you get that stuff?”
“Everything’s for sale in certain former satellite states these days.”
Gideon shook his head. “Jesus.”
“We also have a nuclear weapons expert on staff.”
“Who?”
“You, of course.”
Gideon stared.
“That’s right,” said Glinn quietly. “Now you know the real reason I hired you in the first place. Because we always knew this day was coming.”
4
THE ROOM FELL silent. Gideon slowly rose from his chair, making a successful effort to hide his anger. “So you hired me to oversee the building of a nuke,” he said calmly.
“Yes.”
“In other words, four months ago, back when Garza first walked up to my fishing spot on Chihuahueños Creek and offered me a hundred thousand dollars for a week’s work, stealing the plans for some new kind of weapon off a defecting Chinese scientist—it was really this moment, this job, that you had in mind.”
Glinn nodded.
“And you want to use the nuke to kill a gigantic alien plant that is supposedly growing on the bottom of the ocean.”
“In a nutshell.”
“Forget it.”
“Gideon,” said Glinn, “we’ve been through this tiresome dance several times before: your heated refusals, your storming out, and then your eventual return once you’ve thought it through. Can we please skip all that?”
Gideon swallowed, stung by the comment. “Let me try to explain to you why this is a crazy idea.”
“Please.”
“First, you can’t do this on your own. You need to take this problem to the UN and get the whole world behind the effort to kill this thing.”
Glinn shook his head sadly. “Sometimes you amaze me, Gideon. You seem so smart—and then you say something so remarkably stupid. Did you just suggest that we ask the United Nations to solve this problem?”
Gideon paused. He had to admit, on reflection, that it didn’t sound like a very intelligent idea. “Okay, maybe not the UN, but at least take it to the US government. Let them deal with it.”
“You mean, let our most excellent Congress deal with this situation in the same way it has handled our other pressing national problems, such as global warming, terrorism, education, and our crumbling infrastructure?”
Gideon fished around for a snappy rejoinder to this but could not find one.
“This is no time for waffling,” said Glinn. “We’re the only ones who can do this. It’s got to be done now, while the life-form is quiescent. I hope you’ll help us.”
“If not?”
“Then sooner or later, the world as we know it will end. Because without you, we will fail. And you’ll reproach yourself for the rest of your life.”
“The rest of my short life, you mean. Thanks to what’s growing in my own brain, I’ve got maybe eight, nine months left to live. You and I both know that.”
“We don’t know that anymore.”
Gideon looked at Glinn. His face looked years younger; as he spoke he gestured with both hands, and his dead eye had healed up and was now clear and deep. His wheelchair was nowhere to be seen. On their last mission together, he had partaken of the restorative, health-giving lotus—just as Gideon himself had. It had worked for Glinn; but not, apparently, for Gideon.
“You really believe you’ll fail without me?” Gideon asked.
“I never say anything I don’t believe.”
“I’ll need to be convinced this thing is as dangerous as you say before I help you with anything nuclear.”
“You’ll be convinced.”
Gideon hesitated. “And you have to make me a co-director of the project.”
“That’s quite absurd,” said Glinn.
“Why? You said we work well as a team. But we’ve never worked as a team. It’s always been you telling me what to do, me doing it my own way, you protesting, and then, in the end, I turn out to be right and you’re wrong.”
“That is an oversimplification,” Glinn said.
“I don’t want you second-guessing and overruling me. Especially if we’re dealing with something as dangerous as nuclear weapons—and this seed of yours.”
“I don’t like governing by committee,” Glinn said. “At the least, I’ll have to run this through our QBA programs to see if it’s feasible.”