It might have been better, Hilda thought, to have done her apartment hunting on a different morning, since she'd missed all the introductions. As unobtrusively as she could she popped her own screen and did some hunting. Then she raised her eyebrows and looked at the doctor with more interest. Dr. Sidoni ben Jayya was a biochemist, and he had just been coopted to the team from his regular base of operations.
Which was Camp Smolley.
That made Hilda sit up. She had never visited Camp Smolley, but she knew what it was about. So did everybody in the Bureau, though not too many civilians did. Camp Smolley was biowar! And what the hell did that have to do with the Ananias team?
Camp Smolley began its existence as a top-secret research facility for the development of biological weapons. When the United States signed on to the treaty banning these, it continued its activities as a top-secret laboratory for developing defenses against biowar. When some busybodies in the Congress thought that was too close to actually making the things, it switched its efforts over to general biochemical research-most of them, anyway. In the change it was administratively reassigned to the NBI, and the Bureau found some uses for its skills it did not think necessary to report to Congress.
As it turned out, plenty. All three of the weird space cratures had been moved there. "For maximum security," he explained, "and for convenience in research. Our primary concern at the moment is feeding them, and so we have been analyzing some of the food canisters that they brought from Starlab."
That made sense to Hilda. There weren't many biolaboratories better equipped than Camp Smolley's, and certainly none that was easier to keep private from the outside world. However, the problem of extraterrestrial nutrition was not a subject that interested Hilda a lot, and her attention began to wander again.
So did Daisy Fennell's. She was paying more attention to her own screen than to the speaker. Hilda studied the woman thoughtfully, because there was a lesson there for her. Time was when Fennell had been a field manager like herself. She had even once run Junior Agent Hilda Morrisey, when they were trying to infiltrate the religious-right groups that had been setting fire to schoolbook warehouses around the country. Daisy had been good at the work, too, until she had made the mistake of letting herself get promoted. As Hilda just had. And now here she was, stuck in administration, trying to keep people like this biochemist from telling the team more than it had any desire to know about the significance of chirality in organic molecules.
Across the table the man from the State Department did seem interested. He frowned and lifted one finger to signal he wanted to say something-it was as close as he ever came to raising his hand. "There would be serious international repercussions if we let them die," he pointed out. "Are you saying there isn't anything you can do?"
Dr. ben Jayya gave him a frosty look. "Of course I am not saying this. We have begun many lines of research. For instance, Dr. App-ley has taken cell samples from each of the extraterrestrials. If we could grow the cells in sufficient quantity in a nutrient solution we might be able to feed these-creatures-on cells from their own bodies. There is, after all, one thing every animal can digest, and that is its own flesh. But we're having a difficult time finding the proper nutrients."
"And if that fails?"
Ben Jayya frowned. "But that is only one line of research, as I have just said! In addition we are making genetic studies. There is the possibility that we can immunize certain kinds of food animals against proteins from the aliens themselves, in which case the aliens might be capable of assimilating the meat from, let us say, a hamster or rabbit which has been made compatible-"
Statement of the Central Presidium.
The Central Presidium of the People's Republic of China has released this statement:
"Ever mindful of the vital concerns of its many people, the Central Presidium shares their just wrath at the latest provocation of the snarling dogs of global monopoly capitalism. They presume to kidnap the unborn child of our heroic People's Republic of China astronaut Commander James Peng-tsu Lin. Let these slavish tools of the multinationals keep their bloodstained claws off this heroic unborn Chinese citizen, or the consequences will strike terror to their hearts."
– South China Morning Post, Hong Kong, PRC
"I don't think," the State Department man said severely, "that that's good enough, Dr., ah, ben Jayya. They must be kept alive."
The biochemist shrugged. "Of course," he said, looking at Daisy Fennell, "there is also the fact that there are additional stores of food on the Starlab orbiter. The subject called Dopey has urged that a spacecraft be launched to obtain them-"
"That's being looked into," Daisy said quickly.
"-but even that, you must understand, is only an interim solution, while our researches must ultimately-"
But he didn't get a chance to finish saying what his researches must ultimately do. The door opened and the deputy director came in, quietly, but changing the climate of the room.
Everyone perked up. "Sorry I'm late. Hope I'm not interrupting," he apologized, knowing that he was, "but I think now it's time we gave everybody a look at the gadget we took out of our friends."
So that was what Harold Ott was doing in the room. The man was already on his feet, politely elbowing Daisy Fennell out of the way to get at the master controls. As he touched the keypad the room lights darkened and the projectors of a 3-D system arose from the tabletop. There was a brief polychromatic haze over the middle of the table, then it cleared and turned into an image of something that looked like a copper-covered almond, slowly rotating as they watched.
"I thought of bringing one of the actual gadgets in for you to look at," Marcus Pell said chattily, "but we're really not supposed to take them out of the secure lab."
One of the men raised a hand. "That's pretty big to go in somebody's head," he said doubtfully.
"It's enlarged so we can see it better," Pell explained. "The actual object is only a little over two centimeters long. It's a bug, all right, and we've got three of them, That's half the world's supply."
"Where's the other half?" the man asked.
"Scattered, I'm afraid. There's one in General Delasquez's head, and he's back in Florida. There's another in the Chinese pilot-not the one that just came back, the other one. We don't know where he is-somewhere in China, anyway. And there's the one the Ukrainians took out of the dead Dr. Artzybachova and they let get stolen. That one we're trying to locate; we have some leads."
The general said testily, "The people who stole it, they're terrorists, right? I don't like having that kind of thing in their hands. What if they take it apart and see what's inside?"
Pell looked courteously at the electronics man. "Harold?" Ott pursed his lips. "It's not that easy. Here in the lab we've done about all the noninvasive studies we can, and they don't tell us much. Next step would be to use a can opener on one of them, but there's a considerable risk of destroying it if we do."
"Tissue and hair samples from the extraterrestrials give us clues as to the basic proteins, fats and other molecules that make up their bodies, but they are not enough; without invasive surgery we can't tell what less common compounds are required by their glands, nervous systems, etc. However, we have succeeded in isolating a number of their basic chemicals, and, through polymerase chain reaction and other techniques, are capable of manufacturing them in dietary quantities. The proteins are the most difficult. Proteins are basically composed of two parts, an alpha helix and a number of beta sheets. We have synthesized quantities of these. However, it isn't enough to put the right ingredients in a kettle and cook them up; the planar beta sheets, for example, must be folded in just the right way. Still, we have produced basic ration packs for each species, which should sustain life for a period. Whether it contains all the required vitamins and minerals is another question; we cannot guarantee that the ETs will not start developing something like scurvy or kwashiorkor over time."