I crossed my arms.
Holly sighed. "Come over here."
I walked to her desk. A microscope stood in the center of it. Several file folders were stacked to the side. A sticker emblazoned on the top folder said, Rabe.
"Take a look." She waved her hand at a microscope. "Go on. It won't bite."
I stared through the eyepiece. I saw a brown, fuzzy object. It was shaped like a tiny rodent. As I watched, little hands and feet appeared on all sides of its body, propelling it forward.
I turned the dials, but the image remained fuzzy. "What is this?"
"A tardigrade. It was harvested many miles from here."
"So, what's wrong with it?"
"Nothing." She picked up a small Petri dish and slid it onto the mechanical stage. "Now, take a look at this."
I looked through the eyepiece again. "It looks a lot like the first one. Only it's black. And it's not moving."
"That's because it's dead."
"Don't you mean hibernating?"
"No, I mean dead. At first, I thought it was a cuticle, left behind after molting. But under higher magnification, it's definitely a dead tardigrade. All of its vital processes have decayed. Its tissue has become opaque and lost structural continuity."
"I thought you said these things live forever."
"They show the potential to live forever. But the truth is you can find a few dead tardigrades in any large population. Some die due to what appears to be extreme old age. Others die because of environmental changes."
"How'd this one die?"
"Some sort of bacterial infection as near as I can tell. But here's the rub. It wasn't alone when we found it." Holly took a deep breath. "It was part of a large colony of tardigrades. They were all dead, every last one of them."
"Is that rare?"
"It's unheard of. Colony collapse disorder is fairly common among worker bees. But tardigrade colonies are pretty much indestructible."
I recalled the gas chambers. "Tell me more about the bacteria that killed it."
"There's not much to tell. So far, I've only been able to recover dead spore samples. And those have proven exceedingly difficult to study." She gave me a penetrating look. "That's why I wanted to talk to you. I found identical spores on those bones you gave me."
"You did?"
"It wasn't easy. The bone fragments show extensive fire damage. But I was still able to recover three separate samples." She paused. "Look, this bacteria is scary stuff. I need to know more about it. Unfortunately, my research is stalled. I've gone about as far as I can with dead spores."
"So, you're hoping I can lead you to some live ones?"
"I'd settle for a look at some additional bone fragments."
I thought about the satellite image of the region. The gas chamber had been the largest anomaly in the area. But it wasn't the only suspicious-looking object. "I'll make you a deal. I'll show you where I got them but only if you take me to where you found the colony first."
"Why would I do that?"
"Because I've got an idea. If I'm right, it might answer your questions." My gaze narrowed. "And mine."
Chapter 35
"Satellite photos, anomalies, bones." Rupert glanced in my direction. "What are you doing out here anyway?"
I twisted the steering wheel a hair to the left. The treads churned through the ice, sending white powder shooting off to either side.
Holly had insisted on coming with me. She'd roped Rupert in as well. I'd tried to turn them down. But they'd closed ranks, refusing to tell me the location of the collapsed colony unless I promised to take them with me.
"I'd rather not say," I replied.
"Why not?"
"Because you're better off not knowing."
"Listen here—”
"Rupert." Holly put her hand on his arm. "Calm down."
"But he's—”
"I said calm down."
Rupert clamped his jaw shut.
We drove east, rumbling noisily across the ice. Holly and Rupert had discovered the collapsed colony a couple of miles away from the Nazi bunker. I'd marked the position on my map and compared it to the satellite images. A second anomaly — far smaller than the first one — was located in the area. So, we'd piled into a Sno-Cat and set a course for it.
We drove over a long patch of flat ice. It gave me time to think. What if the second anomaly was Werwolfsschanze? How could I explain it to the Whitlows? Could I trust them? I doubted it. These days, I didn't trust many people.
Treasure hunting had never been all gold bars and glittering jewels. But it had gotten significantly harder over the last few years. Archaeologists, aided by bureaucrats, now wielded incredible power. They were provided impressive funds and exclusive access to dig sites. A steady stream of laws had been erected, protecting them from competition. Soldiers and police were recruited to enforce those laws. These days, it took every skill I possessed just to stay a step ahead of them.
Increasingly, I'd been forced to seek help from unsavory characters. Greedy collectors, grave robbers, smugglers, and black market dealers just to name a few. They weren't all bad, honor among thieves I suppose. But there were plenty of rotten apples in the bunch. And they'd only grown more rotten with the advent of stricter laws. In the last year alone, I'd been betrayed, chased, knifed, shot at, and imprisoned. So, I wasn't about to trust a couple of strangers with one of history's greatest lost treasures.
Not by a long shot.
I cleared my throat. "How are we doing?"
"Pretty good." Holly studied the GPS screen. "We're getting close."
I sensed a note of anxiety in her voice. "What's wrong?"
"The screen's bugging out a bit. I think the blizzard is blocking the satellites."
"Is that common?"
"Common enough. We should be fine. Blizzards die off pretty quickly around here."
"Speaking of death, I get the whole idea of putting a living person into suspended animation." I thought about Graham, thought about his anxieties over meeting the Grim Reaper. "But do you think it would be possible to bring someone back from death?"
Rupert shook his head. "No."
"Yes," Holly said at the same time.
I frowned. "Which one is it?"
"Actually, we agree on this subject," Holly said. "We're just using different definitions. There is ultimate death. We call it eternal oblivion. There's no coming back from that. However, that doesn't mean a dead person is in eternal oblivion. Such a person might be dead only by today's standards."
"You're losing me."
"Once upon a time, a patient who'd stopped breathing and experienced cardiac arrest was considered dead. Now, that same person can be revived with CPR and defibrillation. Death is a process, one we're only just beginning to understand."
"What about a person who dies of, say, old age? You might be able to revive him. But wouldn't he just die again anyway?"
"We wouldn't revive him right away. Instead, we'd wait until scientists had figured out a way to cure old age." She hesitated. "If you're worried about someone dying of old age, a crude form of suspended animation is actually available today. It's called cryonics."
"Cryonics?"
"Cryonics is the practice of preserving life via low temperatures." She breathed deeply. "About two hundred and fifty people have been frozen in liquid nitrogen since 1967. Their bodies, by and large, have held up quite well. So, structural integrity isn't a problem."
"Yeah, but maintaining metabolism is a different story," I replied. "For all you know, those people entered eternal oblivion the moment they died."
"I don't believe that."
My face screwed up into a frown. "Isn't cryonics, I don't know, messing with nature?"
"Sure. But any sort of medical treatment can be viewed as altering nature."