Once they’d restarted the igloo’s environmental systems, Liz helped Tobias move his equipment and supplies in from the shuttle’s cargo bay. Because the Council didn’t think there was anything to be learned on Slag’s surface, they’d sent along only a single small shuttle and almost no equipment. Fortunately, Tobias had managed to scrounge up a portable gene analyzer; but aside from the necessary vials and containers to gather samples, they had almost nothing else.
“I guess they didn’t want to clutter up the Arrow’s hold with a lot of scientific junk,” Tobias said. “Heaven forbid we might actually learn something.” The Arrow was Enlil’s Arrow, the Consortium survey ship that had ferried them out from the Fleet.
“At least they sent along a shuttle,” Liz said. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t even be here.”
Tobias chuckled. “And you think that’s a good thing?” he asked, looking out at the algae-covered rock that surrounded them.
Liz restrained a grin. “What?” she said. “You mean you don’t?”
“No, no, I think it’s great,” he said. “No sunlight, enough hydrogen sulfide to kill us in seconds, and a wind that could blow us halfway back to the Arrow. What more could you ask for?”
“Exactly,” Liz laughed.
Tobias sighed. “My only regret is that Superintendent Cantrell couldn’t be here to enjoy it with us.”
When they’d finished unloading, Liz pulled up a schematic of the surrounding terrain on her mission assistant and set off toward the nearby fissure, leaving Tobias to finish setting up his equipment on his own. In addition to the flexible smart-screen wrapped around her forearm, her mission assistant—or MA, as it was called—included an onboard processor and communications unit linked to her helmet mike. She would have no trouble maintaining contact with Tobias as she explored, but communication with the Arrow was more problematic. While Slag’s parent had almost no magnetic field, the field generated by Slag’s molten iron core captured ejecta from the numerous volcanoes, creating storms of ionized particles in the upper atmosphere that could disrupt contact with the ship for hours at a time.
From orbit, the cracks in Slag’s surface had appeared to have sheer sides that dropped straight away to the molten magma beneath, but as Liz approached the fissure nearest the ground station, she saw that its edge had been worn away by the constant flow of water from the melting ice sheet. Following a series of crumbling ledges, she made her way down to a wide shelf roughly fifty feet below the surface. Water cascaded down over the lip above her, forming pools that spread along the shelf before the water washed over the edge and dropped into the depths more than half a mile below.
It amazed Liz that life could survive in such a hostile environment, but the truth was, they’d found life on any number of worlds during their generations-long journey out from the settled sectors of the galaxy. In fact, life seemed to thrive anytime it was given the slightest opportunity. Slag, however, was the only world where they’d found significant levels of free oxygen in the absence of sunlight. Which explained why Tobias suspected the worms’ DNA, along with that of the algae that produced the oxygen, might have been modified by some external agency.
“You wouldn’t expect a chemotrophic organism like the algae to release free oxygen into the environment,” he’d explained. “Without sunlight to drive photosynthesis, nature just doesn’t make the leap to oxygen from nothing but hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide. Not on its own.”
“But why bother?” Liz had asked. “Why would anyone want to switch the ecology from hydrogen sulfide to oxygen?”
“Energy,” he explained. “A metabolism based on oxygen produces more energy.”
“I hate to sound like Cantrell,” she said, “but what’s the point? I mean, what good are a bunch of energetic worms?”
“That, my dear, is what this mission is all about, isn’t it?” he said, arching one of his bushy eyebrows. “And if you and I are both very good at our jobs—and very lucky—we just might find out.”
One of the things the worms used their energy for was bioluminescence—a fact that Liz remembered from the initial survey report when she noticed the soft blue glow emanating from one of the pools on the shelf. As she approached, the glow brightened as though the organisms in the water had sensed her approach and were rising to the surface to meet her. Kneeling down, she could see dozens of worms swimming over, under, and around each other. They were anywhere from six inches to two feet in length. None was more than an inch in diameter, and each had a pair of long, fluttering membranes running down the sides of its body—like a pair of delicate wings that allowed it to glide almost effortlessly through the water. Aside from their wings, the worms’ unsegmented bodies appeared perfectly smooth, with no sign of external sense organs. Yet they were clearly attracted by her presence, as evidenced by the way they followed her as she moved along the edge of the pool.
Using a pair of forceps that she’d brought from the shuttle, she reached into the water and picked up one of the worms. Its two ends twisted slowly from side to side, but it made no effort to escape, which was only logical, given that the worms had no natural predators.
As she examined the worm, she noticed that it didn’t simply glow; it seemed to pulse with light. Waves of pastel green and blue flowed back and forth along its glistening surface as its wings slowly undulated in the air.
Liz frowned. “Why glow?” she asked as she turned the worm from one side to the other. “What’s in it for you?”
Glowing took energy at the metabolic level. So why would the worms evolve bioluminescence? To attract food? To confuse some predator she hadn’t yet identified? To catch the attention of the opposite sex? There had to be a reason. The capability was too expensive metabolically not to have some significant survival benefit.
She looked back down at the water. The worms directly in front of her had come together, weaving themselves into a loose bundle that pulsed with the same light as the worm she held with her forceps. The waves of light moved over the surface of the bundle, gliding smoothly from one worm to the next in an unbroken pattern that appeared to maintain itself even as the worms themselves slid over and under each other.
Moving along the edge of the pool, Liz collected additional worms, depositing them in the specimen case she carried over her shoulder. All the while, she kept up a running conversation with her delicate captives. In a way, she felt as though she were talking to the Anunnaki themselves—talking back through time, back through the worms to the beings who had created them. At least, she wanted to believe it was the Anunnaki who had created them—or, more correctly, who had modified them—though that too would require a lot more analysis. Probably more than she and Tobias could accomplish in the four days allotted to them.
It wasn’t until Liz reached the second pool, where another bundle formed, that she noticed the waves of light were moving in time with her voice.
“You can hear me, can’t you?” she said, kneeling down beside the water.
As she spoke, she saw that the waves appeared to change direction with each word she spoke. “What are you up to?” she asked. “What in your environment could possibly cause you to respond like this?”
Moving around the pool, she watched several more bundles form. The largest one followed her, losing individual worms and picking up new ones as it moved.
She tried reversing her direction several times, and each time the largest bundle reversed its direction with her, as did several of the smaller bundles that followed it. She wasn’t able to retrieve any of the bundles—they kept their distance, moving back when she reached for them with her forceps—but she gathered several dozen free worms, some of which had been part of the larger bundles before others took their places.