“Your ocean ecology is screwed up and there’s nothing anybody can do about it.”
Nils stirred beside her, shooting her a sharp, reproving glance. “Uriel’s oceans are becoming stagnant, Mr. Sadena,” he said, ignoring Rahel’s returning scowl. “It’s part of the planet’s natural global cycle, and right now it’s smothering the stellar jellyfish. Eventually, though, it will smother almost everything else in the water. I’m sorry.”
Sadena studied Nils with the very faintest of frowns wrinkling his high forehead. Then he tipped his head toward Rahel and asked the question with his eyes.
She thought about pacing to disguise her distaste of his attention, but made herself match his stare without flinching. It felt like sharing handclasps with a corpse. “Uriel’s a greenhouse planet,” she told him in her most businesslike tone. “That means you’ve got no polar caps, which means you’ve got no deep thermoha-line currents. You’ve got three puny natural satellites—that means no significant gravitational stresses, and that means no tides. So basically put, Mr. Sadena, Uriel’s ocean water doesn’t move around. You get a little bit of chop at the surface due to wind movement, but that only oxygenates the upper level. The rest of the ocean has to collect oxygen through diffusion. That isn’t very fast, and a lot of things can screw it up. Like when crap falls down from above—”
“Crap?” Sadena interrupted delicately.
Rahel waved her hands in ill-tempered impatience. She wasn’t interested in playing to his sensibilities. “Dead algae, dead fish, dead birds—anything organic that sinks from the ocean surface to the bottom. Once organic stuff gets down there, it rots. Rotting uses up oxygen. If you’ve got more organic stuff floating down than you have oxygen diffusing—which in Uriel’s environment isn’t too hard—your organic rot uses up all the oxygen. Without oxygen, the organic waste can’t rot, so it starts to build up. Once it builds up high enough to touch oxygenated water, it starts rotting again. After a while, it uses up all that oxygen, too, and so on, and so on.”
Sadena nodded once, a cordial acknowledgment that he was paying attention. “And you say this is happening all over the planet?”
“As near as we can tell. You noticed it in the Odarkan Sea first because that’s a much smaller body of water than the entire ocean, and because you pay special attention to the wildlife there. Who knows how many deepwater species in the main ocean you’ve lost without anybody noticing.” She could tell from Sadena’s dismissive shrug that the thought disturbed her more than it did him. “You’ll need a Geological Survey ship if you really want details on a planetary scale,” she went on, making no effort to hide her dislike of him. “But I can tell you that every bottom water sample I pulled today indicates the development of a major anoxic event.”
Glints of dispassionate thought moved in Sadena’s dark eyes as he steepled fingers beneath his chin. “But the presence of my resort,” he asked carefully, “of any of my resorts, has nothing to do with this development?”
Rahel snorted. “Even you couldn’t produce enough garbage to turn an entire ocean stagnant.”
“But at some point—” Nils moved to sit on the sofa directly across from Sadena, his hands clenched into a bundle of worried energy in his lap. “At some point, all the methane gas, and garbage, and hydrogen sulfide that’s building up at the bottom of the ocean—” He glanced at Rahel for verification, then continued talking without actually waiting for her response. “When that needs to escape, Mr. Sadena, it has nowhere to go but up. The rotten bottom water is going to rise to the surface, and all the surface water will sink down below, and Uriel’s oceans will put out a cloud of gas so poisonous you’ll have nothing left alive within three kilometers of your beaches.”
Ever since she’d explained the result of anoxic turnover to Nils, he’d been obsessed with making sure Sadena understood the details. Rahel, on the other hand, knew Sadena only needed to understand one thing. “Your ocean ecology is screwed.”
“How soon can I expect the planet-wide repercussions Proctor Oberjen describes?”
“Like I said, you need to talk to geologists about that.” Rahel tossed a shrug and guessed anyway. “Five thousand years? Five million?” In the lifetime of a planet, both were equally imminent, barely a heartbeat away.
Sadena’s little chuckle of amused relief disagreed. “Thank you for your report, Proctor Tovin. In the meantime…” He waved away the service drone, causing Jynn to dance back several steps to keep from being run over. “I believe our business here is done. Noah’s Ark’s services are no longer required on Uriel. You may, of course, make yourselves comfortable at my expense until Mr. Kuvasc is ready to travel, but you needn’t trouble yourselves with any additional—”
“But…” Jynn looked startled with himself, as though he hadn’t expected to hear himself speak. “But what about the jellyfish?” he asked in a little-boy voice.
Sadena’s hand curled about the arm of his chair, and he sighed, very softly. It was the first honest sign of emotion Rahel had seen in the man. “Jynn, I’m sorry to have kept you from your duties. You may consider yourself excused.”
“No, sir…” Jynn rounded Sadena’s chair in a few uncertain steps, darting his attention between Rahel and his employer as though unsure to which one he should appeal. “Are you just going to talk about it and call it done?” He finally settled his gaze on Rahel. “Ma’am, what about the jellyfish?”
“Jynn…” Her back hurt, her lips tasted like tears, and the skin of her face and hands felt dry enough to peel. Even if she knew how to say what the pilot wanted, she hadn’t the strength for it right now. “I’m sorry.”
“But you got brought here to do something,” he insisted. Big hands implored her for help as they reached out to her. “Can’t you take them back with you? Just some of them. Keep them, and breed them the way you do other animals. That way there’ll still be some left to bring back when the oceans get right again.”
Rahel gently shook her head. “Noah’s Ark doesn’t work that way. We aim our reproduction efforts at animals who were pushed to extinction by unnatural forces—people, usually,” she added, glaring once at Sadena. He returned her stare with impassive disinterest. “But when things die in nature…” She wished Jynn would blink and clear the tears that had gathered in his eyes. “Whole species die and get replaced all the time. They always have. If it isn’t right for humans to wipe out an animal that nature intended for survival, then it isn’t right for us to save an animal that nature meant to destroy.” When Jynn didn’t say anything for what seemed a very long time, Rahel asked softly, “Do you understand?”
He jerked to face Sadena in answer. “You could hire Noah’s Ark to do it, couldn’t you, sir? You’re always saying you can do anything with the jellyfish you want to—”
“And, indeed, I can,” Sadena cut the pilot off impatiently. He reached around Jynn for another cup of coffee, and his face darkened slightly when he realized the serving robot was no longer by his chair. “However, I am not interested in entering into any such arrangement with Noah’s Ark at this time.”
Jynn shook his head slowly. “But why?”
“Because,” Rahel caught Sadena’s eyes with her own when he glanced at her, “Mr. Sadena isn’t actually interested in preserving Uriel’s jellyfish. He never has been.”