Frozen Solid: A Novel

by James Tabor

  “I think this is our only option,” Belleveau said. “David?”

  They both looked at Gerrin. For several moments, he said nothing. Then he drew a long breath and nodded.

  “Yes, of course you’re both right. As you said, Jean-Claude, we’ve never been about killing breeders. Just sterilizing them.”

  “Thank God,” Kendall breathed. “For a moment there I thought …” He let the sentence trail off.

  “What is our next step, then?” Belleveau asked.

  “I will communicate our decision to Merritt,” Gerrin said. “She will inform the others.” He paused. “You see, Jean-Claude? God is listening to us, after all.”

  45

  THE LAB HALLIE HAD USED WAS NOW LOCKED, BUT MAYNARD Blaine had a key. Merritt’s key, actually, one of the two GGMs that opened all doors. Graeter had told Merritt that he was leading the SAR team out to look for Fido and taking Leland. A two-hour process, at minimum. That would be more than enough time.

  Most labs at the station were similar in size and shape—rectangles twenty feet wide and twenty-five long. The equipment varied from discipline to discipline. Blaine passed through the lab’s small outer office and had no trouble finding what he was looking for. Emily had told him that they kept the extremophile tank in a freezer to replicate the cryopeg’s water temperature. It was toward the rear of the lab, flush against one wall.

  Lifting the freezer’s lid, he saw the thirty-gallon glass tank that held the sample Leland had retrieved. He looked down into the water, which wasn’t clear like normal aquarium water—but then, this wasn’t a normal aquarium. The water was hypersaline, and so much salt would have an almost colloidal effect, accounting for the cloudiness.

  He could see the thing down on the bottom of the tank. Leaning over the surface of the water, he sniffed and was surprised at how it smelled. Not like the cold, salt tang of the Maine ocean, nor the smoother, softer scent of warm bodies like the Caribbean. This was entirely different. The closest analogue he could pull out of memory was model airplane glue.

  Then it changed. Right while he was looking down into the water, the scent altered in a matter of seconds to something much stronger and sharper, a vinegary, ammoniac smell that stung his eyes and nose. He jerked back.

  What the hell? But then he understood. He had just exposed the tank to much warmer air. And much different. They had filled it with cryopeg water only the day before. The stuff hadn’t seen light or fresh air for, what, fifty million years? No wonder it reacted oddly. Maybe it was the solutional equivalent of spoilage, like cut apples turning brown when exposed to oxygen.

  In one pocket of his lab coat he carried a ten-milliliter syringe with a two-inch, fifteen-gauge needle. The syringe was filled with a 10 percent solution of sodium hypochlorite—the great nemesis of microorganisms. Whatever you had that needed killing—bacteria, viruses, fungi—good old NaOCl, also known as chlorine bleach, got the job done. It terminated the worst of the worst—Ebola, smallpox, plague—with equal aplomb. He had no doubt it would work against this stuff they had fished out of the cryopeg. There was no way on earth it would ever have had contact with a modern compound like sodium hypochlorite. Easy as killing a baby.

  He used a flashlight to see the specimen more clearly. Bright orange with yellow spots, texture like cauliflower, about the size and shape of a zucchini squash. How had Leland brought back so much? And why? The retrieval container Emily had shown him hadn’t been much bigger than a large cigar tube. On her trip, Leland must have wanted to make sure they had enough for multiple experiments.

  He took the syringe from his pocket and pulled off the needle’s plastic tip protector. Then he leaned over the tank again. The ammonia reek was worse. He held his breath, but he had to keep his eyes open to see the extremophile, and they burned as if he had been slicing onions. He put his right hand in the water—and gasped. It wasn’t the dull, blunt pain cold water usually caused. This burned. He almost dropped the syringe. He would have to do this very quickly or his hand would become too numb to use.

  He injected chlorine solution into the biomatter over and over. When he finished and pulled his hand out, he could barely feel the syringe in his slow-moving fingers. He rubbed his hands together until some feeling returned to the right one. He closed the freezer and stood for a few seconds by the inner lab door, surveying the area to make sure he was leaving no evidence of his visit.

  Satisfied, he switched off the light and left, locking the door behind him.

  46

  HALLIE DROVE HALFWAY TO THE STATION, STOPPED, TURNED around to look. She could just make out Graeter’s figure, a smudge blacker than the dark purple background. If he decided to take a penguin, she would go after him, but then what? Lasso and hog-tie him with line from the emergency kit and haul him back in? Not likely. If that happened, she would have to rely on her powers of persuasion. With Graeter, she suspected, they would be less than compelling. But she didn’t think he would do that now.

  After ten minutes she saw him heading toward the station. She waited long enough to believe that he would come all the way, then started the snowmo and drove on back.

  She secured her ECW gear and was walking along the corridor to the stairs when she heard footsteps behind her. Turned, saw the woman who had been angered by her loud knocking on Fida’s door, the snow-white face and black-circled eyes. Two other women were with her. Anyplace else, Hallie would have thought it unusual for three women to be out and about after midnight. Here, where work went on around the clock, she did not.

  “Hey,” she said. “Talk to you for a minute?” Friendlier voice, hint of a smile. Maybe she wants to make peace, Hallie thought.

  “Jan Tolliver,” the woman said, hand extended.

  “Glad to meet you. Look, I—”

  The woman grasped Hallie’s hand. Hard. “Why don’t we talk in there,” she said. The three women herded her toward a door before she knew what was happening. Tolliver was small and slender. The other two were neither. One was white, the other black. The white woman had curls sticking up from either side of a very broad, curved forehead. Hallie thought of a musk ox. The other woman was black, just as big, hair clipped close to her head. Ox and buffalo.

  One woman opened the door, and they pushed her through the entrance. Tolliver followed them in, shutting the door. Hallie jerked her arms free.

  “You should have talked to me when you had a chance,” Tolliver said.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she snapped.

  “Take it easy,” Tolliver said. “We just want to ask you some things.”

  “Not like this.” Hallie started toward the door. Ox moved very quickly for a woman of her size, setting herself between Hallie and the exit. Hallie turned to face Tolliver.

  “What do you want?”

  “When did you get here?” Tolliver asked.

  “None of your goddamned business. Get out of my way.”

  “Answer her question,” Buffalo said.

  “Who the hell are you?” Hallie said.

  Hallie’s knees buckled and her vision filled with silver sparks. Buffalo had hit her with the heel of one hand on the side of the head. It had happened so quickly that Hallie felt the effects first, realized what happened only afterward, like a soldier being hit by a bullet, then hearing the sound of its firing. Tolliver and Ox grabbed her, helped her stay upright, waited for her head to clear.

  No cut or visible bruising, Hallie thought. Smart. She’s hit people before.

  The black woman said, “Women are dying. Answer her when she asks you.”

  “You’re in a world of trouble,” Hallie said. Her voice sounded strange, distant, louder on one side than the other.

  “Three witnesses against one? Not likely,” Tolliver said.

  Hallie always thought in terms of odds and probabilities. She would stand a good chance against one woman. Three, bad gamble. “I got here Monday.”

  “The last flight in or out since then,” Tolliver said.

&nb
sp; “Yes.”

  “How’d you feel coming in?”

  “Like hell. I’d been traveling for four days.”

  “She means, were you sick?” the black woman said.

  “No, I wasn’t sick.”

  “How many airports did you come through?”

  She thought back. “Five, counting McMurdo.”

  Ox turned to Tolliver. “See? She could’ve carried anything in.”

  “You seriously think something I brought killed the women?”

  “Nobody was dying before you got here,” Buffalo said.

  Any reason is better than no reason, Hallie thought. I’m the easiest X factor.

  “Tell us why it didn’t happen that way,” Tolliver said.

  “That’s easy. Harriet Lanahan died a few minutes after I came into the cafeteria. Something happened to her before I arrived. There’s no way I could have been the vector.”

  “I wasn’t there. That true?” Buffalo asked Tolliver.

  “Yes.”

  “Still …” Ox said. Midwestern accent. Big healthy farm girl. Just Hallie’s luck.

  “That’s not all,” Hallie said. “No microbe on earth could transfer, colonize, and kill that quickly. Smallpox takes a week. Ebola symptoms can surface after two days, but it takes a week or more to kill a victim. The only one of those women I had contact with was Rockie, and she died from some kind of allergic reaction.”

  “What do you think?” Buffalo said to the other two.

  Ox shrugged, watching Tolliver.

  “I think she’s full of Beaker bullshit,” the smaller woman said.

  “All right then.” Ox pinned Hallie’s arms behind her.

  “I don’t know,” Buffalo said. She looked as if she were about to ask Hallie a question. A quick metal-on-metal sound and the door opened. Ox let Hallie go, stepped back. A man came in. Hallie recognized Grenier.

  “How’re you doing, Jake?” she asked.

  Perhaps sensing something in her voice, or picking up on body language cues, he looked from woman to woman. “Everything all right here?”

  For a second no one spoke. Then Hallie said, “We just wanted a little privacy. Some woman-to-woman talk.” She gave him a knowing wink.

  “Why are you here?” Tolliver asked him.

  “Somebody said snowmo tracks were in this storeroom.” He glanced around, not completely satisfied.

  Hallie waved. “Good to see you again.”

  “You too, Doc.” He studied the scene one more time, then nodded. “I guess they were wrong about the tracks.”

  When he was gone, Hallie said, “I understand how you feel. And I should have stopped and talked to you, Jan, but I thought my lab partner was in serious trouble.” She paused, looked at each woman in turn. “It’s not me. Something is going on here. I don’t know what, but I’m trying to find out.” The air in the room loosened, a sense of threat dissolving.

  Buffalo looked at the other two. “I think we’re done.”

  “Yeah,” Ox said. She threw Hallie a sheepish look.

  Hallie rubbed the side of her head, grinned. “Quick hands,” she said to Buffalo.

  “I’m from Philly. Boxed a little.”

  “How’d you do?”

  “Eight and three before I quit,” she said, pride showing in her eyes. “No money in it, though.” She looked at Tolliver, said again, “I think we’re done,” and headed for the door. To Hallie: “Really am sorry about that.” Ox followed Buffalo out.

  “We’re good,” Hallie said. At the door she looked back. Tolliver was still standing, arms crossed over her chest. Hallie waved. Tolliver didn’t wave back.

  47

  “ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?” GRAETER ASKED.

  “Yes. Why do you ask?”

  “Your eyes look a little funny.”

  “Bumped my head,” she said.

  “That’ll do it.” He was sitting behind his desk, six darts aligned perfectly on its top. She had come up after her talk with the women. He looked even bonier than the first time she’d seen him, his eyes sunk more deeply into their sockets, the circles under them darker. When he leaned forward and put his elbows on the desk, she saw a slight tremor in his hands. He clasped them together.

  “I think he’s gone,” Graeter said.

  “I don’t understand this,” Hallie said. “I talked to Fida just yesterday. Or maybe the day before. Not sure, exactly. He was tired—exhausted, really—and looked awful, but not a whole lot worse than others I’ve seen down here.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “Emily. He was taking her death hard.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Sure. We talked about their work. This extremophile they found in the cryopeg.”

  “Anything else?” She hesitated, and he saw it. He leaned forward. “Look. I know you think I’m a prick. That’s okay. I am, a lot of the time. But you can trust me.”

  She returned his gaze.

  “Come on. Do I strike you as the devious type?” he asked.

  At first, he had come across as a martinet with a big shoulder chip. And maybe devious. That was then. “No. Since we’re speaking seriously for the first time, you strike me as a man being chased by something. I think it’s probably guilt, but that’s just a guess.”

  “You heard that from Merritt, right? Did she say why she’s at Pole?”

  “She said she was a scientist who’d moved on to administrative work.”

  “True, as far as it goes,” Graeter said.

  “I’m not following you.”

  “Think about it. The Beakers doing research here have a lot to gain—notoriety at the very least, and maybe even some real money if their work gets noticed by Big Pharma or other deep pockets. But not Merritt.”

  “She seems to like her work.”

  “Merritt had a good job with WHO,” Graeter said.

  “The World Health Organization.”

  “Right.”

  “You said ‘had.’ What happened?”

  “Scuttlebutt said she went off the deep end about birth control. Publicly criticized people high in the Bush administration. And the Catholic Church. Even the U.N. That got her fired.”

  “Why should that make her untrustworthy?”

  “Not that. Her firing was news for a few days. But she could have walked right into a cushy professorship. Instead, here she is, working at Alcatraz on ice for seventy-five grand a year. Something doesn’t add up.” He folded his hands, looked at her. “Goose and gander, Dr. Leland.”

  She got it, but hesitated. Had Merritt asked that her comments about Graeter stay strictly confidential? No. Even so, Hallie bridled. But Graeter had been honest with her. Fair was fair.

  “Okay. She said you’d been down here too long and were, um, disturbed.”

  It was the first time she had seen him laugh. Not much of a laugh, more a gargly snort, but clearly he was amused. “Disturbed. Ha. Was that it?”

  “No.”

  “Well?”

  “She mentioned an accident on a submarine. And what happened after.”

  The amusement faded, but, to Hallie’s surprise, it was not replaced by anger. Sadness loosened his clenched features.

  “Is it true?” Hallie asked.

  “It’s true.”

  “The part about the captain and your wife?”

  “True. All of it.”

  “Did you have any children?”

  “No, thank God. Sea duty wasn’t conducive to raising a family.” He looked down at his raw, red hands. What was it he had said? Could still play. Just not allegro anymore. She wondered what other things he could no longer do. Or feel.

  “Mr. Graeter, I’m sorry for the boys on your sub. And for you. My father was West Point, sixty-six. He led men in combat in Vietnam and lost a good many. He’s in Arlington now, but they walked with him until the day he died. The hurt never stopped.”

  “No. It never does.” He took a deep breath, rubbed his eyes, and looked at her in a way she had not
seen before. “A goddamned Army brat. I should have known.”

  She thought, My God. How about that? “Beat Navy.”

  For a moment he just stared. Then he grinned and said, “Beat Army.”

  “Do you know about Vishnu?” she asked.

  “Buddhist god of something or other, right?”

  “Hindu god of preservation.”

  “Whatever. Why?”

  “Agnes Merritt said she’d briefed you about what Emily and Fida were doing.”

  “She said they found something growing down under the ice and brought samples back to the lab.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “I asked her if it could blow up or catch on fire or poison anybody. She said no. That was all I needed.”

  “She didn’t describe the actual research? Tell you why they were calling it Vishnu?”

  “I didn’t need to know that. Not my job. Merritt runs the Beakers and science. I run the station and keep people alive. Paragraph, period, end of story.”

  She laughed.

  “What’s funny?”

  “It’s period, paragraph, end of story.”

  “A period goes at the end of a paragraph last time I checked. Right?”

  “Yes, but—” She laughed again.

  “What’s funny now?”

  “The fact that we can be here amid all the crap that’s been happening, arguing about the correct wording of a trite phrase.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means we could be more alike than either of us has cared to admit.”

  He looked at her with narrowed eyes. “You may be right.”

  “Did you know that NASI is owned by a petroleum corporation called GENERCO?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Do you think GENERCO would have problems with Vishnu?”

  He let slip a half-grin, wiped if off. “You mean, because it eats carbon dioxide and pisses fuel?”

  She gaped. “You knew? All this time?”