Phytosphere

by Scott Mackay

  Gerry shook his head. “You see, Luke, that’s where I disagree with my brother’s approach. I’ve studied all kinds of phytoplankton. They develop quick resistance to any kind of toxin and, in many cases, certain toxins will promote their growth. And let’s not forget, a toxin will be the first thing the Tarsalans look for.

  I mean, my God, here’s a race whose individual members have two brains apiece. It’s been proven by scientific study that they outthink humans again and again. And you honestly believe they haven’t thought of a toxic approach yet? You can’t fool the Tarsalans.”

  “From what I understand, your brother doesn’t plan on fooling the Tarsalans. He plans on fooling the organism itself. And I believe he’s going to be successful. Your brother’s a brilliant scientist. He has the greatest minds behind him. He has the full resources of the United States at his disposal. He’s had wide experience at managing large projects. Unlike you, he’s a goal-oriented problem-solver. I’m sorry, Gerry, but you sit inside a problem, look around, admire the view, meditate…and nothing concrete gets done. I’ll admit that perhaps at some time in the future, when this crisis is over, the flagella might bear a closer, if extraneous, investigation. But right now we have to focus on destroying the phytosphere, not just staring at it as if it were an intriguing plaything.”

  “This toxin is going to turn out to be the dead end, Luke, mark my words. And I don’t see how you can’t recognize the importance of the flagella. The flagella are where we should begin, because they’re the only part of the xenophyta’s body that function outside the carapace. And if I were going to use a toxin, I wouldn’t waste my time trying to bite through the carapace with an omniphage. I would go directly for the flagella apertures, because the apertures offer an already existing means of ingress. Neil thinks he can bash his way in anywhere. He’s always favored the frontal assault.”

  “That’s because it works.”

  “I believe his methods often lead to blind spots. Sometimes it’s better to step back. Sometimes it’s better to take the wide view. The kind of science Neil practices may be too goal-oriented. You have to let the science speak to you, not the other way around. You can’t dictate to the science, the way Neil does.” He shook his head and sighed. “I’m sorry, Luke, but you’re backing the wrong horse.”

  “At least your brother has a horse.”

  Gerry glanced at the others, then turned to the elderly Martian. “Then fine. Go, Luke. We don’t need you. Getting through the carapace isn’t going to make any difference in the long haul.”

  “It’s Dr. Thorndike’s belief that it might make all the difference in the world.”

  Gerry was in the Alleyne-Parma Observatory later that night. This… this tourist attraction was his primary research platform. Heaven’s Eye rose beside him, done up like a sea captain’s telescope, with gold curlicues and florets along the side. Maybe Luke was right. Maybe the Moon effort was ridiculous.

  The observatory staff had gone home. He glanced at his watch. Just past midnight. The best time of day to think.

  He sat in front of the monitors—the special ones the techies at AviOrbit had hooked up to Heaven’s Eye for him—and he had the distinct feeling, impossible yet magical, that Glenda would emerge from the shadows and tell him to come to bed. He was worried. If only he could get through. He thought of his den at home. She would come into his den, and she would say, “Come to bed, Ger, it’s getting late.”

  And…and…He looked into the shadows of the observatory and realized he would give anything to see her one more time.

  He turned back to the monitors and concentrated. He had to go back to asking basic questions. And he guessed the most basic question was this: Why were some spots on the phytosphere dark while others were light?

  Gerry’s shoulders stiffened. He leaned forward and looked at the phytosphere more closely. “Good question, Gerry.”

  Yes, here it was, the quiet nighttime inspiration. He remembered Luke Langstrom’s words. You sit inside a problem, look around, admire the view, and meditate. Maybe that was the only way. Maybe true insight came only to those who allowed their brains to function on several levels, in the wee hours of the morn.

  The color variations proved elusive. He chose a couple of simple function keys and heightened the contrast. The difference between light and dark became more pronounced. Possible answers? Varying thickness. What would cause varying thickness in the phytosphere? Barometric pressure? Did the phytosphere have its own weather system? Sitting on top of the troposphere, with tentacles dropping down into the troposphere’s cold trap for moisture supply, did the phytosphere possibly echo, in a faint way, the disturbances that were happening in that real weathermaker?

  He shook his head. He didn’t have the data to answer this question, and until he could measure the real-time weather in the troposphere against the mottling effect in the phytosphere, this particular hypothesis would have to remain in the realm of speculation.

  Funny, the way the brain thought if you just let it go. Is this what the Tarsalans did? Let their brains go?

  Both their brains? When he let go, questions linked themselves in long chains. The next link in the chain of this particular problem came to him unbidden: Was there a pattern to the color variation?

  He focused on the real-time footage that was coming in directly from Heaven’s Eye.

  He had to watch it for a half hour before he could say with any certainty that the shades were actually shifting—so slowly that the change was nearly imperceptible to the human eye.

  He turned his attention to the archival footage of the shroud, over a month’s worth of nonstop round-the-clock digitized images, the kind of long-term observations he liked to watch so much. He keyed in a command that brought it right to the start, two days after the initial meeting in the H. G. Wells Ballroom.

  He played the footage, sped it up—sometimes patterns became more apparent when they were accelerated.

  He watched for the next hour, compressing a full day into sixty minutes. And he definitely saw dark patches change into light patches, and vice versa, but the attenuations were too random for him to definitively conclude that there was any pattern.

  So he compressed a week into sixty minutes, and by the time three o’clock rolled around he had seen it seven times, an amorphous band of lighter coloration passing from east to west in a definite pattern.

  Toward the equator, the band of lighter patches broke apart, and some even whirlpooled, as if caught in a weather system. He was somewhat disappointed. He felt fairly certain that what he had here was a kind of weather system inside the phytosphere. That it seemed to be on a daily cycle with a twenty-four-hour periodicity made him suspect it might be artificial, and that the Tarsalans had created it—maybe as a housecleaning tool for the phytosphere, or perhaps as one of its operational aspects.

  He shook his head. He wasn’t sure how he could turn this to his advantage. He sighed as his shoulders sank. Was this another flagella-type dead end? Was the proper approach just to kill the phytosphere any way they could, rather than try to understand it first?

  What could be another possible reason for the change in coloration, other than an artificially created weather system? A chemical change? What was an indicator of chemical change? Heat. Bingo. How could he measure heat? He would need to hook up some infrared equipment to this appalling tourist attraction.

  He left the telescope and went to the circular hall ringing the observatory. He passed the washrooms, the gift shop, and finally came to the observatory office.

  In the office, he phoned Mitch Bennett—he didn’t care what time it was; he had to talk to Mitch and find out whether this was doable.

  “Hello?” The tone of Mitch’s greeting was worried, as one might expect from a phone call at three o’clock in the morning.

  Gerry told him what he wanted.

  “Infrared?” said Mitch, as if the request were impossible. “Have you met Ira Levinson? He’s the one everybody’s always mista
king for a brick wall.”

  “I just want to get a better idea of what we’re looking at in terms of temperature fluctuations in the phytosphere. I could be on to something here, Mitch.” Or he could be grasping at straws.

  “Yes, but we don’t have any infrared units out of mothballs right now. Years ago we used infrared for tracking, but since we upgraded to singularity drives, we haven’t used the infrared stuff in… in decades.

  And I’m sure most of it’s been sold off.”

  “Most?”

  Mitch paused. “Ira and I have never gotten along.”

  “Yes, but is there any left?”

  “Hang on, let me check my waferscreen… it’s been acting funny lately. I’ll see if I can…” Mitch disappeared from the vidscreen and all Gerry got for a few seconds was a view of rumpled sheets. Then Mitch came back, sat on the bed, adjusted the vidcam upward, and Gerry saw his sleep-swollen face.

  “I’m just looking at the record right now…. That stuff’s expensive.” Mitchseemed to be going through a long list. “Ira’s not going to want us dicking with it. If there’s any left, I’m sure he’s planning to sell it.

  And anything earmarked for liquidation…He’s obsessed with the bottom line, Gerry. We’re in a competitive, high-stakes, frontier industry.”

  “Yes, but can you—”

  “Hold on, hold on… I’ve got it, and it’s…” He watched Mitch’s brow fold with misgiving. “Ah, shit.”

  As the diminutive AviOrbit representative hardly ever swore, the expletive indicated something truly awry.

  “What?”

  “We’ve got a unit crated in one of the orbiting warehouses. The retrieval expense…he’s not going to like it.”

  “Can we take the sky elevator up and check it out?”

  Mitch paused. “Gerry… let me be blunt.” A look of intense skepticism came to Mitch’s eyes. “Ira isn’t so convinced by you.”

  Alarm pinched Gerry’s chest. “Why? He doesn’t even know me.”

  “It’s just that there’s this impression… and it’s been going around… and he’s gotten wind of it. Ira’s a technocrat, an engineer. What do you expect? He thinks pure science is a waste of time.”

  “If it’s just old junk, I don’t see why we can’t take a look at it.”

  “Yes, but this particular unit in the catalog here is a light-gathering optical refractor. We’d have to hook it up to an IR array and conduit, and that’s going to take an engineering staff, which in turn means a proposal, which in turn means Ira. Remember Ira? He’s the guy people mistake for a brick wall.”

  “Mitch, this is important. I’m not sure where it’s going, but I know it’s going somewhere.”

  “Now, there’s a proposal Ira’s going to like.”

  “Let me talk to him.”

  Mitch’s face reddened. “No… no. I better do the talking. We might not get along, but I know how to handle him.” He looked away with sudden despondency, as if he had abandoned all hope. “I’ll get into my shark cage, and I’ll make sure I have my stun gun, and that my will’s in order, and I’ll tell Ira that I’m not sure where we’re going, but that I think we’re going somewhere. And then I’ll pray.”

  13

  Glenda reached for Gerry’s side of the bed. She peered toward the alarm clock, hoping to see its dim blue digits, praying that the utility company might have restored power by this time, because wasn’t this going on a bit too long? Didn’t they understand that the dark freaked people out, and that to make people live in the dark all the time was simply too much?

  All she saw, as she stared in the general direction of the alarm clock, was more darkness.

  She pulled her hands close to her collarbones, curling into a fetal position.

  She lay there for close to an hour, and that’s when the power came back on. She heard the electric baseboards crackling, heard her own voice on the answering machine, “Hi, this is the home of Glenda, Gerry, Jake, and Hanna Thorndike,” et cetera, et cetera, and at last heard the television go on, the president’s voice coming over the Emergency Broadcast System—yes, Bayard’s measured game-show cadences.

  She sprang out of bed and hurried to the living room. She blinked in the light. She wasn’t used to seeing light. The lamp beside Gerry’s chair was on. So was the porch light. The fluorescent light above the kitchen sink was on and spilled its bluish glow over the dining room floor.

  “Units of the First, Second, and Eighth Infantry Units have been moved into place, and there have been fierce clashes along the state borders, but so far the Army has yet to break the stranglehold. These three states house some of our largest emergency food supply depots. You can rest assured that I’m doing everything in my power to keep the supply lines open, and I consider the unilateral actions of Governors Fitton, Peters, and Marles, as well as their Western Secessionist supporters, to be criminal. I can pledge to the American people that all three governors will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, once the situation is brought under control. Until such time, our relief efforts will be severely hampered, and at this point we can’t guarantee any of our previously scheduled relief drops, and ask you to bear with us while our military units attempt to regain control of these critical food stockpiles. Until such time, the First Lady and I offer our sincerest prayers, and urge you—”

  And that was it, because with a percussive click and the trace flash of a sudden power surge, the electricity failed once again and the house was plunged into darkness.

  “Mom?” Jake’s voice.

  “It’s okay, sweetie.”

  “Was the power back on?”

  “For a bit. Go back to sleep.”

  “I’m hungry.”

  “I’m going to ask Leigh if he can give us some more food tomorrow.”

  Because from the look of things, the government wasn’t going to come through anymore. From the look of things, the Western Secessionists were at last ruining the country. Which meant the food situation had just gone from bad to impossible. And come to think of it, why hadn’t the television woken Hanna up?

  Hanna was sleeping way too much.

  Glenda waited for her eyes to get used to the dark, then felt her way through the living room and went down the hall into Hanna’s room. Couldn’t see a thing—it was truly an absence of all light, especially when the power was off, that made things so difficult.

  She stumbled into Hanna’s bed, her shin hitting its steel frame—a lot of bumps and bruises for everyone, wandering around in the dark all the time—and she heard Hanna’s deep and heavy breathing, her lungs crackling, always half inflamed. She sat on the edge of Hanna’s bed and put her hand on Hanna’s leg.

  That’s when Glenda heard a truck coming down the highway. She thought it might be an Army truck bringing food relief. But then she recognized the steady putt-putt of a civilian truck, and wondered who would be driving down the highway in the middle of the night. The middle of the day? Which was it?

  Headlight beams made squares of light on the wall, and as the truck drew closer, the squares moved, passed over Hanna’s shelf of stuffed animals, rested momentarily on her grade-five district-wide spelling bee plaque, and finally shifted obliquely as the truck pulled up Leigh Phelps’s driveway.

  She got off the end of Hanna’s bed and walked to the windows. A pickup truck crunched up the gravel, two men riding in the back and one driving. They pulled up to Leigh’s house and got out. They had rifles—hunting weapons that she could see in the glow of the headlights—and she knew that Leigh’s fears had been justified after all, that the look he had seen in Jamie’s eyes had been enough.

  It was a crossroads for her, because she had the extra rifle now, and knew how to shoot—all those summers partridge hunting with her father in Kansas—and it was the moral thing to do, get her rifle and stand shoulder to shoulder with her neighbor against these men, especially because she was planning to ask Leigh for food again tomorrow. But the risk was too great. She had to survive. Not for
herself but for her children. She would not put herself in harm’s way, not unless it was for Hanna and Jake.

  So she retreated from the window, fearful that they might have seen her face in the glare of the headlights. She sat on Hanna’s bed, gripped her daughter by the leg, and shook her. Hanna moaned, then said her usual, “One more minute,” but must have at last sensed something strange going on because she pushed herself up, cleared the hair from her face, and squinted at the glow of the headlights coming in through the windows.

  “Sweetie, we have to go to the basement.”

  “Why?”

  “Remember what we talked about.”

  Hanna’s sleepiness immediately lifted and her blank look of slumber was transformed into one of alarm.

  They left Hanna’s room and walked down the hall to get Jake.

  Jake was already up and looking out his own window, down on one knee, a yard back from the casement and well into the shadows so that any chance glare from the headlights wouldn’t catch his face.

  He glanced over his shoulder as his mother and sister entered. He didn’t say a word, but his expression, at once solemn and concerned, with a knit to his tawny brow, revealed a boy who simply accepted, who had made the transition, who understood and was now resigned to the ways of this dark world.

  He got up and lifted his Handheld Sport from his desk, a game-playing device that no longer worked because it got its recharge from sunlight.

  He followed them down the hall to the basement stairs.

  They descended the narrow, steep stairs into the shallow basement—more a storm cellar—and, as was so often the case these days, especially since the power had become intermittent, Glenda found herself in a world of touch. The banister was smooth and cool against her palm. The dank smell of the cellar permeated her nostrils. Her children creaked down the stairs behind her. Her foot hit the basement’s concrete floor with a light scuffing sound. She reached for her rifle, which she had leaned against the wall at the foot of the stairs.