Analog SFF, June 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  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.

  After gathering worms from a third and fourth pool, she retraced her steps and made her way back up the series of narrow ledges she'd descended from the surface. She'd nearly reached the top when the ground began to shake. The shaking was almost imperceptible at first, but it increased so rapidly that she was already on her hands and knees by the time she realized what was happening. Her eyes widened in horror as she watched the individual particles of grit and sand begin to vibrate, then flow like water beneath her. At the same time, bits of rock tumbled down past her, small at first, then larger. Without thinking, she began scrambling up the ledge on her hands and knees. In her mind's eye, she saw herself carried down over the shelf behind her, her arms and legs flailing helplessly at the loose rock as she tumbled into the seething depths.

  Then, just when she thought she would never reach the top, the trembling suddenly stopped. For a moment she didn't move. She held her breath, unwilling to let herself believe that the earthquake was over. One second passed, then another. Slowly, she rose to her feet. She'd made it. She'd survived. She'd faced the worst Slag had to offer and she was still alive!

  At least, that's what she told herself—right up to the moment the explosion knocked her off her feet.

  Liz saw the flames through the mist even before she reached the ground station. Tobias was standing in front of the duroplast igloo in his orange survival suit. The wind whipped clouds of dust around him as he watched the shuttle burn. A large boulder, which the quake had shaken loose from the face of the ice sheet, had tumbled down the slope and knocked the shuttle onto its side, rupturing one of its fuel tanks.

  "Lassiter and Cantrell aren't going to like this,” he said as Liz approached. “It's going to cost the Consortium way too much money.” He gave her a wry wink. “Of course, now they can't order us to come back early, can they? Not with their only shuttle burned to a crisp."

  "At least, you're okay,” Liz said. She squinted up at the green-tinged flames licking into the darkness above them.

  "I was inside the igloo,” he said. “If I'd been out here, I'd probably be toast."

  Fortunately, the autopilot had landed them far enough from the igloo that the structure hadn't been destroyed by the explosion, though one side was blackened and appeared to have been flattened by the concussion.

  Like Tobias, Liz assumed that Superintendent Cantrell would be boiling mad over the loss of the shuttle, but when they reached him on the com-link built into the igloo's management console, neither he nor Advocate Lassiter reacted with the anger she expected.

  "Oh, my . . .” Advocate Lassiter said. “We didn't plan on anything like this. This is . . . well, we really didn't expect anything like this.” With the interference in the upper atmosphere, his image wavered at times, distorting his features, but there was no mistaking the nervous twitch at the corner of his mouth.

  "I warned her,” Cantrell said, coming into view behind him. “I told her the surface was unstable.” He stooped down to scowl at Liz over Lassiter's shoulder. “You knew the risks. You knew what you were getting into."

  "Look, we'll be just fine,” Liz said, raising her voice over the static. “When the mining ships get here, you can send down another shuttle to pick us up. In the meantime, we'll just get on with our investigation."

  "Yes. Yes, of course . . .” Lassiter said, wringing his hands. “Everything will be fine. I'm sure we'll work something out.” He tried to smile, but with the erratic twitch he'd developed, he couldn't quite pull it off.

  * * * *

  "I wonder what that was all about,” Liz said after they'd broken the connection.

  Tobias shrugged. “I don't know, but I expect we'll find out."

  Liz frowned, but when she could think of no satisfactory explanation for the behavior they'd witnessed, she turned her attention to the specimens she'd brought back from the crevice. “Wait until you see these worms,” she said as she dumped them into a stainless-steel tray filled with runoff from the ice sheet. “You aren't going to believe the performance they put on."

  The worms immediately formed several small bundles, similar to what she'd seen outside. They even radiated the same patterns of light that slid smoothly from one worm to the next, but despite her repeated efforts, they refused to respond to her voice.

  "The luminescence could be some kind of automatic response,” Tobias suggested. “Like the chemical signals bacteria pass to each other, or the pheromones insects use when their nest is under attack."

  Liz scowled down at the worms. “I could have sworn they were responding to my voice.” She sighed, shaking her head. “I don't know . . . maybe it was just wishful thinking on my part . . . wanting to believe that the Anunnaki had actually been here, that we were going to find some kind of proof in the worms’ DNA."

  "I don't know about the Anunnaki,” Tobias said. “But it's clear someone tinkered with the DNA of at least some of Slag's life-forms."

  "Really? Up on the ship, you said that was just a theory."

  "True, but while you were out talking to your worm friends, I was busy scraping slime off the rocks back behind the igloo, and it turns out that the algae have an extra chromosome that lets them generate the free oxygen they release into the environment. To me, it looks synthetic."

  "Synthetic?"

  Tobias nodded. “Normal chromosomes evolve by trial and error. They have lots of different genes that participate in all sorts of metabolic processes, not to mention bunches of superfluous nucleotide pairs that do nothing at all. This chromosome has none of that. No extra genes, not a single unnecessary nucleotide pair. It's all business—like it was especially designed for one job, and only one job. A job, which, by the way, doesn't provide the algae with any survival advantage at all. Nature just doesn't work like that. The chromosome has to have been engineered."

  "Then it had to be the Anunnaki, right? I mean, who else could it have been?"

  Tobias laughed. “For me, the real question is why? Why would anyone want to modify the ecology of a hellhole like Slag."

  "Maybe the worms’ DNA will tell us something,” she suggested. “If they evolved a symbiotic relationship with the algae, they could be the key."

  "Maybe,” he said, “but—"

  He was interrupted by a series of loud beeps from the management console on the far side of the igloo.

  "I don't believe it,” he said, glaring across the room. “That's the third alarm since we landed."

  Crossing to the console, he seated himself in front of the monitor and brought up the display for their environmental systems. “We're running out of ferric chloride for the air scrubbers,” he said. “We'll need to switch over to the backup tank."

  "I can do that while you're looking at the worms,” Liz volunteered, anxious for him to get on with his analysis.

  As Tobias returned to the worms, she slid into his chair and began working her way through the menus for the environmental systems.

  "Uh-oh,” she said under her breath. She leaned forward, her eyes narrowing as she studied the numbers on the screen. “I think we have a problem."

  Tobias, who was sliding samples of worm DNA into his portable gene analyzer, looked up. “A problem?"

  "We're already using the backup tank. Apparently, the survey crew switched over before they left, and no one bothered to send down a replacement. I guess they figured they weren't coming back."

  Tobias came back across the igloo and leaned down to peer into the monitor over her shoulder. “So that's why Lassiter and Cantrell were so nervous."

  Liz looked up at him, her eyes widening. “Cantrell knew we'
d run out of reactant, didn't he?"

  "He figured we'd be forced to return to the ship."

  "Only now we can't return."

  Tobias nodded grimly.

  "So how long will the oxygen last?” Liz asked.

  "Oh, the oxygen will last quite a while,” he said, frowning. “That's not the problem."

  "It isn't?"

  He shook his head. “Sniff."

  She sniffed. “Rotten eggs,” she said.

  "The earthquake damaged the airlock,” he said. “I also found a crack in the duroplast, back along the wall behind those cabinets.” He pointed toward a row of storage cabinets lining the rear wall of the igloo. “Without the scrubbers, we're going to get a buildup of hydrogen sulfide. We can't even refill the tanks in our survival suits."

  "How much time do we have?” she asked.

  He frowned, thinking. “I don't know. Two hours, maybe three. Hydrogen sulfide isn't like carbon dioxide. It's more like hydrogen cyanide. It binds with the iron in your hemoglobin. Once it reaches your cells, it shuts down energy production in your mitochondria. Your metabolism grinds to a halt."

  "Does it hurt?"

  Tobias thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Not for long."

  * * * *

  "We have a plan,” Advocate Lassiter announced as soon as they reached him over the igloo's com-link. The interference had worsened, and he had to shout to make himself heard over the static. “We're going to modify a probe and send down a canister of ferric chloride for the scrubbers. Superintendent Cantrell is personally supervising the work.” His soft jowls glistened with perspiration as he peered nervously out at them through the snow on the monitor.

  "Oh, so you weren't actually planning to kill us,” Tobias shouted back. “That's reassuring."

  Lassiter winced, not looking either of them in the eye. “No one thought we'd need a second shuttle. We never thought there'd be any reason to go down to the surface."

  "How long does Cantrell think it's going to take?” Liz asked.

  "He's down in the maintenance bay right now,” Lassiter answered. He glanced away, as though he might actually be able to see the superintendent through the multiple bulkheads separating him from the maintenance bay. “None of this was supposed to happen."

  "I understand that,” Liz said. She clenched her fists in her lap, forcing herself to remain calm. “But we need an answer. How long is it going to take? We only have two hours."

  She knew that wasn't quite true, of course. They had another two hours before the hydrogen sulfide in the igloo reached lethal levels, but after that they would have two or three more hours of air in the tanks of their survival suits.

  "We didn't plan on any of this,” Lassiter rattled on. As he spoke, the transmission began to break up. “It never occurred to anyone that we could lose the shuttle in an earthquake. It was all just a terrible combination of misfortunes."

  "How long?” Tobias shouted, no longer able to contain his anger. “Just answer the question!"

  "Two hours,” Lassiter blurted as his image all but dissolved in the snow on the monitor. “Superintendent Cantrell says he can have the probe down to you in two hours."

  * * * *

  While they waited, Liz and Tobias worked—as much to keep their minds off what was happening as to learn more about the worms.

  "I can't believe the worms’ DNA,” Tobias said after he'd finished his initial analysis. “They now have more genes than we do. More than a hundred thousand. It's like the genes for a whole new species have been added into their genome. The genes for the old species, the organism that metabolized hydrogen sulfide, are still there, but its genes have been turned off."

  "Then the Anunnaki really were trying to lift them out of their old environment."

  "Someone was. It looks like the whole ecosystem has been reengineered. Maybe not to the extent that we would have modified it if we wanted people to live here, but enough for the worms to survive with an oxygen metabolism."

  "But why?” Liz asked.

  Tobias shook his head. “I have no idea. Like I said, organisms that metabolize oxygen produce more energy than chemotrophs, but why the Anunnaki would care is beyond me. All we can do is look at more worms, see if we can figure out which other characteristics were turned off and which were added."

  They had just put another dozen samples into the gene analyzer when Advocate Lassiter notified them that Cantrell had launched the probe with two backup canisters of reactant for the scrubbers. Snapping their faceplates shut, Liz and Tobias hurried outside to wait.

  * * * *

  "There it is,” Tobias shouted, pointing up through the wisps of orange mist.

  The probe's exhaust plume guttered like a burning arrow against the dark mass of the gas giant above them. The small craft slid slowly across the sky, then, when it was nearly overhead, the exhaust plume winked out.

  "That's it,” Liz said, peering down at the mission assistant wrapped around her forearm. “The probe has deployed its parachute. Now it's all up to the computers."

  Looking up into the darkness, she saw a momentary stab of white light as the probe briefly fired one of its steering thrusters. The onboard navigational computer had been programmed to bring it down on a level area of rock about a hundred yards away. One or another of the steering jets fired several more times as the small craft descended toward their position.

  "Everything looks fine,” Liz said, studying the readout on her assistant. “It should be down in another thirty seconds."

  Suddenly a blast of wind gusted down from the ice sheet behind them, buffeting Liz with bits of rock and sand. If the probe had been lower, the wind wouldn't have carried it as far as the fissure. If it had been higher, it might have had time to correct its descent. But the gust came at exactly the wrong moment, and Liz and Tobias could only watch as the small craft was carried out over the abyss, its steering jets firing a constant blast of white flame as it dropped into the cauldron of iron-rich magma below.

  * * * *

  "We don't have another probe,” Advocate Lassiter shouted over the static when they reached him on the igloo's com-link. The interference was now so bad that they could barely make out his face through the snow. “We need time to figure out another solution."

  "In case you haven't noticed, we're running out of time,” Tobias shouted back. “The hydrogen sulfide levels are now above five hundred parts per million. We can't even take off our helmets."

  In the brief moments that the transmission cleared, Liz could see that Lassiter's eyes were damp with anguish, his lips trembling. “If there were anything we could do, anything at all . . .” he said.

  "How long until the mining ships get here?” Liz asked. She could feel the fear clutching like gnarled fingers at her chest.

  "They're at maximum acceleration,” Cantrell said. He paced behind Lassiter, little more than a shadow on the snow filled monitor. “This is costing us an arm and a leg.” He stopped, his face coming into focus as he leaned toward them. “But money's no object, okay? We'll spend whatever it takes."

  "How long?” Tobias repeated.

  The superintendent straightened, shoving his hands into the pocket of his tunic. “Seventy-three hours."

  Tobias glanced down at his own mission assistant, then up at Cantrell. “Perfect,” he said. “You're only going to miss by three days."

  "I don't know what to say,” Advocate Lassiter shouted. “We never planned on any of this."

  "That's the problem,” Tobias said as he reached out to break the connection. “You never planned on anything."

  * * * *

  "I don't think Lassiter and Cantrell did this on purpose,” Liz said. “I mean, I don't think they really intended to kill us."

  Tobias shrugged. “Probably not,” he conceded as he paced the floor behind her. “Unfortunately, that doesn't do us a lot of—” He broke off, pausing to peer down at the monitor for the gene analyzer.

  "What?” Liz said, rising to join him. “What ar
e you looking at?"

  Tobias’ features were partially obscured by the cascade of numbers reflected off his faceplate, but there was no mistaking the intensity of his concentration. His whole body was locked forward, his eyes fixed on the screen.

  "That's not right . . .” he said. “That shouldn't be . . ."

  "What's not right?” she asked.

  "The DNA analysis,” he murmured. “I've never seen anything like it. The introns are all wrong."

  "Introns?” she said.

  "The genetic code between our genes,” he explained. “Like I was telling you earlier, those long double helixes that make up our chromosomes aren't just genes—not when they evolved naturally. In fact, long stretches of the helixes contain no genes at all. Some of the in-between code turns genes on and off, but a lot of it's just junk. It no longer serves any purpose, or it may never have served any purpose. It's nothing but meaningless nucleotide sequences that repeat themselves from one generation to the next in response to the laws of chemistry. It has no higher purpose at all."

  "My field's archaeology, remember?” Liz said. “I understand how DNA works in principle, but the specifics . . .” She spread her hands in surrender.

  "What's important is that the nonfunctional part of the code—the part that serves no apparent purpose—replicates itself from one generation to the next, just like the functional part does. That means that the introns from two different members of the same species should look pretty much the same. Yours and my introns, for example, will be at least as similar as our functional code. But the worms’ nonfunctional introns are different from one specimen to the next. Very different. Pick any one worm, and its introns will be entirely different from the next one you pick. Well, usually they'll be different. In a couple of instances they're the same. Which makes the whole situation even more confusing."

  "I don't understand,” she said.

  "Neither do I,” he said. He scrunched his mouth to one side, thinking. “Their functional genes are almost identical—like yours and mine, but the introns . . .” He shook his head. “It probably has something to do with the genetic reengineering we were talking about. But how, I don't know. All I can really determine is that the worms’ older hydrogen-sulfide genes were turned off and the new oxygen-breathing genes were turned on."