Robert Masello - Blood and Ice

“You're looking at a droplet of concentrated, hemoglobin-rich plasma,” he said, snapping on a pair of latex gloves. “My own, in fact.”

Charlotte could see the red blood cells, pale pink in color, with little white spots in the center of each circle.

“Now, watch what happens.”

Darryl bent low over the microscope and opened the slide tray. The video monitor went blank. With a syringe he deposited a tiny drop onto the slide, gently wiped it, and replaced it on the stage. “Normally, I'd fix it properly, but we haven't got time.” He adjusted the view, and the image on the monitor returned.

And apart from the introduction of more leukocytes-the white cells responsible for defending an organism against disease and infection, along with some companion phagocytes-everything appeared the same. The white cells, larger and more lopsided, actively roamed around, as they were supposed to do, in search of bacteria and foreign agents.

“Okay,” Charlotte said, “now we've got a more even mix. What did you just add?”

“A drop of Eleanor's first blood sample. Watch what happens.”

For a few seconds, nothing did. And then all hell broke loose. The white cells, with no bacteria to destroy, began to surround and attack the red, oxygen-bearing cells instead, gobbling them up until none were left. It was a wholesale slaughter. And no warm-blooded organism, Charlotte knew, could survive very long with the kind of blood supply that was left.

Charlotte looked over at Darryl in shock, who simply said, “I know. But watch this.”

Again, he swiveled the slide tray, and used another syringe to take a sample from one of the many glass vials on the counter-the masking tape on that one, Charlotte noted, was labeled AFGP-5- and then altered the original slide again.

The picture on the video, which had been reduced to a wildly heaving mass of white cells and phagocytes scavenging for further prey, gradually calmed down, like a sea after the storm had passed. Another element had intruded, and those particles moved like ships sailing on the now becalmed waters.

Unattacked.

“Those are the glycoproteins,” Darryl said, without waiting for Charlotte to ask, “from the Cryothenia specimens. Antifreeze glycoproteins-AFGP, for short. They're the natural proteins that bind to any ice crystals in the bloodstream, immediately arresting their growth. In the fish, they circulate like the oxygen does, within the plasma itself. It's a very neat evolutionary trick, and one that might save Eleanor's life.”

“How?”

“If she could tolerate its periodic ingestion-and her blood counts look like she could tolerate anything short of strychnine- she could live a fairly normal life.”

“Where?” Charlotte said. “At the bottom of the ocean?”

“No,” Darryl said, patiently, “right here. Anywhere. She wouldn't need red cells and hemoglobin any more than the fish do. But there would be a couple of caveats,” he added, with a helpless shrug. “For one, she'd essentially be a cold-blooded creature, only able to warm herself from external sources-the way, say, that a snake does, by lying in the sun.”

Charlotte shuddered at the thought.

“And the second poses a more immediate threat.”

“It's worse?”

“You be the judge.” Darryl picked up a clean slide, rubbed it vigorously against the dry skin on the back of Charlotte's hand, then put it under the microscope. The living and dead cells appeared on the video monitor. Then, he added a drop of the AFGP-5. Nothing happened; it was a picture of peaceful coexistence.

“This is a good sign?” Charlotte asked, glancing over at Darryl.

He was holding an ice cube between two gloved fingers, his pinkie delicately extended. Gently touching the ice to the surface of the slide, he said, “Keep your eye on the magic monitor.”

On the screen, even the tiniest corner of the ice cube was like a glacier, instantly blotting out half the field. Darryl promptly removed it, but the damage had been done. Like a wind blowing across a pond, a million tiny fissures rippled across the surface of the slide, touching each skin cell and radiating outward in all directions until, finally, all activity had stopped. What had been moving and circulating only seconds before was completely still. Frozen. Dead.

“As you can see, once you let ice come into direct contact with tissue, all bets are off.”

“I thought the AFGP-5 would prevent that.”

“It can prevent ice crystals from propagating in the bloodstream, but not from binding to the skin cells,” Darryl said. “That's why antifreeze fish stay well below the ice cap.”

“Eleanor should have no problem with that,” Charlotte said.

“But can she make sure-absolutely sure-that she never touches ice in any form? That she never takes a cold drink and lets an ice cube graze her lips? That she never slips on a sidewalk and puts her bare hand down on an icy patch of ground? That she never reaches into a freezer, absentmindedly, to remove a bag of frozen vegetables?”

“And if she did?”

“She'd freeze so hard, she'd shatter like glass.”

December 25, 1:15 p.m.

Michael had bundled eleanor up in so many layers, even her own mother would not have known her. She was just a bundle of clothes, moving slowly across the frozen concourse. Michael kept a lookout in all directions, but there was no one around. That was the thing about going for a walk in Antarctica-you weren't likely to bump into many other pedestrians, even on Christmas Day. As they passed the old meat locker, he hurried her along, then, when they got near Betty and Tina's glaciology lab, he did so again; in the core yard, he could hear a buzz saw going. Eleanor gave him a curious glance, but he shook his head and pulled her along. At the kennel, a couple of the dogs stood up, their tails wagging, hoping to be taken for a run, but fortunately they didn't bark. The lights were on in the marine biology lab, which was a good sign. Michael hoped that Darryl was hard at work, perfecting some solution to Eleanor and Sinclair's problem.

Off in the distance, apart from most of the other modules, he saw his destination, and guided Eleanor toward it. They passed under the wooden trellis, then up the ramp. Even under all the clothes she was shivering.

Michael opened the door, parted the plastic curtains just inside, and ushered her into the botany lab proper. Hot, humid air suddenly engulfed them, and Eleanor gasped in surprise. He drew her farther inside and helped her to unzip her coat and pull off her hat and gloves. Her hair fell loose around her shoulders, but there was a welcome spot of color in her cheeks. And her green eyes shone.

Shrugging off his own outer gear, he said, “They study all kinds of plants in here-the local variety, to the extent that there are any, and foreign. Antarctica's still the cleanest environment on earth for lab work.” He brushed away the long hair that was plastered to his forehead. “But the way things are going, it may not be for long.”

Eleanor had already wandered away, drawn by the fragrant aroma of fat strawberries, ripening on the vines that hung from the hydroponic pipes that crisscrossed the ceiling. Their green leaves, with the serrated edges, were studded with white flowers and yellow buds, and the berries, wet from the misting tubes, glistened in the artificial light. Ackerley had rigged up the whole lab himself, so it was a mixture of high-tech equipment and jerry-built contraptions, aluminum tubes and rubber hoses, plastic buckets and high-intensity discharge lamps. At the moment, the lamps were on low, but as Eleanor, with her eyes closed, buried her face in the flowering vines, Michael flicked the lamps to high.

Instantly, the whole area was flooded with light, magnified by rows of reflectors that Ackerley had fashioned from coat hangers and tinfoil. The strawberries glowed like rubies, the white petals gleamed, the droplets of water clinging to the green leaves sparkled like diamonds. Eleanor's eyes sprang open, then she shielded them with her hand, laughing.