David Dun - The Black Silent

He found a box in it, which he opened. It revealed a very large crank handle, apparently the anchor winch handle for the fiberglass tender boat. It wasn't a key, but it might do to smash one of the heavy windows.

He went to the rear window of the pilothouse on the starboard side next to the ladder to the upper bridge. As he drew the handle back, he stopped short, thinking he ought to look under each stair leading to the flybridge. He went down to his knees and felt under the first stair: there, velcroed underneath, was a key; it opened the pilothouse.

He stepped inside, his eyes looking for an alarm box. Immediately he saw the keypad and knew they were finished. Then he saw the small green light, not blinking or flashing. It was too good to be true. He shone his flashlight on the control box. The word Unarmed appeared. He could not recall being so lucky, or a wealthy owner so foolish- blessedly foolish.

One pleasant feature of this floating castle was the very large moat surrounding it. Even at the poky ten knots that was the vessel's top speed, there was no way to come on the boat easily, except over the stern, and Sam could hold off an army there in the short term. aAs quick as he could, he took Haley and Sarah below to the master stateroom, which he knew would be amidships. Using the ship's flashlights, he covered the windows with blackout curtains.

It was just over twenty-one feet across the stateroom and it had a large king-size bed on one side and a small study area and library on the other. On the side opposite the bed in the master suite stood a section of wall with floor-to-ceiling bookcases and cabinets, along with a built-in desk.

The two women went in the marble-tiled bathroom and climbed in the shower. From the sound of it they were greeted with a powerful spray of water. Sam stripped and found pants and a shirt that fit him and then found clothes that looked like they might fit the women. He tossed them through the bathroom door.

In about three minutes Haley was out of the shower and helping Sarah into the bed.

Sarah was still shaking and beyond exhausted. Sam and Haley sat on the bed and opened the laptop. It took sixty seconds to find the recipe for Sargasso stew. Below it they found information about sorting through Arc genes using Venter's computer technology. At the bottom of the page was a stand-alone notation: Archaea — closer than you know.

Haley put her chin on her fist, deep in thought.

"What do you see?" he asked after what seemed a reasonable time.

"Archaea is an organism that makes methane-or consumes it-that lives almost forever and for whom oxygen is poison. So he says they are closer to me than I know.

But their DNA is circular, I believe. It's primitive even if it's closer to ours than, say, a five-thousand-gene bacteria. But none of that leads me anywhere. It's just a bunch of facts. For some reason Ben's sorting through a bunch of different Arc genes from different Arc species. If only I knew why. This is a stew, for sure. I see why Ben likened it to the Sargasso stew."

"Sarah, where are Ben's files on this computer?"

"Look under 'Ben,' in My Documents." Her tongue's swelling had reduced enough to make her easier to understand.

"These are password-protected documents," Sam said. "What's the password?"

"Don't know," Sarah said. "I never looked at 'em."

Sam tried the word Haley and got nothing. Then he tried ARCLES and they opened.

There were five documents and they were all blank.

"Damn it," Sam said.

"He thought I'd be opening them," said Haley. "So what do I know that would help?"

"Nothing if they're blank," Sam said. "Unless they are specially programmed to look blank when they aren't. Like a program within a program."

"I have a wild idea," Haley said. "Ben has a code for the burglar alarm in his house. It's 2872, my birth date. When he wants a longer password for something, like the Internet, it becomes 42872 Haley. He uses it on the Internet and everyplace he needs a long password. It's way too obvious, but why not try?"

"But who else knows it?" Sam said.

"I think only Ben, Sarah, and I know it."

Sam closed the blank document and typed in the code. This time the document opened to another dialogue box, which asked for another password. He typed ARCLES. This time the actual document opened.

Before them lay a map of the North American continent with red dots around it. Sam guessed these represented all the known methane hydrate deposits. Below were calculations and some text, which Haley studied.

"They start out telling where methane is, et cetera. Like an executive summary. I'm guessing these are elaborate mining techniques, here." She pointed at the relevant pages.

"Look at all these sketches: giant anchored ships and barges. It's like what I saw Ben and Nelson looking at."

She pointed.

"They say here that using their methods… God, get this… One 50- by 150-kilometer area off the coast of North and South Carolina is estimated to hold enough methane to supply the needs of the United States for over seventy years. Can that be true? That's unbelievable."

"So they think they know how to mine it," Sam said. "No more energy crisis and worth a fortune, if they can pull it off."

"Let's open another file," he said.

They opened the second. Once again Haley started reading, then scrolled through pages of calculations.

"We're back to aging again." She paused and a look of shock came over her face. "Oh, my God. He is giving it to people."

Sam looked over her shoulder and read Ben's notation: I have interviewed all thirty-six men and the two women on the life-extension regime denominated Arc for short.

"Interesting that there are only two women." "He's got some general material about how they chose these people for the program," Haley offered. She pointed to the text:

Of paramount importance, however, are the psychological impacts, which are as yet only partially understood and documented.

"Then he's got some comments about other reports that are related, and then he goes on some more."

A more surprising development is the complex of psychic issues that arise from taking the regimen and reorienting one's thinking to an extended life span. None of those currently on the regimen can be expected to add more than fifty years to their lives because much of the genetic damage and transformation of age was accomplished before they began the regimen and, hence, the outlook is much different for the late middle-aged and elderly participants than for those who in the future will begin the regimen before age thirty-five.

I have not yet personally begun the more robust portions of the regimen because I did not want any altered state of consciousness that might be associated with the regimen while I was evaluating its effects on my colleagues.

I am sorry to report that there seem to be significant changes in mental orientation from the onset of the regimen. However, they seem much more pronounced in the men than in the women.

First, there is a great sense of well-being that seems to be experienced by all those on Arc, including the two women.

Second, they seem to have developed a strong emotional focus on continuing self-supply

— similar to that of an addict, although this seems much less pronounced in the women.

Third, one cannot overstate the universal sentiment among participants. Perhaps belief is a better word. They view themselves as a distinct group, distinct from the rest of the human race. It is a bit disconcerting that they have such a strong us/them consciousness. I am finding that, because I am not on the regimen, I am not considered one of them.

Haley and Sam looked up at the same time, searching each other's eyes. Sarah lay asleep beside them. They continued silently reading: