Tess Gerritsen: Gravity

Jack said, "The ship's name was Gabriella." He and Gordon looked at each other, both of them struck by the same startling thought, Gabriella.

Palmer Gabriel.

"I'll bet you this was a SeaScience vessel," said Jack, "and Helen Koenig was aboard." Gordon's gaze shifted back to the screen. "Now this is interesting. What do you make of the fact Ahearn was a geologist?

"So what?" said Gretchen, yawning.

"What was a geologist doing aboard a marine research vessel?"

"Checking out the rocks on the sea floor?"

"Let's do a search on his name."

Gretchen sighed. "You guys owe me a night's worth of beauty sleep." She typed in the name Stephen D. Ahearn and clicked on "Search." A list appeared, seven articles in all. Six of them were about undersea death in the Galapagos.

One article was from the year prior to his death, "UCSD Professor to Present Latest Findings on Tektite Research. Will Be Keynote Speaker at International Geological Conference in Madrid." (San Diego Union)

Both men stared at the screen, too stunned for a moment to utter a word.

Then Gordon said softly, "This is it, Jack. This is what they've been trying to hide from us." Jack's hands had gone numb, his throat dry. He focused on a single word, the word that told them everything.

Tektite.

JSC director Ken Blankenship's house was one of the anonymous tract homes in the suburb of Clear Lake, where so many JSC officials lived. It was a large house for a bachelor, and Jack saw that the front yard was immaculately groomed, every hedge clipped into submission. That yard, so well lit at three A.M. , was exactly what one would expect of Blankenship, who was notorious for his perfectionism as well as his almost paranoid obsession with security. There's probably a surveillance camera trained on us right this moment, thought Jack as he and Obie waited for Blankenship to answer the front door. It took several rings of the doorbell before they saw lights come on inside.

Then Blankenship appeared, a squat little Napoleon dressed in a bathrobe.

"It's three in the morning," said Blankenship. "What are you guys doing here?"

"We need to talk," said Gordon.

"Is there something wrong with my phone? You couldn't have called first?"

"We can't use the phone. Not about this." They all stepped into the house. Only after the front door swung shut did Jack say, "We know what the White House is trying to hide. We know where Chimera comes from." Blankenship stared at him, his irritation over a disturbed night's sleep instantly forgotten. Then he looked at Gordon, seeking confirmation of Jack's statement.

"It explains everything," said Gordon. "USAMRIID's secrecy. The White House's paranoia. And the fact that this organism behaves unlike anything our doctors have ever encountered."

"What did you find out?" Jack answered the question. "We know Chimera has human, mouse, and amphibian DNA. But USAMRIID won't tell us what other DNA is on the genome. They won't tell us what Chimera really is, or where it comes from."

"You told me last night the bug was sent up in a SeaScience payload. A culture of Archaeons."

"That's what we thought. But Archaeons are not dangerous organisms. They're incapable of causing disease in humans -- that's why the experiment was accepted by NASA. Something about this particular Archaeon is different. Something SeaScience didn't tell us."

"What do you mean, different?"

"Where it came from. The Galapagos Rift." Blankenship shook his head. "I don't see the significance."

"This culture was discovered by scientists aboard the vessel Gabriella, a ship belonging to SeaScience. One of those was a Dr. Stephen Ahearn, who was flown out to Gabriella, apparently as a last-minute consultant. Within a week, he was dead. His minisub became trapped at the bottom of the rift, and he suffocated." Blankenship said nothing, but his gaze remained focused on Jack's.

"Dr. Ahearn was known for his research on tektites," said Jack. "Those are glassy fragments produced whenever a meteor collides with the earth. That was Dr. Ahearn's field of expertise. The geology of meteors and asteroids." Still Blankenship said nothing. Why isn't he reacting?

Jack wondered. Doesn't he understand what this means?

"SeaScience flew Ahearn to the Galapagos because they needed a geologist's opinion," said Jack. "They needed confirmation of what they'd found on the sea floor. An asteroid." Blankenship's face had gone rigid. He turned and walked toward the kitchen.

Jack and Gordon followed him. "That's why the White House is so scared of Chimera!" said Jack. "They know where it comes from. They know what it is." Blankenship picked up the telephone and dialed. A moment later, he said, "This is JSC director Kenneth Blankenship. I speak to Jared Profitt. Yes, I know what time it is. This is an emergency, so if you could connect me to his home ... " There was a moment's silence. Then he said into the phone, "They know. No, did not tell them. They found out on their own." A pause. "Jack McCallum and Gordon Obie. Yes, sir, they're standing right here in my kitchen." He handed the receiver to Jack. "He wants to speak to you."

Jack took the phone. "This is McCallum."

"How many people know?" was the first thing Jared Profitt asked him.

That question instantly told Jack how sensitive this information was. He said, "Our medical people know. And a few people in Life Sciences." That was all he'd say, he knew better than to name names.

"Can you all keep it quiet?" asked Profitt.

"That depends."

"On what?"

"On whether your people cooperate with us. Share information with us."

"What do you want, Dr. McCallum?"

"Full disclosure. Everything you've learned about Chimera. The autopsy results. The data from your clinical trials."

"And if we don't share? What happens?"

"My colleagues at NASA start faxing every news agency in the country."

"Telling them what, exactly?"

"The truth. That this organism is not terrestrial." There was a long silence. Jack could hear his own heartbeat thudding in the receiver.

Have we guessed right? Have we really uncovered the truth?

Profitt said, "I'll authorize Dr. Roman to tell you everything. He'll be expecting you at White Sands." The phone went dead.

Jack hung up and looked at Blankenship. "How long have you known?" Blankenship's silence only fueled Jack's anger. He took a threatening step forward, and Blankenship backed up against the wall. "How long have you known?"

"Only -- only a few days. I was sworn to secrecy!"

"Those were our people dying up there!"

"I had no choice! This has got everyone terrified! The White House. Defense." Blankenship took a deep breath and looked Jack straight in the eye. "You'll understand what I'm talking about. When you get to White Sands."

August 20.

With one end gripped in her teeth, Emma yanked the tourniquet tight, and the veins of her left arm plumped up like blue worms beneath the pale skin. She gave her antecubital vein a quick swipe with alcohol and winced at the prick of the needle. Like a junkie desperate for a fix, she injected the entire contents of the syringe, releasing the tourniquet halfway through. When she was finished, she closed her eyes and allowed herself to drift as she imagined the HCG molecules, like tiny stars of hope, coursing up her veins, into her heart and lungs. streaming out into arteries and capillaries. She imagined she could already feel its effect, the headache melting away, the hot flames of her fever smothered to a dying glow. Three doses left, she thought. Three more days.

She imagined herself drifting out of her own body, and she saw herself, as though from a distance, curled up like a mottled a coffin. A bubble of mucus spilling out of her mouth, breaking into bright squirming threads like maggots.