Scott Mackay - Phytosphere

They’ve already given us Luke Langstrom. Maybe they’ll give us everything. Including some updates on what my brother is doing. Maybe he’s come up with something else besides this flagella thing. It could all turn into something useful.”

The deputy secretary admitted it sounded promising. “I don’t think anybody considered the Moon as a launch resource, Dr. Thorndike. Excellent work.”

Here it was again, the primary theme of his life—people in power telling him he had done good.

Yet when he finally ended his call to the assistant secretary, he was anxious. The rain beat against the windows. Was he getting anywhere closer to solving the puzzle of the shroud? The gunfire abated and the girls crawled out from under their cots. And would the virus work on a mass scale, and not fizzle the way the hydrogen sulfide had?

Where was his confidence? He had to tell himself that the virus would work. That it was going to turn the xenophyta into mush from the inside out, so that it would rain from the sky like Oobleck. Yes. Oobleck.

The king said he was sorry, and the Oobleck stopped. Simple. The whole viral thrust was meant to be simple. And simple was best.

Simple was the only way he could make sure he didn’t miss anything.

What Gerry didn’t like about it was how it felt like an intervention, the kind his wife, his brother, and his

brother’s wife had staged before throwing him into Bellwood two years ago.

He glanced at Ian, and could tell Ian knew nothing about it. Then at Ira, and what was Ira doing here, anyway, because Ira never came to these things? Then at Mitch, who stared at his hands like a Judas.

But unlike his first intervention, where everything good in the world had materialized afterward, and he had finally found the peace he had always been looking for, and, wonder of wonders, had found it without the bottle, this intervention had all the hallmarks of a cancer and felt like it was leaching the life out of him.

“But what about that first drop they sent?” he said. “They were so hard-assed. It was like a slap in the face. Telling us to butt out because they thought we would blow it. And my damn brother signing off on it because he thinks he’s king of the world.”

Hulke looked away. Gerry could tell the mayor had mixed feelings about the whole thing. “Well, Ger, they sent us the blueprint for the virus, and Luke’s taken a look at it, and Luke seems to think it’s…how can I put this?…a kosher little bug and, unlike the toxin, something we can grow up here.”

“I thought Luke wasn’t part of our effort anymore.”

The mayor looked away. “We’ve kind of been using him all along. On a consulting basis…and keeping it hush-hush…because you seemed a little miffed at him when he broke camp with us.”

Gerry shook his head. “I wasn’t miffed at him. I welcome his input. I was mad at the toxin. I knew it wasn’t going to work. And I was right. These are the Tarsalans. They’re going to think of all the obvious things. And now Neil wants to try a virus? A virus won’t work for the exact same reason.”

“No, no…. Luke said it will. He said it will beat the crap out of the thing…. Maybe not in those exact words…” The door to the mayor’s office slid open. “And…well, well, well…speak of the devil…. Luke, we were just—”

“Sorry I’m late,” said Dr. Langstrom, coming through the door.

So. Here it was. The last nail. Why did things always arrange themselves this way in his life? Same thing at NCSU. Thought his job was safe, had no idea of the political intrigue brewing behind his back, and bang, we’re sorry, Dr. Thorndike, but the Ocean Sciences Department is in a precarious position right now, and yes, you’ve really bounced back since your unfortunate stay at Bellwood, but we’re looking at a serious lack of funding at the present time…and here it was all over again. Poor old Ger, only wanting to help, doing his damnedest to figure out Kafis’s little puzzle, and then having the rug pulled out from under him, and Langstrom bouncing through the door as if he belonged here more than Gerry did.

“Hello, Luke,” he said, trying to stop the frost in his voice.

The Martian scientist nodded deferentially. “Gerry.”

The mayor tried to alleviate the tension with some blustering hospitality. “Wish I had a plate of bonbons, or something, Luke, because I know you like your sweets… but we’re getting… uh… drastically low in the supply side of things, and we… you know… got a little hoarding going on… so I guess all I can give you…”

“Yes, crudités. Moon-grown?”

“We grow a fine carrot.”

“And the dip?”

“Uh… synthetic. But real low-cal. In fact, zero-cal.”

“You’re not insulted if I pass?”

“Me, insulted? No, of course not. Have a seat. There’s a spot beside Ira. You know Ira, don’t you?”

“Yes, we’ve met.”

“Hi, Luke.”

“Hello, Ira.”

“We were just telling Ger, here… about Dr. Thorndike’s virus.”

And this rankled Gerry as well, because he was “Ger” now, nothing else, while his brother was still Dr.

Thorndike. He watched Luke take his spot beside Ira.

Gerry glanced at Ira, a man in his early sixties with an odd birthmark on his right hand, a narrow face, intense blue eyes, a receding hairline, and an obvious Ashkenazi contour to his nose. He had a benign but nearly frozen grin on his face. What was Ira getting out of all this? What kind of tariff concessions had the U.S. government made to the lunar contingent of AviOrbit?

“I’ve developed a few vials of the virus according to Dr. Thorndike’s blueprint,” said Luke. “Lothar Hydroponics had the base tobacco mosaic virus on file. The Tarsalan components came from the Aldrin Health Sciences Center. The cross-species enzymes and catalysts were easy to synthesize using basic laboratory techniques. The beauty of this thing, Gerry, is that unlike the toxin, we can grow it here on the Moon. Kudos to your brother. We mount multiple warheads of the stuff on some of the old interlunar junk Ira has hanging around and we go in with a coordinated attack.”

The unfairness of the situation struck him afresh. “Wait a minute. Ira can give my brother launch vehicles but he can’t give me another Smallmouth ?”

Ira’s grin transformed into a hard-faced frown. “It’s not that we can’t give you another Smallmouth, Gerry, it’s just that we don’t see the point. Mitch and I have talked about this, and we’ve basically concluded that your…research…Pardon me if I’m blunt, but your research is going nowhere.” He lifted his palms. “These flagella, for instance. Yes, the first Smallmouth has shown us that when they’re in the sphere, they’re active, and that they link each xenophyta organism to the next, but so what? And this expensive infrared equipment we’ve given you? What have you done with it? You’ve shown us some pretty colors and told us that the phytosphere has different temperatures in different places, and that there might be a cyclical weather system in it… but really, what have you given us in terms of a concrete scientific return, or even a first step toward a working solution?”

Gerry’s anger flared. “Yes, but this cyclical weather system… I’m beginning to think it’s more than just a weather system—it’s a definite stress band. Did you read my report on it?”

“You mean you’ve finally written a report?”

Gerry frowned but pushed on. “The pattern’s too regular to be a weather system. If we can figure out what’s causing it, we could be one step closer to a solution. I’m hypothesizing that the stress band could be part of the phytosphere’s operating system.”