Scott Mackay: Phytosphere

Another pause, then, “And who am I speaking to?”

“I’m Glenda Thorndike. Neil’s sister-in-law.”

A pause. “Will you hold the line, please?”

“Who’s calling?” But she got no answer. “Look, I need help. My son’s been hurt. He needs a doctor.”

But she was on hold.

After thirty seconds a man’s voice came on the line, one she vaguely recognized, but couldn’t immediately place. “Is this Glenda Thorndike?”

“Yes.”

“Dr. Gerald Thorndike’s wife?”

“Yes, yes. Who’s this? My son’s been hurt.”

“This is President Bayard.”

She was, of course, floored. “Oh… I… I thought I recognized your voice.”

“Neil’s dead?”

Her shoulders sank as the woe of Neil’s death visited her afresh. “I’m afraid he is. We’ve been under attack here at Marblehill.”

“You’re at Marblehill?” The president sounded as if he knew all about Marblehill.

“Yes… yes. By the Tarsalans.”

By this time, Fernandes and Hanna had roused themselves.

The president said, “We were calling Neil to… to tell him that his brother… that your husband…” But then it sounded as if someone on the other end of the line was talking to the president, and Bayard muffled the mouthpiece with his palm. Her hand tightened around the receiver. What did the president want to tell her about Gerry? That he was dead? That he was never coming home? That he had ridden the asteroid right into the dark side of the Moon with that maniac, Ian Hamilton, and that he was now pulverized to atoms? Come on, Mr. President, you’re killing me. Then the muffled sound disappeared and the president came back on. “We wanted to tell you that your husband’s a national hero, Mrs.

Thorndike. The country—in fact, the whole world—owes him a great debt of gratitude.”

“Is he alive?”

The president seemed surprised. “Yes, he’s alive. I was talking to him just five minutes ago.”

Her throat closed up, and her blood must have done a wild thing, because suddenly she grew faint and collapsed to the cave floor. For several seconds she couldn’t speak.

Hanna rushed over. “Mom?”

Through the receiver, Glenda heard Bayard’s voice. “Mrs. Thorndike?”

Glenda looked at Hanna as tears sprang to her eyes. “It’s the president.”

Hanna’s eyes widened. “ The president?”

“Dad’s okay. The president was talking to him five minutes ago.”

“The president was talking to Dad?” Hanna seemed puzzled by this. Then she got businesslike. “Tell the president he’s got to send a helicopter for Jake right away. He’s getting worse.”

“Mr. President?”

“I’m here, Mrs. Thorndike.”

“My son’s been in an accident. He needs medical attention.”

“I’ll dispatch a medevac helicopter to Marblehill immediately. Anything you and your family need or want, Mrs. Thorndike… We owe you a huge debt.” At this point the president gave her his personal preauthorized number. “And if you want, I can arrange a connection to the Moon through this phone network. The commercial networks are temporarily down. But we’ve got a military one established.

We’ve been talking to the Moon for the last eighteen hours. You stand by, Mrs. Thorndike. We’ll get you talking to your husband in no time.”

And the president was as good as his word.

From the time the phytosphere shredded into nothingness, Gerry’s life was never the same.

He came home to a hero’s welcome, which, because of the state of the Earth, and because of all the work that had to be done, was a subdued affair, but gratifying nonetheless. White House staff arranged a small ceremony in the Rose Garden, and the president thanked him personally. Ian Hamilton was honored, and so was Fernandes. Fernandes was there in a dress uniform, and had come with none other than Celia, a pudgy, short dynamo of a woman who looked as if she could survive anything, and who beamed with pride when the president presented her husband with the Air Force Cross.

It was from the president on this occasion that both Gerry and Glenda found out that all those Tarsalan refugees still left on Earth were succumbing to a strange new disease. As they stood in the Rose Garden sipping champagne—the president’s gardeners had been hard at work, coaxing to life dormant samples kept in the vast cold-storage warehouses of 937—the president explained to both Gerry and Glenda that it was the Tarsalanspecific component in Neil’s phytosphere virus that was killing the alien survivors on Earth.

“A micropercentage of the phytosphere consisted of Tarsalan DNA, and Neil’s virus was essentially targeting that DNA. While the phytosphere was able to… uh… circumvent Neil’s virus by utilizing its carapace component… when the phytosphere rained down on Earth the virus escaped, and the Tarsalans didn’t know what hit them. They’re succumbing fairly quickly. We’re trying to save them, but so far we haven’t found a cure. And to tell you the truth, finding a cure isn’t a major priority for us. Not after what they did to us. It’s probably better that they all pass on. We’ve got more pressing concerns right now.”

The president was blunt about his concerns. “Our population has been culled by about forty-five percent, and our best estimate is that it now stands at just under two hundred million. In less developed countries the figures are far more staggering. Of course, the environment has been severely degraded—for several months now we haven’t had any plant life pumping oxygen into the atmosphere, or taking carbon dioxide out. Restoring our atmosphere is going to have to be our top priority. The phytosphere itself was replacing quite a bit of oxygen, but now that the phytosphere is gone, we’ve got to make up the shortfall quickly. Gerry, I want you to think about this. How do we start pumping oxygen back into the atmosphere? The neutralized xenophyta seem to be pumping some oxygen back into the atmosphere, enough to keep us going for a while. And many of the larger, heartier plant varieties—mostly trees of one kind or another—didn’t die out completely. They’re starting to come back, and that’s helping with the oxygen situation. Still, it’s a critical concern. The atmosphere has been badly compromised.”

Over the coming weeks, Gerry became what his brother had once been—a special scientific advisor to the president.

Also, as financial institutions resurrected themselves and lawyers reopened their offices, Neil’s codicil, written on the back of the topographic map, was deemed legal and binding and, overnight, Gerry became a rich man.

But none of this could bring his brother back, and Gerry grieved deeply for Neil.

To stabilize the atmosphere and restore its oxygen to normal levels—respiratory symptoms were now common in about half the population—Gerry surprised everybody by suggesting they dump iron into the ocean.

“Iron?” asked Bayard.

Gerry, still not comfortable in the Oval Office, nodded. “Iron is already a micronutrient in ocean waters, and with even a slight increase in its concentration, phytoplankton growth can be stimulated significantly.

Because of widespread destruction of our forests and grasslands, CO 2levels in the atmosphere have increased significantly. If we mass-create phytoplankton blooms in the oceans, they’ll devour a lot of this excess CO 2, and replace it with oxygen. As the oxygen levels come back to their norms, the artificially created phytoplankton blooms will then die out because they’ll have used up the available excess CO 2.

Essentially what we’re doing, Mr. President, is terraforming our own planet. I submitted a paper to the NSF about this particular technique during your first year in office, sir. I meant it to address the greenhouse gas problem, but it will work equally well in this situation.”