Cibola Burn

The death-slugs were relatively simple. The toxic compound was a complex carbon ring with a nitrogenous sheet coming off it that looked superficially related to tetrodotoxin, and appeared to be part of the slug’s motility system rather than an anti-predation adaptation. How exactly it crossed into the blood was still mysterious, but the slime had a half dozen r-chiral elements that no one had yet bothered to examine extensively. Whatever new knowledge arose from later study, for Elvi’s purposes the answers were all there: neurotoxin, no antidote, try not to touch them. Done.

The eye flora, on the other hand, was more complex. The labs on Luna and Ganymede were working with algal models, treating the growth as if it were an invasive species that had entered a naïve tide pool. The Earth workgroup was arguing that the better model was actually a photosensitive mineral structure. Working from what little medical data had survived the storm, the Israel’s expert system suggested that the blindness was less from the foreign mass in the vitreous humor and more from the way that the living organism scattered light. That was very good news because it suggested that killing the organism and breaking down the optically active structures would lead to a fairly rapid return of function. There would be floaters in all their eyes, but most people had those, and the brain was decent at compensating for them.

How to go about killing them, though, was obscure. And time was at a premium. There was a decided spike in white blood cells, so their bodies were trying to clean the invaders out. It just wasn’t working.

For her, the symptoms had started with just a little scratchiness around her eyelids no worse than seasonal allergies back at home. Then there was a little whitish discharge and mild headache. And then, seven hours after she first noticed it, the world began to blur a little and take on a greenish hue. That was when she knew for certain that she was going to be blinded by it too.

Fear and practicality were changing the shape of the refugee camp even within the physical constraints of the ruins. People who had gone to the farther parts of the structure were pulling back in now. The need for space and privacy were giving way to the fear of the slugs and the weather and the dread of their growing impairment. The increased density mostly showed itself to Elvi as a change in the ambient sound. Louder voices in conversation that ran together until she felt like she was doing research in the back of a train station. Sometimes it was comforting to have all those human sounds around her, sometimes it was annoying. For the most part, she ignored it.

“Are you doing all right, Doctor?”

Elvi turned from the chemistry deck. Carol Chiwewe stood in the arch that passed for a doorway. She looked tired. And blurry. And vaguely green. Elvi rubbed her eyes to clear them, even though she knew intellectually it wouldn’t make any difference. Rain pattered softly against the plastic sheeting. Elvi almost didn’t notice it anymore.

“Fine,” she said. “You have the new count?”

“We caught forty-one of the little fuckers today,” Carol said. “That’s an uptick, isn’t it? I thought if things dried out a little, they’d start going away.”

“Is it drying out?”

“No. It’s raining less, though. I hoped.”

“Too early to call it significant,” Elvi said, entering the data in its field. Tracking the number of death-slugs was just one more of a dozen studies she was juggling now. “The overall trend is still down, and there may be a cycle within the next few days.”

“It would be good if they slept at night. Probably too much to hope for, though.”

“Probably,” Elvi said. “They’re normally subterranean. They’re not likely to be diurnal.”

“We’re running out of food,” Carol said. Her voice didn’t change its inflections.

“The drops are helping,” Elvi said.

“The drops won’t last forever. There has to be something on this planet we can eat.”

“There isn’t,” Elvi said.

Carol said something obscene under her breath, and it sounded like despair. She sighed. “All right. See you again next hour.”

“Thank you.”

Behind her, Fayez yawned and stretched. She’d meant to nap with him, but she hadn’t quite gotten away from the deck. She squinted, checking the time. Fayez had been asleep for three hours.

“Did I miss anything?” he asked.

“Science,” she said. “You missed science.”

“Well, damn. Can I borrow your notes?”

“Nope, you’ll just have to hire a tutor.”

He chuckled. “Did you remember to eat?”

“No.”

“At last. A way I can be useful. Stay here, and I’ll come back with a bar of undifferentiated foodlike product and some filtered water.”

We’re running out of food.

“Thank you,” she said. “And while you’re out there, see if you can find Yma and Lucia. They were going to be doing ocular assessments of everyone.”

“The blind studying the blind,” Fayez said. “It’s like graduate school all over again. I’ll track them down. You should take a break. Rest your eyes.”