Starfish

He looked at her, surprised. "They need heat. They die if they leave the rift."

Rowan nodded. "It takes a while, even at four degrees. Most of them just keep way down in the vents where it's always warm, and they can survive cold spells between eruptions anyway. But deep circulation is so slow, you see, if they leave one rift they die long before they find another." She took a deep breath. "But if they got past that, do you see? If they got into an environment that wasn't quite so salty, or even one that wasn't quite so cold, they'd get their edge back. It would be like trying to compete for your dinner with something that eats ten times faster than you do."

"Right. I'm carrying Armageddon around inside me. Come on, Rowan. What do you take me for? This thing evolved on the bottom of the ocean and it can just hop into a human body and hitch-hike to the big city?"

"Your blood is warm." Rowan stared at her half of the table. "And not nearly as salty as seawater. This thing actually prefers the inside of a body. It's been in the fish down there for ages, that's why they get so big sometimes. Some sort of — intracellular symbiosis, apparently."

"Fine. What about the, the pressure difference then? How can something that evolved under four hundred atmospheres survive at sea level?"

She didn't have an answer for that one at first. After a moment a faint spark lit her eyes. "It's better off up here than down there, actually. High pressure inhibits most of the enzymes involved in metabolism."

"So why aren't I sick?"

"As I said, it's — efficient. Any body contains enough trace elements to keep it going for a while. It doesn't take much. Eventually, they say, your bones will get — brittle —»

"That's it? That's the threat? A plague of osteoporosis?" Scanlon laughed aloud. "Well, bring on the exterminators, by all —»

The sound of Rowan's hand hitting the table was very loud.

"Let me tell you what happens if this thing gets out," she said quietly. "First off, nothing. We outnumber it, you see. At first we swamp it through sheer numbers, the models predict all sorts of skirmishes and false starts. But eventually it gets a foothold. Then it outcompetes conventional decomposers and monopolizes our inorganic nutrient base. That cuts the whole trophic pyramid off at the ankles. You, and me, and the viruses and the giant sequoias all just fade away for want of nitrates or some stupid thing. And welcome to the Age of ßehemoth."

Scanlon didn't say anything for a moment. Then, "Behemoth?"

"With a beta. Beta life. As opposed to alpha, which is everything else." Rowan snorted softly. "I think they named it after something from the Bible. An animal. A grass-eater."

Scanlon rubbed his temples, thinking furiously. "Assuming for the moment that you're telling the truth, it's still just a microbe."

"You're going to talk about antibiotics. Most of them don't work. The rest kill the patient. And we can't tailor a virus to fight it because ßehemoth uses a unique genetic code." Scanlon opened his mouth: Rowan held up one hand. "Now you'll suggest building something from scratch, customized to ßehemoth's genetics. We're working on it. They tell me in another few weeks we may actually know where one gene ends and the next begins. Then we can start trying to decipher the alphabet. Then the language. And then, maybe, build something to fight it. And then, when and if we let our counterattack loose, one of two things happens. Either our bug kills their bug so fast it destroys its own means of transmission, so you get local kills that implode without making a dent in the overall problem. Or our bug kills their bug too slowly to catch up. Classic chaotic system. Almost no chance we could fine-tune the lethality in time. Containment's really our only option."

The whole time she spoke, her eyes had stayed curiously dark.

"Well. You seem to know a few details after all," Scanlon remarked quietly.

"It's important, Yves."

"Please. Call me Dr. Scanlon."

She smiled, sadly. "I'm sorry, Dr. Scanlon. I am sorry."

"And what about the others?"

"The others," she repeated.

"Clarke. Lubin. Everyone, in all the deep stations."

"The other stations are clean, as far as we can tell. It's just that one little spot on Juan de Fuca."

"It figures," Scanlon said.

"What does?"

"They never got a break, you know? They've been fucked over since they were kids. And now, the only place in the world this bug shows up, and it has to be right where they live."

Rowan shook her head. "Oh, we found it other places too. All uninhabited. Beebe was the only — " She sighed. "Actually, we've been very lucky."

"No you haven't."

She looked at him.

"I hate to burst your balloon, Pat, but you had a whole construction crew down there last year. Maybe none of your boys and girls actually got wet, but do you really think ßehemoth couldn't have hitched a ride back on some of their equipment?"

"No," Rowan said. "We don't."

Her face was completely expressionless. It took a moment to sink in.