At this, the restless murmur of the crowd swelled in volume.
“Please. I have much more to tell you.”
A half silence returned.
“It also seems likely Mr. Frayne, the lead lab assistant, was also infected, which, we believe, explains why he stole the DSV. Dr. Brambell and Dr. Sax have just completed a dissection of one of the worms, and we have more information and a tentative hypothesis to share with you.”
Another swell of chatter; a few shouted challenges.
“Please!” said Garza stepping forward. “Keep quiet and let Dr. Glinn speak.”
“The so-called worms have a single tooth. This consists of a diamond-like compound that can, it seems, work a hole in steel or pretty much any substance. We must assume that they are now dispersed throughout the ship. From what little we know, the worms appear to attack people when they sleep. They anesthetize the victim and enter the brain. This anesthetized period lasts perhaps two hours and, based again on the evidence, appears to take the form of an unwakable sleep.”
“How do you know all this!” someone shouted.
“We don’t know it. This is a working hypothesis, based on eyewitness testimony, inference, and deduction.”
“We need to get the hell out of here!”
Gideon looked in the speaker’s direction. It was Masterson—the second engineer who had riled up the postmortem meeting held in the wake of Alex Lispenard’s death.
“That clearly won’t solve the immediate problem,” Glinn said calmly. “Now let me finish. The more you know about the situation, the better for everyone concerned. It appears that a person, once parasitized by the worm, becomes—for want of a better description—placed in the Baobab’s thrall. Somehow enlisted to do its bidding, so to speak. This may be the reason Frayne stole the DSV, helped by Reece, and intentionally drove it straight into the creature’s maw. And this is also why Waingro tried to interrupt the seismic charges we placed on the seabed—the Baobab must have believed them a threat and taken steps to stop us.”
“That’s bull!” someone said.
Glinn raised his hands. “The phenomenon is not unknown in earth biology—even in humans. Toxoplasma gondii is a parasite that lives in a cat’s gut. It spreads to mice via cat droppings, invades their brains, and causes mice to lose their fear of cats—and thus get eaten. That is how the parasite spreads. People infected with toxo also become more reckless, get in more car accidents, seem to lose their sense of prudence. The worms seem to operate in a similar fashion. The parasitized person wakes up, goes about his business, unaware of what is in his brain or that he’s been infected. But while he seems completely normal…he will go to any lengths to achieve his goal of trying to unite with the Baobab. As Frayne did. Or to protect it—as Waingro tried to do.”
“Why?” someone shouted.
“We believe it may be for feeding purposes. It seems to have a specialized diet.”
The feeding purposes phrase caused another tumult. Garza again shushed the crowd.
“Dr. Brambell is going to operate on the two remaining exo lab assistants tonight and try to remove their parasites. Meanwhile, we will be taking all possible precautions. Everyone on board ship is going to be CT scanned, on a twenty-four/seven schedule, which will be posted to the ship’s net very soon. And I am sorry to say that all of us—everyone—are temporarily forbidden to sleep, because that is when it appears one is most vulnerable to attack. Sick bay will dispense phenethylamine to anyone who asks for it. Security, under the leadership of Manuel Garza, will be undertaking an intensive sweep of the ship, which we hope will find the missing worms.”
At this the tumult became general. Garza stepped forward, crying out for people to simmer down, but the tide of anger rolled over him. The no-sleep order, in particular, seemed to spark both apprehension and anger. Suddenly Brambell, who had been waiting in the wings, stepped forward. The startling appearance of the man, and the universal respect in which he was held aboard ship, caused a temporary lull.
“My friends,” he said in his Irish brogue, “it’s quite simple. The worm enters through the nose, and works its way through the nasal bones into the brain. Remember that—until he is given instructions by the Baobab, or until he believes it to be threatened—a parasitized person will act completely normally. The only way to tell if someone is infected, short of a CT scan, is by witnessing a two-hour period of unwakable sleep—or by sudden and unexpected behavioral changes. We must all be vigilant.”
This little speech was met with rapt silence. Glinn, taking tactical advantage, forcefully filled the silence. “We’ve told you all this for two reasons: First, to tamp down rumor and wild talk. Second, to alert you to the dangers and challenges currently facing us. Despite all this, indeed because of it, the program of killing the Baobab must go on full speed ahead. Everyone: back to business.”
46
THE BLOOD ON the floor of mission control hadn’t been cleaned up; many of the maintenance employees had been assigned to the teams sweeping the ship on worm detail. Gideon made a careful detour of it. Normally the lights were kept low in the room, because of the many monitors, but now they were turned up to dazzling brilliance. A two-woman security team, wearing gloves and face protection, was moving along a wall of equipment with pencil lights, a toolbox, and dental mirrors. They were unscrewing panels, searching the guts behind, then screwing each back and moving to the next one.
“At the rate they’re going,” said Sam McFarlane, appearing at his side, “it’ll take months to sweep the ship.”
Gideon shook his head. “Let’s just get this done.”
They joined Garza at the central command console. McFarlane, once again taking charge of the operation, ran a series of checks, first on the explosive array along the seafloor, then on the seismic sensors. The central screen showed a view of the creature itself, taken from the green-light video cameras that had earlier been placed on the seafloor. The thing appeared quiescent, like a giant, semi-translucent and sickly-green tree.
About fifty yards from the Baobab, sitting on the seafloor, lay the crushed and balled-up DSV that had been commandeered by Frayne. The creature had expelled it about an hour before. A faint cloudy trail drifted downcurrent from it.
“Everything’s good to go,” McFarlane said. “Let’s restart the countdown at five minutes. Dr. Garza?”
“Initiating countdown,” said Garza. “Five minutes.”
A large digital timer popped up on the corner of the main screen. Gideon wondered if the creature would try to stop them again—if indeed it had initiated Waingro’s psychotic break. How could it communicate with the worms through two miles of water? He wasn’t as convinced of this as Glinn seemed to be. In his mind—and McFarlane’s, he knew—the bigger question was how the thing might react to the explosions themselves. They were small charges, just enough to trigger seismic waves, nothing that would do damage…but the creature might well believe it was under attack.
“Four minutes,” said Garza.
“Very well,” replied McFarlane.
Garza and McFarlane had settled down into a kind of cold-war détente. They cooperated—in fact, they cooperated well—but on a professional level only.
Gideon felt his heart rate accelerate. It seemed unlikely the creature could do anything to them directly. Would the worms on board react? Was there really any potential communication between the parasitic worms and the mother creature? They had recorded no long-range sounds from the creature other than Prothero’s whale song, nor any other potential mode of communication such as electromagnetic waves.