“We can speak now,” he said in a normal voice, slumping against the bunk frame.
She had actually thought her cellphone would be useless here but had been told that NSF had installed a special system for the Polies’ convenience. They’d given her a Pole chip on arriving. She would turn it back in when she left.
“You think my phone is bugged?”
“You can install a program just by calling. It can record audio, take pictures, even video. Without you knowing. And send those to someone.”
“Nobody has called me.”
“I tried to call you twice. Sent you an email, too.”
“You did?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t get calls from you. Or from back home. No emails, either. I should have by now.”
“Possibly there is something wrong with your phone.”
“And my terminal, too?”
“I do not want you to think … never mind.” His eyes went out of focus, came back. “I am sorry. What is your name again?”
“Hallie Leland. I knew Emily very well at one time. We worked together at a CDC lab.”
“Emily did not call me Fido.” He peered at Hallie. “Now I remember. She was very fond of you. She did climbing and things with you.”
“Lots of things. On one climb she saved my life. I wouldn’t be here if not for her.”
“She was an easy person to like.” His eyes filled with tears.
“I can’t think of a better epitaph.” She managed to keep tears out of her own eyes. “I was told Emily died of a drug overdose. I find that hard to believe.”
He glanced at the door, licked his lips, caught her gaze and held it. Hallie knew he was taking her measure. She had long ago come to trust what her gut said about people, and it was telling her that this man was exhausted, overworked, pained by grief, burned out maybe — but trustworthy. In his eyes, she thought something changed, a softening and relaxing, that might suggest that he found her to be, also.
“I do not think Emily died of a drug overdose either.”
“You don’t?”
“No.”
“What do you think happened?”
“I believe that somebody killed her.”
21
Hallie’s breath caught.
Fida, seeing her reaction, held up both hands. “Wait. I know how I look. How I sound. And I am very tired. You may think I am not completely normal. But I—”
“Stop. I agree with you.”
He blinked, gaped. “You do? Why?”
“You said it first. So you tell me. Then I’ll tell you what I know.”
He nodded. “Two things. I do not think Emily used drugs. And it could have been because of Vishnu.”
That stopped her. “The Hindu god of creation?”
“Those of my faith call him ‘the great preserver.’ ”
“I’m not following you.”
He took a deep breath, let it out. “The extremophile Emily found in the cryopeg is a superhalophile.”
“Survives in sodium concentrations that would kill anything else. What kind of salt are we talking about?”
“Thirty-six percent, salt to water, by volume.”
She found that hard to believe. “Even Salinibacter ruber doesn’t live in anything over twenty-five.”
“You are right. And you know of course that Rube is the most extreme halophile ever discovered.”
“Yes.” She was thinking about the implications of diving in such water. One thing at a time. “What exactly is Vishnu?”
“It has existed down in that freezing, absolute darkness for eons.”
“What could it metabolize?”
“Carbon dioxide.”
That was not unheard of. “When he was at Stanford, James Liao put genes from four other bacteria into cyanobacteria. The new organism consumed carbon dioxide.”
“This is different.”
“How?”
“Their consumption was microscopic.”
“And Vishnu?”
“Vishnu may consume more CO2 by orders of magnitude than anything known to science.”
It took Hallie a moment to consider the implications of that. Carbon dioxide was soluble in water. Oceans, in fact, were the planet’s great “carbon sinks,” absorbing up to half of all carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. She knew that at some future date — sooner rather than later, the way things were going — the oceans would reach supersaturation with CO2. When that happened, earth would start the long, hot slide toward a dead Martian end.
“Do you know the concentration of CO2 in ocean water?” Fida asked.
“Depends on whose research you’re reading. But about ninety parts per million, give or take.”
“Care to guess what the concentration is in the cryopeg?”
“Tell me.”
“About ten parts per million.”
“Wait. That’s ocean water in there, right? Because the whole continent is just frozen ocean miles thick.”
“Yes.
“I don’t get it.”
“Do you know how old that ice down there might be?”
“No idea.”
“It formed during the Eocene. Paleobiologists worked with pollen in the ice cores to confirm that.”
“Fifty million years back, then?”
“Close enough. Do you know what the atmospheric CO2 concentrations were then?”
“High.”
“Very high. Palm trees grew in Wyoming. Crocodiles swam in Hudson Bay. You have to have a Florida climate for that. There was no polar ice. No ice anywhere, for that matter. The CO2 levels were more than thirteen hundred parts per million.”
“Today they’re what, about three hundred and eighty ppm?” Hallie said.
“That is right. So you see what this means.”
She was beginning to. “What’s the CO2 concentration in the cryopeg’s deep ice?”
He grinned for the first time since they’d met. “About thirteen hundred ppm.”
“And you say the water is just ten ppm?”
“Yes. We tested and retested because we couldn’t believe it at first. But that’s it.”
“I give up. Enlighten me.”
“It’s Vishnu.”
“The halophile?”
“Yes.”
“It’s metabolizing carbon dioxide from the water? At that volume?”
“Yes.”
“My God. It must be huge.”
“Emily said it reminded her of a coral reef system. Stretched far beyond the reach of her lights. It could go for hundreds of feet.”
It took a moment for Hallie’s thoughts to reorder themselves. “Do you realize the implications here?”
“Wait. It gets better.”
“How could it?”
“Because there is more. The sample we worked with not only metabolized carbon dioxide; it produced a combustible by-product unlike petroleum distillates at the molecular level.”
“Different how?”
“The by-product, when burned, gave off emissions seventy-five percent lower than petroleum fuels.”
“This could stop climate change. If it burns clean at practical volumes.”
“So you understand. Yes. It could slow global warming and supplant petroleum fuels at the same time. Of course, we are far, far away from that kind of application. At least the possibility exists, however remote.”
“Vishnu was a good name for it.”
“I thought so.”
“You looked happy a few moments ago. Not now. I’d think you would be bouncing off the ceiling.”
“I think it might have killed Emily.”
She was stunned. “You mean the extremophile itself?”
“No. We employed the strictest biosafety protocols, and we worked together. If Vishnu had killed her, I would not be here, either.”
“Then I don’t understand.”
“Someone who feared Vishnu.”
“Who wouldn’t welcome a discovery like this?” But even before Hallie finished the question, she knew the answer, so obvious that she felt stupid for asking.