She swallowed hard. “It’s one of the transitional strains we let loose last spring to help keep the change from toxic-water species to clean-water species gradual. It proliferated beautifully over the spring, everything right on schedule. Now I can’t find it anywhere.” She swept her hand out to encompass her entire rack of neatly labeled test tubes. “It’s not in the fish. It’s not in the water. It’s vanished over the summer—and it was bred for cold too,” she added with a meaningful glance towards Doug. “None of this makes any sense.”
Ed sighed. “All right. Put everything away. You are both going to your rooms. We’ll be back in a couple of hours. I don’t want either of you back in a lab until tomorrow morning at the earliest. Fresh day, fresh brains.”
Doug and Marcy rolled their eyes at each other but complied. Under his gaze, the pair of them cleaned their workstations, labeled their remaining samples, and left, without saying another word. He heard two cabin doors slam and allowed himself a small smile. They would be in their separate rooms with their separate computers going over all the available information about the crisis. They were dedicated, those two. It was the criterion he used to pick the students he took into the field.
Ed turned around and surveyed the empty lab. Doug’s words still hung in the air. Perfectly bred, perfectly adapted, and perfectly dead.
Memories....
“Mother Nature has taken care of the groundwork.” Jerry led Ed and Danette along the pier to the expanse of the breeding pens, netted enclosures that stretched out into the Lake Erie waters. “We’re just using the food chain to take care of the problems we introduced into it.”
“By creating a bug that eats pesticides.” Ed surveyed the tidy square beds of algae.
“It’s not a bug and it doesn’t eat anything.” Danette elbowed his arm. “It’s a tailored symbiote that breaks down the contaminants into harmless constituents.”
“Tailored Digestive Symbiote,” Jerry said. “TDS. ‘Teds’ to the media. The PR team figured it was important to have a friendly-sounding acronym.”
Ed wondered how long Jerry had worked on making it sound like he had nothing to do with that particular team. He might even have thought up the acronym himself.
“We’re using it in a sort of pincer maneuver," Jerry went on. “We introduce one strain into the algae at the bottom of the chain, and another into the fish at the top of the chain. There’s going to be a dip in the invertebrate population when they start ingesting algae with higher than normal concentrations of contaminants, but that’ll level off as the water cleans up. The fish will have the symbiote in their intestinal tracts. They’ll swallow the poison, dioxin, or DDT, or whatever, the symbiote will snatch it up. Then, TDS breaks the poison down into a set of basic proteins and discards it back into the digestive tract. Anything the fish can’t use is discarded back into the water. Anything that isn’t broken down the first time gets reabsorbed into the system for another go-around. Poof!" Jerry grinned. “Live fish and clean water.”
“It’s going to be in the algae too, you said.” Danette frowned at the pens. “What happens when there’s no more poison for the algae to absorb?” Danette seemed a little reluctant to ask the question, but Ed was glad she did.
“The tailored algae die off and the native species take their place. Competition’s pretty fierce down at that level. The lab staff figures it’ll take about ten years to clear out Erie and Ontario, but more like twenty for Superior.”
Ed felt his back stiffen.
Twenty for Superior. It’s been close to twenty years since the symbiote was introduced.
No. That didn’t make sense. If the die-offs of the tailored algae were causing the problem, it would have manifested itself years ago in the smaller lakes. The project had monitored the die-offs carefully, the way they monitored everything. The native species of algae had filled the empty niches right on cue. The insect population had stayed perfectly stable, and the fish had gone right on swimming. Everywhere but in Superior, the biggest of the Great Lakes, and the top of the Great Lakes’s own chain, but so far, the smaller lakes were untainted. All the water was checked as it flowed down to the smaller lakes. Checked, cross-checked and measured. How could even a teaspoon of unwanted material have gotten past the spy-buoys?
And how does Marcy’s lost strain fit in? Ed rubbed his forehead. I’m missing something and it’s something obvious—I’m going to kick myself when I find it. Ed felt a slow grin spread across his face. Listen to me. The south shore’s teeming with Nobel Prize level biologists, and I think I’m going to find the answer just because I get out here and get my feet wet. He tapped his square calloused finger against the countertop and tried not to remember the certainty in Nelson’s voice as he talked about the lake.
Ed was still sitting in the empty lab when he heard Nelson bellowing a greeting to the crewmen on the docks. He waited until the clatter of Doug and Marcy emerging from their cabins had passed before climbing out onto deck himself.
He was stretching his back and watching his students climb down the ladder to the pier when a familiar figure came strolling up to the ship.
“Danette!” His students cleared the way for Ed to clamber down to her.
“Ahoy!” She laughed and waved. “Welcome back.”
“Thanks.” He gave her a brief but warm hug. Marcy and Doug joined them on the dock. “Danette Washington, meet my assistants.” He performed the introductions between her and his students. “I was just getting ready to send them to bed without supper.” He gave Marcy and Doug a broad wink. They grinned at each other, and Ed felt better knowing their senses of humor seemed to have been restored.
“So, where’re you staying?” Ed offered her his arm with exaggerated gallantry. She took it with an easy smile and together they strolled towards the station. Ed felt his heart beat slow and heavy as the warmth of her hand began to soak through his sleeve. Unbidden, the memory of their brief attempt at a love affair washed back over him from a time he considered ancient history.
All that time had not diminished Danette’s enthusiasm for her work, nor her ability to lift his spirits. While they walked, it became clear that Danette considered Jerry Van de Carr office-only talk. Instead, she kept up a stream of chatter about the current state of the Detroit River clean-up, the politicians involved, the endless contract negotiations, and how they had determined the human skull a trawler had uprooted was not Jimmy Hoffa, but it could be Elvis.
Monitor Station No. 67 was a low concrete building on the shore, painted what Danette referred to as “industrial white.” Ed unlocked his office and flicked on the light switch. The computer on the desk beeped urgently as its power came on with the lights.
“ ’Scuse me, Danni.” Ed motioned her to one of the spare chairs.
“Bet you next month’s pay it’s Jerry,” she said. “I should get out of here.” She ducked back into the hall. “Jesus, who’d’ve ever thought the Green Revolution’d make me go cloak-and-dagger.” She shut the door behind her.
Ed touched the PHONE button on the keyboard. The wall screen lit up and Jerry looked down on him with tired eyes.
“Ed.” He adjusted his tie. “Glad you’re here.”
Try again, Jerry, Ed thought, as he fumbled for an innocuous opening.
“Hi, Jerry.” His voice sounded wooden in his own ears. Ed hoped Jerry wouldn’t notice. “I was just going to call in. I was on the line with Dr. Washington today, she said there’s a problem—”