“Problem.” Jerry snorted. “Yeah, there’s a problem. The project was lied to, that’s the problem.”
“By who?” asked Ed guardedly. Part of him was already braced for the outburst.
Surprisingly, it didn’t come. “En-Gene Labs,” said Jerry quietly. “I got a gigabyte worth of files on them. Their trials on the TDS symbiote weren’t done in conditions even close to what it’d be operating under out in the wild.”
“And they got past the FDA and Health and Human Services anyway?” Ed asked out loud. Inside he thought, How far are you going to take this, ferry?
“You’re forgetting how new all this was twenty years ago, Ed. Everything was being reviewed on a case-by-case basis by people who didn’t have the vaguest idea what was really going on. I’ve got the new work-ups from a dozen experts. The symbiote has invaded the digestive system of the fish at unpredicted levels and is interfering with the fish’s ability to digest food. They’re starving to death.”
With full stomachs. Ed remembered Doug and Marcy’s near-argument on the boat. Jerry’s thumbnail sketch fit the facts neatly. Danni wasn’t buying it, though, and that was no small fact in and of itself.
“Experts spend a lot of time disagreeing, Jerry. Have you got outside confirmation on the data?”
“Our reports have been prepared by the best people we’ve got.” Which means no, thought Ed, while Jerry kept right on talking. “The data’s all there.”
Which means outside sources were not going to be called in. Ed rubbed his eyes. “What’s the rush, Jerry? We may have turned up something fresh this trip out. Whatever the problem is, it’s isolated in Superior....”
Jerry shook his head. "But we can’t guarantee that it’s going to stay isolated. En-Gene may have unleashed a major biohazard here. That’s the angle the news wires are playing for. You wouldn’t believe the screaming going on down in Washington.”
“Yeah, I would. I’ve been to a few of those committee meetings myself, remember?” Ed sighed. His shoes and shirt were still wet from being out on the lake and the chill was seeping through his to skin. “So, the only way we’ve got to deal with this is to denounce the effort that’s had more to do with our success than anything else and throw En-Gene to the wolves?”
“That’s it, Ed.” Jerry fingered the knot on his tie. “But, if we act fast, the main project will get out with a whole skin.”
“Then what?” Ed wanted to slump into his chair, but in his unventilated office, the upholstery would stay wet for days.
“Then we look for another way to clean this place up,” Jerry said to his desktop. “Maybe we’ll even find one.”
Ed found a moment to pity Jerry. He’d been the one who believed in the revolution before it even happened. He’d sold his soul for it, a piece at a time. Now that the real trouble had come, he had none left to shore himself up with. The project had become more important than its goals. Knowing why Jerry was doing this though, did nothing to warm Ed’s chill.
“When’s the axe fall?” Ed didn’t feel up to being diplomatic.
“Tomorrow, two o’clock.” Jerry straightened his shoulders and marshalled his best sincere expression. “This is not the fault of anyone in the project, Ed, I’m going to make that perfectly clear.”
“I’m sure.” Ed let his hand drop onto the BREAK key and the screen faded to black. He stared bleakly at the blank screen for a moment, then went to look for Danette.
He found her in the lobby, typing furiously on her sketchpad, which was jacked into one of the spare outside lines.
“You getting any help?” Ed asked. “Not really.” Her attention stayed on the screen and he saw the lines strain was drawing on her face. The symbiote was what had made the Detroit river cleanup even thinkable. If it was taken out of the project, Ed still had a fairly clean lake. Danette had a ruined promise and a twenty-year setback.
“The word’s gone around about what Jerry’s got planned for tomorrow,” Danni said. “The whole crowd seems to have decided it’s everybody for themselves.” She looked up and her smile was tight and mirthless. “How went your part of the war?”
“You were right, Danni, he’s lost his mind.” Ed shivered. “He really thinks he can send En-Gene down without taking us along for the ride.” He rubbed his arms. “Listen, since we seem to be the condemned, you want to have a hearty meal? I’ve got this pot of stew....”
Danni’s expression relaxed into a real smile. “I’ve missed your cooking.”
“And who knows?” Ed tried to sound cheerful. “We’ve still got what, fifteen hours? We still might figure out something.”
“You mean your students might.” Danni snapped her sketchpad’s case closed. “You know they’ve both barricaded themselves in the lab, don’t you?”
I knew they’d mutiny. Ed smiled.
“That, my dear Danette, is what God made grad students for.” He slid a solicitous hand under her elbow and helped raise her to her feet. “Shall we leave them to it?”
The look she gave him said she knew how much worry he was covering up, but she let it go.
It wasn’t until they were both comfortably stowed at Ed’s dining room table, working on plates of stew and biscuits, that Danette raised the subject of the project again. She did it without preamble or transition, so Ed knew he’d been right. She hadn’t stopped thinking about it any more than he had.
“I don’t understand why this is happening to Superior,” Danni said, reaching for the butter. “The rivers are all fine, and the Caspian Sea, and the Black Sea.”
“So far.” Ed stared out the window. The wind was picking up as the twilight deepened. The roof shingles started to rattle in response. Ed gauged the noise. More than a few would be gone by morning. “That’s what worries me, Danni. We’re not the oldest project, but we’ve made more progress in the Great Lakes than anywhere else.”
“That’s because you didn’t have as far to go. There was no nuclear waste at all here, and relatively little hard garbage to dig up, and we did catch the road salt problem before it went too far.”
The first drops of rain spattered against the window. “Before it went too far.” Ed poked his fork aimlessly into the remains of his dinner. “So, the question is now, did we go too far or not far enough?”
For the first time, Danette’s dark eyes looked really tired. “I wish I knew, Ed. I get worried. We are the children of the information age. We can find out anything, right? We’ve got all this data stored on chips and sorted into neat little packages. But that’s not how reality is, is it? The world outside those packages is so...” she laced her fingers together “...interconnected. I keep wondering if we’ve missed a combination somewhere.”
She rested her elbows on the table and stared down at her half-empty plate. “Remember how they discovered that the chemicals used in the initial paper recycling programs were more hazardous to the environment than the chemicals used to make new Styrofoam? How long did it take to get that changed around?”
“Years. Every time someone tried to say something bad about recycling, the Greens had a fit.” Ed dropped his fork and pushed his plate away. “The Greens and Jerry.”
Danette brushed a shower of crumbs onto the floor. “A revolution needs fanatics, Ed.”
“Maybe. Maybe. But fanatics don’t think things through, Danni.”
“So here we sit, a pair of old fools.” She reached out and squeezed his hand. “Wondering if we’ve been blinded by good intentions and pretty dreams.”
Ed held still, trying to drink in strength from her touch and almost succeeding.