Beyond the Ice Limit

12

GLINN CALLED A meeting for one o’clock, barely giving Gideon enough time to change out of his sweaty clothes and shower. When he arrived in mission control it was already packed; it seemed that everyone who was anyone on board ship was there, every chair was taken, and in the back it was standing room only.

Garza was seated on stage with Glinn; as Gideon entered, Glinn beckoned to him and he joined them.

To his surprise, a scattering of applause greeted his arrival on stage, which became general. He quickly sat down, embarrassed.

Wasting no time, Glinn gestured for a wireless mike and spoke into it. “This debriefing is called to order.”

At the sound of his cool, neutral voice, an instant silence fell.

“Most of you have already heard about this morning’s recon dive by Dr. Crew. I’m sure I speak for everyone in saying that he is to be congratulated for a successful mission.”

Another round of applause. Gideon noticed Lispenard, sitting in the front row. He expected to see anger and disapproval on her face. Instead, he saw an expression he didn’t quite understand.

“The purpose of this meeting,” Glinn went on, “is to briefly review footage and data from that recon, and then open the floor to ideas, analysis, and discussion. Finally, we will address the next steps to be taken.”

He gestured to the tech in the A/V booth and the main screen came to life. The assembled company watched in silence as an edited version of Gideon’s reconnaissance played on the screen, with the communications dialogue included. At the end of the reel came a series of magnified stills of the huge thing he’d discovered and the tendrils that snaked away from it.

“And now,” said Glinn as the footage ended, “I’ll share with you a few additional images. The first are sonar readings of the organism, collected on the recon.”

This was followed by a series of images similar to the cloud observed previously—ever-shifting pixels of sonar noise.

“And here are some sonar readings from the creature. It generates sonar—in other words, it makes a low, continuous noise—in the two-hertz range, far below that of human hearing. Here is a computer-generated image of its sonar fields.”

The images showed an eerie, glowing, blurred outline of the thing, with streamers coming off it.

He continued with some additional images in various modes, and then paused, looking around the room. “Very well. I’m going to open the floor to anyone who has anything to say, or any questions to ask. This free-flowing discussion will last thirty minutes, so be succinct.”

A bunch of hands went up. Glinn pointed to the back. “Prothero?”

Why, Gideon thought, call on him first? He was likely to hijack the discussion.

Prothero rose. “Okay, it’s pretty obvious to me what’s going on with the sonar.” He looked around. “Nothing wrong with the equipment, by the way. That Baobab’s got a surface that looks like bark. You saw that? So I took a close look at it, under magnification, and right away I noticed that it has a remarkable mathematical quality: it scatters sonar almost perfectly. In other words, the Baobab’s invisible to sonar. And I can also tell you why.”

He paused, looking around again, aggressively, as if waiting for someone to challenge him.

“Please do explain,” said Glinn, encouragingly.

“The Baobab grows in deep salt water, in the complete absence of light. That’s evidently its natural environment. Sonar is about the only way to ‘see’ in that environment, and so, to avoid predators, it evolved to be invisible to sonar. Obviously, its home planet was a deep watery world, perhaps an ocean covered in miles of ice, like Europa or Callisto. That also explains the two-hertz sound it produces—it’s pinging its surroundings, so to speak.”

He sat down abruptly. Gideon found himself startled, indeed astonished, at the clear logic of the analysis.

Prothero’s observations were greeted with a burst of murmuring that filled the room. “Thank you,” said Glinn after a moment. As the room died again into silence, Alex Lispenard raised her hand.

“Alex?”

“Two things struck me. First, the complete absence of sea life in the vicinity. In the benthic zone you don’t typically see a lot of life, but this area is dead.”

“What sea life would you normally expect to find?” asked Glinn.

“A few scavengers—hagfish, crabs, and such, which feed on carcasses that sink from the upper regions. You’d also see detritivores, which feed on decomposing animals and plants and also gobble up feces sinking from above. And epifauna and infauna would live on and in the seafloor itself. But I saw no evidence of any of these at the site.”

“Any speculation why not?”

“On land, there’s a phenomenon called allelopathy. Some trees and plants reduce competition around themselves by releasing chemicals into the soil that harm other plants or stop the germination of seeds. We may be seeing that here.”

“And the other thing that struck you?”

“The human corpses. Beyond what I assume to be damage caused by the initial explosion, they show almost no signs of decomposition that I could see.”

“Any theory as to why?” Glinn asked.

“At that depth and pressure, organic remains begin to dissolve even if they’re not attacked by microorganisms. I have no idea why they’re so well preserved.”

This generated a long discussion. Glinn managed it, giving everyone a chance to speculate and ask questions. When the half hour was over, he gently closed the conversation. “I’d like to conclude by pointing out something that has undoubtedly occurred to many of you already.” He stood and began to pace the stage, slowly.

“Dr. Prothero, it seems, has put a name to this organism—the Baobab—and I endorse it. The Baobab is currently quiescent. It went silent, so to speak, after an initial burst of activity and hyperactive growth following its ‘sprouting.’ I privately hoped we might have found it dead. But these images suggest it is very much alive…and healthy. It seems certain that at some point it will ‘fruit’ and produce seeds. We already know what these seeds look like, because the so-called meteorite was one of them—and we planted it. The seed weighed twenty-five thousand tons, was virtually indestructible, and was composed of a material many times denser than any known element on earth. Obviously, it evolved for the rigors of interstellar travel. It is a seed designed for Panspermia, but not the normal Panspermia of spores envisioned by exobiologists: drifting in space or hidden in meteorites. This is Panspermia with a vengeance. Terminator Panspermia.”

There was a nervous titter from the audience.

“Which brings me to my point: once the Baobab produces seeds, how will they be dispersed into outer space?”

He let that hang in the air.

“Think about it a moment. Each seed weighs twenty-five thousand tons. There seems to be no way for them to escape the gravitational field of any planet they land on. And yet they do escape. So I ask again: what is the dispersal mechanism for these seeds?”

Another silence.

“I suggest that there can be only one mode of dispersal, only one way for these incredibly heavy seeds to be released back into outer space and go adrift—to find fertile new oceans in which to sprout and grow. No doubt you can guess what that mode is, as well.”

He took another turn, almost like a television evangelist, and faced the audience again. “Once you understand that, you understand what it means for the fate of the earth—and why we cannot fail.”

After the meeting had adjourned, and as Gideon was getting ready to go, Alex Lispenard approached him. “Gideon?”

He turned.

“Look. I want to apologize for arguing with you earlier, escalating the discussion, taking it to Glinn.”

“Forget it,” he said. “It was my fault. You’re the DSV chief. I just felt—”

She touched his arm. “No need to explain. I understand now. What you did, going down there alone—on your second dive, no less—took real guts. And you kept your cool amid a nasty shock.”

“Well, as you said, anyone can drive a DSV. And Garza yanked me up before I did anything stupid.”

“When I was in mission control and that gigantic thing appeared on the screen, I was really taken aback. For a moment, I was damned glad it was you down there, and not me.”

“It’s just a tree.”

She shook her head. “I wouldn’t make any assumptions about what it is. None at all.”