Beyond the Ice Limit

4

THE ROOM FELL silent. Gideon slowly rose from his chair, making a successful effort to hide his anger. “So you hired me to oversee the building of a nuke,” he said calmly.

“Yes.”

“In other words, four months ago, back when Garza first walked up to my fishing spot on Chihuahueños Creek and offered me a hundred thousand dollars for a week’s work, stealing the plans for some new kind of weapon off a defecting Chinese scientist—it was really this moment, this job, that you had in mind.”

Glinn nodded.

“And you want to use the nuke to kill a gigantic alien plant that is supposedly growing on the bottom of the ocean.”

“In a nutshell.”

“Forget it.”

“Gideon,” said Glinn, “we’ve been through this tiresome dance several times before: your heated refusals, your storming out, and then your eventual return once you’ve thought it through. Can we please skip all that?”

Gideon swallowed, stung by the comment. “Let me try to explain to you why this is a crazy idea.”

“Please.”

“First, you can’t do this on your own. You need to take this problem to the UN and get the whole world behind the effort to kill this thing.”

Glinn shook his head sadly. “Sometimes you amaze me, Gideon. You seem so smart—and then you say something so remarkably stupid. Did you just suggest that we ask the United Nations to solve this problem?”

Gideon paused. He had to admit, on reflection, that it didn’t sound like a very intelligent idea. “Okay, maybe not the UN, but at least take it to the US government. Let them deal with it.”

“You mean, let our most excellent Congress deal with this situation in the same way it has handled our other pressing national problems, such as global warming, terrorism, education, and our crumbling infrastructure?”

Gideon fished around for a snappy rejoinder to this but could not find one.

“This is no time for waffling,” said Glinn. “We’re the only ones who can do this. It’s got to be done now, while the life-form is quiescent. I hope you’ll help us.”

“If not?”

“Then sooner or later, the world as we know it will end. Because without you, we will fail. And you’ll reproach yourself for the rest of your life.”

“The rest of my short life, you mean. Thanks to what’s growing in my own brain, I’ve got maybe eight, nine months left to live. You and I both know that.”

“We don’t know that anymore.”

Gideon looked at Glinn. His face looked years younger; as he spoke he gestured with both hands, and his dead eye had healed up and was now clear and deep. His wheelchair was nowhere to be seen. On their last mission together, he had partaken of the restorative, health-giving lotus—just as Gideon himself had. It had worked for Glinn; but not, apparently, for Gideon.

“You really believe you’ll fail without me?” Gideon asked.

“I never say anything I don’t believe.”

“I’ll need to be convinced this thing is as dangerous as you say before I help you with anything nuclear.”

“You’ll be convinced.”

Gideon hesitated. “And you have to make me a co-director of the project.”

“That’s quite absurd,” said Glinn.

“Why? You said we work well as a team. But we’ve never worked as a team. It’s always been you telling me what to do, me doing it my own way, you protesting, and then, in the end, I turn out to be right and you’re wrong.”

“That is an oversimplification,” Glinn said.

“I don’t want you second-guessing and overruling me. Especially if we’re dealing with something as dangerous as nuclear weapons—and this seed of yours.”

“I don’t like governing by committee,” Glinn said. “At the least, I’ll have to run this through our QBA programs to see if it’s feasible.”

“You yourself said there’s no time,” said Gideon. “Make your decision now or I walk. For once, do something without your damn QBA programs.”

For a moment Glinn’s face flashed with anger, but then it smoothed out, the neutral mask reasserting itself, until he once again looked like the Glinn of resolute mystery.

“Gideon,” he said, “think for a minute about the qualities that a leader—even a co-leader—is required to have. He’s a team player. He’s good at inspiring others. He’s able to hide his true feelings, put up a false front when necessary. He projects confidence at all times—even if he doesn’t feel confident. He can’t be a freelancer. And he’s certainly not a loner. Now, tell me: do any of these qualities describe you?”

There was a pause.

“No,” Gideon finally admitted.

“Very well.” Glinn rose. “Our first stop is the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. And then it’s off to the South Atlantic—and beyond the Ice Limit.”