Fragment

8:33 P.M.

A chopper carried Otto to the Enterprise, where medics set, stitched, and splinted his thumb. He was heavily sedated, dosed with antibiotics and anti-viral drugs, and put under twenty-four-hour observation in a quarantined sick bay, much to his despair.

The first specimens and tissue samples from Henders Island had arrived with him, carefully packed and sent along on the same Sea Dragon helicopter. They were then taken to the Philippine Sea for CAT scans, X-rays, biochemical profiles, and gene sequencing. From these results, the ship-based science teams could start making-or attempting to make-physiological and taxonomic identifications of the island’s species.

Since no live specimens were to be allowed off the island, Nell supervised the preservation of dead specimens and the isolation and study of live ones as teams worked throughout the first day and night. Keeping everyone moving without becoming careless turned out to be a doubly exhausting duty, but now that the investigation had finally begun, Nell drove herself well past twenty hours without sleep.

Night was falling when she took her first breather. She broke away to look through the long window at the darkening slopes outside the lab.

As her mind drifted, the hillside seemed to writhe and glisten in the moonlight.

She rubbed her tired eyes and looked closer.

Tendrils arched up out of the ground in radial clusters, like ferns. The ends of the tendrils fanned out into pads, visibly growing and stretching. Wisps of steam rose wherever the frondlike branches pressed down on the field.

“It’s like they’re grazing.”

Nell jumped, startled, and turned to see Andy at her shoulder.

“Sorry,” he told her. “Quentin thinks those things eat the stuff that grows on the slopes.”

“Only at night? And the bugs graze the fields by day…” Nell smiled and rubbed her forehead, marveling at the depth of the mysteries on this island.

“It changes color at night, Nell. Quentin shined a flashlight on it and it’s purple now! After a few minutes under the light it started to turn yellow and then green again.”

“It must be some kind of lichen.” She shook her head. “We’ve got a lot to learn.”

“Check this out!” The technician boosted the feed from the outboard microphones, which had finally been hooked up to the inboard speaker system.

Wails arched like a quintet of alto-saxophones over the jungle’s hum, echoing over the giant amphitheater of the island. The eerie sounds were remarkably like whale calls punctuated with rhythmic inflections and trilling scales of vowels as they reverberated and intertwined.

Andy whistled in amazement and laughed. “Thanks for letting me come along, Nell!”

“No thanks required, Andy. We need you.”

Andy beamed. “I don’t think anyone’s said that to me, like, ever, other than my aunt.”

Impulsively, Nell kissed his cheek, causing him to blush in surprise. “You’re harder on yourself than anyone, Andrew Beasley. You shouldn’t be.”

“I wish you were my girlfriend, Nell,” Andy blurted.

Now it was Nell who was blushing. “Thanks, sweetie.” She tousled his hair. “But I’m nobody’s girlfriend.” She looked at him with a grateful but decisive nod. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be. Formally pairing off is such a strange tradition anyway. I don’t really understand it, to tell the truth.”

“You deserve a great guy, Nell. Though I’m not sure he deserves you.”

She laughed.

“Hey, man! You wouldn’t believe these things!” Quentin shouted from the other end of the lab. He was pointing to a trap full of flying insects. “They glow in the dark!”

“Look outside!” someone yelled.

As night deepened, swarms of green sparks had appeared in the profound darkness. Swirling along the edge of the jungle, they linked together in spiraling chains that resembled nucleotides twisting over the fields.

“Maybe they’re mating,” Quentin said. “Copulating in flight like dragonflies.”

“They look like those strings of Christmas lights at Tavern on the Green.”

“Macro-DNA,” Nell whispered.

She sighed, laughing. She had been up for twenty-six hours troubleshooting the lab’s first day of operations, and she hadn’t slept much for a week. “I’m going to catch a few hours in Section Two.”

“I think you better,” Andy told her. “But they said it’s not quite powered up yet.”

“Right-but it’s quiet.” She nodded wearily, moving toward the hatch. Her whole body suddenly felt heavy with fatigue.

“They said the ROVs will be working tomorrow. Then we can finally get a look inside that jungle.”

“Yep. That’ll make Otto happy, when he gets back,” she said over her shoulder. “Make sure the latest specimens, data zips, and dissection logs are packed and ready for transport to Enterprise for the morning pickup. That’s at five. I’m planning to be unconscious. Please walk past me quietly, OK?”

“Right.” Andy nodded. “Good night, Nell.”

“Right.” She saluted him, and opened the sealed hatch to the vestibule that led to Section Two. She entered and swung the hatch behind her, hearing the reassuring suction of the seal.

She yawned as she walked up the flight of aluminum stairs inside the plastic tube between sections. The green LEDs of microbe sensors glittered like a field of emerald stars on the wall of the tube. No breach, Nell thought.

She unsealed the far hatch and stepped into the deserted Section Two.

For the past three days the scientists had occasionally grabbed a nook in this section to catch some sleep as NASA technicians set up the rest of the lab.

She had heard there were bunk beds in the newly arrived Section Three, but it was swarming with technicians now. They were no doubt busy getting the electrical and computer systems up and running.

The air in Section Two smelled of new plastic, packing materials, and the ozone of electronics. Junk littered the floor: coils of cable and hastily opened boxes, torn plastic bags, broken Styrofoam molds, cable twists, box openers, and other detritus awaiting disposal. Right now any flat surface beckoned, so she climbed atop one of the long specimen chambers, similar to the trough in Section One, which was the only surface free of lab junk.

Lying on her back, using a plastic bag stuffed with packing peanuts for a pillow and a big plastic bag for a sleeping bag, Nell gazed at the starry sky through the window curving overhead. A few fireflylike bugs streaked by like meteors. For a fleeting moment she thought she saw a face looking down at her with multicolored eyes before sleep carried her away insistently.