Longer

–THREE–

They watched it for two days, keeping their distance, observing through the window. This was Cav’s way of doing things. Watch. Listen. Smell. Use your senses. Interfere as little as possible. Let nature take its course. Wait.

To watch, they had eyes, and cameras. To listen, ears and mics. Eventually, they’d touch it. What they couldn’t do was smell. Too dangerous to smell it directly, and the odorometer only told them so much. Not having smell left a hole in the experience. A question mark. Gunjita liked to say it was tantamount to walking on one leg.

She’d said this very thing the first time Cav had laid eyes on her, in a lecture hall. She was a rising star, and he’d come to check her out. He assumed she was being dramatic, though she didn’t seem the type. The longer he listened, the more convinced he became she not only meant what she said, but knew exactly what she was talking about.

Smell began when life began. At the very earliest stages. Smell was basic, primitive, the bedrock of communication. Smell was truthful. Smell was blind. Smell made you fall in love. Smell made you take to the hills. Smell was a rocket, a red flag, an invitation, an alarm.

Cav learned all this and more at that first lecture. He remembered nearly every word, spellbound by the lesson and the teacher. Impossible to say which bound him first, and whether in fact there was a first, his recollection more of a growing, interdependent, virtually simultaneous seduction by speaker and speech.

She’d opened his mind, or rather, closer to say, his mind was blown, which made him all the more aware, now, of what, without the sense of smell, he was missing.

Two days they watched and listened. Cav rarely left the window. He was a scientist, which translated into a Peeping Tom. Living things were meant to be observed. They were meant to attract attention. Not always, but sooner or later. Being noticed at the wrong time was potentially a death sentence. But at the right time: voilà! Connection. Mutual interest. If the stars lined up, a compatible, coordinated, and, who knew, concupiscent future.

He tried not to think too far ahead. Tried not to get his hopes up. He’d once zoned out on a python coiled on a branch of a Mocambo tree. A magnificent creature, and a rare sighting. He was on a medical mission at the time, doing minor and not so minor surgery in what was left of the Amazon. A day later, after a morning of botfly extractions, he discovered to his chagrin that the snake was dead. A few hours after that he was shocked to find out that it wasn’t dead at all, but fake. A practical joke.

He had learned not to pass judgment prematurely.

Gunjita was a member of the same congregation. It rarely helped to jump to a conclusion in science or life, but especially in science. Spontaneity had its place, and occasionally yielded gold, but mostly it didn’t. Ninety percent of progress came from slow, methodical work. This suited her, as by nature she was patient and thorough. But after two days she was ready to start running some tests.

Cav resisted: even passive tests ran the risk of altering it.

“How long do you plan on waiting?” she asked.

He didn’t have an answer.

“There’s work to do,” she reminded him. “We’re here on business.”

“This is more important.”

“We have a contract to fulfill.”

He grunted.

“You may not care, but I do. You may be done with work. Retired.” He hated the word. She was prodding him, fishing. “I’m not. I’m looking forward to many more productive years. I’ll need funding. Gleem is a cash cow. It seems counterproductive to spit in their face.”

“I see your point,” he replied carelessly. His eyes were fixed on the Ooi, the object of interest.

“I’ll give you one more day,” she said.

He nodded his agreement.

She headed to the lab, where she could be herself without resistance. H82W8 had been acting strangely, flipping out of what should have been a stable shape, as though energized, then flipping back, as though not energized enough. Wanting to change but unable to quite do so. If she could discover the cause, she could eliminate it, and re-stabilize the compound. Then again, if she could discover the cause, she could possibly boost its energy, allowing the grav-sensitive drug to break free of its internal restraints and reassemble itself in a new conformation, maybe closer to what they were looking for, maybe far afield, maybe a dead end, but maybe not. A lab was a kitchen, and Gunjita was a master cook. In the days of the Hoax, when she had her own lab, and defense-related funding was off the charts, she followed her nose to her heart’s content, mixing, blending, altering recipes as she saw fit. Now she worked for someone else. And she was on the clock.

She made a note of what she was seeing, intending to investigate it further if she had time. If not, someone else could run with it. She was willing to be the shoulders. Not too terribly invested in this particular study. Science was incremental, and she was incrementally content.

She shot an update to Gleem, then spent some time thinking about biological alarms. Decided to focus on arterial plaque, the cause of most heart attacks, strokes, and related catastrophic events. Plaque was a complex mix of proteins, calcium, and lipids. Scents, on the whole, were much simpler. Could she engineer one to bind to plaque—putrescine, say, or putrescine-like—and as the plaque increased, the scent also increased, to a certain critical level, at which point it got released into the bloodstream, creating a new body odor, as distinctive as the fruitiness of ketosis, say, or the fishiness of uremia, but extra stinky?

She saw no reason why she couldn’t. But who would agree to take it? That was the question.

The answer: anyone who didn’t want to die suddenly and prematurely. Cav? Moot point. The lifesaving alarm she envisioned didn’t exist.

She had no particular premonition that he was going to keel over suddenly and drop dead. His health was slowly declining, sure. She knew how this felt from firsthand experience. But it wasn’t as if he was on his last legs. Eighty-four wasn’t a hundred and four. Then again, it wasn’t twenty-four, or even sixty. Anything could happen at any time, until he juved.

And if something did? She’d lived a whole life without him, so knew that she could. She’d also lived a whole life with, and wasn’t finished. Being with him the last two days reminded her of him as a young man, what a mind he had, how far he was willing to go, what a bulldog he could be, delighted with the world, obsessed, provocative, impossible to be with at times, impossible not to be with. She felt that way about him now.

How would she get him to take her lifesaving alarm, if it did exist? She’d offer it, and he’d refuse. In his sleep then? Without his permission? She might as well strap him down and force him to be young.

She’d never do that. She didn’t believe in that kind of coercion. Though the idea of straps and physical restraint—of a physical solution to the problem—got her thinking.

She heard a series of beeps. Moments later, Laura Gleem was on-screen, the CGI version of her, which hadn’t changed in years.

“Dr. Gharia.”

“Director.”

Laura’s face went through a series of transformations, commentaries and inside jokes on the power of money, imagination, and plasticity, in the process authenticating her identity.

“I received your report.”

“That was fast.”

“Your work is important, Doctor. Correct me if I’m wrong, but things don’t look good.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“No? Our drug is unstable. It’s coming apart at the seams. Can’t make up its mind what to do.”

“It’s reacting to something. Gravity, most likely.”

“And the cells? How are they doing?”

“They’re alive.”

“How alive?”

“They’re not dead.”

“Not dead is good.”

“I’ve made some adjustments. We’ll know more in a few days.”

“Our fate is in your hands. H82W8 is useless to me as it is.”

Be patient, Gunjita wanted to say. She knew not to.

Laura Gleem smiled, as though reading her mind. “On another note, what do you think of pink?”

“Pink?”

“For the treatment center. And the personnel. The nurses and technicians.”

She’d forgotten about this other plan for the station.

“The doctors, too,” said Laura. “Pink with purple piping.”

Gunjita was not a big fan of the color. “Sounds like a boutique.”

“That’s exactly what it is. A medical boutique in outer space. Shuttle up, take the cure, shuttle home. If not this cure, then another. We’ll find something.”

“A little holiday.”

“Exactly.”

“Expensive.”

“More expensive not to, if your health’s at stake. Future job for you, Doctor. Get this drug to work, okay?”

Not a job that particularly appealed to her, coddling and cosseting anyone, well-to-do or otherwise. As for her current job, less appealing with Laura Gleem breathing down her neck.

“I have a question for you,” she said.

“Fire away.”

“Pink.”

“What about it?”

“Do you wear pink?”

“Do I?”

“I saw you once in person years ago. Now I just see you on-screen. I just see this … what everyone sees. Why’s that?”

Laura stared at her. The corners of her mouth edged up. No warmth in the look, but plenty of chill.

“This object. On the asteroid. What is it?”

“I was just wondering. Maybe there’s something we can do to help.”

“You can help by doing your job. Now: this object.”

“We’re studying it.”

“I’ve been advised to send someone. A team.”

She knew what Cav would say to that. Kept her mouth shut.

“It looks like vomit,” said Laura.

“I’ve pointed that out.”

“And Dr. Cavanaugh? What does he say?”

“He has his own opinion.” Let her read between the lines. Gunjita had no doubt she could.

“Of course. I look forward to hearing it.”

“You will,” she replied brusquely.

Laura was silent for a moment. Gunjita feared she had gone too far. Then Laura said, “It’s yours for now. Keep it to yourself. No reason to alarm anybody needlessly. Understood?”

“Yes. Absolutely. I’m in full agreement.”

“And don’t get too distracted by it. H82W8 comes first. Prioritize, Doctor. Stay in touch.”

She ended the transmission, leaving Gunjita feeling tense and manipulated. She had the urge to retaliate, which surprised her. She tried deep breathing. Then padmasana, the lotus pose, the only one she knew. Old age had made it nearly impossible, but now it was easy. Levitation, too, which up to then had eluded her.

But the knotted-up feeling persisted. Neck, shoulders, legs. Like coils of rope wound too tight, like springs about to snap. She wanted to throw something, do something. Run, punch, kick. Something physical … if she didn’t, she was going to explode.

She and Cav used to wrestle, back in the day. A way to blow off steam after an argument, sometimes a prelude to sex. He pinned her nearly every time, his sheer size an insurmountable advantage. Now a mere shadow of himself, she could beat him easily. Turn the tables. Sit on his face.

She was tempted.

In the end she decided to take out her frustration in the Onizuka mod, which had a treadmill, bike, resistance trainer, and a VR setup that synched with each. She chose a FPS that put her in a ring, initially against a lead-footed ogre who could take a punch, working her upper body first. After that, heart, legs, and lungs, building up a sweat to the sound of her Velcro soles ripping off the belt, along with the cheers and heckles of the ringside mob. Felt better afterward, wiped herself down, PO’d a liter and a half, then returned to the observation mod. Cav hadn’t budged.

“I talked to Laura Gleem.”

“It moved,” he said.

Stunned, she pressed her face to the glass. The Ooi looked exactly the same as before, in exactly the same position. She took a photo, compared it to an earlier one. Couldn’t find a shadow of a difference.

Cav had to agree. “Interesting.”

“In what way?”

“It moved, then returned to its exact original shape and position. Like a spring. As though engineered. Or preordained.”

“Or imagined.”

“You don’t believe me.”

“Let’s do some tests.”

“Not yet.”

“When?”

“It could be dormant. Or partially dormant. If it moved once, it’ll move again. We need to give it time. Maybe it needs to feel more comfortable. More secure.”

The Ooi was plastered to its rock, cozy as a button. Cav was plastered to his chair.

“Take a break,” she said. “Get some rest. I’ll watch. Promise. I won’t miss a thing.”

The next day Cav agreed to spectroscopy. Light spectroscopy first, the least destructive. According to most people, not destructive at all.

The asteroid was high in carbon, no surprise. It had carbon’s distinctive black color. It also contained trace amounts of oxygen, hydrogen, phosphorus, and nitrogen, some in molecular form. They found carbon chains and rings, amino acids, hydroxyl and methyl groups, phosphates, and amines. The asteroid was a chemical smorgasbord. They learned a lot.

They learned less about the Ooi. Or rather, they learned something, possibly a great deal, but didn’t know what it meant. The Ooi had similar chemical composition to the asteroid, as far as its elements were concerned. LIF showed that. But its Raman spectra, which detected atomic bonding, were difficult to interpret. They varied from scan to scan. No two readings were identical. The first showed one molecular signature, the second a slightly different one, the third slightly different yet again. Could have been due to absorption of radiation used by the tests themselves. Or to something else entirely.

What did this mean? As far as Cav was concerned, only that the Ooi defied spectroscopic definition. He could think of a number of reasons why. None of them disabused him of the notion that it was living. Its signal varied. So what? Variability was a defining feature of living systems, which characteristically showed peaks and valleys of activity, stochastic swings within a range. Not usually at the level of small molecules, but even there, conceivably. He guessed there was a pattern, which they’d observe if they waited long enough.

“We should tell Gleem,” said Gunjita.

“Tell them what?”

“What we’ve found so far. Send them our measurements. See what they come up with.”

“It’s a little early for that. We’ve barely gotten started.”

“They’re waiting,” she said.

“Let them.”

“The Ooi isn’t yours, Cav. Technically speaking, it’s theirs.”

“It’s no one’s.”

“The asteroid’s theirs.”

“So we’ll send them our analysis of it. That’s what they’re interested in. Can they make money from it? I’m afraid they’ll be disappointed.”

“We need to say something about the Ooi.”

“We have nothing to say.”

“How about this: we’re busy. The great man is thinking. We need more time. Leave him alone.”

“Perfect.”

“You’re living in a cave,” she said. “They’ll send someone if we don’t communicate.”

The following day they added IINS spectroscopy to their testing, repeating it three separate times, with the same confounding results. Cav wanted to do a fourth. Gunjita put her foot down.

“You love to do this,” she said.

“Do what?”

“You know we’re going in there.”

“Eventually.”

“You’re procrastinating.”

“Due diligence, Gunjita.”

“Delayed gratification, Cav.”

She was right.

“I’m suiting up,” she announced.

He nodded. It was time. Fact was, he couldn’t wait.

“I’ll be right behind you, sweetheart,” he said.

The big concern, of course, was contamination. Human beings, even freshly cleaned, plucked, shaved, deodorized, debugged, and antisepticized, were not germ-free. Germs, quasigerms, and pieces of germs in the form of embedded fragments of genetic code, and other, nonembedded pieces in free-floating form, and still others in the process of active mutation to create new germ pieces, germs of the future, lived in, on, around, and through the thing called human. A human being was fertile soil, a Garden of Eden for nonhuman organisms, simulacrum of the Earth itself, built over eons through trial and error and slow accretion of materials, including living materials. A body was a magnet for all manner of life, bringing it together, binding it energetically, holding it in balance. A laboratory for experimentation, a friendly host, a breeding ground, a passenger, as well as a carrier, and notoriously good at spreading disease.

Also good at attracting disease: life attracted life.

And good at warding it off. Repelling invasion. Usually very good at this on Earth, where the invaders, as a rule, were familiar, and used familiar tactics.

The Ooi came from outer space.

“I know what you’re thinking,” said Gunjita. “Please don’t.”

They were standing at the door to the cargo bay, suited and gloved, helmets in hand.

“Don’t what?”

“Take off your helmet when we’re inside. Or your gloves.”

“I don’t intend to.”

“That’s good to hear. And your contrarian streak? The side that loves to ad-lib?”

“It’s under control.”

“Also good.”

“Honestly? I’m not worried. I don’t sense we’re at risk. Not bodily. But the reverse … if we harmed it? Unconscionable. I can’t imagine anything worse. Until we know more, a lot more, I’m not willing to take that risk.”

She was cheered to hear this. But like every silver lining, there was a cloud attached. What did it mean for the future of this little project of theirs, this little side job—delving into the riddle of the ages, the burning question on every stargazers’ mind since the dawn of time: Are we alone in the universe, is there other life?—for one of the lead scientists to claim he had “a feeling” they weren’t at risk?

Helmets on, they entered the bay. The asteroid floated a couple of feet above the floor, held in place by bungies. It was charcoal-black, its surface angular, sharp-edged, and irregular, all save one small section that looked engineered. Four narrow ledges rising not far from the Ooi, like miniature stairs. As though carved in the rock. As though purposeful.

Gunjita quickened her pace. She refused to believe it.

“Slowly,” Cav whispered.

She stopped at arm’s length from the pint-sized stairs, just to the right of the Ooi. Moments later, Cav joined her. They were stabilized by Velcro soles on their boots. The Ooi appeared unaware of their presence. If aware, it appeared unperturbed.

“Someone’s playing a joke on us,” she said.

“Mother Nature. She loves jokes.”

“You think they’re random?”

“Not random. But not deliberate.”

“I hope not.” She leaned closer. “You think the rock could fracture just like this? In just this pattern?”

Cav had his eyes on the Ooi. He suppressed the thought that it was responsible for what they were seeing.

Gunjita answered herself. “Of course it could.”

He nodded.

“Big universe,” she added.

“Huge.”

She wasn’t entirely sold. Objectivity was key. But the more she looked, the less the stairs resembled stairs, the more they flattened out, or else deepened, shifting shape, becoming other shapes, other patterns, as though her vision had become unglued.

She took a step back and blinked several times. Slowly, the stairs reconstituted themselves. But they looked ever so slightly different. The lines looked harder. The dimensions more chiseled. More muscular. As if a new way of seeing were asserting itself in her. A new spatial awareness.

Interesting.

She glanced at Cav, who was transfixed by the Ooi. She knew what he was thinking. She could tell by the rapturous look on his face. Seeing it, she understood that she’d been overly ambitious. Had asked too much of herself. Objectivity was at best an approximation. Subjectivity was impossible to fully control or suppress. Its source in this case was a photo of a snow-capped peak she’d taken years before, and which, recently, had somehow wormed its way on-screen attached to a smiling, apple-cheeked Tyrolean face urging her to book a repeat visit. She’d seen the photo that very day.

“I was thinking about that trip we took to the Alps,” she said. “Do you remember? We were collecting extremophiles. A storm nearly knocked us off the mountain. Fortunately, the Swiss had conveniently carved steps into the rock face.”

He remembered. “A scary experience.”

“Unforgettable.” In fact, she’d forgotten until the photo. A memory unburied by spam. “We see what’s familiar. Experience thwarts objectivity. It interferes.”

“And informs.”

“Yes. Informs and interferes.”

“A balance,” he said. “Like everything. Take a look at this.” He was pointing to an arm of the Ooi. It was shaped like a camel’s hump. On the opposite side was another hump-shaped arm, slightly wider and also slightly thicker. “Symmetrical, you think?”

“Almost.”

“Yes. An almost symmetry.”

Symmetry implied organization, a cornerstone of life. Though not necessarily life. Atoms and molecules were extremely well organized. On a larger scale, so were galaxies.

“It’s getting energy from somewhere,” he said.

“That’s a big leap.”

“I’m assuming. From the phosphates, you think?”

What was the spectroscope seeing that he didn’t? More to the point, why was he seeing the Ooi so much better than the machine? If the spectroscope was to be believed, it should have been a blur. To him it was a map, exquisitely drawn, of intrigue and mystery. Three-dimensional, maybe more. Shiny, smooth, lumpy, yellowish-green. Not large, but life came in all sizes. A speck could be a universe. Intelligence could hide in plain view.

He bent to study it closer, careful not to brush it with his helmet, wishing he could do without the helmet, stifling the urge.

Where was a HUBIE when you needed one?

He cringed at the thought, quickly suppressed it.

Turned his attention instead to the Ooi’s method of staying in place. It appeared attached to the asteroid, draped across a narrow crevice. How was it attached? And why? What was the nature of the interface?

It seemed to flow over the rock, over and possibly into, as a liquid might have flowed before hardening and congealing. He imagined a connection between it and the asteroid, an interarticulation, a sharing of some sort, possibly one-directional, more likely back and forth. Perhaps it had roots. Perhaps a tube, or many tubes. Perhaps feet. A mouth? Why not? Everything needed to eat.

It feathered to an edge that was no more than one or two millimeters thick. He had to stifle another urge, this one to lift its border (if it could be lifted), peel it back, and have a peek. A terrible idea, inviting disaster. But he’d learn so much.

The lumps, for example. What were they? He had a feeling that sooner or later he’d have to find out directly, through an incision, and he cringed at this thought, too. The last thing he wanted to do was harm it. Besides, his knife-wielding days were past. As exciting as surgery had once been, he’d long since preferred a hands-on, not-in, approach.

Plus he was old, himself no stranger to the knife. He’d been stabbed surgically on three separate occasions. Nothing major, or that he wouldn’t consent to again. But each stab was a violation, shocking to the body and the spirit. The first time was the worst, each subsequent shock duller, as though he were becoming desensitized, when in fact it was the opposite. He felt more vulnerable to injury than ever, and paradoxically more resistant, as though as his outer self became frailer, his inner, truer self retreated and became harder to reach. And what could be reached was more courageous and resolute. He hoped this were so. Courage was always welcome, but never more than in old age.

The Ooi might be just as old, or older.

Did it have a dormant, cryptobiotic state? Was that what they were seeing? How had it looked and acted when young? Had it always been this shape? Had it always had lumps? There were seven of them, all small, some smooth, some chunkier.

“What do you think?” he asked Gunjita.

“A silicate, I’m guessing. Maybe a quartz of some kind.”

“You’re sticking to your guns.”

“Nothing’s changed my mind. We need a piece. Doesn’t have to be big. We can probe it for biological activity.”

“We have probes?”

“We do.”

“Why? We don’t need them. Not for the H82W8 work.”

“Part of my toolkit, dear. Never leave home without them.”

“You’re amazing. How many?”

“A few hundred.”

“Unlikely we’re going to find a match.”

“It’s a start.”

“Unreasonable to expect the same evolutionary path as Earth,” he pointed out.

“I’ll deep sequence it then. How’s that?”

“It may not even have DNA. Probably doesn’t.”

“Let’s find out.”

“How big of a sample do we need?”

“Tiny,” she said.

He stared at the Ooi. Could it be alive? If so, could it feel pain, or any sensation recognizable to a human? Would it hurt to be knifed? How would it feel being punctured, dissected, and sliced? He had no idea. But he knew how it felt to him.

“Let’s hold off,” he said.

“We’ve watched it for two days. How much longer do you plan on waiting?”

“Before cutting it? As long as I can.”

“Before admitting it’s a rock.”

“Jury’s still out. We need to run more tests.”

“You’re impossible, you know that?”

“I do know that. Your patience means everything.”

She rolled her eyes. “What are you seeing that I’m not?”

“I don’t know what I’m seeing. Honestly. I don’t know what this is.”

“Peas and diced chicken,” she said.

“In reference to …”

“You asked what I thought.”

“Ah. Yes. You’re doubling down.”

“I am. It looks like puke.”

“Thank you. Very scientific.”

“Inclusions, okay? Obviously.”

“Mineral?”

“Yes.”

He unfolded his gloved hand and held it above the Ooi. Feeling for heat, or cold, or anything. “Not organs?”

“No.”

“Or organelles?”

“No. Not organs or organelles. And not symmetric, either. Randomly distributed.”

“Random to us,” he replied.

She gave him a look. “We don’t call it science, Cav, if you keep rewriting the rules. We call it your version of things. Then it’s your word versus the world. Let’s avoid that. Instead, let’s agree on some basic principles. Mathematics, for one. Physics. Reproducibility.”

The palm of his hand had started to tingle. He checked his glove. Needed to check his skin. The Ooi, as far as he could tell, hadn’t changed.

“I agree completely. We need more tests. Noninvasive ones.”

They left the bay, sealed the door, removed their helmets and gloves in the airlock. The skin of his hand looked normal. He rubbed his palm.

“Something the matter?” she asked.

“It’s tingling.”

“Let me look.”

“There’s nothing to see.”

She grabbed his hand, inspected it.

“It’s gone now,” he said.

“Put your gloves back on.”

He nodded. She put hers on, too. Then the helmets, and they went back.

He repeated what he’d done, holding his hand inches above the Ooi. He had a mild age-related tremor, and the effort of keeping his hand in place accentuated it. After a while he got a cramp, along with a pins-and-needles sensation nearly identical to what he’d felt before. He switched hands, then took a break. Gunjita relieved him, cupping both her palms above the Ooi, as if it were a crystal ball.

“Anything?” he asked.

She shook her head. “You okay?”

“Just tingling a little.”

“Like before?”

He didn’t respond right away, working his hand. Then he said, “Yeah. More or less.”

The next day they added more nondestructive tests. In medicalese these were called noninvasive, to distinguish procedures that didn’t hurt, or only hurt a little, from those that hurt more, and carried more risk. The difference between, on the one hand, doing an X-ray, say, or scraping a sample of skin, or snaking a tube through the nose or the butthole, and on the other, puncturing the skin and opening the body with a scalpel. In truth, all forms of testing were invasive. This was Cav’s position, and he wasn’t wrong. Mass spectroscopy bombarded an object with other objects (electrons, chemicals, light), vibrational spectroscopy with infrared radiation, MRI with electromagnetism (a dangerous test if an object were metallic, unknown in this case, and therefore out of the question), ultrasound with sound waves, X-ray with ionizing radiation. The invasions were invisible but no less real. Cav worried how the Ooi would react. He worried they might harm it. An ancillary worry, they might alter it somehow, or it might alter itself in response. Accordingly, he used the lowest possible setting on each device to begin testing, increasing only when and if it became necessary, and then by the smallest of increments. As a result, the testing lasted two full days. In the end they knew little more than when they’d started. Or rather, they knew this:

The Ooi resisted description. The infrared absorption results, like the Raman spectra, were variable and impossible to pin down. Ditto, crystallography, thermography, and CT. They couldn’t say one way or another if it had an aura, and therefore how many of the seven aural layers were functional, and if it had seven layers and not eight, or twenty-eight, and how they looked, and what they did, because they didn’t have an auralyzer. It hadn’t made the equipment cut.

Otherwise, the station was decked to the nines. If John and Jane Q could have a Doppler in their bedroom, a chemalyzer in their bathroom, and a MRI in their closet, a state-of-the-art lab, with state-of-the-art experts, and a state-of-the-art medical boutique in the works could hardly expect less.

The ultrasound alone provided a stable image. It showed a grayish, ground glass, nonspecific matrix broken here and there by chunky inclusions.

“What the hell is it?” Gunjita was intrigued. She couldn’t help but be. She also felt thwarted.

“A puzzle, that’s what.”

They were in their sleep mod, a double-wide. Venus, the Bringer of Peace, was playing. Cav was making an entry in his journal.

“I have an insane desire to charge in there and rip it off the rock,” she said.

“Please don’t.”

“I feel like it’s holding out on us. Like it might respond to more forceful measures.”

He gave her a look. “I just want to touch it. I think it might respond to touch.”

He was starting to get on her nerves. He sounded so tentative. So touchy-feely and irresolute. It had been two long days of testing and retesting. Hope and frustration. Talk and more talk.

“Let’s wrestle,” she said.

He was bigger than she was. Outweighed her by twenty kilos. This meant little to nothing in space. She was far superior to him in agility and reflexes.

She grabbed his wrists, stepped inside his leg, and pulled him toward her. He fell forward, she tucked herself into him, and the two of them somersaulted backward. They quickly struck a wall, and ping-ponged back to strike another. She was having fun, and clearly in charge.

His breath was coming in bursts.

“Give up?” she asked.

“Not on your life.”

She took him through another circuit. By the end of it he was gasping.

“Now? Ready to wave the white flag?”

He had a snappy rejoinder, but it died on his lips. He felt faint. His heart was skipping beats, like a drunk doing hopscotch. It was scary, and definitely not good.

“Cav? What’s the matter? Cav? Talk to me.”

He heard the worry in her voice, but it was distant. She was distant. A darkness was descending. The world was slipping away.

Then suddenly, sharply, it was back.

Gunjita was on full alert.

“I’m okay,” he assured her.

“Don’t lie.”

“No, really. I’m fine.”

She narrowed her eyes.

He drew a deep breath, exhaled. “I had a thought. Before I was ruthlessly assaulted. All these nonresults. Maybe it’s deliberate. Intentional.”

“What just happened? You looked like you were on the way out.”

He waved her off. “What if it is communicating? Communication by noncommunication. Silence by design.”

“Enough. Please. Stop.”

“There’s a pattern. There’s got to be a pattern.”

She slapped him, then pulled down his pants and grabbed his cock.

Stunned, he looked down. She was holding it like a bludgeon.

“Easy does it,” he said.

“Are you going to fuck me or not?”

Another shock. The old Gunjita made her desires known differently.

Turned out the old Gunjita had different desires. He felt stretched, like a hamstring. Not a bad experience.

Not bad at all.

Afterward, she floated above him, pupils wide, hair a thick black tangle, brain on fire.

“What if we made it a smell?”

“It being?”

“The catastrophe alarm. What if we linked the warning cascade with the olfactory system?”

He was also floating, on the proverbial post-fuck cloud. It was all he could do to reply. “What if?”

“Wouldn’t even have to be unpleasant. As long as it got your attention. A pheromone, say. A sex pheromone. What’s a bigger attention-getter than that?”

He had to agree. He was swimming in her scent. It—she—had taken him prisoner. Taken him by storm.

“Perfect.”

“You couldn’t care less.”

“Not true.”

“You’re not listening.”

“I’m intoxicated. I want to bottle you.”

“I’ve got a better idea.”

“What could be better than that?”

“Let’s wrestle again.”

His eyes widened.

“No? Not up to it?”

“Give me a minute.”

“Poor baby. I wore you out.”

He couldn’t deny it. He was spent, and had never felt better. His dopey smile told the happy story, as his eyelids drifted closed.

All at once, she was alone. She felt restless and far from satisfied, far from done. She wanted more, but of what she wasn’t sure. Sex was fun, and she’d always loved his body. All her life she’d had an appetite for large men. Now, strangely, his size seemed excessive and faintly repulsive, an overindulgence, like an extra plate of food when she was already full.

She wasn’t full, but more of him wasn’t the answer. This came as a surprise to her, as did her budding discontent.

“You’ve only yourself to blame,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“Don’t you want to be young? Or do you, but not with me? Is that what this is?”

“Only with you.”

“Then do it.”

He opened his eyes. “I already agreed.”

“Under duress. To shut me up.”

“As soon as we get back.”

“So you say.”

“I will. I promise. Consider it done.”

And if he didn’t? What then?

“It’ll be done when it’s done,” she said.

“Can we talk about something else for a minute?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“I want to try some provocative tests. Bright lights, loud noise, pressure variation. See if we can get our unknown visitor to respond.”

“Okay. Good. And then? If it doesn’t?”

“Take the next step.”

“We need a sample.”

“First I want to touch it. With my bare skin. I want to smell it.”

She knew he did. She did, too. “Big risk.”

“You don’t even believe it’s living.”

“I don’t. You’re right. But a tiny percentage of me isn’t sure. I have you to thank for that.”

“I’ll sterilize my hands. I’ll exhale into a tube. I’ll make sure not to sneeze.”

“You could still contaminate it.”

“I could. It’s true.”

“And the risk to you?”

This was the tricky part. He was willing to take the risk. He wasn’t afraid. But he wasn’t alone. If something did go wrong, if it did, Gunjita would be left holding the bag.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said.

“You’re always thinking.”

“We can eliminate the risk.”

“How?”

He hesitated.

“Spit it out.”

It wasn’t easy, but he took a stab. Started with a preamble, then backtracked, preambling the preamble, laying the groundwork, which couldn’t be rushed, was occasionally hard to follow, and went on forever.

“You’re making me nervous,” she said.

This was plain to see, and the opposite of what he intended.

Then it hit her. “You can’t be serious.”

“You won’t have a dead body on your hands.”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“Try to be open-minded.”

“Are you crazy? It should have never happened. It was wrong from the start. It was sick. Nothing’s changed.”

“We didn’t make them.”

“You didn’t.”

“You didn’t, either.”

“I set the stage.”

“You’re too hard on yourself.”

“What does that mean? I accept responsibility for the role I played. That doesn’t mean I need to rub my face in it.”

“If it wasn’t you, it would have been someone else.”

“That’s enough.”

“It wasn’t you.”

“I said enough.”

“I have to smell it, Gunjita. I have to touch it. You of all people should understand.”

“I do understand. But my answer is no.”

“Please reconsider.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Just do.”

The air between them thickened.

A thought occurred to her, darkening her face. “Are you blackmailing me?”

He didn’t reply.

“You are, aren’t you?”

She was furious, though in a way she had herself to blame. She had opened the door to him, ushered him into the world of smell and all things related. A true believer, she had made him one, too.

“This is fucked,” she fumed.

“One other thing. I want to look underneath it. Peel it back if we can. If we can’t, I want to look inside.”

Finally. Some good news. It was what she’d been wanting from the start.

“You’re ready to cut into it?”

“Not me. Look at these hands.” They shook like a martini.

“You want me to do it? Fine.”

“You’re a researcher, Gunji.”

“You’ve noticed.”

“You’ve got great hands. Great hand-eye coordination. Great technique.”

“But?”

“Mice, rats, rabbits … there’s no one better. But I’m thinking someone with a slightly different take on things. Someone geared to preserving life. Not so accustomed to sacrifice as the end result.”

“You want a surgeon.”

“I do.”

Not the strangest request, considering that he’d once been one himself.

“Does Gleem know?”

“They do. I made the request.”

“Did they agree?”

“They did. Laura Gleem personally. Turns out she knows the surgeon I have in mind. The two of them have had dealings in the past.”

“What sort of dealings?”

“No idea.”

“Who is she?”

“He. An old colleague of mine. Yours, too.”

She felt a quickening inside. Touch of fire, flood of ice. “You’re kidding, right?”

“I’m not.”

“Are you out of your mind?”

“He’s the best.”

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Who was this man lying next to her? What could he possibly be thinking? How could he be so dense?

The more important question, and the one that wormed its way into her brain: Why hadn’t he consulted her first?