Scuzzworms (28 page)

She took a long drag on the cigarette.  The nicotine settled her nerves, giving her a preternatural calm.  If her hunch was right, she would shortly be forced to give up her vices.

No more cigarettes, no more booze. 

She wasn’t sure she could face life straigh
t.  Maybe after it was all over she could return to copping out on life.  Then back to slow suicide, pursuing her barely acknowledged desire not to live long enough to suffer senility.

She filled her lungs with smoke once more.  Fish.  How would he take her sudden interest in good health?  Keen disappointment, most likely.  He delighted in the belief that he was the only thing that stood between her and total self-destruction.  His sudden switch to her side back in Kreiss’s office still puzzled her.  He had always been eager to believe in her sodden antisocial aloofness before.  She had suffered rather major emotional upheavals lately.  He was expecting some sort of behavioral change.  Not this one though.  He
was expecting her to try to space herself, even to the extent of adding extra monitors by the air locks. 

Poor Fish.  So misguided and ill
-informed.  A good sort, really.  Too bad he was so short.  He might have been able to focus on other people’s happinesses rather than their griefs if he had been a foot or two taller.

Many hours later she awoke with a start.  The hangover that pounded her head was reminiscent of some of her more notable ones.  Keeping a low profile, she crept to her dressing room where the medic-aide was located.

She stared at the control panel as she placed her arm on the IV starter unit.  With her left arm receiving a head
-clearing mix, her right hand began punching buttons, asking questions, getting answers.  Her entire medical history was recorded in the unit, but she had never really cared to know any details before.  Old hurts had made the data unpleasant to her.

She sighed, the headache gone, her spirits no longer affected by ingested spirits.  She hated microbiology.  Long weeks spent as a student in a cramped lab peering at electron microscopy images had cured her of any enthusiasm she might have felt for the subject.  Reviewing data on Iago IV hadn’t forced her to bone up since the planet appeared to be microbiologically clean.  If she intended to personally design a ‘last resorts’ plan just in case CHA did as they were supposed to, then she had better cover her bases well.

Grady was correct, of course.  ‘Killer viruses’ weren’t that easy to come by.  Even when viral plagues had devastated human civilizations, there were always a few resistant individuals who had survived.  Most current viruses were relatively benevolent in their treatment of their hosts.  That was because mankind had intervened in the natural evolution of human pathogens. 

Each time a new planet was settled by humans, dangerous bacteria and viruses were excluded from admission. 
Darwin would lead you to believe that if any species hangs around long enough, a pathogen will eventually evolve capable of wiping it out.  There was plenty of evidence that some species extinctions were due to virulent infectious disease.  With current methods of disease control, the likelihood of equally lethal microbes evolving on Earth-cultured planets was small.

The problem on Iago IV was very specific.  Only one human genome was down there replicating.  The magic bullet need only be directed against that genome.     Pleister’s genome.  A shadow of a grin crossed her lips.  An anti
-Pleister-clone-genome bullet. 

The images of Pleister and the babies behind
glass haunted her.  Fully sober she could feel the knife twisting in her gut even more acutely.   Trefarbe was going to get hers.  In spades.

#

Viruses.  Major classification as either DNA or RNA.  There were lots of varieties to choose from, with differing structures and communicability.  Also for consideration were the protein-only near viruses.  Better forget them, they were too primordial.  They stood a better chance of evolving into something that could live on Iago IV.

DNA was found normally in the nuclei and microsomes of human cells, while RNA was found in the cytoplasm.     Viruses came in a multitude of sizes and shapes, but those that infected humans multiplied inside the human cell.   DNA viruses usually mult
iplied in the nucleus of a cell while RNA preferred the cytoplasm, although the complex viruses made their own rules.

A virus that had lost its capsid was almost impossible to detect inside a cell because its location coincided with that of the matching host chemical.  If she were to do studies on alien cells with earth viruses, she was going to have to tag the viruses with a tracer in order to follow their metabolism.  That was one technical difficulty with her plan.  There would be plenty more.

The capsules of viruses ranged from the complex, with layers of protein surrounded by an envelope of cell membrane, to a bare capsid, a single layer coating the enclosed DNA or RNA.  She paused, thinking.  She needed a fragile virus, one that could not survive long outside of a human cell.  The usual thickly encapsulated ‘cold’ virus would never do since such types could survive drying and adverse conditions and remain infective.  Her ‘silver bullet’ must die as soon as its ‘targets’ died.  She did not want to risk the virus’s discovery of an alternate host.  The faster it died, the better.

Enveloped viruses were the most fragile, so her virus would have to be enveloped.  She looked at the description of her index virus.  It was enveloped.

The silver bullet aspect was the most difficult.  The cells of the more evolved species of Iago IV differed in many respects from those of Earth types.  There were no microsomes since the tricellular association allowed each nucleus to carry a different code of information, including energy manufacture.  All DNA was located inside the three nuclei.

She looked over the discoveries made by Camille, Post, and the other teams over the past weeks.  The mechanics of the life cycle were clear now. 

The tricellular association of each separate species included two basic cells that were present in all species, and one species-specific cell that was unique for each species.  The unique cells contained the instructions for advanced body structures.  These were the cells found massed inside the storehouse ovaries of the borgette.  The malformed animals that they had assumed were “mutations” were often quadricellular, with two species-specific cells.  Those were an accident of gestation most likely.  In a few local ecologies there were successful creatures that contained multiple different cells of the species-specific type, but these were uncommon. 

The other two cell types carried basic survival data in their DNA.  One of these ‘basic’ cells, derived fro
m the body tissues of the worms and contained energy processing enzymes and primitive body structure instructions.

The other ‘basic’ cell containing more complex body structure instructions was derived from the borgette.  It was the only cell, which contained any reproductive instructions, and those instructions were incomplete, deficient in certain enzymes necessary for catalyzing the process.

When the worms ate a dying animal, certain of the worm’s energy cells surrounded species-specific cells from the animal, forming a structure resembling an ovum with a rosette of ‘nurse cells’.  One of those ‘nurse cells’ would eventually become part of the body tissues of the adult animal.

When the rosette of mixed cells reached the gut of the borgette, it was absorbed intact and transported via lymphatics to the borgette’s ‘ovaries.’ There, a specialized cell from the borgette joined the rosette to complete the tricellular association.

Growth and development of Iagans occurred prior to hatching inside the ‘mom’.  Borgettes had a second type of body cell that contained critical enzyme catalysts necessary to make cell division a low energy procedure and these catalysts reached the fetuses via the borgette’s circulation, enabling fetuses to grow.

The only cell division that could take place in free-living animals involved the ‘storage cells’ discovered by Post.  Located just under the skin of most species and lacking the critical borgette enzymes, these cells were able to reproduce only in high energy conditions, which occurred only in well
-fed, successful species.  When an animal was consumed by worms, only its ‘storage cells’ could survive digestion and be transported to the borgette.

Only successful species with a large mass of storage cells were successfully reproduced in any number by the borgette. 
Darwin was still right.  The fittest did survive.  The mechanics were simply a little different on Iago IV.  Carnivores were unsuccessful because they interrupted the lifecycle of their prey.  A few bog biomes had been found with omnivores who took an occasional bite out of their neighbors, but such species were never numerous.

A virus from earth that depended on the reproductive enzymes of its host would have a tough time surviving on Iago IV, having adapted to a drastically different cellular metabolism.  Still, there were millions of species on Iago IV. Even with years of study, she could not be certain that there might not be one cell that the virus could survive in, one odd species that would allow the virus to infect it, reproduce, and perhaps even mutate inside.

Studying one bog biome was not sufficient.  The worms carried animal cells into widely separated regions.  Although each region contained a different spectrum of fauna, the same cell types were often present, recombined with different worm and borgette cells to produce an infinite variety of creatures.

The rate of mutation was not unusually high, but inside the borgette’s ovaries animal cells were sorted into different areas of the ovary, with similar cells often fusing and recombining their genes to produce new, unique combinations.  Every specimen on Iago was unique.  Even each worm was unique, its own rosette of cells surviving ingestion to reproduce inside the gut of the borgette.  There too, genetic recombination was common.  The actual number of species present on Iago IV was incalculable.  Even should she somehow find a virus that appeared safe, it would be a crapshoot in the end.

She sat back, rubbing her eyes.  Life was a crapshoot anyway.  She had a lot of work ahead of her, with no assurance that she had any chance of finding an answer.   Was a virus the only answer?  Maybe there WAS some sort of chemical they could use to treat the borgettes and destroy contaminant human cells.  The computers could search for that answer.  If they were to be programmed properly, she needed to know a lot more about cellular metabolism than she currently knew.

She groaned.  For Pauling’s sake, she was an ethologist!  She didn’t NEED to know about cellular metabolism!  Talk about straying outside of one’s specialty!  How could she possibly pull this off alone?  Post, Camille, Grady, Jamison, and the rest of the biologists would a
ll be looking for an answer too of course, and she was their supervisor.  She would double-check their work carefully, looking for hints that she could use.  Who would double-check hers?

An overpowering sense of hopelessness almost overcame her. She couldn’t seek any co
-conspirators on this effort. She couldn’t risk a leak, not with stakes this high.    If the poor scuzzies were depending on her for survival, then they were in big trouble.  Yet, what else could she do?  She could only give it her best shot. 

#

Post was angry.  They sat in her office, looking at the results of their latest computer search.  He pushed the ‘clear’ button in utter disgust.

“There’s no way.  Absolutely no way.” 

She stared at the blank screen before her as he rumbled on.     

“The enzymatic systems are just too similar.  Any simple chemical entity that would eradicate human cells from the borgettes would eradicate most of the native species as well.  I’ve tried everything I can think of, and everything anyone else could think of too.  Nothing works, Imelda.”

She gazed quietly at him where he sat at her desk.  His eyes, even when angry, weren’t frightening, just caring.  Her agony made him appear even more attractive, if that were possible.  Was he a shore to swim to, perhaps?  No, not for her.  They hated each other.  She needed for them to hate each other now more than ever.

“We suspected this would be the case.”  She made her voice dry, professional, trying to hide her depression.

He spun his chair towards her.  “I know, but, damn it, there ought to be some way to stop this.  As it stands, we have no choice but to airlift every borgette that gets contaminated along with the bog they’re sitting in, and recreate each biome in orbit.  Which won’t be easy with Geology gone.”

Imelda’s eyebrows rose.  “Geology is gone?”  Straiss was gone?

“You didn’t know?  Geotechs pulled out right after you and Caldwell left.  They stayed just long enough to help us complete the initial decontamination.  They said they had all the data they needed.”

Imelda frowned.  “Terrific.  Now we’ll be forced to guess on the bog reconstructions.  We do have engineering to help out, at least?”

“A skeleton crew,” Post answered.  “The reconstructions won’t be a complete guess, just a giant hassle.  Our orbit will destabilize if we bring too much real estate up here.  Let’s hope the contamination doesn’t spread too quickly before the next supply ship arrives, or we’ll be creating Iago’s first moon.”

Imelda didn’t answer, shutting her eyes.  Her emotions, bottled up for so long, threatened to explode uncontrollably.  Post’s closeness, the hopelessness of the situation, and her own sense of guilt pushed her out of the door, away.  Calliope hardly glanced up as she wandered down the hallway past her, searching for...something.