The Black Silent (51 page)

Startling.

"But more likely than quick release in a matter of days, I think—given our knowledge of history and prehistory—is that the methane will be released more gradually.
Is being
released gradually. Global warming has already started or will start if our emissions continue. We have cars running all over the planet, and at some point. . ." Ben shrugged.

"So the methane release would only exacerbate it. Once atmospheric warming starts, it triggers more methane release. It's a potentially bad cycle.

"I think the real catastrophe is climate change, though it will happen over time—slowly, in human time."

"Will mining the methane help?" Haley asked.

"A little. But my vision is this: you finish the cycle by growing plankton or scrubbing the air in other ways. We know how to take CO , make water vapor, and dispose of the 2

carbon in the ground."

Ben appeared transported by this grand scheme of his. This dream. ARCLES. Sam nodded, although he knew the devil was in the details.

"Did your colleagues buy the whole ARCLES vision?" Haley asked.

"We were all excited about it. We saw the longevity benefit as the reward for humankind's improved stewardship of the planet. It was ambitious, I know, but—"

"Longevity's also the biggest problem," Sam said.

"True," Ben said. "When you make old age a disease, you create mind-bending, psychological, political, and social issues."

"I can see that," Sam said.

"There's always hope," Haley said. "But then there's always wrinkles too."

Sam and Ben chuckled, despite the difficult truth.

Then Ben paused, giving her a look of Santa-like reassurance. In that moment only the two of them existed in their universe.

"Helen told me why my discovery would captivate so many. And really it's why we are here today being chased by crazy people."

Haley put her hand on Ben's and waited.

"Well, it's not that profound," he said. "It is because we get older faster than we think."

Ben waited to let that sink in. "When I was a little boy, ten years old, standing by a big old madrona over by the old lime kiln, on Orcas, I thought about time. I think it was my first virginal experience with the subject. I reasoned that I could only remember back a few years and yet it seemed quite a while that I had been around. To my way of thinking at ten, getting to thirty would be many multiples of my conscious life remembered. And so I concluded that as a practical matter I just didn't have to worry about getting old.

After that time by the lime kiln, there were many such good days; many winters of fireside reading, summers of sun and blue water, many happy years with Helen and you.

I was still surprised. I got older faster than I thought and, so in a way, I felt I needed to make some bargain for more. It is the bane of conscious life that it wants to hear the cry of another grandchild, taste next season's wine, watch the latest meteor shower, listen to one more
Messiah.
Even such banal things as next year's Super Bowl sound good. But there's no one to bargain with. It was my dream to find a way to make that bargain—not just for me, but for millions. Now I may dump that dream overboard in San Juan Channel because living with the rotting carcass of selfish humanity seems worse, for the moment, than dying. Or maybe I shouldn't be such a pessimist. Maybe a democracy can handle it."

No one said anything for a long moment.

"So now we have to deal with Glaucus," Ben said, his eyes clear and purposeful again.

"Other than the flask of Arcs, and what I have stored in my brain, he's the clearest existing path to the Arc regimen."

"But aren't you going to tell me how the aging formula works?" Haley asked. "For God's sake, I've earned it. Spit it out!"

Ben smiled as if it really didn't matter how it all worked. "Well, for God's sake, I might be doing you something of a disservice. But you're a young scientist. I remember what that's like. So a quick explanation. We do five things, or work on five systems, if you will. Mostly it's rooted in protecting your DNA and stimulating cellular regeneration without causing cancer. We first limit a primary source of damage to human DNA by limiting free radicals; we then make the DNA itself less susceptible to damage; we then slow the cellular clock that controls the number of times a cell can divide; we give powerful mitogens, which some people call growth hormones; and we influence cardiovascular health by making lipo protein molecules larger, and bad cholesterol lower and good cholesterol higher."

"How does it work?" she prodded.

"We know the result of activating the gene, we've been discussing. We're getting the additional uncoupler protein molecule that does indeed limit free radicals by altering the mitochondrial cell wall. With the treatment the mitochondria leak much less unused oxygen. It is the ultimate antioxidant supplement, and it really works.

"This Arc peptide hormone superactivates yet another apparently silent gene in your genome. I say
apparently
because we don't know what else it might do. This gene we call Arc Two, even though it's not known in Arcs, and we call the hormone that activates it 'Arc stimulator' or 'AS.' AS induces the gene Arc Two to express a protein that creates a sort of shield for your DNA. You could think of it as a toughening agent or genome copy insurance."

Sam wasn't following the science anymore, but he was interested in the bottom line, which he sensed was coming. Haley, on the other hand, was obviously transported, so he didn't dare interrupt with basic questions.

"In scientific terms," Ben said, "AS causes alternative splicing of the Arc Two RNA, giving rise to a molecule that stops meiosis and greatly reduces abnormal recombinations in human DNA. It significantly affects the nuclear chromatin structures into which DNA is packaged, although we haven't finished analyzing how it does that.

So the tightly packed DNA in the reorganized chromatin will not replicate for purposes of sexual reproduction and it pretty much won't allow the abnormal recombinations of DNA that often result in cancer. Cancer is still possible, but unlikely. But here's the good part: recombinations run by the immune system are largely unaffected."

"You can't make babies, then, once the AS hormone's induced the Arc Two gene?"

Haley said.

"Yes. That's right."

"Glaucus was your first subject, then, and can't reproduce."

"Yes. We've given Glaucus the effect of the Arc gene by in vitro gene infusion. That's not the important thing about Glaucus. There's a homologous gene in humans that stimulates cell growth. But it's much more active in octopuses."

"Don't tell me you used an octopus hormone to stimulate a human gene?"

"Oh no. A combination of other human hormones that we discovered by studying octopuses. They exist in humans in infinitesimal quantities and are related to the common growth hormones already used by physicians. We produce the super-hormone in transgenic bacteria."

"That's part of what the bacteria were making in the lab," Haley said.

The motors throbbed on a calm sea. Over the stern, Sam watched as a bald eagle dragged its talons across the water but missed its prey.

"Yes, exactly," Ben continued. "Glaucus and his huge size are a good example of a different part of the regimen attributable to the growth hormones. Octopuses in the wild have gotten five hundred pounds in four years and started at the size of a rice grain.

Compare that to people. The hormones we use in the Arc regimen have the advantage they don't lose their effectiveness over time and they are self-limiting. On the regimen you won't develop endless muscle, for example. No cancer, because we altered the chromatin. Big muscles— light workouts."

"Oh, so you don't lose muscle mass as you age."

"Bingo," Ben said. "Except, actually, you hardly age in any usual sense for a long time."

"Okay. Then?"

"Another reason we age is because telomeres in each cell of our body get shorter with time."

"So you're about to tell me you can slow the shortening of telomeres by activating telomerase without getting cancer," Haley said. "You can use powerful cell reproduction stimulators without inducing cancer?"

"Exactly."

Sam saw that they were approaching their destination. He moved to the wheel.

"What's next?"

"Next is pedestrian, but necessary. Even thirty-five-year-olds have arteriosclerosis resulting in damage to the arteries. We learned how to increase the size of lipo protein molecules in your blood and lower bad cholesterol while raising good cholesterol."

"And that's the end of it?"

"That's it, dear—except for a few thousand details."

Haley thought a moment. "We can release Glaucus because he can't reproduce."

"Bingo," Ben said.

As they entered Friday Harbor, Sam saw no boats about; they were safe, for the moment.

Now all they had to do was dump an impotent octopus into the Pacific and stop a money-mad, crooked cop from hurting anyone else. The first sounded simple enough.

The second, not so much.

Sam looked at Haley. She was actually caressing the flask. If they succeeded with Glaucus and Frick, then they could decide what to do about the Arcs.

A
s they approached the dock surrounding Glaucus's pen, they saw two men bent over the edge of the dock.

"That's McStott," Ben said. "Probably wants a hunk of Glaucus."

McStott and the other man stood and stared at them as they approached. Neither Sam nor Ben made any attempt to disguise himself, and McStott ran back up the dock toward the Oaks Building. Sam could see McStott going for his cell phone.

"Quick," Ben said. "Let me out."

Ben hopped off the Whaler and onto the dock. He tried to lift a wooden section that spanned the main concrete sections.

Haley tied a line to a cleat as Sam crawled off the boat to help Ben. They lifted up the section of dock, exposing the cable that held fast the top of the net over the pen.

"I'll get some squid," Haley said, running for the small house that held Glaucus's food.

She returned with a large bucket and a strange-looking megaphone and set them down.

Then, stopping to think for a moment, she changed directions and ran down the dock to a large aluminum workboat. Its main feature was a large circulating-saltwater tank amidships. The huge tank took up most of the boat's interior. It had to measure six feet across, ten feet long, and five feet deep. Because the boat, known as the
Venture Too,
was lined with ventilated wooden stripping over a thick layer of Styrofoam, with all the benches along the gunnels made of wood, cored with Styrofoam, the boat was unsinkable. But for the huge cost and some upkeep requirements, it was pure pragmatism for a biologist.

It was a roomy and open vessel with an eleven-foot beam and benches running along most of its length, even beside the tank. If needed, it could accommodate easily twenty students or visiting biologists.

"Give me the whooper," Ben said.

Sam presumed he meant the megaphone and bait. He complied.

"They obviously didn't know to use it." Ben ruffled the water with his hand, dumped over a few squid, and put the metal horn of the whooper in the water.

Sam looked over the edge and observed what could only be described as a giant creature coming up the sidewall of the net. The head of the creature was enormous—the size of a garbage can—and coming out of it were eight tentacles, larger than a big man's thighs. They were long and graceful and the span of the creature was too large to determine, with suctioned arms going in every direction. An orange brown color was apparent.

The whooper made a low sound, something like the bass pedal on an organ. As the creature came inexorably upward, Sam was in awe of its smooth grace and obvious strength. He told himself that the creature's mass was 25 percent smaller than it appeared in the water because of the water's lense effect. In about a minute a tentacle came up and Ben ran the food up and down the creature's suction cups, teasing him, then let a tentacle tip slop around in the bucket.

Sam marveled at the length of Glaucus's arms, at least fifteen feet; the span of him now appeared over thirty.

"He can taste with his suction cups," Ben murmured.

Soon the mammoth octopus hovered just below the surface and Ben could see the large gills blowing the water in through the creature's huge mantle. Ben talked with the creature as though it could understand Ben's voice, and he kept rubbing up and down his suction cups. At Haley's instruction Sam retrieved more buckets of food and put them along the inside of the workboat. With the circulating-saltwater tank pumps turned on, Haley pulled the boat across the opening and parallel to the dock.

"I've done this before on the dock and with this boat," Ben said. "He'll be pissed, but he'll probably let us coax him in. These guys can stay out of the water for thirty minutes or so. Glaucus doesn't like it much, although one time he walked across the dock and tried to get in the shed. After that, we built the overhang."

"We've only got minutes," Sam said, thinking about Frick and the boat that would be coming behind them. Sam and Haley stood along the side of the boat and began gently pulling the creature, while Ben continued to encourage him by rubbing the squid along his suction cups.

Sam was watching the dock when he saw McStott creeping around with a gun in his hand. Sam fired two shots just over his head. McStott turned and ran as fast as his considerable girth would allow.

Slowly they raised the unruly creature until they managed to get a tentacle into the saltwater tank, now baited with hundreds of squid. Sam hoped Glaucus would like what he tasted. Haley grabbed a hose hooked to a saltwater pump and began spraying the parts of Glaucus that were exposed. Finally they had his massive brown-looking head up to the gunnel. His eyes were the size of half-dollars. Ben got a large tarp from the dock, put it under Glaucus, and they used it like a hammock. With several back-wrenching lifts, which to the creature were just good nudges, they got Glaucus over the edge and he eagerly joined the food in the tank. Glaucus used his tentacles to move the food to his beak, but only for a few moments. Glaucus quickly became unhappy, flashed red, and tried to climb out of the tank.