The fish geeks had woken up early the next morning, according to the ship’s scheduled lights, and had breakfast together. Mike had cooked eggs, made from refrigerated egg batter, and bacon that had been frozen. All things considered, it was a pretty good breakfast for four miles underwater. The bacon and coffee smell filled the ship, and it brought the rest of the crew to the galley like a magnet.
As the captain walked in with Tony to find the other five already eating, everyone laughed. “Nothing like coffee and bacon to make sure everyone is still alive,” said Ian. “I was going to make haggis for you all, but we lacked the proper ingredients.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure there’s no sheep stomach in the pantry,” said Mike.
“What about the lungs?” asked Ian.
“Use the hagfish!” said Theresa.
“Okay, you guys are being disgusting,” said Jessica. “Can I just enjoy some coffee and bacon before you start taking apart disgusting sea creatures again?”
Ian laughed. “Haggis isn’t disgusting! My ma makes it!”
“And see how you came out?” answered Tony.
“So what’s on your agenda today?” Jim asked his fish geeks.
“Reproduction,” said Ian.
“You wish,” said Mike, which brought a few chuckles.
Ian ignored him. “We captured an angler the other day. She was carrying a male.” He looked very excited about that.
Jim waited but sensed Ian needed more prodding. “Okay . . . so what does that mean?”
“Ahh!” said Ian, very happy to get to tell the story to someone who didn’t know. “The female anglerfish is many times larger than the male—like a pea to a basketball, follow? He swims up beside her and bites her, never letting go. Eventually, his mouth fuses to her body and he becomes a total parasite.”
“Sounds like my ex,” said Jessica.
“Yes, except this male’s entire body disintegrates.”
“Nope—still sounds like him,” said Jessica, which brought some guffaws.
Ian looked at Jim, ignoring her. “The male’s entire internal body fuses with hers, sharing nutrition and blood. He loses his eyes, his organs, everything. He simply becomes a source of sperm.”
“Oh my God, it is him!” screamed Jessica, feigning great drama. Even Jim was laughing.
Ian was annoyed with her interruptions. “In any event, it’s quite remarkable. I’m looking forward to documenting the dissection.”
“Dissection or divorce?” asked Tony.
“Well, the female gets everything, having sucked it all from the male, leaving him dead and disintegrated—so yes, I guess it is like a divorce,” said Ian. Now everyone was laughing.
When everyone settled down, Jim addressed the crew. He explained the need to increase internal pressure and watched the nervous looks around the galley. Ted was expressionless. “Jess will be checking all of you more frequently. I’d like to remind you that oxygen narcosis can be subtle. If you feel anything unusual—confusion, nausea, loss of memory or coordination, anything at all—you tell Jess or me, okay?”
They all agreed. Theresa remarked that her ears had popped a few times, and everyone else chimed in that theirs had, too. Jim assured them it was normal. He also told them that their trip back to the surface would now be much longer, so even in an emergency, there was no quick help coming. Jess reminded them all she’d be visiting them one-on-one to observe them over time.
When breakfast was over, they cleaned the galley and broke out into their assignments. Ian and Mike descended to the lab in excited discussion over their pending dissection. Theresa had agreed to work with Ted observing the bacterium’s behavior in different environments. Tony followed Jessica back to her cabin, where she had a few tests for him to perform. Jim returned to the bridge to work with the MC on the internal atmospheric changes. If needed, they had helium aboard which could be used if narcosis issues ensued, but that was only if the crew’s health appeared at risk. The skipper would be busy all day running scenarios as he tried to anticipate his crew’s condition over time.
Tony and Jessica sat on her bed so she could take his blood pressure. When she was finished, she pulled out a small bag.
“I have a puzzle in here that consists of twenty pieces. I am going to time you putting it together. We’ll repeat this in a few days to check your coordination. I need you to take this seriously. Do it as fast as you can every time. If it starts taking you longer to complete, we’ll know . . .”
“Yes, dear,” he said sarcastically. “I’m certified for deepwater diving. I know the drill. There’s a better test than this, though.”
“Really?” she asked, curious about something new she hadn’t heard of yet.
Tony leaned over and pulled her close, then kissed her full on the mouth. At first she pulled away, but then she kissed him back, allowing it to get slower and more intense. They broke off after a moment.
“I’ll have you test the rest of the crew,” she said. “You can start with Ian, Ted, and Mike.”
“I don’t think so,” he said, and began kissing her again.
Jessica eventually pulled away and wiped the hair out of her face. “What happened to the sexual harassment policy aboard this ship?”
“Oops.”
Tony’s phone beeped. “Saved by the bell,” he said quietly. He answered it. It was Mike downstairs asking him if he could help them photograph something outside the ship. “I guess we’ll have to continue this session later on,” he said, standing up.
Jessica was still seated, facing his crotch. She patted his cargo shorts between his legs. “We just might,” she said with an evil smile.
**********
Ted was seated next to Theresa, studying a monitor that was attached to their microscope. The camera showed a twenty-five-inch picture of what they would be squinting at under their microscopes, in full color with excellent resolution.
Ted was pointing to one of the four-leafed, clover-shaped cells. “This is it. Deinococcus radiodurans. These type of bacteria are radio resistant and polyextremophile. In other words, they can thrive in radiation, in any temperature extreme, in all types of atmospheres—they are almost perfect organisms. If humans could exhibit some degree of their survivability, we’d already be on Mars. Hell, we’d be in another solar system already.”
“So that’s the connection for you. This bacteria—this whole mission—how it relates to deep-space travel?”
“In a nutshell. Life on Earth at the bacterial level—cell interaction under the microscope—it’s the secret to space travel. Inner space is the key to outer space. It’s quite profound, actually.”
Theresa smiled. This line of reasoning was fascinating to her, and in fact had been her doctorial thesis as it related to the tube worms—not the deep-space part, but the concept that the bacteria living within the creature was every bit as important as the creature itself. In some ways, the bacterium was more vital. The bacterium could find another host—it could survive some other way—but the host, without the bacterium, would simply cook and die in the thermal vent.
Ted stared at the screen and thought about the orangutan back at NASA. They had named her Lucy, in honor of the famous human ancestor fossil found by the American paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson in 1974. He wondered if she was still alive, and if so, at what temperature and pressure? He smiled as he felt the hairs on his arms stand up. The contents of the six small vials in his room had already been combined with the bacteria he now had under the microscope.
Theresa broke his chain of thought. “Ted?”
“Huh?”
“I asked if this sample came from the worm or the bluefish.”
“Ah—yes. It came from the fish. As I had hypothesized, the worm was rubbing itself against the flesh. It was absorbing the nutrition right through its skin and, in the process, transferring some of the bacteria to the bluefish. In this manner, the bacteria itself can feed as well as spread to another host.”
“The dead piece of bluefish becomes a host?”
“No, no. But a passing crab perhaps. Or even a hagfish. Or perhaps the decaying matter is brought into a mussel or clam via its siphon filter feeding. Understand? The bacterium isn’t static. It isn’t a yogurt bacillus living in a gut. It’s more like a higher-thinking organism that’s organized and purposeful in its actions. Like a tiny animal. And its powers are awesome.”
Theresa’s eyebrows rose. “Maybe a slight overstatement?”
“Not at all. It may sound overreaching right now, but wait a year.” Ted smiled as he pointed to a cell that was dividing on their screen. “Everything on this planet wants to feed and reproduce. That’s it. The great secret of life.”
Theresa suddenly found herself leaning away from Ted.