“Good news, people!” Dr Levitt’s voice echoed in the hallway outside our row of offices. I was bleary-eyed from dissertation writing all night, but still the second person to peek out my door—not my door, exactly, but the office all the post-docs use. Dr. Brando was first.
“Shall we?” he said to me. And we walked to Levitt’s office faster than usual.
“Well, well—what have we here?” Dr. Brando said, as we rounded the corner of a table to gaze upon Crimsy, in projected three-dimensional glory, hovering above Levitt’s cell phone.
“We’re talking again,” Dr. Levitt said. “The gag order, or whatever it was, has been lifted.”
“How did that happen?” I asked. She looked over my shoulder as Drs. Shonstein and Marcum filed in. Dr. Cooper was still back East.
“Wha..?” Shonstein said.
“We’re back online,” Dr. Levitt repeated. “Gag order kaput.”
“So if I say ‘Gillory,’ someone will hear me and respond?” Shonstein said.
“Yes,” Captain Gillory said from Deep Space Gateway.
“And Hightower?”
“You got it, baby,” he replied.
“What about Ryong? Where do you guys keep him?” Levitt asked.
“He keeps us,” Hightower said. “From falling to Earth. Commander Ryong?”
“I am hovering in your midst,” another voice said, one I’d heard only once or twice before. “But I don’t know a thing about germs or aliens,” Ryong said.
“Me neither,” Hightower said. “But that hasn’t phased me.”
“The powers that be, whomever and wherever they are, have ordained that we may once again have the pleasure of observing our own research,” Dr. Levitt told us. “Knowing what the next question will be—what prompted this sudden plunge into sanity—I have no idea.”
“We don’t, either,” Gillory said. “But it’s pretty lonely up here, so we’re glad you’re back.”
I wondered if my meeting with Nathaniel Hawthorn had any impact. It wasn’t much of a meeting, but maybe after researching the contracts in more detail, he discovered the gag order, as lawyers say, was “without merit.”
“So is this Crimsococcus, in real time?” Dr. Marcum said.
“It is, slightly magnified, of course,” Captain Hightower said.
“She’s looking a bit dicky,” Marcum said. “The King’s English for green about the gills.”
“She’s perfectly healthy,” Hightower said. “Don’t know where the sickly green came from.”
“Cyanobacteria can change color depending on lighting and other conditions,” Dr. Brando said. “She may be a related species.”
“Maybe she’s part chameleon,” Dr. Shonstein said.
“Or part Prochlorococcus,” Brando said, referencing a majorly-important Earthling with a Crimsy-like pedigree: a green, round, photosynthetic cyanobacterium discovered by a woman (Penny Chisholm) and a man (Robert Olson).
“We have an idea,” Gillory said. “We know how frustrating it must be to have us up here and you down there, so we were brainstorming some possible research ideas and Robert found some old research on common antibiotics and E. Coli on ISS.” The International Space Station.
“Shape shifting?” Dr. Shonstein said.
“Yep,” Hightower replied. “It’s simple and you’d get visible results, pretty quickly, if Crimsococcus responds.”
“What, pray tell, is shape-shifting?” Marcum asked.
“Bacterial morphological plasticity,” Shonstein said. “Bacteria and most likely Crimsococcus, unless she’s off-the-charts weird, have cell walls that give them their shapes. Antibiotics can break down those walls, causing bacteria to become amorphous blobs before they crash and burn. But if you wash the antibiotic out quickly enough, some bacteria have been shown to regain their shape. Hence, ‘shape-shifting.’”
“It’s been confirmed just in the past couple years that shape shifting is one way bacteria become resistant to certain antibiotics,” Dr. Brando said.
“The research we read was fascinating,” Gillory said.
“Videos, too. We watched a bunch of videos,” Hightower added. “Germs doing all sorts of crazy maneuvers.”
“I’m not opposed to trying some things up there. But this is Shonstein’s bailiwick,” Levitt said. “I’ll leave it up to her.”
“I plan to subject Crimsy to various antibiotics at various concentrations and under various conditions, but with our budget the way it is, hadn’t planned to do anything more at the station than we’ve already done to clear her for Earth entry,” Shonstein said. “Anti-gravity effects on bacteria are well-studied, and that’s really the only thing we’d be looking at up there.”
“We have no idea how long we’re gonna be locked out,” Brando said. “I say, why not?”
“Refresh my memory on the antibiotics you guys have,” Shonstein said.
“One sec,” Hightower replied. We could hear him prompt the onboard IT cloud to call up data. “Okay—in alphabetical order: Amoxicillin, azithromycin, cephalexin, ciprofloxacin. Cav Ulan Ate?” He paused. “Cal Vulcan Ate?”
“Clavulanate” Shonstein corrected.
“Clindamycin, doxycycline, levofloxacin, metronidazole, sulfameth… sulfamethamphetamine?”
“Methoxazole,” Shonstein corrected again, “Sulfamethoxazole.”
“Sulfamethoxazole, streptomycin, trimethoprim,” Gillory interrupted and concluded. “Say all that three times fast. Oh, and minoxidil.”
Dr. Shonstein folded her arms.
“Minox—” Brando said.
“Minoxidil is not on the list,” Gillory said. “At least that list.”
“It’s a hair growth drug,” Shonstein said. “Someone must be going bald.”
“I heard that,” Hightower said.
“Nothing else by slender chance?” Shonstein said.
“Not that I can see,” Hightower said. “But we do have every disinfectant known to man.”
“Would have been nice to have had trexomycin or orthonizole,” Shonstein said after the meeting broke up. “I don’t see us learning anything new from what they’ve got on board.”
“It’s still a substantial list,” Brando said.
“No big deal, I guess,” Shonstein said. “I plan to study the exotic antibiotics down here, but still. Who knows when—or if—that’s gonna happen?”
“If and when,” Dr. Levitt said. “If and when,” she continued in song.
“What if they cut us off again?” Dr. Brando asked. “We don’t know why they gagged us in the first place. We don’t know why they un-gagged us. I think we need to decipher the playbook before we run anymore plays.”
“Agreed,” Marcum said. “Hate to see us get started on something only to have the rug pulled again.”
I followed Dr. Marcum out of Dr. Levitt’s office, and in the hall I heard her voice.
“Jennifer?”
I turned around with my “who, me?” look. Levitt waved me back with a nod.
“Close that, would you?” She indicated her door. The “uh oh” reflex roiled my stomach as I complied. “Think you could help us figure this out?”
“Figure what out?”
“The metaphorical playbook Brandy referenced,” she said. “We need a better idea what’s going on.”
“I’d love to help. What I can I do?”
“Our lawyer friend came by here looking for you the other day.”
“What?”
“My question was ‘why’.”
“He didn’t say what he wanted?”
“No, and I didn’t ask. What I did ask is if I could tell you he came by. He seemed a little nervous.”
“I don’t get it.” I never guessed he’d show up here looking for me. I could see him showing up to speak with Dr. Levitt and then asking if I was around—maybe. Or talking to Levitt then schlepping down the hall to peek into the post-doc office, if he even knows that’s where I hang. But dropping by and asking for me by name? That’s bold.
“It’s not a big deal,” Dr. Levitt said. “How old do you think he is?”
“I dunno. Thirty?”
“He acts twenty nine.”
“Really?” I chuckled. “There’s a difference?”
“You see anyone announcing their twenty-ninth birthday party like it’s the end of the world?”
I smiled.
“I don’t know what he wanted and obviously you don’t either, but please do let me know when you find out,” she said. “Keep me in the loop. That’s how you can help.”
“Absolutely.”
She looked down as though to say “dismissed,” and I went to open the door. I stopped myself. “Dr. Levitt.” I walked toward her desk. “We had lunch the other day. Nathaniel Hawthorn and I. I, um, I wanted to know why we were being locked out. He invited me.”
“I know,” she said. “Rebecca told me.”
Dr. Shonstein betrayed me? My face started getting hot.
“She also said you two discussed the idea of keeping an open channel of communication going with this young attorney. ‘Covert operation’” was the term she used.”
“I’m sorry. I really, really apologize.” I was pissed at Shonstein.
“Like I said, it’s not a big deal. He’s in a different department and regardless, you’re free to see who you want. Just keep in mind that anything you do in the close confines of this place affects you and could affect us. The workplace fraternization laws are also something to keep in mind.”
“I wouldn’t call it ‘seeing’ him,” I said. “He showed me a contract that’s part of a package he’s putting together to show the team. Nothing confidential, either.”
“Just keep me in the loop,” she said.
Wow. “She is so great,” My face cooled when I got back to my desk. I was typing and notating and annotating when I heard Dr. Shonstein in the hall with Malachi and a voice I hadn’t heard since the faculty picnic.
“I really need you to take him,” she said.
“They want me at the board meeting,” he—her husband Martin—said. “I don’t think they’d understand.”
“Why can’t I ever use that argument?”
“Your boss is a woman,” Martin said.
“Are you kidding?”
The voices faded as they apparently entered her office and closed the door. I seethed about the apparent betrayal, but at the same time, I felt for her, for both of them, always juggling their beloveds. I approached a self-imposed stopping point—if I had to stare at one more temperature/salinity reading from Crimsy’s home turf—pools of encapsulated brine on the Martian planet surface—I would collapse from tedium-driven mental exhaustion. So I got up, stuffed my anger, went down the hall, and tapped on Shonstein’s door.
“Yes,” she said. “Come in.”
I immediately felt a tension in the room. The stoic Dr. Shonstein almost looked like she’d been in tears. Or maybe it was just exhaustion.
“Hi,” Malachi said, looking straight at me.
“Jennifer. Working late I see. Martin—you remember Jennifer, our dedicated, hardworking ABD.”
“I do,” he said and we shook hands.
“I overheard you in the hallway,” I said.
“I’m sorry,” Shonstein said.
“No, no.” I wanted to say something. My angry quarter wanted to confront her over the backstabbing. My logical quarter admonished that maybe it wasn’t a backstabbing. Maybe she had a good explanation. My compassionate quarter looked at her son and husband and considered my offer of watching Malachi. My diplomatic quarter over-ruled them all, and immediately started working on a comfortable way to extricate myself from her office.
“Just heard you. Wanted to say hi,” I said.
“Hi!” Malachi responded.
I smiled and waved at him and gradually backed out.
“Thanks for coming by,” Shonstein said.
“Good to see you again,” her husband followed.
After pulling an all-nighter in her office with Malachi sleeping on a cot covered with blankets and stuffed animals, and later, after Martin picked him up, alone, Dr. Shonstein launched Operation Lederberg, named for the Nobel Prize-winning geneticist who first observed E. Coli bacteria changing their shapes in response to a dose of penicillin.
“It’s also cool that Joshua Lederberg was first to suggest we needed to decontaminate everything we take to Mars,” Shonstein told us in the weekly staff meeting. “He was totally into finding life there.”
The plan was to grow Crimsy in Petri dishes treated with different antibiotics. We’d be able to observe how she responded, barring any sudden new gag orders. Dr. Brando checked to make sure his ultra-salty agar—caviagar we were calling it, after caviar—wouldn’t denature (render impotent) or otherwise interfere with any of the antibiotics.
“Calcium is known for mucking up antibiotics, but the calcium salt we have in the agar shouldn’t be a problem,” he told me.
“I’m so stoked I’m thinking in paper titles,” I said. “Is Crimsococcus halocryophilus antibiotic resistant? Susceptibility of Martian bacteria to antibiotics. Efficacy of common antibiotics on treatment of Martian bacterial infections.”
“You realize, don’t you, that we’ll be killing our darlings?”
“In the name of science.”
“So I’ve got Lexi this weekend. Would you be up for a day trip?”
“Day trip? Where to?”
“Olympics. Lexi’s learning about rainforests and I told her we have one. She’s dying to visit.”
“The Hoh?”
“It’s not exactly the Amazon, but there’s probably more of it left.”
“The Hoh is more than a day trip,” I said. “You could try a different one, like the Quinault.”
“Lexi’s set on the Hoh. Marcum wants to go, too. I’ve never been. What’s it like?”
“Stupendous,” I said. “In every sense of the word.”
“U dented my car,” read a text message.
“No way,” I texted back.
“Heard the thump,” Nathaniel Hawthorn replied. “Wadju use? A hammer?”
“Serves you right,” I returned. “You got me in trouble with my boss.”
“Oh! How?”
“Dropping by.”
“Sorry. Was in neighborhood,” he wrote. “Spur of moment.”
“OK now. Uncomfortable then.”
“Lunch?”
“Again?”
“You owe me,” he wrote.
“WFAHA,” I texted. The Workplace Fraternization and Anti-Harassment Act.
“Playing that card???” he responded.
“Don’t wanna risk it.”
“Seriously? I’m not in your department. Have no authority over you.”
“So?”
“For the record.”
“Boss says you’ll be showing us those contracts. See you then.”
“Let me refer you all to the areas I’ve highlighted in the documents on OpenPad.” Nathaniel Hawthorn stood at the head of our conference table, taking us through page after page of contracts NASA, JPL, and other space agencies signed with investors, including SpaceTek founder Leonardo Telos (pronounced “tell us”) and Cloud computing titan Alexander Sparks.
“Why did we, they, whomever, sign so much away?” Dr. Shonstein asked.
“I suspect nobody thought you’d find anything,” Hawthorn said. “As shortsighted as that sounds.”
“Looks like the investors were sure we’d find something,” Levitt said. “And they took steps to protect their interests in it. What are our options?”
“Play along until all interested parties work things out,” Hawthorn said. “That’s one option.”
“I don’t understand,” Brando said. “You keep talking about working things out. Work what out? Shouldn’t everything have been worked out before those contracts were signed? Why doesn’t everyone just follow the contracts and at least get Crimsococcus off the space station?”
“I understand your frustration,” the lawyer said.
“You feel our pain, do you?” Marcum asked. “Let me suggest a way to feel it even more acutely: one of us shines a light on this infuriating press blackout and entertains an interview with, say, 60 Minutes?”
“I wouldn’t advise that,” the lawyer said.
“How long do you think we can keep this a secret?” Levitt asked. “MarsMicro’s been back for a month. We get questions every day—Science, Science News, Scientific American, the New York Times. And a new clog [cloud log] every day. ‘What did you find? There’s a rumor going around you found something. Did you guys find life? We heard it’s a deadly bacteria you can’t let off the space station. An alien invader that killed the crew.’ Someone somewhere is damned lucky an enterprising science journalist hasn’t broken embargo.”
“There is no embargo about the microbe,” Hawthorn said. “Just a full-on media blackout.”
“I don’t understand that,” Shonstein said. “How can you even begin to maintain such a thing?”
An “embargo” is a kind of gag order on the honor system. We have a public relations office where people known as “public information officers” or PIOs issue press releases to reporters around the world. If a press release says “Embargoed” until such and so a date, that means the reporter can’t write about the story until the date and time pass and the embargo “lifts.” Reporters risk getting fired, blackballed, and shunned if they break embargoes, as I understand it. The story of MarsMicro’s return is embargoed until someone more powerful than we are says it isn’t. The story of Crimsy’s discovery is beyond any embargo, however: it’s top secret, hush hush. As far as the press is concerned, the only thing MarsMicro maybe brought back was some dry Martian ice and some maybe-fossils of billion-year-old bacteria known as stromatolites.
“The world knows MarsMicro went to Mars and might have returned with something,” Hawthorn said. “But only mission participants know the particulars.”
“The world’s best kept secret,” Marcum said.
“I wouldn’t call it a secret,” Hawthorn said. “But it is controlled.”
“Controlled how and by whom?” Levitt asked.
“Government agencies,” Hawthorn said.
“Anyone else get this memo?” Shonstein said.
“So it is top secret,” Brando said.
“This project is ‘controlled but unclassified,’ which is the lowest security level. It’s not top secret. It’s not even secret. But it is officially barred from public disclosure,” Hawthorn said.
“Seems hard to believe NASA would do this without telling any of us,” Levitt said.
“I don’t know if it was NASA,” Hawthorn said. “I don’t know which department.”
“When were they planning on telling us all this?”
“About the time someone threatened to go public,” Hawthorn said. “Going public could be tantamount to espionage.”
“Bollocks,” Marcum said.
“Sorry—I don’t know what that means.”
“It’s British for ‘bullshit’,” Brando said.
In retrospect, our blackout predicaments were probably predictable. Right after we found Crimsy, all communication from MarsMicro mysteriously ceased. We had no representatives at Mission Control when Crimsy lit up the BiolEyeT phages in a cloudy but otherwise unremarkable test tube of Martian water. We lost count of how many holes we had drilled to reach the water and tests we had run to find life, and everyone was back in Seattle on one of many hiatuses from JPL’s frenetic newsroom environment. The news broke, hot and colorful, on the fifth floor hallway.
“They found something!” Dr. Shonstein yelled. And for once, we were all in our offices. We ran out our doors and gathered around Shonstein’s 3D monitor to watch history unfold.
“Oh wow oh wow oh wow,” Levitt said, staring at the small plastic tube MarsMicro’s steel fingers loaded into the bio-luminescence detector, which sent back more confirmatory readings a few minutes later.
Shonstein and Brando grabbed each other’s shoulders and stared into each other’s eyes with the most wondrous, wide-eyed amazement I think I’d ever seen.
“Watch the sample folks,” a Mission Control spec said.
The rover removed the test tube from the detector and held it steady as the onboard camera closed in on the water sample and everything around it started fading to black. Like the tip of a firefly, the bottom of the test tube glowed blue-green. Then—everything faded to black.
“What just happened?” Dr. Cooper said.
Shonstein whacked the monitor.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
Dr. Levitt feverishly texted; Dr. Marcum folded his arms.
“Some kind of glitch,” Levitt said, looking at her phone.
“Glitch?” Brando said. “What kind of glitch kills a moment like that?”
“Bollocks,” Marcum said. “They’re messing with our minds again.”
We spent the next three days trying to re-establish contact, while the clogosphere luminesced with its own explanations about why JPL had stopped reporting publicly shortly after MarsMicro’s water discovery. Our corpora-government overseers rolled out the press blackout on the third day, pointing to all the conspiracy theories as reason enough not to “create more hysteria.”
“We found life,” Shonstein said, in place of “good morning,” “have a nice day,” “have a great weekend.”
“We found life. We found life. We found life.”