Deception Point Page 35

The tourists laughed.Gabrielle followed past the stairway by means of a series of ropes and barricades into a more private section of the building. Here they entered a elbow room Gabrielle had only seen in books and on television. Her breath grew short.My God, this is the Map RoomNo tour ever came in here. The rooms panel w all tolds could swing startward to reveal mold upon layer of world maps. This was the prohibited where Roosevelt had charted the descent of World War II. Unsettlingly, it was also the room from which Clinton had admitted his affair with Monica Lewinsky. Gabrielle pushed that particular thought from her mind. about important, the Map Room was a path into the West Wing-the area inside the unclouded House where the true powerbrokers worked. This was the last place Gabrielle Ashe had expected to be going. She had imagined her e-mail was plan of attack from or so enterprising young interne or secretary working in one of the complexs more mundane pipice s. evidently non.Im going into the West WingThe out of sight Serviceman marched her to the very terminal of a carpeted hallway and stopped at an unmarked door. He knocked. Gabrielles heart was pounding.Its open, person called from inside.The man opened the door and motioned for Gabrielle to enter.Gabrielle stepped in. The shades were down, and the room was dim. She could see the faint draught of a person sitting at a desk in the darkness.Ms. Ashe? The voice came from ass a cloud of cigarette smoke. Welcome.As Gabrielles eyes accustomed to the dark, she began to make out an unsettlingly familiar face, and her muscles went taut with surprise. THIS is who has been sending me e-mail?Thank you for coming, Marjorie Tench said, her voice cold.Ms. Tench? Gabrielle stammered, suddenly unable to breathe. mobilise me Marjorie. The hideous woman stood up, blowing smoke out of her nose like a dragon. You and I are about to become surpass friends.41Norah Mangor stood at the extraction sp ear beside Tolland, Rachel, and corked and stared into the pitch-black meteorite hole. Mike, she said, youre cute, solely youre insane. Theres no bioglow here.Tolland now wished hed thought to transport some video while corky had deceased to find Norah and Ming, the bioluminescence had begun fading rapidly. Within a check of minutes, all the twinkling had apparently stopped.Tolland threw an differentwise piece of ice into the water, but nothing happened. No green splash.Where did they go? Corky asked.Tolland had a fairly satisfactory idea. Bioluminescence-one of natures most ingenious defense mechanisms-was a natural response for plankton in distress. A plankton sensing it was about to be consumed by larger organisms would begin flashing in hopes of attracting much larger predators that would scare off the original attackers. In this case, the plankton, having entered the shaft done a crack, suddenly found themselves in a primarily fresh water surround and bioluminesced in panic as the freshwater slowly killed them. I mean they died.They were murdered, Norah scoffed. The easterly Bunny swam in and ate them.Corky glared at her. I saw the luminescence too, Norah.Was it before or after you took lysergic acid diethylamide?Why would we lie about this? Corky demanded.Men lie.Yeah, about sleeping with other women, but never about light plankton.Tolland sighed. Norah, certainly youre aware that plankton do stand in the oceans beneath the ice.Mike, she replied with a glare, transport dont tell me my business. For the record, in that respect are over two hundred species of diatoms that thrive to a lower place Arctic ice shelves. Fourteen species of autotrophic nannoflagellates, twenty heterotrophic flagellates, forty heterotrophic dinoflagellates, and several metazoans, including polychaetes, amphipods, copepods, euphausids, and fish. Any questions?Tolland frowned. Clearly you make out more about Arctic living creature than I do, and you agree theres plenty of action underneath us. So why are you so skeptical that we saw bioluminescent plankton?Because, Mike, this shaft is sealed. Its a closed, freshwater milieu. No ocean plankton could possibly get in hereI tasted salt in the water, Tolland insisted. Very faint, but present. Saltwater is getting in here somehow.Right, Norah said skeptically. You tasted salt. You thrash the subdivision of an old sweaty parka, and now youve unyielding that the PODS density scans and fifteen separate marrow samples are inaccurate.Tolland held out the wet sleeve of his parka as proof.Mike, Im not lick your damn jacket. She looked into the hole. Might I ask why droves of alleged plankton decided to drown into this alleged crack?Heat? Tolland ventured. A lot of sea creatures are attracted by heat. When we extracted the meteorite, we heated it. The plankton may feel been careworn instinctively toward the temporarily warmer environment in the shaft.Corky nodded. Sounds logical.Logical? Nora h roll her eyes. You know, for a prize-winning physicist and a world-famous oceanographer, youre a couple of pretty dense specimens. Has it occurred to you that even if there is a crack-which I can procure you there is not-it is physically impossible for whatever sea-water to be streamlined into this shaft. She stared at both of them with pathetic disdain.But, Norah, Corky began.Gentlemen Were standing to a higher place sea level here. She stamped her foot on the ice. Hello? This ice sheet rises a hundred feet above the sea. You might withdraw the big cliff at the end of this shelf? Were higher than the ocean. If there were a fissure into this shaft, the water would be flowing out of this shaft, not into it. Its called gravity.Tolland and Corky looked at each other.Shit, Corky said. I didnt think of that.Norah pointed into the water-filled shaft. You may also have observe that the water level isnt changing?Tolland tangle like an idiot. Norah was absolutely right. If there ha d been a crack, the water would be flowing out, not in. Tolland stood in silence a massive moment, wondering what to do next.Okay. Tolland sighed. Apparently, the fissure hypothesis makes no sense. But we saw bioluminescence in the water. The only conclusion is that this is not a closed environment after all. I realize much of your icedating data is construct on the premise that the glacier is a square block, but-Premise? Norah was obviously getting agitated. Remember, this was not just my data, Mike. NASA made the same findings. We all confirmed this glacier is solid. No cracks.Tolland glanced across the loft toward the crowd gathered around the pressure conference area. Whatever is going on, I think, in good faith, we need to aver the administrator and-This is bullshit Norah hissed. Im telling you this gelid matrix is pristine. Im not about to have my core data questioned by a salt lick and some chimerical hallucinations. She stormed over to a nearby bring out area and b egan collecting some tools. Ill take a proper water sample, and level you this water contains no saltwater plankton-living or deadRachel and the others looked on as Norah employ a sterile pipette on a string to harvest a water sample from the melt pool. Norah primed(p) several drops in a slender device that resembled a miniature telescope. then she peered through the oculus, pointing the device toward the light emanating from the other side of the dome. Within seconds she was cursing.