NH3

by Stanley Salmons

  “Thanks for dinner, Terry – and coffee.”

  “My pleasure. I’ll let you know what’s happening when I’ve spoken to Professor Barlow.”

  “What are you going to say?”

  “I’ll tell it like it is. We have a common organism with a seriously polluting mutation. We have a good idea where it arose, and plausible mechanisms for how it’s spread. And I’ll emphasize the urgency. That algal mat didn’t simply pop up in Bermuda waters last April. It could have been growing for months or even years, drifting around on currents, passing the plasmid to other bacteria – what?”

  Maggie had put her fingers to her mouth.

  “Oh my God,” she said. “Why didn’t I see it before?”

  “See what?”

  “What you just said, about passing the plasmid to other bacteria in the ocean.” She drew in her breath. “Most phytoplankton consist of cyanobacteria.”

  He frowned. “I’m not sure I understand what…”

  “Terry, the oceans are full of phytoplankton. They produce up to half of the oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere!”

  The concern on her face started to seep into him. He leaned forward. “You’re saying if this plasmid was passed to the phytoplankton they’d stop making oxygen?”

  “Worse than that…”

  As she spoke her voice rose and there was a tension in it he’d never heard before. Before he could respond she made a small sound in her throat, little more than a tiny groan, and pushed open the passenger door. She got out quickly, closed the door, and hurried off. He was poised in a state of indecision, his own door half-open, wondering whether or not to go after her. He could hear the tap-tap of her shoes across the tiled vestibule. Then the moment had passed. She was already inside.

  He dropped back in the driver’s seat but made no attempt to move off or even to close the door. He stared ahead in stunned disbelief, struggling to absorb what she’d just said.

  “If the phytoplankton are affected they might produce ammonia instead of oxygen. They could eventually fill the entire atmosphere with pure ammonia! This isn’t just a pollution problem we’re dealing with, Terry. It’s a potential global disaster.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Someone was already with the Minister so Maggie and Terry waited in the outer office. The room was comfortable and quiet; the only sound the faint clatter of keyboards in the secretaries’ office next door. They sat together on a soft leather sofa, ignoring the artistically overlapped copies of The Field, Country Life, and Homes and Gardens on the glass coffee table in front of them. There was no way of knowing how much time the Minister was going to give them so it had been agreed in advance: Terry would do the talking and Maggie would respond if there were specific questions on the biology. They’d discussed the issues between themselves enough to know what needed to be said; for now they were content to wait in silence.

  Terry remembered when he was about to be interviewed for his lectureship. The situation was utterly different then, yet the flutter of nervous anticipation was the same. He tried to occupy his mind.

  “You could go several ways with this,” Barlow had said. “One way would be to present it to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee. But to get any action it would have to go a stage or two further, and you might well find yourself out of the loop. I’d recommend going to a Minister: Brady at Science or Monteith at Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Not a lot to choose between them. They’re both classics trained – like most of these people. But I think Giles Monteith would be quicker to see the point. And the big advantage there is you have a first-class scientific adviser, Sir Ashley Gibbs. If he comes on side he’d be a good intermediary.”

  Terry had sent Sir Ashley a summary of their findings and concerns. It was brief: just one side of a sheet of A4; that way, Terry thought, it was more likely to be read. It was read. Sir Ashley had telephoned and listened to him carefully. His verdict was not encouraging.

  “Let’s be brutally honest: what you’ve told me is, at best, suggestive. I think you’re right to be concerned but you need more hard facts if you want other people to share that concern with you.”

  Terry had agreed. But, as he pointed out, getting those facts would require resources. If the Minister recognized the potential danger and the scale and urgency of the problem wouldn’t he make those resources available?

  Sir Ashley had considered that for a moment. “All right, this is what I suggest. I meet regularly with the Minister. As it happens I’m seeing him first thing next week. I have quite a lot to discuss with him but I can arrange for you to come in at an early stage so that you can present your case. I wouldn’t push too hard: it could be counterproductive. When the interview’s over you’ll have to take your cue and leave me to go through my own agenda. I’ll copy this summary of yours to the Minister so that he knows what it’s about.”

  A buzzer sounded in the next room, followed by a low murmur of conversation. On the opposite side of the outer office a door opened and an urbane-looking man passed through. Terry thought it must be the previous appointment. Moments later a secretary came up to them.

  “Mr. Monteith will see you now,” she said.

  She conducted them down a short corridor to a large oak-panelled door, knocked lightly, opened it, and stood aside.

  Monteith was sitting at a desk that dominated the room. In front of it were two large upright chairs covered with green leather. To one side was another chair, this one occupied by Sir Ashley Gibbs. He stood immediately and Terry was struck by how immaculately formal the man appeared. Everything from his grey hair to his dark suit screamed civil service. He wondered whether his own clothes screamed academic.

  “Hello, nice to put a face to the voice,” he said, shaking hands.

  The Minister had come round from behind the desk. He extended a hand to each of them in turn.

  “Dr. McKinley, Dr. Ferris. Thank you for coming. Do take a seat.”

  He returned to the desk. On the tooled leather pad at its centre was a single sheet of paper, which Terry recognized. Some key phrases in his summary glowed yellow, the work of a highlighter pen.

  The man they’d come to see looked to be in his forties – clean-shaven, dark brown hair neatly parted. He wore a well cut navy suit, a finely striped shirt, and a club tie. He was younger and fitter than Terry had imagined he would be, and the way he was sitting forward suggested someone who was ready to do business.

  Sir Ashley broke the ice.

  “As I explained earlier, Minister, Dr. McKinley and Dr. Ferris have some interesting information. I thought it would be worth your hearing it from them first hand.”

  Monteith nodded briskly at Sir Ashley and glanced down at the summary sheet. Then he looked at Terry.

  “I read your briefing. Very much to the point. Anything you’d like to add?”

  “There isn’t a whole lot to add, Sir, actually. Cyanobacteria are found everywhere in Nature. It’s deeply disturbing to find a species with a dangerous mutation. It’s already killing all the life in at least five river systems I know of and it has the potential to spread a whole lot further.”

  The Minister took a fountain pen from an inside pocket, unscrewed the cap, and scribbled a note in the margin of the briefing sheet. He looked up, pen still poised.

  “You’ve informed the Environment Agency, I suppose?”

  “They already know about the rivers, and they’ve taken samples from at least one of them. But they’re treating these as isolated incidents of pollution. They haven’t seen the pattern and they don’t seem to be aware of what’s causing it. Frankly, they weren’t very helpful. In any case, the problem isn’t confined to these shores.”

  “You’re referring to a possible origin in Bermuda waters. To be honest, this isn’t a field I’m familiar with. Do you get plasmid exchange with cyanobacteria?”

  Terry’s spirits lifted. This man had at least been well briefed.

  “The evidence is indirect,” he replied. “The pol
luted rivers are all on the west coast but they’re not clustered together. That points to a common origin somewhere out in the Atlantic. If the mutation can jump from a saltwater species to a freshwater species it can almost certainly make the smaller step to phytoplankton. And that’s where the real danger lies.”

  “I didn’t follow that part entirely. I thought the oxygen in the air we breathe came from the rain forests? ‘Lungs of the planet’ and all that.”

  Terry looked to Maggie to respond.

  “That’s the common view, Minister. But lungs breathe in as well as out; rain forests also consume oxygen in a big way and over long periods they’re not net generators of oxygen. We’re actually dependent on billions upon billions of tiny photosynthetic organisms floating in the oceans of the world, and most of them are species of cyanobacteria. If they switch to making ammonia instead of oxygen, the results would be catastrophic.”

  “All right,” Monteith said. “Can you spell it out? Assuming it gets into phytoplankton, what’s the worst-case scenario?”

  Terry took a deep breath. Here it was. He’d been thinking of nothing else since Maggie had dropped that bombshell on him in the car.

  “I see three major consequences. First of all, ammonia is a good deal lighter than air. You’ll have large volumes of rising gas, which will behave like very warm air. This will add energy to the existing circulating cells and exaggerate all normal weather trends. For example, you’ll get severe hurricanes.”

  “Where?”

  “They’ll probably follow the usual track: the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico.”

  Monteith shrugged. “Well, they’re pretty used to that down there, aren’t they?”

  “Yes, but these would be more violent and they’d occur outside the usual season.”

  “Ok, go on.”

  “Now, as I said before, the main reservoir of the organism at the moment seems to be out in the Atlantic, so the ammonia will be brought to our shores by the Westerlies. It will be stirred into the atmosphere and it’ll combine there with acidic gases to form tiny crystals of ammonium sulphate, nitrate, chloride, and carbonate. These will act as condensation nuclei and they’ll seed moist air rising from the ocean. Storms will batter our coast and torrential rain will cause widespread flooding. Not in the Gulf of Mexico, but here.”

  The Minister raised an eyebrow and glanced at Sir Ashley, but his advisor was listening impassively, hands folded on his lap. He returned to Terry.

  “How long will that go on for?”

  “Well, the storms won’t be continuous and they may eventually die out because of other factors we needn’t go into here. The point is that all the time this is happening the organism will be spreading and producing more ammonia. That leads us to the third consequence, the most devastating one of them all.”

  “Which is…?”

  “The ammonia will increase at every level in the atmosphere. Things will be especially bad when it rolls into the towns because it’ll combine with acid emissions from industry and traffic. The salts will hang in the air as a choking white smog. Mixed in with them will be the uncombined ammonia, so the air will be toxic as well as highly irritating. Thousands of people will be at immediate risk: the young, the old, heart sufferers, anyone with asthma or other breathing difficulties. Hospitals will be overwhelmed by the admissions; there’ll be a lot of fatalities. Eventually the entire atmosphere will become poisonous. Every man, woman and child, every animal, bird, fish and insect on this planet will perish.”

  CHAPTER 9

  No one moved. Outside, Big Ben struck the hour. Two o’clock.

  Monteith’s eyes narrowed. “That’s a pretty chilling prospect, Dr. McKinley. Just how sure are you about all this?”

  “If the phytoplankton are affected by the mutation, large volumes of ammonia will be entering the atmosphere. That will certainly have a major effect on the weather. If you want detailed predictions you’d need to bring in the experts, research teams who can run large-scale computer simulations. As for the smogs and the eventual poisoning of the atmosphere, it has to happen sooner or later. Precisely when, I don’t know; an awful lot depends on how far the organism has spread already.”

  The Minister sat back and there was a short silence during which he fixed his gaze steadily on Terry.

  “What exactly is your specialty, Dr. McKinley?” he asked.

  “Planetary physics.”

  “It seems we must count ourselves lucky that it was someone of your background that stumbled across this... this phenomenon.”

  “I’d be nowhere with it if it wasn’t for Dr. Ferris,” Terry put in quickly. “She was the one who recognized that the ammonia came from a mutant organism and spotted the implications. I’ve been speaking for both of us.”

  Monteith glanced at Maggie and nodded. Then:

  “All right. You’ve outlined a worst-case scenario. The question is: what’s the likelihood of it actually happening? Any views on that, Ashley?”

  “Minister – and I’ve said this very candidly to Dr. McKinley – the evidence is not strong at the moment. There are too many imponderables. This mutation may not spread by plasmid exchange. It may have adverse effects on the organisms themselves, in which case they may not survive or may simply stop producing ammonia. Even if ammonia levels do rise the consequences are hard to predict. The storms Dr. McKinley was talking about may wash the ammonia out of the atmosphere so the whole thing becomes self-regulating. My own view is that it’s too early to say with any confidence.”

  Terry felt a stab of disappointment. Sir Ashley wasn’t wrong, but he had hoped for a more supportive statement from him.

  Monteith replaced the cap on the fountain pen and held it in both hands, turning it slowly between his fingers.

  “Well, I’m glad to be aware of the possibilities. Whether or not they’re going to become realities, I dare say time will tell. There are, however, some immediate implications.”

  He put the pen down.

  “The scenario that Dr. McKinley has just described so graphically – choking white smog blanketing our towns and cities, hospitals filled to overflowing, deaths on a large scale – is an alarming one, alarming enough to cause serious unrest if it became general knowledge. It could trigger wholesale panic – roads jammed in an exodus into the countryside, marches, riots, looting, civil unrest of every kind. In other words, whether or not these fears are justified, the release of this information would be seriously prejudicial to the national interest.”

  He leaned forward.

  “Dr. McKinley, Dr. Ferris, you do understand what I’m saying, don’t you?” He tapped the briefing sheet on the desk in front of him. “I’m classifying this under the Official Secrets Act.”

  Terry and Maggie looked at each other. He knew the shock he saw in her face must be echoed in his own. Then her expression hardened and she turned back to the Minister.

  “We’re university researchers,” she said, her voice no more than a rebellious little growl. “We haven’t signed up to anything.”

  Monteith opened a desk drawer. “You don’t have to, Dr. Ferris. The Official Secrets Act is part of the law of the land – we’re all bound by it.”

  He took out a pink highlighter pen, and started to write on the briefing document.

  “I just want to be sure that you’re aware of your obligations. Now you are.”

  He held up the sheet. Scrawled diagonally across it in large letters was the word “SECRET”.

  “Level 4,” Monteith added. “And that’s how my secretary will file it. Not the highest security level, but high enough.” He tapped the desk again, harder this time. This information does not go beyond the people in this room. If so much as a hint of it gets out, the culprit will be in breach of the Act. Ashley, you said Professor Barlow was consulted on this. You’ll warn him, will you?”

  “Yes, Minister. Barlow’s very sound. That won’t be a problem.”

  “Good,” Monteith continued. “Now as I understand it, the Environmen
t Agency is unaware of your theories at this time and it’s best it stays that way.”

  Terry’s was struggling with what he was hearing. He had to say something.

  “Minister, there’s a pressing need for us to find out more about this organism and how far it’s gone. We need to consult phytoplankton ecologists, atmospheric chemists…”

  “No, we can’t allow you to do that, and for the same reason. Once that many people are in the picture it’s going to get out, and we might find ourselves in serious trouble over what could be no more than a wild theory.”

  “Maybe Bermuda has investigated it already,” Maggie said pointedly. “After all, five people died out there.”

  “Ah yes, Ashley mentioned that. I checked with the Foreign Office and they’ve been in touch with the Governor. Apparently those people were overcome by a bubble of gas from a mat of decaying vegetation. That’s the official line and they’re sticking to it. It was a year ago now and there won’t be any further investigation.” He placed his hands lightly on the desk, the fingers interlaced. “Bermuda is a major offshore financial centre, but tourism is their second largest industry. They would not welcome the suggestion that their beautiful ocean waters have been polluted.”

  Maggie’s eyes once again met Terry’s. She looked dumbfounded.

  Terry turned back to the Minister. “What are we going to do, then?”

  He sat back. “We’re going to wait and see.”

  Monteith must have seen his expression. “That doesn’t mean I’m dismissing it,” he added. “If there’s any suggestion that your fears are coming true, then of course we will take appropriate action.”

  Terry bit his lip. Sir Ashley had told him not to push it too hard but he had to try once more.

  “Sir, we’re dealing with planetary phenomena. The distances, the areas, the volumes of air and seawater involved, are all on a huge scale. The climate changes and the other consequences I’ve described won’t happen until this organism is really well established. By that time it will be too late.”