Armageddons

by Jack Dann

  When we got back to the U.K. at the beginning of June, I wrote to Dr. Sancharez and his wife thanking them for having been so kind to us, and, that done, prepared to let the whole episode slip from my mind. It was briefly recalled when the photographs we had taken on our trip were developed, and among them I found one of Natie swimming naked as a naiad in the mountain pool and another of Dr. and Senora Sancharez standing with their arms about each other, smiling at us on their terrace.

  Five months later, out of the blue, I received an airmail letter from Peru. Inside I found a hastily scribbled note together with a small, sealed plastic packet containing half a dozen seeds. All the note said was: "I found these growing in a high valley off the Apurimac. They could be worth trying—J.S."

  I examined the seeds under the microscope and discovered them to be some primitive variety of maize. They were far smaller than any I had ever seen, and I wondered what could possibly have led Dr. Sancharez to suppose they might interest me—nothing in his note gave me the slightest clue—but I handed them over to our chief horticulturist and asked her to do her best by them. Three weeks later, she told me that five out of the six had germinated.

  It was some days before I got around to taking a look at them for myself, and what I saw did not cause me to change my opinion. By then I had written back to Dr. Sancharez thanking him for his sample and asking him what it was that had led him to suppose the seeds might be anything out of the ordinary. By the time I received his reply I had already discovered the answer for myself. All five plants had begun to develop unmistakable signs of N2 tubercles on their roots!

  But it was when I received Dr. Sancharez's second letter that I was really rocked back on my heels. Having described in some detail the general area in which he had discovered the plants, he concluded: "The altitude was a good five hundred meters higher than any where I have ever found wild maize before, which to me suggests an exceptionally short life cycle. The soil was very poor—low-grade loess. My guess is that these plants may have acquired not only a symbiotic N2 Rhizobium, but also maybe a species of cooperative bacterium that acts as a phosphate accumulator. Is this possible, do you think?"

  Sancharez was certainly right about the length of the life cycle. The plants matured at three months. By February '89 we had collected sufficient seed to risk our first limited trials. From that second crop Natie succeeded in extracting a hitherto unknown motile flagellate bacerium that appeared to flourish in and around the N2 nodules and seemed to possess precisely those characteristics that Sancharez had suspected. We named it Phosphomonas sancharezii in his honor and crossed our fingers. For the first time since December, Natie and I began to talk—though only between ourselves and very, very guardedly—of a real breakthrough.

  For the next three years we worked flat out at transferring the nif genes from the wild maize to our high-yielding strains. Our first real success came with GX14. The colchicine-crossed progeny had a four-month cycle, bred true to three generations, and carried a yield of anything up to four times that of the wild stock. Meanwhile, Natie and her colleague were forging ahead, adapting and culturing P. sancharezii. In two years they had succeeded in persuading it to work in harmony with both wheat and rice. When the results of those first Grantham cereal field trials came in, they showed increased yields of from 30 to 50 percent right across the board, and no adverse side effects! Natie and I were on top of the world: 1992 was our golden year, and I see it now as the fourth of my five particular episodes.

  It was also the year when she and I finally regularized our relationship by getting married. We'd put off doing it before, partly from inertia and partly because of the tax situation. Now she suddenly decided that she'd like to start a family. I pointed out that if things went according to plan, we'd soon find ourselves rushing around the world supervising our tropical field trials. But she had quite made up her mind that Science could spare her to Nature for a year or two, and once I'd realized just how strongly she felt about it, I discovered that I rather fancied the idea of becoming a father. Anyway, it didn't happen straightaway.

  By this time Monagri was totally convinced that in P. sancharezii we were onto an out-and-out all-time winner. They dropped the security shutters while they set about feverishly devising the best means of exploiting our discovery to maximum financial advantage. Yet even with that holdup, I estimated that it would take us at least ten more years before we could expect to see any significant advance in our campaign against the ancient enemy world hunger. Fortunately, we were still free to press ahead with GX14.

  The results of the first tropical field trials were frankly disappointing—yields were on average less than half those we had been obtaining in the U.K.—but even so, GX14 proved itself conclusively capable of flourishing in soils that were notably deficient in both nitrates and phosphates. I estimated that it could eventually increase the Third World 's agrarian potential by anything up to 10 percent. And there was still our vastly improved strain of P. sancharezii to come!

  In April '93 Natie finally achieved her ambition of getting herself pregnant. We set off on our annual holiday in the third week of June, driving down to a villa we'd rented on the Cote d'Azur. On our way we called in to see Mother at Chelmsford, broke the good news about the baby, and then set off to catch the night ferry from Dover. As we approached the northern end of the Dartford tunnel, we were waved down at a police checkpoint and asked to show our identity cards and work permits. I noticed that all the patrolmen were carrying guns. They opened the trunk of the car and poked around among our suitcases. I asked one of them what they were looking for, but all he said was, "We'll tell you if we find it." Then they slammed the trunk shut and waved us on.

  As we drove up the ramp on the far side of the tunnel, we saw more armed police, a fire engine, and the burned-out shells of two container trucks that had been dragged aside into a lay-by. On the concrete wall beside them was a crudely daubed sign of a sickle and clenched fist of the Right to Work Movement. I switched on the car radio, hoping to pick up a local newscast, but all I could find was the usual Muzak pap. The highjacking of a couple of foreign juggernauts probably didn't rate even a solitary news flash anymore.

  But that incident, slight as it was, started Natie and me talking in a way we hadn't really talked to each other for years. I think it dawned on both of us at the same time how insulated our lives had become. All our closest friends were in the same highly specialized field as ourselves; we were earning far more money than we knew what to do with; neither of us had any strong political allegiance (we voted S.D.R); and yet, without either of us ever actually saying it, there was no doubt that we both believed we were somehow intrinsically superior to practically everyone else in the world. After all, we knew what we were doing and we knew why we were doing it. It's easy to say we were both smug and self-righteous and perfectly happy to be so. But I don't honestly think that we were altogether to blame. Look on us, if you like, as the refined product of our social conditioning, highly specialized cells, pampered, flattered, and richly rewarded for our successes. We could hardly have been expected to probe all the ethical subtleties of our situation when we knew that what we were engaged upon was the practical realization of one of mankind's few truly altruistic dreams.

  But during that holiday we discussed it more than once. And it was always Natie who brought the subject up. Maybe it was something to do with her being pregnant. I remember us lying side by side after we'd made love one afternoon, and suddenly she came out with: "Do you sometimes think we're playing at being God?"

  "What on earth are you talking about?" I said.

  "I'm not sure myself," she admitted. "It's just a feeling."

  "You don't believe in God, do you, Natie?"

  She didn't answer straightaway, so I repeated my question.

  "I don't know if I do or not," she said at last. "But now and again I think I'd like to. I'd like to feel safe."

  "You mean you don't feel safe?"

  "I can't explain it
exactly," she said, "but just occasionally I get a sort of uncomfortable feeling that the bottom could drop right out of the world and I could fall through. And I know that if that happens, I'll just go on falling and falling forever."

  I felt her give a sudden shiver. "Did you remember to take your vitamins this morning?" I asked.

  "You don't know what I've been talking about, do you?" she said. "Go on. Admit it."

  I started to protest, then caught sight of her sideways on. My imagination switched into an altogether different and more exciting gear. I don't remember her ever reverting to the subject of God.

  In September I was informed in strict confidence that all the necessary arrangements had been made for three simultaneous tropical field trials of P. sancharezii. One was to take place in Brazil, another in Zimbabwe, and the third in Northern Queensland. Given the choice of which I'd attend in person, I opted for Queensland simply because I knew Sam Wallace and I'd never been to Australia before. Since the baby was due at the end of January, Natie elected to stay at home.

  I flew into Darwin on December 3rd and within an hour was airborne again, heading east over the Arnhem Land Reserve to Nhulunbuy on the coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria. At Nhulunbuy a company helicopter was waiting to ferry me down to the experimental Queensland Station near Arrow- smith.

  We reached our destination shortly before six o'clock in the evening and circled briefly over the rice paddies before setting down on the outfield of the station's cricket ground. I was greeted by Sam Wallace, who was O.i.C. of the Queensland Station, and an Indian colleague of his whom he introduced as "Ami." Sam took me over to the bungalow that was to be my home for the next week, and then the three of us went across to the main lab, where I was shown the current field plan and the rice paddy charts.

  Two small feeder streams ran down into the valley from the densely wooded hills behind. At the top of the valley an earth dam had been constructed to provide a fallback reservoir in the unlikely event of a prolonged drought. The single outlet from this artificial lake supplied the irrigation network through a main artery and an ingeniously engineered system of capillary channels that were in turn controlled by a series of manually operated sluice gates.

  Sam pointed out two plots on the chart, one at the bottom of the paddy ladder and one about halfway up. "Those are your best bets," he said. "The upper one's Balinese J. hybrid, and the lower one's a variety of Sumatra long-grain. They're both well established, and they're both good Azospirillum cooperators, so nitrogen starvation won't be a problem."

  "Whatever you say, Sam," I said. "You're the man in charge."

  "That's settled, then," he said. "C7 and D5. Now let's go and open up some beers."

  Early the next morning, without any undue ceremony, I loaded up a pressure spray with a 500-to-l dilute culture of Phosphomonas sancharezii and handed it over to one of Sam's assistants. Then I pulled on a pair of borrowed waders and followed Sam and Ami up the track to plot C7.

  The plants were well in flower, and the N2-fixing alga Anabaena was clearly visible as a green scum on the surface of the water. I nodded to Sam and gave a thumbs-up sign to the boy who was working the spray. He waded out into the center of the plot, switched on the motor of the sprayer, and began laying down a fine mist of P. sancharezii across the surface of the paddy. It took him about ten minutes. Then we made our way down to the lower plot and repeated the operation. There was just sufficient culture solution for a comprehensive treatment of both paddies. After it was done we strolled back down the hill in the warm sunshine for a well-earned breakfast.

  Over our meal I talked to Sam and Ami about the other element of the test program and told them what it was we were aiming for. They both looked a bit skeptical when I said I was anticipating anything up to a 50 percent increase in gross crop yield. "It sounds like black magic to me," said Sam. "Hell, we were over the moon when we got 8 percent with our first Sumatra cross. And we were supplementing with phosphate."

  "Yes, I know," I said, and held up my crossed fingers, "but if we're right—and I think we are right, Sam—this one looks like the breakthrough we've all been praying for since the days of the Reverend Thomas Malthus."

  After breakfast I sent off a prearranged coded message via the radio-phone to our office in Brisbane, letting Monagri know that everything had gone according to plan. I followed this up with a cable to Natie telling her I'd arrived safely and that things were looking good. Then, still feeling the effects of jetlag, I strolled off up the valley to relax beside the lake at the back of the dam.

  A couple of hours later, as I was making my way down again, I saw Ami running up the track toward me. The sun was pretty fierce by then, and I remember wondering what on earth he could be in such a tearing hurry about in that heat. "Come," he gasped. "Come quick, Clive! We are in bad trouble!"

  "Trouble?" I said. "What sort of trouble?"

  "The alga. The alga on the paddy."

  "What about it?"

  "It has gone crazy."

  I stared at him. I just couldn't focus mentally on what he was saying. "Gone crazy?" I repeated vaguely. "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "You'll soon see," he panted. "Sam thinks your culture's triggered off a reproductive explosion in the Anabaena. We've shut off the sluices to try and contain it."

  Almost without my realizing it, I found I was sprinting back down the path. When I reached a point that allowed me a view across the paddy fields, I stopped dead in my tracks. The two plots that we'd treated with P. sancharezii were now completely covered over with a vivid, lettuce-green carpet of algae bloom. Half a dozen men with face masks and backpack sprays were wading to and fro through the scum, laying down a smoky mist that I guessed must be a biocide. "Christ Almighty," I whispered. "Who'd have believed it?"

  I found Sam in the lab, bent over a microscope. He looked up as I entered, and beckoned me forward to see for myself. I watched with a sort of horrified fascination as the Anabaena cells guzzled the nutrients that the foraging P. sancharezii bacteria provided, then grew fat and divided and multiplied with an almost unbelievable rapidity. The microscopic predatory organisms that should have prevented this from occurring were seemingly rendered powerless by the algae's newfound capacity to monopolize the entire supply of phosphorus. I felt a chilly sweat break out all across my back. "Jesus Christ, Sam," I muttered. "Do you realize what might have happened if . . . ?"

  "Don't I just," he said grimly. "I've radioed to Nhulunbuy for fifty drums of biocide and a spray chopper. As it is, there's still no guarantee we've got it cordoned off. It was at least two hours after the treatment before we closed off the main sluice. But I've had a five-man crew out working downstream for the past hour or so. Let's go and see how they're making out."

  The sun beat down on us like a hammer as we set off along the riverside track below the compound. By now there was only a thread of water trickling in the bottom of the channel, and the mud was drying out and starting to steam. Some of the grass along the bank that had caught the biocide spray drift was already beginning to wilt. "How long can you keep the channel dry?" I asked.

  "For about twelve hours, give or take a couple. After that the lake'll spill over the sluice gate. Still, maybe that's twelve hours more than we deserve. We can count ourselves lucky the monsoon's late. There hasn't been any rain to speak of up in the hills for over a week."

  We discovered plenty of traces of the rogue Anabaena, but it was obvious that the biocide had already done its work. I found that the clenched fist in my stomach was beginning to relax. Then I suddenly remembered the other two tropical trials and let out a strangled yelp. Sam asked what was up. When I told him, he gave a sort of grunt and said: "Oh, I forgot to tell you. I already radioed Brisbane and L.A. on your behalf. You weren't around to ask, and it seemed prudent."

  "Sam—" I began, and then couldn't seem to find the words I wanted.

  He winked at me. "That's O.K., chum," he said. "I guess you'd have done the same for me in similar circumstances."


  At about three in the afternoon, two helicopters appeared, one equipped for aerial spraying and the other loaded with extra drums of poison. Within minutes of its arrival, the sprayer was in the air again, clattering back and forth over the rice paddies and along the now dry irrigation channel below the station. By the time the sun was low over the western hills, there couldn't have been an inch of the ground that hadn't been treated at least three times over. We had seen the work of a dozen years virtually destroyed in a single afternoon.

  That evening I asked Sam how long he thought it would be before he could have the station operating again. "I'm not even thinking about it," he said. "Ask me the same question in a week's time and maybe I'll have an answer. Right now all I'm concerned with is 100 percent sterilization. But I'll tell you something, Clive, when I get around to writing up my report on this little malfunction, I'll make damned sure one copy gets to Canberra and another to the United Nations."

  "But what about your contract? Doesn't Monagri stipulate—"

  "I don't give a whore's fuck about my contract! If we don't blow the lid right off this one, they'll only go and try it again somewhere else. Where d'you think we'd be now if I hadn't just happened to take a stroll up to the paddies when I did?"

  "I know. I know," I said. "When I saw what had happened, my heart damn near stopped. I had a sort of nightmare vision of the whole valley vanishing under a spew of green slime. I don't think I've ever been more scared in my life. You deserve a gold medal."

  "Maybe I do at that," he said thoughtfully. "If I have done it."

  "Christ!" I exclaimed. "If you haven't, what else can we do?"

  "We can spray, and spray, and then we can spray some more," he said. "Even if it means killing off every single living green thing from here down to the gulf. What we've cooked up here is an insatiable algalbacterial cancer. Unless we manage to cut it out completely and utterly right here and now, we might as well get down on our knees and say amen."