The Darwin Strain

by Bill Schutt

  The isle of Santorini was suddenly sprouting enemies everywhere, and against everyone—maybe Greeks and Russians firing on each other, or Greeks against Greeks. That was Mac’s instant, overwhelming impression. What he had just witnessed seemed to have no logical basis.

  Nora’s voice crackled: “Mac, did you see who fired?”

  “I’m coming back,” he replied. “Over and out.”

  Mac swept his gaze around the lagoon, past Nea Kameni and to the sea beyond. There were no signs of activity on or near the central volcanic wasteland, whence came the gunfire. In the direction of the crash, he did not see a single parachute.

  How many people are there, he wondered, coming after the red stuff?

  5.33 Million b.c.

  7,000 Years after First Contact

  2,985 Years after the Mediterranean Flood

  The cephalopod lair’s most recent caretaker had lived a hundred and sixty-three years before she set off alone through the Strait of Gibraltar and began searching. She carried with her samples of the incomparably precious red mats, keeping to the deepest and coldest waters in an effort to extend their life until her kind found a new place for the mats to take root.

  She also carried with her something very much akin to a tribal talking history spread through neural nets—which her kind communicated to one another in very long sequences of clicks and squeals. The persistence of memory was like a library of song stories. Some recorded the flood and the diaspora, and how their world ended.

  At one time the marshes, the canals, and the Devil’s Hole south of Crete had been a paradise. The fall of Gibraltar Dam buried it under a new sea and layers of black silt, and the vents in that location never again supported the red growth. Only along the northern slope of a solitary volcanic mountain, now mostly submerged and a long way from being named Santorini, was the combination of substances venting from within the earth just right for planting and sustaining a red garden.

  But not forever, the caretaker understood. She knew her kin’s history well enough, and had been around long enough to gain an intuitive sense that nothing lasts forever, not even the red gardens.

  Her kind had no knowledge or understanding of how the microbes could hibernate for seven hundred years or more, drifting along the bed of the sea like immortal dandelion seeds, until settling and sprouting again, at a friendly undersea shore with just the right conditions. Incomparably symbiotic, yet just as incomparably stubborn about the extreme environments in which it could be cultivated, the microbe seemed equally selective in guiding just the right creatures, with just the right neurological and physiological framework, to seek out just the right places where it could be fruitful and multiply.

  So it was for the sentient cephalopods and the Darwin Strain.

  The Santorini mineral springs and the velvety mats shrank over the course of a dozen centuries. The warm glow of the red cleft and the vents dimmed, revived briefly, and now appeared finally to be dying.

  After the flood and the diaspora, the cephalopods had continued to evolve newer and more sophisticated means of communication. Like whales, but in a language entirely different from whales, the clicking of even an individual Kraken’s thousands of barbs sounded, to submerged ears, like a drawn-out avalanche of pebbles clashing. In time, whales learned to avoid the sounds—which could be heard across the entire length of the flooded Mediterranean canyon, or even across the ocean that was yet to be named Atlantic.

  The caretaker called out to a whole generation of forty-three juveniles who had been sent ahead of her, west of Gibraltar. They were spread out across and exploring the length of a midocean mountain range, from Antarctica to the North Pole, testing all the volcanic springs of the deep as they went, and finding not one in the entire ocean that could sustain Santorini’s red mats.

  They communicated this result to the caretaker year by year, with all the awful force of hopelessness. She was not satisfied with their efforts and joined the others with only one desperate goal driving her—which translated as:

  Continue searching.

  Continue searching.

  After ninety years, at the age of 256, she heard an avalanche of sound, relayed from one extinction-fearing lair to another, carrying the message of imminent failure. The Santorini garden had retreated so deep below the seamount’s south flank that the precious red substance could be reached only by digging down dangerously close to pools of eruptive lava. By then the caretaker was nearing the southeast coast of Africa, and dying.

  Three juveniles departed the shore near Antarctica’s Mount Erebus and came to her aid. Compared to pre-flood generations, they were now a more civilized species that included division of labor into something approximating guilds or castes—among these, the stone-cutting miners and lava-seekers. The strain had seen to this.

  The caretaker could not be moved during the last two years of her life. Those she had cared for in their youth were now caretaking her. On her final day, she learned that scouts had already traveled to seas beyond the Horn of Africa and were finding hopeful new springs. Her last plea compelled them—all of them—to continue the search.

  And the undersea sojourn carried on, for centuries more. Few suitable garden vents were ever found, but they were enough. One was discovered near Sri Lanka, on the floor of the Indian Ocean. Another was located east of Japan, and another was found among a chain of Pacific atolls.

  Unless attacked, the cephalopod lineage from the lost worlds of the Mediterranean canyon remained a hidden civilization, avoiding contact with the Stone-throwers as the ice ages came and went and man-apes developed speech, agriculture, and frightful weapons.

  The generations of Stone-throwers also developed philosophy and mythology. One of them, Pliny the Elder, recorded a legend about people who had inhabited Greek islands that he believed to have once been mountaintops, prior to a universal deluge. Then, after ice swept over the world, the lost tribe known for the strange countenance of its people, and for their shy nature, had retreated into a vast labyrinth beyond the barrier of the Himalayan Mountains.

  Pliny had called these mythical creatures Cerae, but they were really the civilized descendants of Seed. Pliny also wrote about Scylla and Polypus, sea monsters later known as the Kraken. They were said to be sent by Poseidon, but their real beginnings were along the deep Mediterranean Nile and the fringes of the Devil’s Hole.

  Before Pliny’s time, a final volcanic upheaval completely buried the hydrothermal gardens in the waters near Santorini. Only every millennium or so did they occasionally come back to life, and usually only for a little while.

  Like the descendants of Seed, the descendants of the Canal-builders and the caretaker remained stable in their numbers and relatively obscure.

  Many of Pliny’s Scyllan sea monsters had settled around a cluster of deep-ocean hydrothermal gardens near the Pacific’s Marshall Islands. Throughout the ice ages, their only real difficulties came from other cephalopods that from time to time encroached on the red farms and challenged the guardians in a manner that would have seemed, had Mac or his team been allowed to observe it, like apes trying to challenge the architects of the Acropolis.

  Such moments of rise and rebellion were no obstacle to them. As Pleistocene ice sheets and the descendants of Seed and She Who Leads retreated into the mountains—as Chinese, Roman, and Viking civilizations rose and fell—the majority of the Kraken made their home in the waters of the Marshall Islands, east of Bikini Atoll.

  They were still there in 1946, when the American fleet arrived.

  Chapter 15

  Beyond the Spectrum

  My soul grieveth over the sons of man, because they are blind in their heart.

  —Jesus, as recorded in the Greek Orthodoxy, by Didymos Judas Thomas

  It is a terrible thing to see and have no vision.

  —Helen Keller

  July 4, 1948

  Sunset

  Santorini Lagoon, South Cliffs Overlook

  Ninety million years lay dire
ctly under R. J. MacCready’s and Yanni Thorne’s feet. Ninety million years of Santorini history that began with a seafloor of limestone and chalk raised up into sunshine and breezes, and rains that capped the east Mediterranean canyon’s mountaintops with gardens, and sustained them even after the peaks were transformed into islands. The stones told of lost Edens ravaged by floods of both water and lava. As a zoologist turned accidental cryptozoologist, Mac had more of a sense than most people of what had really occurred here: while the stage was being set for the parade of life that marches across this planet—even before all of the marchers existed—geo-chemistry, an extreme microbe, and even the shapes of the seas were conspiring to render humanity’s geopolitical arena every bit as violent as the natural history that preceded it.

  And so it came to pass: They crouched among the broad-leaved fig bushes, Mac and Yanni, staring across the sweep of darkening waters below. A stiff warm breeze from the west created swells beyond the island fragment called Therasia and all the way out to the horizon, interrupted only by whitecaps.

  “Base to Mac,” Nesbitt radioed. “See our guests, yet? Over.”

  “They’re quite active,” Mac replied. “But the wind is strong and very dry—which should keep them under the water tonight. I’m switching comms to Yanni. Over.”

  “Base. What are they doing? Over.”

  Yanni pressed the transmit button. “Much signaling to each other. More than I’ve seen before. Mostly bright greens but some red and silver among the flashes—”

  “Where?”

  “At least three of them where the bombs were dropped. But most of them are just northeast of Nea Kameni.”

  “Any idea what they’re saying?” Nesbitt called excitedly.

  “I think they’re somewhere between fear and panic—”

  “Phobos and Diemos?” said Dmitri Chernov, kicking pumice and gravel loudly as he stepped up to the cliff edge, raising both hands over his head. With disquieting self-confidence, the submariner had tossed aside any attempt at stealth. “I’m sure you knew we’d end up all in the middle of this again.”

  “Phobos and Diemos?” Mac said. “Really?” He and Yanni had already unclipped the safety straps on their holsters. “How bad this gets is just something we’ll have to see.”

  Nesbitt’s voice crackled over the speaker. “Base to Yanni. Do you copy?”

  “Copy you,” Yanni called. “We’ve had a visitor. Over.”

  “Cephs?” she asked.

  “Negative,” Yanni replied. “Type human. Unarmed.” She added, “Over and out,” and made a miserable sleight-of-hand attempt at leaving the open mike unnoticed.

  “Yes,” said Dmitri. “I imagine we shall see.” He nodded toward the strengthening display of underwater sparks. “MacCready, your talented friend thinks she sees fear down there. But I don’t need an empathy with animals to read what the murmurs of the lagoon really mean.”

  “And what’s that?” Yanni asked.

  “They’re telling us to sleep lightly. All humanity. You understand?”

  Mac tried to keep his full attention on the Russian but was now unable to resist the distractions of what was happening below. “Sleep lightly?” he said. “Looks like I’ll have to pass the torch to you, as the one who paints the darkest canvas.”

  Glancing at a new surge of flashes from the lagoon, and shuddering inwardly, secretly, Mac recalled how a small venomous octopus of Australia flashed brilliant blue rings to warn that it was agitated and about to bite. He did not have any idea what it meant when the bioluminescent chatter in the lagoon abruptly ceased, but this did not discourage him from trying to come up with an interpretation—at least, up to the moment that Dmitri interrupted.

  “Where’s Saint Francis when you need him—right?” the Russian asked.

  Yanni is enough, Mac answered to himself. He remembered a morning at the aquarium when at least three octopuses lifted their arms toward Yanni, like puppies jumping to greet her. The same animals that squirted other people as they passed the artificial tidepools climbed gently up Mac’s arm when Yanni guided his hand below the water’s surface. To this day, he had a sense that the waves of color moving across their skin were like thoughts made manifest—as if the creatures were experiencing an actual sense of wonder themselves, as though it were possible for them to taste the flavors of amazement—and an inexplicable affection coursed suddenly beneath his skin, in his blood. Without any warning or fuss, they detached and poured like water down drains into their hiding places, leaving Mac with an unexpectedly profound sense of loneliness. And that was the power of a much less intelligent, much less impressive species, Mac thought.

  For nearly a minute, he remained unresponsive to Dmitri’s question, trying to compare everything he knew from his experience with other animals—primates, elephants, ravens, and even bats—for clues to the mind of the Kraken. The shutdown of the bioluminescent lights was only the latest ominous development. What he feared most, at this moment, was that he might make a mistake, or overlook something that must not be overlooked, and that Yanni might not survive. A part of him understood Dmitri—understood how the killing of his brother rendered the Russian even more rough-hewn—given purpose, given new breath, by great and unfortunate brutes.

  Mac could not help but understand. During and since the war years, too many people had already been lost: the whole family, including his mother, his sister, the Voorhees cousins—and his first love, Tamara . . . and Yanni’s husband, his childhood friend. Worst of all, Mac was a true genius at inventing ways to blame himself. He dragged the dead behind him like Mr. Marley’s chains.

  Yanni shot Mac an aggravated and impatient expression, and he realized that she knew exactly where his mind was wandering. He had overheard her saying as much to Alan after the Kraken night raid, while Mac spent more than an hour at the microscope, lost in the world of the microbes in Kraken ink. “Watch him long enough,” she had said at a half whisper, “and you’ll see that it’s how he deals with pain. He bundles it up and turns it into a science project.”

  Except that his projects usually end up causing new pain, Mac believed she had left unsaid.

  Now he broke the lingering silence. “I presume, Dmitri, that your side didn’t shoot down the big plane?”

  “Why would we shoot down a plane in our own union—or even one of yours?” Dmitri replied. “And if—just say it was our plane and I believed you were behind it, do you think you would still be alive to have this conversation?”

  “Wonderful,” Yanni said, looking him up and down, double-checking for weapons. “As if we didn’t have enough enemies.” She continued her visual search, never meeting Dmitri’s eyes, even when he spoke directly to her. “And now,” she added, “there is someone else—a hidden enemy.”

  “Yes, wonderful,” said Dmitri, echoing Yanni’s sarcasm. “There’s more than one way to start another war and burn down the world. And there are plenty of adversaries running around with lit matches.”

  “Yep,” Mac said. “Definitely, you can top me black for black. Can’t paint the world any darker.”

  Dmitri did not seem to hear him. His eye caught a glint of something in the distance, and Mac immediately turned and looked where the Russian was looking. Far off on the horizon line, between the isle of Therasia and the northern arch of Santorini, a ship had appeared. Mac was able to discern long-range cannons on the bow. A second warship was steaming into view right behind it.

  Mac shook his head. “Okay. Spoke too soon.”

  July 4, 1948

  Twilight

  Eastern Mediterranean, North of Santorini

  The refurbished and renamed heavy cruiser Kursk felt top-heavy to Trofim Lysenko. A squall seemed to be building in the west, sending forth a continual march of oddly intersecting swells that prevented the Kursk and its sister ship Koresh from pitching and rolling like normal cruisers. Instead, they rocked in random X patterns and figure-eight wobbles—in no particular order and frequently reversing direction.
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  Even veteran sailors were becoming incapacitated. Lysenko knew his situation was seriously bad when the ship’s surgeon found a rat dragging itself along the central companionway. The crew named him and buried him at sea—“Bernard,” the only rat ever diagnosed as having died from seasickness.

  By now Lysenko had found one point on which he could agree with that damnable Darwinist, H. G. Wells—Sailors ought not go to church. They ought to go to hell, where it is much more comfortable than at sea.

  He steadied himself against a starboard rail, trying to keep his attention focused on the horizon, and on distant Santorini. It did not help his condition. Here he was hobbled and controlled by nature’s laws. At home he dictated, officially, the laws of nature. At home he was a living example of what happens when political figures are empowered to legislate ignorance as scientific knowledge.

  Inwardly, the man wept to himself about not being able to keep his food down; meanwhile, Russia starved in a continually broadening famine of his and Stalin’s creation.

  Ignorance. Knowledge. Ignorance.

  And power.

  And intimidation.

  Lysenko was a true believer in the old idea that short-necked mammals became giraffes by stretching their necks to access leaves higher up in the trees. Under this premise, each animal developed its own pliability of bones and neck muscles while it stretched to reach those leaves. It then passed a pliability acquired by perfecting one’s personal best onward to the next generation.

  Under Stalin’s now-dominant biological science of Lysenkoism, genetics was overturned. The Darwinian concept that giraffes became giraffes through the greater reproductive survival of ancestors born with genes already capable of producing longer necks was abolished. Under the new rules, merely being seen reading Darwin or Mendel could end a career or a life, because competition for survival in the natural world was perceived by Lysenko to be the capitalist doctrine of the Rockefellers and the Kennedys, masquerading (very poorly) as evolutionary theory.