The Darwin Strain

by Bill Schutt

  During an earlier dive, at 2.5 miles, explorer and undersea cinematographer Ralph White saw what he believed to be a very large cephalopod, but it “disappeared suddenly in billows of sediment, wanting to get out of Dodge.” Evidently it disliked the submersible’s lights as much as the Humboldt. At this same depth, another apparent cephalopod responded to Mir-2 with a display to rival the sub’s own floodlights. A later examination of the video revealed what appeared to be a gently curving lateral line of dull green bioluminescent “lanterns,” the line being vaguely reminiscent of a cuttlefish in side view (with the added mystery that this visitor, if a cuttlefish, was at least twenty feet long). Topside, one of the engineers said that the lights reminded him of a machine crossed with an animal, then joked at the invertebrate zoologists: “It’s like one of those ink blot tests the psychologists use. You people see cephalopods everywhere—which means you’d be just the people to film an underwater foo-fighter for real and think you discovered some new kind of squid.”

  One thing that can be said for certain, about the ever-black—and especially about the volcanic springs of the deep—is that new species of cephalopods are being encountered almost as a matter of routine. As White once said, “It’s Planet of the Cephalopods down there.”

  During a “White expedition,” one of the biologists (one of many explorers who, like Yanni, is “on the spectrum”) came away from a twenty-minute encounter with a new species of octopus, in tears—describing “the most profound loneliness” after the animal departed. The scientist taught others how to interact with the strange visitors, and some came away with the same unmistakable impression one has after looking into the eyes of an elephant or an orangutan. You are never quite the same again, because you can never escape the feeling that while it looks into you, it is having thoughts of its own. (See human responses to a deep ocean robot probe encounter in the 2003 Disney–James Cameron documentary, Aliens of the Deep.)

  As for the scientist who realized, “They know when you are looking,” this too is real. At Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (as reported in the Washington Post, 3/2/2019) biologist Bret Grasse noticed that he was being continually squirted in the back of his head, when he turned away from his habitat for cuttlefish and began working on something else. Each time this happened, when he looked back at the source of the squirting, the cephalopods were sitting innocently on the bottom of the tank, in the positions he had last observed them. Finally, Grasse made use of his smart phone’s selfie function, looking back over his shoulder as if through a mirror, as the cuttlefish snuck up to the water’s surface, fired off a volley of well-aimed squirts, and returned to their original positions on the bottom during the split second it would have taken him to turn around.

  In 2019, Mindy Weisberger reported (on Live Science, 3/19/2019) that one octopus, evidently feeling content enough to sleep out in the open, in its laboratory tide pool habitat, appeared to be dreaming flashing patterns of star-shaped geometric figures.

  Woods Hole scientists, meanwhile, confirmed that secondary brains and neural nets are spread throughout the octopoid body and are high-functioning. Unlike a human limb, a severed octopus arm has long been known to scurry away from hydrochloric acid and other toxins. At Woods Hole, several scientists working closely with these organisms have turned against surgical experimentation, and long ago stopped eating them.

  Supporters of commercial octopus farming have begun campaigning against cephalopod intelligence, calling the idea “nonsense” and “fake science cultism,” asserting that they, like oysters, belong only on the dinner plate. Increasingly, this argument is based on claims that an octopus will fail (so far) to meet certain human standards of intelligence. Until some octopuses were observed using coconut shell halves for shelter, and carrying them away in apparent anticipation of future use, they appeared to have failed at the intelligence markers of tool use and anticipating the future in reasonable detail. Marine biologist James Wood answered would-be octopus ranchers (in Smithsonian, Ocean, on-line): “So you think you’re smarter than a cephalopod?” He asked his readers to imagine setting intelligence markers for humans, by the standards of an octopus. So, the octopus thinks, “All right. I’m going to make an intelligence test for humans, because they show a little bit of promise, in a very few ways.” And the first question the octopus comes up with is this: “How many color patterns can your severed arm produce in one second?”

  Much as biochemist Cyril Ponnamperuma suggested that we might have to develop a gradational approach to the definition of life (as between a protocell, a virus, and a cell), we may also need a pH scale for intelligence. The division of life on earth into thinking and nonthinking is artificial, convenient for distinguishing such extreme cases as a human and a clam, but quite inappropriate when dismissing a mountain gorilla that learns sign language, or a “lowly” octopus that unscrews jars and expresses complex patterns on its skin (some decipherable, possibly, as emotions), or a pod of orca whales that develops its own distinct dialect (in a language still undecipherable). The spectrum of animal minds, ours among them, may require something analogous to the words “acid” and “base” as used in chemistry. While sodium hydroxide is distinctly alkaline, the hydrochloric acid in your stomach is a powerful acid. But in between these two extremes exists a whole spectrum of variable strength. The chemists have pushed aside rigid (and untenable) categories by inventing the pH scale—the measure of “hydrogen ion concentration.” In this way, all the observed phenomena can be described as a quantity, or a place-holder on the spectrum. We may have to invent a similar quantity to avoid any vagueness (or worse, assumptions) that might arise from applying the terms “human” and “dumb animal.”

  As a civilization hoping to survive its nuclear adolescence, striving to become truly adult, and to explore far beyond earth, the sidestepping of a terrible mistake may ultimately depend on understanding a new spectrum.

  We know of a biologist who studied a species of intensely mimetic cuttlefish that could instantly sprout thorny red shapes along the surface of its body—“Seeming to enjoy scaring us by looking like something that just stepped out of hell.” One day, she was certain it had tried to mimic her own face—“Or, rather, half-a-face.” Amid a convergence of fleshy red thorns, and for a fleeting moment, the scientist was certain that she saw a human brow, eye, cheek, and half of her own smile.

  Looking around, it would be a great mistake to deny that other animals—including mammals, certain highly evolved birds, and even a “lowly” octopus—can know emotions and consciousness, albeit sometimes via a consciousness quite alien to our way of thinking.

  The theremin device was an actual ancestor of synthesizers, electric guitars, and every other electronic musical instrument. Its Russian inventor, Leon Theremin, became very popular in the United States. His instruments contributed to the soundtracks of films ranging from Spellbound and Rocketship XM to the animal calls in The Birds. Behind the music, Theremin and his machines were historical oddities, because the inventor was simultaneously a Russian spy. This novel’s Theremin-based listening devices were quite real during the first Cold War. One was actually presented (disguised as a gift) to the U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union and functioned for seven years until accidentally broken (and revealed as a “bug”). Contrary to the stereotype of humorless Russian spies, the little espionage machine had been named “the Thing.” The sounds Leon Theremin created became the eerie music that amplified the moods of isolation and paranoia in film versions of The Thing (both versions)—which, as some of you might have noticed, is a story for another time (including the fate of young Robert Jerry MacCready, who, in 1948, had not been born yet).

  Trofim Lysenko is introduced very much as he actually was, and we have led him to behave in a manner consistent with the real historical figure, if thrown into this extraordinary event. First you meet the man. Then, very quickly, the monster within the man.

  Dmitri Chernov, though a fictional character, is based on a combinati
on of several real Russian naval officers and one former KGB agent. The Nesbitt character (like Mac) is a composite of several civilian scientists who have sailed with American marines, often on high-risk “cruises.” Like marines, Chernov and Nesbitt have one feature in common: they are entirely mission focused. And in many cases, such people have seen too much.

  Chernov’s “best bar in town” mathematics: reality. By the end of the twentieth century, real spies learned how to sidestep this phenomenon.

  The four ancient apocalyptic books cited by Bishop Marinatos (including The Apocalypse of the Egyptians) actually do exist. Several were in fact excavated during the 1940s, including Egypt’s “Nag Hammadi Library.” The buried Egyptian library includes several texts that were preserved (and over many centuries duplicated by hand-copying) within the Greek Orthodox Church. Some of the original texts date back to the earliest Judeo-Christians, and to the Christian-like “Gnostic” churches. Several such texts, as cited in The Darwin Strain (including references to fiery red “dragons” rising out of the sea) are echoed in Revelation (4, 12–15, and 18). Since its formation, the Vatican’s Jesuit order has preserved many apocryphal texts (declared heretical under Emperor Constantine’s committees, after a.d. 325). By tradition, these have been consulted for comparison with miracles involving the sudden appearance of springs with curative powers, as in the cases of Lourdes and Fatima. Thus it is a safe bet that if the Kraken and the Santorini springs really did arise in a manner anything like this fable, in 1948 (or even today), they would have been scrutinized and suspected by the religious authorities in the very same way.

  The “coin boy” incident: Yes, this is based on something that really happened.

  The newsboy was thirteen-year-old Jimmy Bozart. Although the actual event occurred in 1953 instead of 1948, the real Jimmy did indeed receive a hollowed-out nickel containing a Russian microfilm after selling copies of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. (The McCarthy-era red scare excerpts cited from the paper are actual for that July day in 1948.) At home, Jimmy magnified the microfilm through a lamp and lens, really did discover lines of coded numbers, and notified detectives. The mistakenly spent nickel led back to some “enlightening answers” to “many questions” about how Russian spy rings operated.

  Jimmy received a reward from the government and went to college at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (not coincidentally, a favored location for CIA talent scouts, through the 1980s). During an intensive study of the commodities markets, and as his between-classes hobby, Jimmy made his first fortune while still a teen by investing some of his reward money in the Texas Gulf mining company. He redesigned vending machines (made another fortune), designed a rocket or two (made no money there), then naively crossed paths with some of Jack “Sparks” Ruby’s money-laundering colleagues after building some nightclubs (almost got “a big time-out” there). Jimmy made his next fortune in New York and Florida real estate, having followed advice of a future U.S. president on “the art of the deal.”

  About 2015, Jimmy asked the FBI if he could buy his nickel back, at “any” price. He was told, “Nyet.”

  Kitano Hata is a composite of two actual war criminals, one of whom (Shiro Ishii) was known as “Black Sun” (as in the Chinese film by that title released in 1987). The horrors of the Unit 731 bioweapons facility have not been exaggerated beyond what they were in real life (not in The Darwin Strain, nor in its prequel, Hell’s Gate). The real “Black Sun” did, in life as well as in this fable, survive under General MacArthur’s protection. He eventually built many children’s hospitals and dedicated himself to other charitable acts—having accepted a Bible from MacArthur and embraced Christianity as the only religion that offered forgiveness for his sins. In China today, with regard to “Black Sun” and Field Marshall Shunroku Hata (who survived with flash burns from the first atomic bomb), the people really do say, “No one should waste his spit on either of their graves.” Field Marshal Hata, responsible for more than a quarter million murders, died of natural causes at advanced old age, unrepentant.

  The Truman White House really was falling apart from within, and really did have to be completely gutted to the outer walls, in a process that included a bulldozer in the basement, hidden from public view. Much of the post-1814 White House wood (installed after a previous gutting resulting from the War of 1812) ended up buried under what is now a baseball park. Reconstruction and renovation were finally completed when First lady Jaqueline Kennedy presented her famous color television tour of the White House.

  Although the MacCready events to which Truman must respond are fictional, his reactions to several other 1945–48 events (including the Russian problem and the predictions of Einstein) are realistically described. The portrayal of President Truman’s way of interacting with people (including RFK and the futurists) was informed by Arthur M. Schlesinger (regarding the Kennedys) and by Harry Truman’s grandson Clifton Truman Daniel.

  Clifton has said his grandfather never spoke about the atomic bomb at home—“But,” he added, “that’s partly because I never asked.” Although President Truman had once threatened “a nuclear rain of ruin,” his real feelings might have been a little different from what most people suppose, according to correspondence discovered by Clifton and his friend Masahiro Sasaki (which was read and broadcast on C-SPAN 3 on November 19, 2015, from the Truman Presidential Library’s Paper Crane Dedication ceremony). About the letter and its context: Near the war’s end, a senator had sent a telegram cheering the “rain of ruin,” and he called upon the president for the more expansive use of atom bombs. Truman’s letter was written the day after Nagasaki, with still not a whisper of surrender coming from Japan. History now knows that Truman knew (and certainly did not want anyone else to know) that America was fresh out of atom bombs. The president also knew that at least two new bombs were in the manufacturing pipeline, scarcely more than two weeks away. Additionally, he was receiving reports from scientists (based on sand melted into glass and flash-burned wildlife miles from the July 16, 1945, bomb test in New Mexico) that thousands of people, “those not incinerated,” must have been flash-burn irradiated—“Hideously so, and instantly”—out to several miles from the centers of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

  Knowing this, and embedded in one of history’s loneliest moments, Truman replied: “I know that Japan is a terribly cruel and uncivilized nation in warfare. But I cannot bring myself to believe that because they are beasts we should, ourselves, act in the same way. For myself, I certainly regret the necessity of wiping out whole populations because of the pig-headedness of the leaders of the nation. And for your information, I’m not going to do it, unless it is absolutely necessary. It is my opinion that after the Russians enter into the [Pacific] war, the Japanese will very shortly fall down. My objective is to save as many American lives as possible. But I also have humane feelings for the women and children in Japan. Sincerely yours, Harry Truman.”

  The background history of Jack (“Sparks”) Ruby and Meyer Lansky: reality.

  Bernard the rat: a true story.

  Professor Cahn and the lesson of the lab rats: a true story.

  Operation High-jump: Although the timing of maneuvers has been extended from 1947 into 1948, to more ideally match the MacCready adventure, High-jump really did involve aircraft, ships (albeit not our secret mission of Intrepid), and five thousand men in Antarctic war games and long-term settlement experiments. Although one offshoot of High-jump was permanent Antarctic research stations and many Explorer’s Club mission flags, the primary objective was to practice for defense against a Russian invasion across the Arctic Circle—just as in this fable. Cover stories included an actual research station being built, with plans for power to be provided by a portable nuclear reactor. (The “NR-3”–style reactor was in fact built and shipped, but it needed a continually reliable supply of liquid water to cool its core. To freeze-dry the scientific story of what went wrong, suffice to say that somewhat like Napoleon and Hitler when they decided to invade Russia in th
e wintertime, somebody forgot to check the winter weather forecasts.) Much of the actual misinformation circulated around Operation High-jump—everything from the search for Nazi foo-fighters to Hitler’s “hollow earth” mind rot—has accidentally infiltrated and persists to this day in UFO legend and myth. Archival records that emerged from Moscow between the two Cold Wars revealed that Russia was not fooled by any of it. Meanwhile, the actual demise of the so-called Fourth Reich, prior to 1948, is in fact exactly as described in The Darwin Strain.

  Pliny the Elder’s “polypus” is not exaggerated at all beyond what Pliny actually wrote. The Viking saga version of the “Kraken” is also quoted as originally written. The July 4, 1874, story in the London Times, about the sinking of a schooner near Sri Lanka by a large cephalopod, is reproduced exactly as reported. The Brunswick incident is also based on a real report (the actual date of the incident was May 6, 1930).

  A review of the 2003 video of “an unprovoked attack on a Mir submersible, by a Humboldt squid” surprised some observers because the creature approached with its head and arms facing forward—“Just like the squid attack in the movie, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” observed one scientist. “How did Walt Disney know?”

  Disney did manage to get a lot right, except perhaps for the translation. In Jules Verne’s novel, the creature is more akin to Pliny’s “polypus”—called a poulpe in the original French. Poulpe is an octopus, not a squid. The “squid” monster appeared in a different novel: Ian Fleming’s Dr. No.