The Adventures of Anna Atom. Elizabeth Wasserman
grey bodies, as if they were in flight. Smaller spheres housed collections of rats and rabbits, anteaters, monkeys, a couple of small brown buck, and rare species of scaly armadillo. There were separate sections for pairs of birds, insects and reptiles, and the admiral’s favourite: the marine-animals section.
If it had not been for the accident that had forced him to leave Earth, Admiral Atom would never have left his beloved family. But shortly after his strange injury, the admiral’s old friend Dr Uranus Drake had offered him this job. And as he’d no choice, it had been a fortunate coincidence that the Space Ark had been completed at the same time. The admiral had now been working on the project for eight years, and he was grateful that he was still in regular contact with his family. But he missed the feel of Anna’s soft hair, and the way his wife had massaged his back when he was tired.
The fact was that nobody could look after the animals like he could. Putting his knowledge of molecular biology into practice, he had invented the Bioplasmid, which slightly altered the genetic make-up of the animals: it caused them to enter a state of inactivity, almost like hibernation, in which they needed almost no air to breathe, and no food to eat. In this dormant state, they didn’t become old or die. They were like seeds, perfectly preserved until the time came to wake them up.
“Ahoy, Abraham!” A hologram of the famous marine biologist, Dr Uranus Drake, suddenly appeared. The admiral and Uranus were great friends, having studied and worked on projects together for most of their adult lives. Dr Drake appeared to be standing on a wall of the Space Ark – although one could never be sure what was the ceiling or the floor, as all sides looked alike.
The admiral kicked himself away from where he was working and drifted towards his friend. “Delighted to see you, old eel!” he beamed.
Uranus Drake cut a remarkable figure. More than two metres tall, he had carrot-orange hair and his face was densely freckled. His nose was long and thin, with a strange bony knob in the middle. His eyes, a yellowish shade of green, were set very close together, and he wore his long, thin beard in a plait fastened with a black rubber band. Today Uranus was casually dressed in a baby-blue bathrobe, his feet stuffed in furry pink slippers. Yet he still looked strangely elegant.
“Just stepped out of the bath?” the admiral asked, laughing.
Uranus merely nodded. He seldom smiled.
“Your timing is excellent, my friend! I have good news: our project is almost finished. We have only a few more specimens to go, and our Ark will be complete.”
The famous marine biologist frowned. “No, Abraham, you’re mistaken. We will have a complete collection of currently endangered species. But what about those that have already disappeared?”
“Uranus, I know you’re as proud as I am of sabre tooth tigers and mammoths we cloned from the specimens you retrieved from Siberia.”
Uranus snorted. “Ah, but animals that became extinct during the Ice Age are easy. A mere trifle, finding good frozen specimens. But the ones that lived in the tropics are a challenge. You know well that hot, humid conditions cause rapid decay of genetic material, and your cloning technique doesn’t work on dry bone, so suitable specimens are nowhere to be found. It’s a disaster!”
“That may be so, Uranus,” the admiral tried to soothe his friend. “But what we’ve done already is an enormous achievement. When you decide to reveal your work to the world, you’ll be even more famous than you already are!”
The marine biologist flushed crimson. “The admiration of the human race is of no consequence – they’re all fools! Only the animals matter. Humans have displaced the animals from their natural homes, and every day they are butchered and poisoned. Soon we may only have these left.” He swept his arm to indicate the sleeping animals floating around them in the Space Ark’s dimly lit interior. “Imagine the world,” he continued with a strange gleam lighting up his yellow eyes, “before the scourge of human civilisation contaminated the oceans and forests. What I wouldn’t give to see that! And we will, I tell you!” He shook his fist in the air.
The admiral was used to these ranting speeches. He’d always brushed them off as signs of overwork and stress. But Uranus’s statements had been getting wilder and more feverish, and these days the admiral sometimes feared for his friend’s sanity.
Uranus Drake stamped his furry slippers in the air. “A dodo, Abraham! What I wouldn’t do to get my hands on a good dodo specimen!”
The admiral knew this was unlikely – dodos became extinct centuries ago, and their feathers and flesh had long since turned to dust in the tropical forests of Mauritius. The few bones that palaeontologists had found weren’t enough to work on. The huge birds had disappeared from the earth without leaving a trace, and they were gone forever.
It was a shame indeed.
Chapter 7
DEATH IN THE OCEAN
Back in the laboratory, Max and Sabatina were arguing.
Sabatina had again swung her seat towards the spot in the Southern Pacific where the strange waves had occurred the day before. Now, another curious sight met her eyes: a dark-red spot was slowly spreading over the Pacific Ocean. According to the datascriber, it indicated a dense overgrowth of algae floating on the surface of the sea.
“This is bad, Max.” Sabatina said. “A bloom of algae of this proportion means death to other marine animals. The algae will use up all available oxygen in the water, and other animals and plants will suffocate and die. There are already reports of thousands of fish floating dead in the water.”
“It is the effects of yesterday’s waves, I be telling you.” Max replied in a gloomy voice.
“But it’s incredible! How is it possible that sound waves can cause algae to overgrow, and moreover, to grow at this rapid rate?”
“It be possible, I tells you!” Max said defensively. “And they was no ordinary sound waves. I be making you a printout of a paper by that great Uranus Drake,” he continued. “Ten years ago at a marine biology conference in Barcelona, he be reading a paper on the effects of acoustic waves on the growths of algae. No one has been mentions it till now, but the ideas be there!”
A printer next to the Environator started buzzing and spat out a long reel of paper. Sabatina whizzed her seat over and studied the printout with interest.
“No, Max. I can’t believe this!” she exclaimed after a couple of minutes. “The reason this work was ignored is that it is scientifically impossible. I’m surprised that Uranus even presented this nonsense. And look: he issued a statement a few weeks after the conference, saying that it was just an April Fool’s joke. Really, Max,” the professor prodded, “I can’t believe you’d actually be taken in by this rubbish!”
Max sulked. “You be the fool, Professor S. There be nothing scientifically wrong with the hypothesis of that paper. I checked it myself. It cans be done.”
“Max, Uranus proposes that specific frequencies of acoustic waves can stimulate living organisms either to grow or multiply at a very fast rate, or signal them to die instantly. He called these waves ‘biobooms’. But I simply can’t believe this would work.”
“The evidences be there,” Max mumbled, “rights before your eye!”
Max was right, of course: the data of the previous day’s disturbance and the slowly spreading bloom of algae over the image of the South Pacific was the proof.
Sabatina felt a chill ran down her spine. “Are you telling me, Max, that this was done on purpose? Or could it have been a freak natural occurrence?”
“Not freak, Professor. But freaky. This be dones on purposes. By a freak.”
“And you’re freaking me out, Max! As soon as this is