Deception Point Page 36

Jesus Christ Norah shook the dev methamphetamine hydrochloride rink and looked again. beatified it Somethings got to be improper with this refractometerSaltwater? corked gloated.Norah frowned. Partial. Its registering three portion douse-which is all told impossible. This glacier is a snow pack. Pure freshwater. There should be no salt. Norah carried the prove to a nearby microscope and examined it. She groaned.Plankton? Tolland asked.G. polyhedra, she replied, her vo icing the puck now sedate. Its one of the planktons we glaciologists commonly fool in the oceans under ice shelves. She glanced every(prenominal)place at Tolland. Theyre dead now. simply they didnt survive long in a three percent brine environment.The four of them stood in silence a moment beside the deep asshole.Rachel wondered what the ramifications of this riddle were for the overall discovery. The dilemma appe ared minor when compared to the overall scope of the meteorite, and yet, as an intel analyst, Rachel had witnessed the calve of entire theories based on smaller snags than this.Whats going on over here? The voice was a low rumble.Everyone looked up. The bearish frame of the NASA administrator emerged from the dark.Minor quandary with the water in the shaft, Tolland said. Were trying to sort it out.Corky sounded almost gleeful. Norahs ice data is screwed.Bite me twice, Norah whispered.The administrator approached, his furry eyebrows lowering. Whats wrong with the ice data.Tolland heaved an uncertain sigh. Were showing a three percent brine mix in the meteorite shaft, which contradicts the glaciology report that the meteorite was encased in a primordial freshwater glacier. He paused. Theres also plankton present.Ekstrom looked almost angry. Obviously thats impossible. There are no fissures in this glacier. The PODS s offers confirmed that. This meteorite was sealed in a fast matrix of ice.Rachel knew Ekstrom was correct. According to NASAs density scans, the ice sheet w as rock solid. Hundreds of feet of rooted(p) glacier on all sides of the meteorite. No cracks. And yet as Rachel imagined how density scans were taken, a strange thought occurred to herIn addition, Ekstrom was say, Dr. Mangors core samples confirmed the solidity of the glacier. just now Norah said, tossing the refractometer on a desk. Double corroboration. No fault lines in the ice. Which leaves us no explanation whatsoever for the salt and plankton.Actually, Rachel said, the boldness of her voice surprise even herself. There is another possibility. The brainstorm had hit her from the most incredible of memories.Everyone was looking at her now, their skepticism obvious.Rachel smiled. Theres a perfectly sound rule for the presence of salt and plankton. She gave Tolland a wry look. And frankly, Mike, Im surprised it didnt occur to you.42Plankton frozen in the glacier? Corky Marlinson sounded not at all exchange on Rachels explanation. Not to rain on your parade, but usually when things block up they die. These little buggers were flashing us, remember?Actually, Tolland said, giving Rachel an impressed look, she may hurt a point. There are a number of species that enter suspend animation when their environment requires it. I did an episode on that phenomenon once.Rachel nodded. You showed northern motorway that got frozen in lakes and had to wait until the thaw to swim away. You also talked roughly micro-organisms called waterbears that became totally dehydrated in the desert, remained that way for decades, and then reinflated when rains returned.Tolland chuckled. So you genuinely do watch my show?Rachel gave a slightly embarrassed shrug.Whats your point, Ms. sacristan? Norah demanded.Her point, Tolland said, which should remove dawned on me earlier, is that one of the species I mentioned on that program was a kind of plankton that gets frozen in the polar ice detonating device every winter, hibernates inside the ice, and then swims away every summer wh en the ice cap thins. Tolland paused. Granted the species I featured on the show was not the light species we saw here, but maybe the homogeneous thing happened.Frozen plankton, Rachel continued, excite to have Michael Tolland so enthusiastic about her idea, could explain everything were seeing here. At some point in the past, fissures could have opened in this glacier, modify with plankton-rich saltwater, and then refroze. What if there were frozen pockets of saltwater in this glacier? Frozen saltwater containing frozen plankton? Imagine if while you were raising the heated meteorite through the ice, it passed through a frozen saltwater pocket. The saltwater ice would have melted, releasing the plankton from hibernation, and giving us a small percentage of salt combine in the freshwater.Oh, for the love of God Norah exclaimed with a hostile groan. Suddenly everyones a glaciologistCorky also looked skeptical. But wouldnt PODS have spotted any brine ice pockets when it did its density scans? After all, brine ice and freshwater ice have different densities.Barely different, Rachel said.Four percent is a significant difference, Norah challenged.Yes, in a lab, Rachel replied. But PODS takes its measurements from 120 miles up in space. Its computers were intentional to differentiate between the obvious-ice and slush, granite and limestone. She turned to the administrator. Am I right to drive that when PODS measures densities from space, it probably lacks the resolution to distinguish brine ice from fresh ice?The administrator nodded. Correct. A four percent differential is below PODSs tolerance threshold. The satellite would see brine ice and fresh ice as identical.Tolland now looked intrigued. This would also explain the static water level in the shaft. He looked at Norah. You said the plankton species you saw in the extraction shaft was called-G. polyhedra, Norah declared. And now youre wondering if G. polyhedra is capable of hibernating inside the ice ? Youll be fortunate to know the answer is yes. Absolutely. G. polyhedra is found in droves around ice shelves, it bioluminesces, and it can hibernate inside the ice. Any other questions?Everyone exchanged looks. From Norahs tone, there was seemingly some sort of but-and yet it seemed she had just confirmed Rachels theory.So, Tolland ventured, youre saying its possible, right? This theory makes sense?Sure, Norah said, if youre totally retarded.Rachel glared. I beg your rationalize?Norah Mangor locked stares with Rachel. I imagine in your business, a little bit of noesis is a dangerous thing? Well, trust me when I tell you that the same holds true for glaciology. Norahs eyes shifted now, looking at each of the four stack around her. Let me clarify this for everyone once and for all. The frozen brine pockets that Ms. sexton has proposed do occur. They are what glaciologists call interstices. Interstices, however, form not as pockets of saltwater but rather as highly branched net works of brine ice whose tendrils are as wide as a human hair. That meteorite would have had to pass through one hell of a dense serial of interstices to release enough saltwater to create a three percent mixture in a pool that deep.