Burnt Black Suns: A Collection of Weird Tales (18 page)

When Randal informed Olivia, however, certain aspects of the story were changed—most specifically the time it took to resolve the issue and the effort Randal had to exert. It didn’t matter, though. Olivia was excited to get an opportunity to work with the advanced equipment, and seemed impressed Randal was able to facilitate it. He hoped she realized all he could do for her and ended her pining for that imbecile, Linden—pining that, until the recent opening of the crate, left her drained of any sort of joy or glamour. Not that she needed it, of course. Some creatures cannot hide the truth of what they are. But there was no denying Olivia’s renewed interest in research had enlivened her. If Linden was still a concern of hers, she didn’t show it.

Markowitz’s presence, however, was not quite so easily scrubbed away. Though Randal had appropriated everything he could so that he might look more the part of faculty, still there were questions raised by the students he could not answer, and a growing sense that the class was turning against him. At first, it was no more than a few stray comments in lecture after he asked for quiet; but soon the disrespect became more brazen, and some of the students seemed intent on asking the most obscure questions in hopes he would falter. But Randal was better than them. He was better than
all
of them, and despite their antics he knew he would have the last laugh. After all, their grades—and by extension their futures—were held tight in his sweating palms.

Markowitz’s office remained cluttered as Randal took up residence there. Old books, boxed manuscripts, a desk full of items collected over the years of working in the field, all contributed to an aesthetic of importance on which Randal was eager to capitalize. Should any of the more vocal students come to see him, opinions could only be swayed by the sight of him behind his grand desk. Yet Randal found most of the moments he spent between lectures and labs to be free of any such activity. Instead, he spent his time staring at the clutter his mentor had left behind.

A single pile of papers belong to Randal: his dissertation on
Nitrosomonas eutropha
that held close to the edge of his desk. Although only six weeks had passed, it already seemed so far into yesterday that it might have been the work of another hand. Linden had asked Dean Coxwell once again who might be replacing Markowitz as his doctoral advisor, but the little, sweatered man only smiled graciously and said he was working on it. Each time the same response came, Randal’s irritation grew, until his only recourse for sanity was to stop asking. It suited Randal fine: there was plenty of time in the future to complete it. Besides, most likely the trouble was Randal was
too
gifted for any of the other faculty to work with. It would take someone of Markowitz’s caliber, and there weren’t many of those. Certainly no others at Sandstone.

When Randal’s telephone rang later, he was reviewing his notes on the following day’s lecture. He answered it to find Olivia breathing strangely on the other end, filling Randal with sickening surprise.

“Can you come to the lab? I have something to show you.”

“What is it?”

“I got back some results. I need a second pair of eyes on this.”

Randal looked at the stacks of books in Markowitz’s former office, at the large, imposing oak desk he sat behind. He imagined how he might look behind it.

“I’m in the middle of some things, but why don’t you swing by the—by
my
office later and we can discuss your findings.”

“Um—okay,” she hesitated, and told him she’d stop by after she put the crate away. He hung up the telephone and did his best to straighten up the office so it might look respectable. He took his half-completed dissertation and hid it inside one of the desk drawers.

Randal was still staring at its hiding spot when Olivia arrived. She said hello, startling him out of his daydream, and he worried his face betrayed the truth. If it did, Olivia seemed too tired to notice. Still, she smiled when she saw him.

“How are the lectures going?” she asked, pulling up the chair in front of his desk, her eyes scanning the room.

“Fine, fine. The students aren’t behaving quite as I’d expect them to, especially at this level—you’d think they’d be more mature.”

“I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it. It’s not easy winning a room over.”

“Yes, of course. Still I would have thought my reputation would have counted for something.”

“Oh, I’m sure it does,” she said, smiling again, then she looked at him with her sad, red-rimmed eyes. Randal wished she wouldn’t do that—look at him that way. It was unnerving. “So,” she said, pulling folders from her bag, a prominent period at the end of their small talk. “I found some interesting things in the expedition crate. But first I think there’s a lot more here than we expected. I think, if we do this right, you, me, Dr. Markowitz and Linden will have our names on something groundbreaking. It’s really going to honor them, especially considering—well, considering what happened.”

“Oh, of course,” he said without a stammer.

“How has your half of the research been going? For the paper, I mean.”

“Oh, um—” Randal had done nothing beyond reading and re-reading Markowitz’s journal. “It’s going fine. I’m just putting the final touches on things.”

“Great! I think, once we get everything together, we’re going to have something huge!”

“I hope,” he said.

She leafed through the folders until she found what she was looking for. From near the bottom of the pile she pulled out a deep green folder, and before he had a chance to clear a space she laid it on top of everything he was working on. “The first, most important thing is this: I don’t think this is bacteria we’re dealing with.”

He did not expect the basic tenet of the research Markowitz, and then she, had been exploring to be so matter-of-factly questioned.

“But we saw the reports of the microbial plume . . .”

“We saw something, that’s for certain, but look at this,” she said, and slid another folder toward him. This one Randal was careful about opening.

It was filled with data—charts and numbers that didn’t mean enough to him without context, listings of different spectrometer results and chromographs. But there was something strange about them, something Randal couldn’t put his finger on right away. Olivia was watching his face, eagerly waiting. It didn’t take long to find out why. As soon as it was obvious he was perplexed, Olivia leapt to explain what happened.

“You’re looking at the spectrographic breakdown, right? At its contents? Well, what you’re looking for isn’t there. I’ve looked for it twice already. There is no carbon.”

“What do you mean—?”

“No carbon,” she said, her eyes starting to light up even when the flesh around them had turned yellow with exhaustion. “Only silicon. This is silicon-based life.”

He shook his head.

“I know small samples have been found by thermal vents in the Mediterranean ocean, but Markowitz was nowhere near there. Besides, once he got the samples away from the heat, the bacteria would have died.”

“Ah, but that’s something else,” she said, eager to the point of being giddy. He hadn’t known this side of her, and it only further endeared her to him. She reached into her pile of folders, leafing through them, smiling, while Randal watched her soft pink hands close, the light color her fingernails were painted. How likely would it be for another someone like that to enter his life? The way she looked at him ever since Linden had gone, ever since Randal had taken Dr. Markowitz’s place behind the desk . . . Randal was important. Finally important. Was it so strange to think that might appeal to Olivia? Was it so wrong to believe she might finally be seeing him in a new light? See what he would someday become, what legacy he would leave to the world? See all that, and
like
what she was seeing?

“Here it is,” Olivia said, sliding the photograph across the desk. For a moment, Randal was too busy staring at her, lost in reverie, to notice the photograph. He jumped when he came to his senses and tried his best to compose himself quickly.

“What’s this?”

“Look.”

So Randal looked. Then looked up at Olivia, confused. She merely nodded. He looked at it again.

“What
is
this?”

“That’s Markowitz’s fungus under the electron microscope.”

“But, that’s no—”

“That’s no fungus. No, I know.”

What it was looked more like a mesh of hermit crabs than cellular organisms, arranged in a bizarre pattern he wasn’t quite sure what to make of. The creatures were smaller than anything he’d ever seen, and yet so perfectly formed. Their shells covered the length of their bodies, folding on themselves at the openings like hoods, protecting the bundles of tendrils sprouting where their heads should have been. If those things had mouths, Randal could not see them, but he knew instinctively they were there. Just as he knew he and Olivia had stumbled onto something very dangerous, or very lucrative. He kept his composure, not wanting to unnerve her.

“This is quite a discovery,” he said, wiping the sides of his mouth with his fingers, trying to keep the corners from sticking. “Have you figured out what they are?”

“No,” she said. “I was going to have one of the invertebrate guys I—”

“No,” he interrupted. “You can’t. I mean, this is ours.”

“You mean ours for Dr. Markowitz and Linden?”

“Yes, yes. For them. If you call whoever you were going to call, we won’t be able to keep things under wraps.” Besides, Randal thought, the last thing he needed was another man around to . . . confuse Olivia. “I’ll get you the texts. You can key it out.”

She laughed. “Key out a silicon-based lifeform?”

“Let’s assume you’re correct, that this isn’t a mistake in the spectrograph . . . it has to be based on something, doesn’t it? I mean, looking at this picture, it seems likely it has a physiological ancestor. Maybe a diatom, or something prehistoric. Some sort of organism it evolved from. There’s nothing on earth like this as far as we know.”

“As far as we know,” she parroted. “But think about it a second: what were the coordinates of where Linden and Markowitz found the crate.”

“Well, they seemed to move around a fair—”

“But where were they, according to their notes?”

“Just off the coast of Zihuatanejo.”

“And where was the volcano they were investigating?”

“It was under the Pacific, right over the continental shelf.”

“Was it?” she asked again, gleeful again, and pulled a large map out and laid it across his desk. He couldn’t stop staring at her. “Olivia,” he started, but she was too preoccupied to notice.

“Here. Right here. That’s the Onkoul Vent. But look around it. That’s not the shelf, is it? Look at the shape, the impression. That’s a goddamn giant crater!”

And it seemed true. The roughly circular shape screamed “crater” to him. And only one thing could leave that sort of mark. And it wasn’t from earth.

“What’s bizarre,” she continued, “is that it’s even there at all. I looked into it and this sort of crater is unusual in the water, especially between tectonic plates. Usually the movement swallows them. This one—this one stayed.”

“So what are you trying say?”

Olivia stared at the map, quietly, while Randal waited. He could smell her hair again, that beguiling strawberry scent that weakened him. They had been through so much and were so close to something more, yet he seemed to be the only one smart enough to see it. So many wrong things had fallen together so right—his position at the school, the elimination of his greatest rivals for Olivia’s affection, the near gift-wrapping of a major new biological find. All these and more, and the only piece remaining in that puzzle of his happiness was Olivia. Beautiful Olivia, who silently tried to work out the importance of what she had in her hands. It would make his career, that discovery. Randal was about to have everything he deserved. Sheer joy overwhelmed and muddled his thoughts. All he had to do was reach out and take what he wanted and it would be his.

Olivia was looking at him strangely, but he didn’t understand why. Her face grew smaller, tighter, her wide bloodshot eyes narrowing. She looked down, and his eyes followed her gaze until they saw his hand laying coldly over hers. Neither of them moved as Randal tried to piece together what he was witnessing.

“Randal,” she finally said. And her voice said the rest.

“I—I’m just— Do you—” He felt the blood vessels in his face fill, burning through flesh. He snatched his hand away from hers. “I was only—”

“Randal. It’s just that Linden—” That was all he could hear over the thunder of blood in his ears. He lowered his head, feigned interest in the papers on his desk, did everything he could not to look at her.

“Sorry, I—it didn’t—I was just trying to congratulate you. Good job!”

The words were wood in his mouth, but he did not stop.

“Maybe—maybe you should keep going. See how far you can get with the crate. I—I just remembered I have a meeting with the dean.” He stood and realized he wasn’t sure he could find the door out. He looked around frantically, and part of him was disgusted at how easily he was unnerved by a woman. “You should go now. I guess.”

“Okay, Randal. I’ll go. I have work to do.”

And then she was gone, a large hole on his desk where her map had once been.

Randal made a concerted effort to keep away from Olivia afterward, at least until he could surmount his embarrassment. It had been inexcusable, and he should have known better than to let his heart do the work of his brain. But the fault wasn’t his, or at least his alone. No, it was clear that he had let her blind him to the truth, that he’d been blind to the truth all along. Olivia had been leading him on, fooling him into believing there might be something more between them. The only question he couldn’t immediately answer was why—after everything he had done to help her, why would she be so desperate to fool him? It took some time to realize it was about Markowitz’s crate, his final work. That’s all it had ever been. Like her dead lover before her, she wanted to steal what was rightfully Randal’s. He shouldn’t have been surprised—they were not the first, nor would they be the last, to be jealous of what Randal had, and if they wanted to play games, then Randal would be ready. And he had a secret weapon that Olivia did not. He had the journal, Markowitz’s journal. As more time passed, he grew further convinced it would be the key to everything. He only needed to compare it to Olivia’s own notes. He remembered her reaction when he suggested he pack the samples, and realized that even sick she had the wherewithal to keep the data from him. Two could play at that game, and the journal he had been so incautiously hiding in the shelves of his apartment was moved to the inside pocket of his blazer, kept close at all times. It was the only way to be sure no one but he ever laid eyes on it. At least until Olivia became herself once more, and Linden’s disappearance no longer drove her.