The Solakandji sting causes a rapid rise in blood pressure and a cerebral hemorrhage …There is currently no anti-venom available for the sting because scientists have struggled to capture enough of the jellyfish to develop an antidote …
Coelenterates have stinging cells called nematocysts, which are made of a spirally coiled thread with a barbed end. On contact, the thread is uncoiled and the barb delivers the toxic substance …
(St. Thomas, V.I.) By the time the emergency helicopter arrived, he was screaming in agony; a few hours later he was in a coma … died four days later …
There were similar news items about rare encounters in the Caribbean with swimmers and snorkelers, but none in North America. The news account of his own attack had apparently expired.
As he continued down the hit list, he found more technical sites cued by scientific terminology —“Coelenterate,” “envenomations”—and linked to lengthy abstruse articles for marine biologists and not the beachcomber or sport diver.
Jack clicked on a few terms and found himself getting lost in the details. After nearly an hour, he came to a cluster of links to more medically slanted sites concerned with the toxin and possible neurological problems. A few enumerated the venom of various species that were clearly dangerous to humans but which were being researched for potential medical application—all very scientific. Out of curiosity he explored some of the archival abstracts of papers published in obscure journals.
Scrolling down a long list Jack came to a dead stop. For a long moment he stared at the screen in numbed disbelief:
Sarkisian N., Nakao M., Sodaquist T. A novel protein toxin from the deadly
What nailed his attention was the name buried in the authors list:
His mother.
The realization came to him in a stunning moment of awareness: She had coauthored an article about the toxins of the same jellyfish that had rendered him comatose. As if in autoreflex he read the beginning of the abstract, trying in a side pocket of his mind to put it all together:
The deadly Solakandji jellyfish
The arcane scientific language meant nothing to him. But it was his mother’s words, her fierce intelligence expressed in her adoptive language. The coincidence was almost too much to grapple with. And yet, he sensed a logic and some greater import, like watching a Polaroid photo slowly develop.
He moved the cursor back to the search box, typed in “Solakandji N. Sarkisian,” and hit the Search button. Four articles came up listed under “Hydra Library”:
Sarkisian, N.A., 1969. Isolation and determination of structure of a novel polypeptide extracted from marine organism
Sarkisian, N.A., 1970. The potent excitatory effect of a novel polypeptide, protopleurin-B, isolated from a rare jellyfish
Sarkisian, N.A., 1972. Pharmacologically active toxin from a rare tropical jellyfish. Various neurological activities demonstrated in maze-patterned behavior in laboratory animals.
And there were others with her name and coauthors. From what he could determine, his mother had been involved with the identification of some properties in the jellyfish toxin that over time had been found to have some effect on lab animals with potential pharmacological implications.
He then went back to the less technical sites, those of general information on the species, and looked up pages that gave its habitat. After scanning several articles about the creatures’ encounters with swimmers off various Caribbean islands, he got the hit he was looking for—an article written by a reporter for the
For years scuba divers have reported seeing exotic strangers such as butterfly fish, triggerfish, and angelfish around the point of Buck’s Cove of Homer’s Island in late summer and early fall. They are not so much visitors as prisoners of the sea—swept north by the Gulf Stream when they’re the size of a button.For most of them, the journey is a one-way trip, and their time is limited. They’re doomed to die when the water temperature falls as winter approaches … .Among the visitors spotted by aquarists are cobia, black drum, and stingrays. Even a juvenile lionfish was captured two years ago … .But the most unusual finds in recent years were the meter-long Solakandji jellyfish, which are usually found in the Caribbean and Pacific …
JACK WAS NOT CERTAIN WHAT HE had found, but what stood out in his mind was the fact that his mother had decided to publish under her maiden name and not her married name, Najarian. Had she gotten caught up in the woman’s liberation movement? Did she decide to distinguish her professional self from her married self? Or were she and his father so estranged?
That last possibility sat festering in his brain as he left the library and headed home.
Jack knew almost nothing about his biological father or his parents’ marriage. He had also never visited his father’s grave.
So why all of a sudden was he calling ahead for the exact location? And why spend the better part of two hours driving to Cedar Lawn Cemetery in Cranston, Rhode Island?
A little late to be showing respect for the man who had sired him, he told himself.
