James and Mason took the scientific approach, caution.
The one hundred and five bodies could not be released.
The Britany Challenge
The trawlermen of Concarneau were used to losing colleagues at sea. The loss of a crewman going to the aid of the Bulgarian factory ship was a tragedy, but the fishing fraternity accepted the risks and got on with their lives. The late crewman had seen a catch in the hold of the factory ship that astonished him. He reported by radio the presence of massive mussel shells up to four metres long. He then appeared to go rigid, fell, rolled into the sea and drowned.
It was a bone of contention to the men of Concarneau when the Russian factory ship arrived and took over the tow. They lost salvage rights and the huge money-making mussel catch. Talk in the bars often raised the possibility of returning to the GPS position and attempting to trawl up tons of mussels. The idea was not favourably received. They had previously made a living from crab fishing, but the money was in deep sea tuna catches, some hundred thousand tons a year. Inshore, Concarneau was famous for its oysters. Mussels were not considered worthy.
Concarneau is twinned with Penzance in Cornwall. The mayors of the two towns met over an armagnac or two and the history of the mutated Pinna nobilis shells unfolded. “Too dangerous to touch,” was the Cornish mayor’s opinion, and he forwarded the marine scientists’ contact details.
The fishermen of Concarneau wanted no truck with scientists and ignored the sensible offer.
An old crabber set off to trawl the bottom of the Channel, starting eight miles south of the Isles of Scilly. Following a track from the Seven Sones reef, the crabber skipper expected to find the migrating Pinna nobilis five miles further south. It depended upon the Bulgarian factory ship leaving some shells behind or not completing his dredging pattern.
The echo sounder picked up a blanket of large shells further south than anticipated, just as they were about to give up. This seemed to be an omen to trawl the lot, another chance may not manifest itself.
If they had taken the marine scientists’ advice, they would never have taken aboard such a dangerous cargo. They were in luck. The Bulgarian factory ship had agitated the Pinna nobilis so badly that a collective launch of killer byssus shells hit the Bulgarian’s fish processing floor. The crabber had a temporarily harmless catch.
Trawling backwards and forwards over the echo sounded area cleaned the seabed of sixteen Pinna nobilis shells. Before the shells clammed tight, the fishermen noted the colours of the flesh, orange female and cream male, the same as the simple mussel. The Plymouth scientists would have cringed if they had seen two of each sex marked for breeding in a protected area off Douarnenez, north of Concarneau on the Brest peninsula. Douarnenez faced the English Channel and, unlike Concarneau, was not clattered by winter Atlantic gales.
The crabber’s hold was crammed tight with three metre shells, most of them chipped by rough handling. Their spinnarets were working hard to replace the lost byssus mutated threads. The crabber was bringing home a time bomb.
Happy with their lot, the crew set the trawl for a brief scour of the seabed, bringing up an assortment of flatfish, sea urchins, crabs, shrimps, weed and clams. All was swept off the deck into the pot and boiled up for supper, beans, tomatoes and a garlic bulb added for a decent bouillabaisse. Chipped shell from the Pinna nobilis went to the bottom of the pot, carrying with it a flavouring of mutated byssus threads. The fishermen had swallowed, unknowingly, some byssus-chitin platelets.
Sailing into Douarnenez, the Concarneau men moored up, swopped an armagnac or two and worked out how they could sell the massive king mussels or Pinna nobilis to the discerning French fish eaters. Eating one would be proof. If it tasted good, it would sell well. They had to resort to the anchor winch to open the three-metre shell. The massive creamy coloured body took some effort to cut it free. It was almost the size of a goat and as tough. Treat it like abalone, cut it into pieces and tenderise the pieces, beating them flat, they decided. After an hour in the bouillabaisse pot, the Pinna nobilis meat tasted better than the prized abalone. The trawlermen were on a winner. The fishing fraternity were invited to the quayside to take a bowl of Pinna nobilis bouillabaisse.
The Plymouth marine scientists would have gone a purple shade of apoplectic, had they known. The fishing port people of Douarnenez were now digesting byssus-chitin platelets. Every organ, cell and blood stream in their bodies would be invaded by nano-sized platelets.
Tomorrow, the Concarneau men would sail into the Ville Close, walled town, of their home port and treat the fishing fraternity to Pinna nobilis bouillabaisse.
Excitement reigned amongst the Brest Peninsula fisherfolk. Tuna was their bread and butter, but a Pinna nobilis delicacy could pull in much bigger sums from the Parisian, Lyonnais and Riviera rich. Disappointment put a stop to the money greed when the trawlermen explained they had brought up the last sixteen shells. Their last known colony had been destroyed by a factory ship. The good news could be said: Concarneau and Douarnenez had set up a joint Pinna nobilis breeding ground, but not knowing the bad news, they had set in train a dangerous mutation.
Cutting up the Pinna nobilis flesh for the bouillabaisse pot had given them scaly skin on their arms. The scales could be felt but not seen. Fish de-scaling brushes failed to remove the invisible scales. Overnight, the scales hardened into stiff coatings. The people of the Brest Peninsula were going into meltdown. Their arms and fingers were stiffening so badly as to be
