These two problems are matters of logistics, not chemistry. So far, nobody’s been able to keep enough ZVI on hand to be effective in a project this size. Remember, we’re talking about cleaning an entire century of gunk.”
Marta was nodding. She had subvocalized and was peering into a heads-up display. Eva guessed she was accessing data on ZVI.
“Bottom line? None of the remediation companies knows much about nanoscale production. So what if we’ve never cleaned up an ammunition dump? Nobody else has either. But we know more about nanotechnology than anybody. And I’m telling you, this is going to be big. We get this contract and a relationship with the military and we have a chance to become the biggest company in the world. The military does not write small checks.”
“Uh, Eva. Aren’t we getting a little ahead of ourselves? We still have to win the contract,” Marta said.
Eva grinned. “Don’t worry.”
“I know, you’ve got a plan,” intoned Marta.
Jim smiled. “Of course she does.”
“Yeah, I’ve got a plan.” Eva’s grin faded. “And nothing is going to stop us.”
“Of course not, Eva,” teased Jim. His smile was cut short.
Eva turned to face him. “Let’s get something clear,” she said. “This is the next step for NMech’s evolution. We are going to win this contract. Period. Nobody, nothing, is going to stop us. This is the future. Got that?”
“Sure, Eva,” Jim shrugged and backed up a step and offered a mock salute. “No half measures. Aye-aye, Commander. Full steam ahead.”
“Can the jokes, Jim. I’m serious.”
Jim and Marta sat back in their smart chairs. The temperature in the boardroom seemed to drop. They looked at each other and back to Eva. Marta said, “Eva, lighten up. No one is trying to trivialize your project. You enjoy making money? Fine. You want NMech to be the world’s largest corporation? Fine. Let us enjoy our work, too. Let us enjoy your friendship. Look, you and I have come a long way since Harvard. I know I rub you the wrong way sometimes, and God knows that you can push my buttons. But take it easy. Joking can be a good thing, so let’s go with the flow, okay?”
“What does that mean, ‘go with the flow’?”
“Look at the pictures of the jellyfish on the drapes. They can use the ocean’s currents to go where they need to go. Let’s not fight the currents. That’s what I mean. You can be yourself—determined, intense, and impatient, and that’s okay. We’re friends. But let us be ourselves, too, and part of that is Jim’s sense of humor. Or what he thinks is a sense of humor.”
Eva looked at Marta and nodded. “Friends,” she said. “Okay, I get it. Fine. Just don’t expect a group hug any time soon.” Her partners looked at Eva, trying to gauge her. Did she just attempt to lighten the mood?
Eva turned back to the jellyfish display. Keeping to herself, she saw the transparent hoods swaying in the currents. The Medusalike tentacles held her attention. Some hung for tens of feet, and each was packed with millions of nematocysts—specialized cells that bulged with venom.
17
HALCYON DAYS
FROM THE MEMORIES
OF DANA ECCO
Zeus created Aeolus to control the wind. Aeolus calmed the wind and seas for seven days during the winter solstice to allow a certain kingfisher bird to lay her eggs in safety.
The bird that merited the Aeolus’s care was his daughter, Alcyone. The unfortunate lass had thrown herself into the ocean when she learned that her husband had drowned at sea. The gods then turned the storm-crossed lovers into kingfishers. I would think that a simple rescue would have done nicely—why not have another ship come along? But the gods have their own sensibilities, and human-to-avian transmogrification it was.
Those seven days of calmed seas came to be known as halcyon days. Take the letter, “H” from
Rockford ended my halcyon days. The winter that followed was severe, even by New England standards. There were no calm days for kingfishers—nor, as it turned out, for petrals, nor thunderbirds.
If Alcyone was a kingfisher, then Eva was another seabird, the storm petral, the smallest of the seabirds, with a short, squarish body, and dark plumage. It hovers just above the ocean’s surface and appears to walk on water. The metaphor was apt. When my parents considered Eva’s remediation project, she seemed to be capable of miracles.
She nearly was. Eva attacked the task of preparing NMech’s bid with a scorched-earth vigor that would rival General Sherman’s march to the sea. She commanded every resource at NMech’s disposal and quite a few that were not, in a frantic attempt to meet the submission deadline for Rockford.
If Eva were a storm petrel, then I was a thunderbird, a truculent and quarrelsome fifteen-year-old, creating storms as I flew. My parents mostly ignored the outbursts and tantrums. They could see me struggle to mature and they remembered their own painful rites of passage through adolescence. Eva, however, was beginning to fear that the bid would not be ready on time, and she lacked the time or the emotional resources to be empathetic with me, or to be patient.
She also lacked a model by which to put my behavior into perspective. A part of her was eternally juvenile, stunted, unable to follow me into adolescence. At another time in her life, she would have accommodated a new dimension in our friendship. But she was possessed of a single focus which brooked no competition for her attention.
She was not the only one of us with tunnel vision. My parents and I were blind to the demands she placed on herself, and the consequences of those demands.
It was a small thing, our spat. How many great events turn on a small detail? That day, I was fueled with bravado that went beyond the scope of our usually playful competition. Someone who understood that teen moods ‘blow in, blow up, and blow out’, to quote Winston Churchill, would have taken a deep breath, counted to ten, and ignored my bratty manners.
I wish Eva had ignored me. I truly wish my mother had.
There’s a saying that if a butterfly alters its path, then the course of history is changed. The Butterfly Effect, some call it. That’s a bit too philosophical for me, but my run-in with Eva about butterflies did indeed change history.
Just before I stormed out of Eva’s work area, my mother and I had pondered how a butterfly emerges from a cocoon. Her objective that day was to place science within the context of mystery, to find the sublime in nature. Butterflies lack teeth, my mother said, so they couldn’t chew their way out of a cocoon. If they were to secrete a caustic substance to dissolve the cocoon, would that not burn their delicate wings? My assignment was to look for the answer in the world of science but to preserve the sense of wonder. Awe and humility are essential research tools, my mother said. Science might have an explanation, but attunement with nature’s mysteries hones the researcher’s scientific intuition. Seek awe, my mother said, and you’ll find science.
I did the opposite. I turned clever. I tried to stump Eva rather than sharing my excitement.
The timing of my display of pride was bad, very bad. Eva was racing to complete NMech’s bid. Her usual short supply of patience was long since exhausted. When I nagged and teased her, she snapped. What she said to me wasn’t important, but how I reacted had a lifelong impact on Eva and my family and ultimately, the world: I burst into tears.
My outburst would have blown over as quickly as a summer squall but as I hurried from Eva’s lab, embarrassed by my artless attempt to play the bully and stunned by the strength of my reaction, I ran into my mother—literally. We nearly tumbled to the floor. Then chagrin escalated to humiliation. The last person on earth I
