She Walks in Shadows(56)
“South.”
Hadrian’s Wall would be our destination for the time being and then, who could say? Calleva? Londinium? As for what to do — I cast one last glance over the lugubrious villa, its walls stooped and dark against the shuddering oak wood.
Something had been awakened in this forest, born of Gratiana’s sacrifice and hatred, an ancient power that stole through the General and turned Rome’s sharpest weapon against itself.
“Does it still hunger?” I asked, scratching my hand into the steed’s snowy hair.
Iunia Gratiana offered a thin smile.
“South,” I repeated. South to Rome itself, to the stretch of a prosperous empire reclining upon stolen land, full of men whose dreams were ripe for plucking like eyes from a human skull.
CTHULHU OF THE DEAD SEA
Inkeri Kontro
“THEN TO MY conclusions.” Anna wishes her voice would stop shaking. She has done this a hundred times and the nervousness only gets worse with age. One would assume it would get easier, but her hands are shaking more than ever and she has had to do quick, furious circles with the laser pointer to hide how jumpy she is. The ugly truth is that she is running on a fragmented five-hour sleep and she knows it is showing.
“Due to its high salt content, the Dead Sea was previously thought to be a virtually uninhabitable place for even microorganisms, which are present in quite low amounts. The average salt content of the Dead Sea is increasing due to current climate conditions.” Don’t say climate change. Anna has seen one scientific presentation which turned into a proverbial slaughter when some older gentleman took issue with a PhD student’s choice of words. The moderator should have cut the fight short because the old fart was clearly out of line and off-topic, but sometimes, moderators are a bit old-farty themselves. Anna is not taking that chance.
“However, we have discovered a new type of Archaea, belonging to the class Halobacteria, which appears to be thriving. The organism appears unrelated to previously discovered species, therefore we named it Halofractal cthulhu.”
The name felt like an excellent idea when she came up with it. Most of the lab sided with her immediately. The professor actually is a huge horror fan, and was completely overjoyed over being able to name something Cthulhu. The thing did look a lot like a Little Old One, though, to be fair, it resembled a mash-up of Cthulhu and a Pac-Man ghost more, with its short and thick tentacles. You just can’t name a new species Pac-Man; that would be completely unprofessional.
The genus was the difficult part. Little cthulhu did not seem to fit in any existing slot, so the laboratory decided to name it according to the surface structure. Anna was not really familiar with the concept of fractals, but the more mathematically inclined scientists were overjoyed with the creature’s tendency to pack into clusters that imitated the shape of a single critter. Also, the electron microscope images showed that the “tentacles” were covered in little bumps, which also seemed to have a tentacle-like structure going on, so salt-loving fractal god it was. Halofractal cthulhu.
“The species thrives in very high salt concentrations. In our laboratory, we have observed it surviving and even reproducing in salt concentrations exceeding fifty-two percent, which is markedly higher than previously reported for any halophile. We hope studying this species will shed more light into the fascinating range of conditions in which life can survive on Earth.” A quick round of acknowledgements means the majority of the presentation is cleared. Only the worst remains.
“I am happy to answer any questions.”
The moderator stands up. The applause doesn’t even have time to die out before hands are shooting in the air. Damn it. The compulsory hammer guy goes first. Every conference has one: a scientist so blinded by the excellence of his own technique that he asks a question about it — regardless of how out of place it is. Anna has seen enough presentations at this conference to know that the small-angle X-ray scattering guy is a typical hammer scientist. SAXS is his tool and when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Also, if someone dares tell you they actually have a screw, you can still bludgeon the person into submission with your hammer.
“No, we have not done SAXS,” Anna replies with a polite smile. Someday, she will have to find out what that is, but ultimately, it is not of importance. Hammer guys come in all flavors. “I am personally not familiar with the technique, but we shall certainly consider it.”
An urgent hand is raised from the other side of the room, but the moderator ignores it in favor of the waiting ones. Anna clears the rest of the questions with enough grace and the moderator cuts the discussion when the merciful clock reaches the end of the session. The angry hand is left without a turn.
The owner of the angry hand comes up to Anna during the coffee break. She is a woman in her mid-forties, dressed in a well-fitting blazer and little black dress, with a whimsical necklace with plastic cut-outs draped around her neck. If it weren’t for the neon-pink tights drawing attention to her legs, which end in yellow boots, she would look like a businesswoman out of place at the science conference. Now she just looks out of place.
Most women at the conference dress in a fairly casual, masculine manner. The few exceptions mostly aren’t program participants; a few elderly ladies clearly accompanying equally elderly professors, dressed in pastels accented with pearl necklaces, golden rings and the most sensible high heels you can find for money.