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“Why?”
He stared at her. “Though those bases are configured the same, those AGCT molecules are composed ofsiliconatoms instead ofcarbon.”
She frowned. “Is that even possible?”
“Maybe. In labs, they’ve created microorganisms that can enzymatically produce organo-silicon properties. Even RNA- and DNA-like bases.” Datuk sighed. “But the error I’m reading could just be due to contamination, a confusion from silt or sand being present on the sample. Silicon is everywhere. It makes up thirty percent of the earth’s crust. It’s hundreds of times more abundant than carbon. Silicon-based lifeforms had been theorized, but carbon is more versatile and why life on Earth is based on that atom.”
“Maybe not all life.” Phoebe stared out at the seas. “Could this lifeform be some sort of chimera? Sharing both types of DNA bases—carbonandsilicon.”
“I don’t know. But it might explain how these creatures survive down here. Few species of fish can live at these extreme depths because the protein produced by normal DNA ceases to function under these pressures. Maybe the organo-silicon genes produce unique proteins that help them survive.”
“Maybe,” Phoebe agreed.
Datuk sighed and sat back. “It’s all speculation. Without more research, it’s impossible to say.”
Adam interrupted them. “Look to the left.”
Phoebe faced her window. A shimmering movement drew her eye. A glowing streak sped across the dark forest. It undulated and twisted. Tentacles flared, then contracted. Lights flashed and traced through like fire. The panic of its flight and the distress of its blinking were easy to read.
“It must have accidentally brushed into the irradiated area,” Phoebe said. “Then in alarm, it fled the wrong way. Deeper into the dead zone.”
The polyp-like creature rushed out of the forest’s fringe and into the open space. It flailed and spun, rushing at them.
“It’s heading for our lights,” Datuk said.
The beast sped up to them and circled theCormorant. Its head was bullet-shaped, somewhere between squid and octopus. Four globular eyes ringed its edge, using each to study this strange foreigner in its midst. It flared out eight arms and wrapped them over the glass scallop, as if begging to be let inside.
But there was nothing they could do.
It clung there, flashing and blinking, pleading. Through its translucent skin, four hearts beat a timpani of clear panic. Over a long minute, the glow faded from its body. The fearful squeezing of its hearts slowed as it succumbed to the radiation.
Phoebe placed her palm over the glass.
I’m sorry.
It finally fell away, its glory dimming, fading back into the gloom, becoming part of it.
Closer at hand, Datuk extended theCormorant’s hydraulic arm toward the specimen, trying for another sample.
Phoebe reached back to him. “Don’t. Please don’t.”
Datuk nodded and retracted the arm.
They sat in silence for several breaths.
Datuk spoke first. “It definitely appeared to bear characteristics of a rudimentary octopus. Maybe it truly is the progenitor of the species. The missing link. An explanation for what has baffled evolutionists when it comes to an octopus’s anatomy, physiology, and intelligence.”
“But what about those bits of organo-silicon DNA?” Phoebe asked.
Datuk sniffed. “Maybe we shouldn’t entirely discount the paper I mentioned during the first dive. The one about octopuses coming from space.”
Adam turned to him, clearly skeptical. “What did the article claim?”
“The main argument is that our planet could have been seeded by extraterrestrial retroviruses—which are very mutagenic—during a cometary bombardment that struck Earth during the Cambrian period. The datedoescorrespond to the emergence of retroviruses in vertebrate lines, viruses that seemingly came out of nowhere. The paper speculates that it was those mutagenic retroviruses that sparked the Cambrian Explosion of life—an event half a billion years ago when nearly all the major phyla of the modern world came into being. The paper also postulates it was those viruses that produced the unique and inexplicable biology of octopuses.”
“So extraterrestrial viruses gave us octopuses?” Adam said, clearly scoffing at such a statement.
Datuk shrugged. “What I find most interesting in retrospect—especially with what we’ve witnessed here—is what marked thebeginningof the Cambrian Explosion. It was a pivotal event. A critical advancement that allowed life to spread across oceans and onto land. It immediately preceded the arrival of octopuses and squids.”
