Lost City (NUMA Files 5)

Cheeseburgers had never tasted so good. Refreshed and full, the Trouts went back to the lab after an hour. Trout glanced at the container with the bacteria. The complex tangle of tendrils looked unchanged.

"Can I take a c

loser look at this stuff? It's hard to see in this light."

Gamay pointed to a long pair of tongs. "Use those. You can examine the specimen in that sink basin."

Trout extracted the glob of weed from its container, carried it to the sink and dropped it into a plastic tub. By itself, the clump of Gorgonweed looked so innocent. It was not a pretty plant, but it did have an admirable functionality, with spidery tendrils hooked onto other

pieces of weed to form the impenetrable mat that sucked nutrients from the ocean. Trout poked it with the tongs, then lifted it up by a tendril. The tendril broke off at the stem and the weed plopped wetly back into the tub.

"Sorry," he said. "I broke your weed sample."

Gamay gave him a peculiar look and took the tongs from his hand. She plucked at another tendril and it, too, came off. She repeated the experiment. Each time, the thin appendages broke off easily. She removed a tendril and took it over to a bench, where she sliced it up, put the thin sections on slides and popped them under a microscope.

A moment later, she looked up from the eye piece. "The weed is dying," she declared.

"What?" Trout peered into the sink. "Looks healthy to me."

She smiled and plucked off more tendrils. "See. I'd never be able to do this with a healthy weed. The tendrils are like extremely strong rubber. These are brittle."

She called over her assistants and asked them to prepare microscope slides from different parts of the sample. When she looked up from her microscope again, her eyes were red-rimmed, but her face was wreathed in a wide grin.

"The weed sample is in the first stage of necrosis. In other words, the stuff is dying. We'll try it with some of the other samples to make sure."

Again she mixed the bacteria in with the weed, and again they waited an hour. Microscopic examination confirmed their original findings. Every sample subjected to the bacteria was dying.

"The bacteria are essentially eating something in the Gorgon weed that it needs to survive," she said. "We'll have to do more research."

Trout picked up the phial with the original bacteria culture. "What's the most effective way to use these hungry little bugs?"

"We'll have to grow large quantities, then spread the bacteria far and wide and let them do the work."

Trout smiled. "Do you think the British government would let us use the Fauchard submersible to spread this stuff around? It's got the capacity and speed that we need."

"I think they'll bend over backward to keep the British Isles from being cut off from the rest of the world."

MacLean saved our hash again," Trout said, with a shake of his head. "He gave us the hope that we could beat this thing."

"Kurt deserves some credit."

"His instincts were on the nose when he said to go back to the Lost City and to think in terms of equilibrium."

Trout headed for the door.

"Are you going to tell Kurt the good news?"

Trout nodded. "Then I'm going to tell him that it's about time we had a send-off for a proper old Scottish gentleman."

THE LOCH WAS several miles long and half as wide and its cold, still waters reflected the unblemished Scottish sky like a queen's mirror. Rugged, rolling hills carpeted with heather held the loch in a purple embrace.

The open wooden-hulled boat cut a liquid wake in the tranquil waters as it headed out from shore, gliding to a drifting stop, finally, at the deepest part of the loch. The boat held four passengers: Paul and Gamay Trout, Douglas MacLean and his late cousin Angus, whose ashes were carried in an ornate Byzantine chest the chemist had picked up on his travels.

Douglas MacLean had met his cousin Angus only once, at a family wedding some years before. They had hit it off and vowed to get together, but as with many a well-meant plan made over a glass of whiskey, they'd never met again. Until now. Douglas was the only living relative Trout had been able to track down. Equally important, he played the bagpipe. Not well, but loudly.

He stood in the prow of the boat, dressed in full MacLean tartans, his kilted legs braced wide to give himself a steady platform. At a signal from Gamay, he began to play "Amazing Grace." As the haunting skirl echoed off the hills, Paul poured Angus's ashes into the loch. The gray-brown powder floated on the calm surface for a few minutes and gradually sank into the deep blue water.

"Aveatque vale," Trout said softly. Hail and farewell.