“Whatever it takes. We need the juice soon, or we’re in trouble, guys.”

“I guess we can try the body shop approach.” Emma looked at Griggs.

“Does that mean what I think it means?”

It was Luther who answered the question. “We’re gonna get out a hammer and bang this sucker back into shape.” He was still alive.

Dr. Isaac Roman gazed through the viewing window at his unfortunate colleague, who was sitting in a hospital bed watching TV. Cartoons, believe it or not. The Nickelodeon channel, which the patient stared at with almost desperate concentration. He didn’t even glance at the space-suited nurse who’d come into the room to remove the untouched lunch tray.

Roman pressed the intercom button. “How are you feeling today, Nathan?”

Dr. Nathan Helsinger turned his startled gaze to the viewing window, and for the first time noticed that Roman was standing on the other side of the glass. “I’m fine. I’m perfectly healthy.”

“You have no symptoms whatsoever?”

“I told you, I’m fine.” Roman studied him for a moment. The man looked healthy enough, but his face was pale and tense. Scared.

“When can I come out of isolation?” said Helsinger.

“It’s been scarcely thirty hours.”

“The astronauts had symptoms by eighteen hours.”

“That was in microgravity. We don’t know what to expect here, and we can’t take chances. You know that.”

Abruptly Helsinger turned to stare at the TV again, but not before Roman saw the flash of tears in his eyes. “It’s my daughter’s birthday today.”

“We sent a gift in your name. Your wife was informed you couldn’t make it. That you’re on a plane to Kenya.” Helsinger gave a bitter laugh.

“You do tie up those loose ends well, don’t you? And what if I die? What will you tell her?”

“That it happened in Kenya.”

“As good a place as any, I suppose.” He sighed. “So what did you get her?”

“Your daughter? I believe it was a Dr. Barbie.”

“That’s exactly what she wanted. How did you know?”

Roman’s cell phone rang. “I’ll check back on you later,” he said, then turned from the window to answer the phone.

“Dr. Roman, this is Carlos. We’ve got some of the DNA results. You’d better come up and see this.”

“I’m on my way.”

He found Dr. Carlos Mixtal sitting in front of the lab computer.

Data was scrolling down the monitor in a continuous stream, CTGT … The data was made up of only four letters, G, T, A, and C. It was a nucleotide sequence, and each of the letters represented the building blocks that make up DNA, the genetic blueprint for all living organisms.

Carlos turned at the sound of Roman’s footsteps, and the expression on his face was unmistakable. Carlos looked scared Just like Helsinger, Roman thought. Every one is scared.

Roman sat down beside him. “Is that it?” he asked, pointing at the screen.

“This is from the organism infecting Kenichi Hirai. We took it from the remains that we were able to … scrape from the Discovery.” Remains was the appropriate word for what was left of Hirai’s body. Ragged clumps of tissue, splattered throughout the walls of the orbiter. “Most of the DNA remains unidentifiable. We have no idea what it codes for. But this particular sequence, here on the screen, we can identify. It’s the gene for coenzyme F420.”

“Which is?”

“An enzyme specific to the Archaeon domain.”

Roman sat back, feeling faintly nauseated. “So it’s confirmed,” he murmured.

“Yes. The organism definitely has Archaeon DNA.” Carlos paused. “I’m afraid there’s bad news.”

“What do you mean, bad news’? Isn’t this bad enough?”

Carlos tapped on the keyboard and the nucleotide sequence scrolled to a different segment. “This is another gene cluster we found. I thought at first it had to be a mistake, but I’ve since confirmed it. It’s a match with Rana pipiens. The northern frog.”

“What?”

“That’s right. Lord knows how it picked up frog genes. Now here’s where it gets really scary.” Carlos scrolled to yet another segment of the genome. “Another identifiable cluster,” he said.

Roman felt a chill creeping up his spine. “And what are these genes?”

“This DNA is specific to Mus musculis. The common mouse.”

Roman stared at him. “That’s impossible.”

“I’ve confirmed it. This life-form has somehow incorporated mammalian DNA into its genome. It’s added new enzymatic capabilities. It’s changing. Evolving.”

Into what? Roman wondered.

“There’s more.” Again Carlos tapped on the keyboard, and a new sequence of nucleotide bases scrolled onto the monitor. “This cluster is not of Archaeon origin, either.”

“What is this? More mouse DNA?”

“No. This part is human.” The chill shot all the way up Roman’s spine.

The hairs on the back of his neck were bristling. Numbly he reached for the telephone.

“Connect me to the White House,” he said. “I need to speak to Jared Profitt.”

His call was answered on the second ring. “This is Profitt.”

“We’ve analyzed the DNA,” said Roman.

“And?”

“The situation is worse than we thought.”

Nicolai paused to rest, his arms trembling from fatigue. After months of living in space, his body had grown weak and unaccustomed to physical labor. In microgravity there is no heavy and little need to exert one’s muscles. In the last five hours, and Luther had worked nonstop, had repaired the S-band antennas, had dismantled and reassembled the gimbal.

Now he was exhausted. Just the extra effort of bending his arms in the turgid EVA suit made simple tasks difficult.

Working in the suit was an ordeal in itself. To insulate the human body from extreme temperatures ranging from -250 to 250 degrees Fahrenheit and to maintain pressure against the vacuum of space, the suit was constructed of multiple layers of aluminized Mylar insulation, nylon ripstop, an Ortho-fabric cover, and a pressure-garment bladder. Beneath the suit, an astronaut wore an undergarment laced with water-cooling tubes. He also had to wear a life-support backpack containing water, oxygen, self-rescue jet pack, and radio equipment. In essence, the EVA suit was a personal spacecraft, bulky and difficult to maneuver in, and just the act of tightening a screw required strength and concentration.

The work had exhausted Nicolai. His hands were cramping in the clumsy space suit gloves, and he was sweating.

He was also hungry.

He took a sip of water from the mouthpiece mounted inside his suit and released a heavy sigh. Though the water tasted strange, almost fishy, he thought nothing of it. Everything tasted strange microgravity. He took another sip and felt wetness splash onto his jaw. He could not reach into his helmet to brush it away, so he ignored it and gazed down at the earth. That sudden glimpse of it, spread out in breathtaking glory beneath him, made him feel a little dizzy, a little nauseated. He closed his eyes, waiting for the feeling to pass. It was motion sickness, nothing more, it often happened when you unexpectedly caught sight of earth. As his stomach settled, he became aware of a new sensation. The spilled water was now trickling up his cheek. He twitched his face, to shake off the droplet, but it continued to slide across his skin.

But I am in microgravity, where there is no up or down. Water should not be trickling at all.

He began to shake his head, tapped his gloved hand on his helmet.

Still he felt the droplet moving up his face, tracing a wet line over his jaw. Toward his ear. It had reached the edge of his comm.-assembly cap now. Surely the fabric would soak up the moisture, would prevent it from trickling further … All at once his body went rigid. The wetness had slid beneath the edge of the cap. It was now squirming toward his ear.

Not a droplet of water, not a stray trickle, but something that moved purpose. Something alive.