"Just a minute." He buzzed the organic lab on the telecaster and got Sawyer. "What's the latest development, Jesse?"
Sawyer passed a chubby hand across his eyes. They were red and swollen with fatigue.
"Bad. Bad. We've distinguished nineteen distinct species, all adaptations of the aquatic form. They reproduce in a rather peculiar form of fission. Instead of dividing in half, they break up into twenty or thirty units at maturity, each unit growing and breaking up into twenty or thirty more. They grow rapidly—and adjust rapidly."
Matt whistled softly. "How much time?"
"Time for what?"
"Before they kill off all bacterial forms of life?"
"They already have!"
"What? But, good Lord, Jesse, surely you're wrong! That can't be true. Why—why, it means we're too late! If all bacterial forms of life are extinct, we're done for!"
"Keep your pants on," said Jesse wearily. "We're preserving about a thousand types of bacteria—algae, amoeba, molds—in airtight containers. Enough to give us a start when we get the fort sealed. Plant life isn't going to last very long though—and neither is animal life. We should lay in a supply of seeds, not to mention breeding stocks of those animals we want to preserve. And in a hurry, too."
Slowly Matt clenched his fist.