White Death

"You make an excellent point, but the situation with transgenic fish is even more complicated than a competition for food. Some of my colleagues are more worried about the 'Trojan gene' effect. You recall the story of the Trojan horse, naturally."

"The wooden horse filled with Greek soldiers," said Paul. "The Trojans thought it was a gift, brought it inside their city walls-and that was the end of Troy."

"An appropriate analogy in this case," Throckmorton said.

He tapped his finger against the cover of a thick staple-bound re- port that was lying on the table. "This was published by English Na- ture, the group that advises the British government on conservation matters. It contains the results of two studies. As a result of the find- ings, English Nature is opposing release oftransgenic fish unless they are made infertile, and a House of Lords committee wants an out- right ban on GM fish. The first study was done at Purdue Univer- sity, where researchers found that transgenic male fish have a

fourfold advantage in breeding. Larger fish are preferred as mates by females."

"Who says size isn't important?" Paul said, with his usual dry humor.

"It happens to be very important in fish. The researchers looked at the Japanese medaka, whose transgenic offspring were twenty- two percent larger than their siblings. These big males made up

eighty percent of the breeding against twenty percent for the smaller males."

Gamay leaned forward with her brow furrowed. "It would even- tually be a disaster for the wild population."

"Worse than a disaster. More like a catastrophe. If you had one transgenic fish in a population of 100,000, GM fish would become fifty percent of the population within sixteen generations."

"Which isn't long in fish terms," Gamay commented.

Throckmorton nodded. "You can cut that time even further. Com- puter models show that if you introduced sixty DNA-altered fish into a population of sixty thousand, it would take only forty genera- tions to pollute the gene pool to extinction."

"You said there was a second study." Throckmorton rubbed his hands together.

"Oh yes, it gets even better. The researchers at universities in Al- abama and California gave salmon growth-promoter genes to some Cha

"To put it succinctly, you think one of these superfish might get into the wild, where it would outbreed and outlive the natural species, quickly driving them to extinction."

"That's it." Paul shook his head in disbelief. "Given what you've just told us," he said, "why would any government or company be fooling around with genetic dynamite like this?"

"I understand what you're saying, but in the hands of a profes- sional, dynamite can be extremely useful." Throckmorton rose from his chair. "Come see, Dr. Frankenstein's workbench is right this way."

He led them to the other side of the lab. The fish swimming in the tanks ranged in size from finger-length to a couple of feet long. He stopped in front of one of the larger tanks. A silver-scaled fish with a dark ridge along its spine was swimming slowly from one end of the tank to the other.

"Well, what do you think of our latest genetically modified mon- ster?"

Gamay leaned close so that her nose was inches from the glass. "Looks like any other well-fed salmon you might see swimming in the Atlantic Ocean. Maybe a little more girth around the middle than normal."

"Appearances can be deceiving. How old would you say this hand- some fellow is?"

"I'd guess it's about a year old."

"Actually, only a few weeks ago, it was a mere egg."

"Impossible." "I would agree with you if I hadn't played midwife at its birth. What you're looking at is an eating machine. We've managed to soup up its metabolism. If that creature were placed in the wild, it would quickly out-eat the native stocks. Its little brain shouts one message over and over. 'Feed me, I'm hungry!' Watch."

Throckmorton opened a cooler, extracted a bucket of small bait fish and threw a handful into the tank. The salmon pounced on the fish, and within moments it had devoured its meal. Then it devoured the floating shreds.

"I practically grew up on a fishing boat," Paul said with wide eyes. "I've seen shark go for a hooked cod and schools of blues drive bait fish onto the beach, but I've never come across anything like this. Are you sure you didn't insert some piranha genes into your little baby?"

"Nothing that complicated, although we did some physical engi- neering as well. Salmon have weak, brittle teeth, so we gave this model sharper, more durable dentures that allow it to eat more quickly."

"Amazing," Gamay said, equally impressed by the display. "This fish was only slightly modified. We've built some real mon- sters, true Frankenfish. We destroyed them immediately so that there was no chance they might escape into the wild. We found that we could control size, but I started to worry when I saw how aggressive our creations were, even though they looked fairly normal."

Gamay said, "The fish we caught was aggressive and abnormal in size.

The worried look came back onto Throckmorton's face. "There's only one conclusion I can draw. Your devilfish was a mutant created in a lab. Someone is doing research that has gotten out of control. In- stead of destroying their mutants, they've allowed them into the wild. It's a shame the fish you caught was destroyed. I can only hope that it was sterile."

"What would happen if genetically engineered fish like the one we may have seen start to propagate?"

"A biotech fish is basically an alien species. It's no different than an exotic life-form brought in from Mars and introduced into our en- vironment. I see environmental and economic damage on an un- precedented scale. They could destroy whole fishing fleets, causing huge economic hardship, like that experienced by Mr. Neal and his fellow fishermen. It would totally upset the balance of nature in the waters along our coasts, where the most productive areas are. I have no idea what the long-term consequences would be."

"Let me play devil's advocate," Gamay said after some thought. "Suppose these so-called superfish did supplant the natural popula- tion. The commercial fishermen would in effect become the preda- tors who keep the population within reasonable limits. You would still have fish that could be harvested and sold at market. They would just be bigger and meatier."

"And meaner," Paul noted. "There are too many unknowns to take the risk," Throckmorton

said. "In Norway, hybrid salmon escaped into the sea and bred suc- cessfully with the native fish, but were less able to survive in the wild. So you could have a case where the superfish that replaces the wild stock dies out as a species, eliminating itself as well as the natural pop- ulation."

A sardonic voice said, "My dear Throckmorton, are you trying to frighten these poor people with your dire warnings?"

A man wearing a lab coat had quietly slipped into the lab and was observing them, a wide smile on his face. "Frederick!" Professor Throckmorton said, beaming. Turning to the Trouts, he said, "This is my esteemed colleague, Dr. Barker. Frederick, these are the Doc- tors Trout from NUMA." In an audible aside, Throckmorton said, They may call me Frankenstein, but this is Dr. Strangelove."