“You know, I’ve been here for some time, and I’ve never noticed a Ministry for Apologizing to the Japanese anywhere in this complex,” says Defense.
“Who took this decision?” insists Communications.
“The Soviet people, comrade, in their usual fashion.”
“No, I specifically mean—where are comrades Khrushchev and Malenkov in all of this?”
“Opening one another’s mail,” says State Security. “Sending me requests to open the other’s mail. Casting hexes at each other. I don’t know, the usual shit. They’re happy, comrade, and you should be happy for them. They’ve been consulted. They love being consulted.”
“Comrades, I have no desire to be an obstructionist,” lies Communications. “I am merely concerned we could talk ourselves into looking like real assholes if the Americans make some fresh discovery about this thing that casts our statements into doubt!”
“I can acknowledge some justice in your worries, Comrade Minister of Communications,” says State Security. “However, we will only be inviting the Americans to leap to a conclusion. Our purpose, as ever, is to instill as much doubt as possible in the American decision-making process.”
“Comrades,” says the New Technologies man, hesitantly, “should it not also be our purpose to determine the true origin point of this anomalous entity, for cultural and scientific reasons?”
“So long as it continues to express a preference for assets of the capitalist bloc in its dining habits, its true origin is irrelevant. Thank you, comrades.” The Minister of Defense pushes back his chair with an ear-piercing scrape. “I believe that covers everything. Additional directives will be issued as circumstances require. This unrecorded meeting related to matters of special importance to the state did not take place.”
“Remember, Siberia is lovely at this time of your life,” says State Security with a grin.
The Minister of the Maritime Fleet has just decided he might make it out of the room alive when, in the press of wide-eyed slump-shouldered men trying to squeeze out the door, he feels the hand of State Security take him softly by the elbow.
“Comrade Minister,” the man says in a low voice, “we note that you have already used informal channels to reroute some of our far east shipping even further away from the apparent danger zone. You are to be congratulated for your discretion. You should prepare additional instructions to this effect. Expand the zone of exclusion by two hundred nautical miles on all sides, indefinitely, and effect this change with the same degree of subtlety.”
“I…uh, of course. I serve the Soviet Union, comrade.” Some of the sudden chill in his bowels goes away. Some. “Do you, uh, really think we can convince the Americans that Marxism-Leninism might have a live dinosaur on its payroll?”
The Chairman of the Committee for State Security raises one eyebrow, a pale brown scruff imbued with concentrated promise of dread. Then he smiles and waves a hand at the other departing ministers.
“As if it’s entirely without precedent?”
The watchseed drifts across a hazy boundary of self-awareness and realizes it can think.
The seed-planters designed its consciousness to grow slowly, adjusting gently to each new unfolding of comprehension. Two hundred thousand local years would be a long time for any living thing to cling to an undersea ledge, let alone something with the power to wreak planetary havoc. Psychological stability must be assured in a monstrous visitation from the stars.
Marine snow fuels physical growth. Its mouths are like a field of gray flowers pulsing open and closed, sifting the detritus of plankton and scraps drifting down from the light-touched layers above. At a certain body mass, enzymes crack the seals on ancient biomolecular databases. Suddenly it understands why it has been given this bulk, this power of thought. When it weighs about twenty tons, it detaches itself and swims upward. The things it plucks from the top layer of ocean are interesting—the locals would be able to identify several dolphins, an equal number of sharks, a dozen flavors of fish, and a single surprised saltwater crocodile.
The seed studies these meals, copies their useful features. Back in the darkness, it spins some of its new mass off into a remote espionage bureau. Snake-like fragments of itself wriggle out, bearing all the mundane senses as well as organs for scanning the electromagnetic spectrum. After a few weeks hidden in kelp or a mangrove swamp or a garbage patch, a fragment will swim back, carrying its recorded data in the form of DNA strands, ready to be literally digested.