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flourish, so that everyone notices.
    â€œWhew,” says the newspaper scion. “Amazing.”
    â€œNow then.” You squint at the watch’s dial. “Two-hundred-and-fifty-point-seven-seven seconds.”
    Flabbergasting. The longest yet for a krill, by forty seconds. Your modifications to the chemical bath have proven groundbreaking. The staffers know better than to show it. They are all business. You make eye contact with Thomas. He is smiling behind his hand.
    â€œYes,” you continue, “and since this particular species of krill lives for an average of four days, that means we restored vitality to these creatures for the equivalent of 1.21 percent of its life span.”
    Thomas forces down his grin. “If we did that with a human of an average life expectancy, we would be bringing him back from the dead for twenty-one days.”
    â€œOf course”—you place the stopwatch on a shelf—“no one is talking about doing anything with humans. We have many smaller life-forms with which to experiment first.”
    â€œCan you do it again?” asks the Post reporter. “Can you reanimate these same krill a second time?”
    Thomas shakes his head. “Once is all.”
    She looks about herself. “So now they’re really dead?”
    â€œStill . . .” Thomas smirks. “Two hundred and fifty point seven seven. Not bad.”
    L ike apostles they precede you into the conference center, the select group who witnessed the demonstration this morning. Now they will proselytize on your behalf. Thus do the disciples of reanimation grow in number and fervor.
    Outside the hall there is the usual crush: admirers, self-promoters, and media. Thomas does his part, pulling you forward no matter who has your ear. Or sleeve . . . this woman is actually holding your sleeve. Does she have any idea for how long your project just reanimated a krill? No, she just tugs away like a mongrel with a rag.
    â€œSarah Bartlett, UCLA,” she brays. “ Cell just accepted my paper questioning the ethics of your work, for the next issue. I want you to know there’s nothing personal—”
    You circle your wrist to twist her hand away. “Of course not. Likewise if I called your work immoral, you wouldn’t be offended either.”
    Bartlett persists like a gnat. “If I were attempting to redefine mortality, I would expect at least a little criticism. Questioning is what gives science its energy—”
    â€œDiscovery is what gives science its energy,” Thomas interrupts, “and Dr. Carthage has somewhere to be.” He draws you on and the woman falls back into the general clamor. An amusing idea enters your mind: should you travel with a flyswatter?
    Finally you reach the conference room, a windowless rectangle. Appalling to note how the architecture of functionality has created such featureless caves. Hundreds of chairs stand arrayed in rows. Urns of coffee and trays of bland Danishes line the back wall. At the podium, Bergdahl notices you and accelerates his presentation.
    â€œIn flash freezing, the rapidity of temperature reduction prevents large water crystals from forming, thus preventing cell membrane damage.” He shows a slide of two cells, one cold but intact, the other irreparably ruptured.
    What he has not said, this tenured Columbia University bio-savant, is that no one has been able to freeze tissues rapidly enough in the lab. They all burst. Only nature, with the intensity of cold, winds, and iceberg collisions, can form hard-ice. That is why you bear the bankrupting expense of polar searching.
    â€œIn some species,” Bergdahl continues, glancing your way, then back to his notes, “cryobiologists observe that dying creatures produce glycols instantaneously, as certain frogs do during hibernation, lowering their tissues’ freezing point.”
    Thomas inspects your suit, brushing away invisible lint.