Quickies

She woke up shivering in a cold sweat to find him beside her. She sensed more than saw him-it was completely dark, their rooms were small, his knees pressed right up against the edge of her cot as he shifted in the chair.

"Finn?"

"I'm here." His voice was soft, and there was no anger in it.

She rolled toward him, clutching his knee, sure now. She didn't know if it had been the fever that had given her the sudden flash of realization, or if was just something that had bubbled up from below her consciousness, a deeper intuition. "I know what it is."

His answer couldn't have surprised her more. "So do I." His hand pressed against her forehead but she was cool now, almost clammy, and he stated the obvious

"Your fever broke."

"No, I mean…what we found." She swallowed, sitting up cross-legged, her back against the wall, her bare knees pressed to his denim-clad ones. He'd undressed her down to her flannel shirt before putting her to bed, and the thought might have embarrassed her if she hadn't been so eager to tell him what she knew. "I know what it is!"

"So do I," he said again, reaching for the light on the small table, turning it on.

She was too aware now of her state of undress, the way her dark, tousled hair fell around her face. She ran a hand through its length, smoothing, looking at him watching her, his face unreadable, his gaze moving quickly up from the "v" of her flannel to meet her eyes. He picked up a stoppered test tube off the table and held it up. "I've been in the lab for hours tonight, testing samples."

"What time is it?" she croaked.

"Near morning, I guess." He shrugged. Morning didn't mean much out here without the sun. They were living blind, groping around for answers in the darkness, and the metaphor didn't escape her as Finn offered her the test tube. "This is what you found."

She took it, peering in at the crystallized substance in the bottom. "It's a solid?"

"Yeah." He snorted. "And a gas. And a liquid. I've run every test we have, and the computer's analyzed the data in every possible configuration imaginable, and it all comes up the same."

"Unidentifiable," she murmured, staring at it, amazed.

"And atomic structure? This…it's got to be a new element."

Her breathless wonder was broken by Finn revealing another piece of even more unlikely information. "It has no atomic weight, Mare."

"That's not possible." She just stared at him.

"I know." He shook his head, half-smiling, and shrugged. "It has volume, it has mass, it takes up space. But you can't measure it. It has no atomic weight. "

"But…"

Just when she was coming to terms with that impossible fact, he dropped another, equally as implausible, into her lap. "It also has no half-life."

"What?" She held the sample up to the light, frowning. "Are you sure you tested it right? Maybe there's something wrong with the computer…"

"Please." Rolling his eyes, he sat back in the chair with a sigh. "I've been calculating atomic weight and half-life since I was in high school. Everything decomposes and gives off some sort of radiation, right? But this doesn't. The graph won't move-it's a solid flatline. This stuff is…it's infinite. It's some sort of infinite energy source…"

"I know." Mary couldn't begin to explain her feeling, the certainty of her strangely drawn conclusion. She had no logical basis for it, although Finn's research was going a long way toward convincing the Miss Microscope part of her that her intuition was correct. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes, and just said it, "It's God."

When Finn didn't respond-she'd expected laughter, at the very at least, coupled with a sarcastic comment-she opened her eyes to look at him. He was thoughtful, staring at the test tube in her closed fist. She went on, "You feel it just as much as I do.

I know you do. What we've discovered…all the laws and rules of physics, of the entire universe, just turned upside down. This proves-"

"This doesn't prove anything." He did laugh then, shaking his head. "You might as well say we just proved the existence of Santa Claus. It would hold about as much weight in the scientific community. Hell, why not? We're at the North Pole, aren't we?

Let's just call the new element Santa Clausium!"

"I think…" She took a deep breath, ignoring his sarcasm, and pushed forward. "I think it's here for a reason."

"Well, in that sense, I guess everything's here for a reason."

"No, I mean here." She waved her hand around. "Up here. In the Arctic. Frozen at that particular depth."

"What do you mean?" He frowned.

"I think it wanted to be frozen."

It took a moment for him to respond. "Are you saying…this substance… is sentient? "

She ignored his disbelief. "I also think it wanted to be found."

He laughed. "I think maybe your fever's back."