Limnoir

"Oh," I said, surprised by the amount of information she'd just given me. That was easy, I thought. Too easy. She was definitely feeding me some well-rehearsed line, throwing in some big words, autosomething this, heterosomething that, to try and sound all sciency, throw me off her trail. I gave her "the look" to let her know I wasn't falling for any of it. "Uh-huh, yeah, right - so you guys are out on the lakes so early in the morning - why??"

"Oh that," said Jill. "Yeah, it sucks having to get up so early but we really need the extra time. What we do is fill big, clear glass containers with lake water and take the containers back to the rad lab. There we inoculate the water with radioactive dissolved inorganic carbon. Then we put the containers back in the lake at the same depth at which they were collected so that the water is incubated at ambient temperatures and light intensities. After a full solar cycle of 24 hours, we pull the containers out, filter the water, and examine the remaining cellular material. Because the carbon is radioactive, we can measure carbon uptake and track how it moves through the food chain, which in our case basically consists of just phytoplankton and bacteria. This sample processing and filtering takes all day long. Actually it takes two days, after which we're tired -and I mean ready to collapse."

Boy she was good that Jersey Mama, real smooth with the answers. She made it sound as if the limno team was working oh so hard, and she'd even anticipated my asking about the rad lab, had offered a plausible explanation. Tripping her up was proving difficult. My requests for clarifications were getting me nowhere. I decided to use another tactic.

"So Jersey - can I see this rad lab??"

"You mean, like, go in it??" she asked, eyeing me up closely.

"Yeah."

"It's not that exciting."

"I'm not looking for excitement," I said coolly. "I'm looking for enlightenment."

"Uhhhhh, right. Well, ok, sure."

"Yes?"

"Yes."

"What??? I thought you needed special protection."

"Not exactly. People hear radioactive and think ooooooh scary, and it can be. But in our case, it's way overblown. You just need gloves and a lab coat, that's it." "Oh." "So Karen, you seem real interested in what we're up to." "No," I denied it. I couldn't blow my cover. "Yes," I confirmed it. My cover was already blown. "Well - maybe." Noncommittal was the best choice, see how things played out, keep Jersey Mama on her toes. "Well," Jersey leaned towards me and looked me square in the face, "we're quite interested in what you're doing." "You are?"

Inside the Rad Lab - filter equipment

"Yes. We really should talk and - you know - 'exchange information'," she said her voice glistening with clandestine intent and double meaning.

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