Chapman shook his head “They make up their losses at a ratio of ten births to one death.”

“Don’t the tides eventually subside and disperse?” inquired Gunn. “Or die out completely when cooler water currents come in contact with it?”

Sandecker nodded. “Unfortunately, we’re not looking at normal conditions. The mutant microorganism we’re dealing with here seems immune to changing water temperatures.”

“So what you’re saying is that there is no hope the red tide off Africa will fade and disappear?”

“Not if left on its own,” Chapman answered. “Like trillions of cloning Frankensteins, the dinoflagellates are reproducing at an astronomical rate. Instead of several thousand in a gallon of water, they’ve mushroomed to nearly a billion per gallon. An increase never before recorded. At the moment they’re unstoppable.”

“Any theory on where the mutant red tide evolved from?” asked Pitt.

“The instigator behind this new breed of prolific dinoflagellates is unknown. But we believe that a contaminant of some kind is spilling out of the Niger River and mutating the dinoflagellates that thrive in seawater and boosting their reproduction cycle.”

“Like an athlete taking steroids,” Giordino said dryly.

“Or aphrodisiacs,” Gunn grinned.

“Or fertility drugs,” threw in Pitt.

“If this red tide goes unchecked and expands without any deterrent throughout the oceans, covering the surface in one massive blanket of toxic dinoflagellates,” Chapman explained, “the world’s supply of oxygen will diminish to a level too low to support life.”

Gunn said, “You’ve written a grim scenario, Dr. Chapman.”

“Horror story might be a more apt description,” Pitt said quietly.

“Can’t they be destroyed by chemical applications?” Giordino asked.

“A pesticide?” stated Chapman. “Conceivably, it could make matters worse. Better to cut it off early at the head.”

“Do you have a time frame for this disaster?” Pitt asked Chapman.

“Unless the flow of contamination into the sea can be stopped dead within the next four months, it will be too late. By then, the spread will be too enormous to control. It will also be self-sufficient, able to feed off itself, passing on the chemical poison it absorbed from the Niger to its offspring.” He paused to press a button on the remote control and a colored graph appeared onscreen. “Computer projections indicate millions will begin dying by slow suffocation within eight months, certainly not more than ten. Young children with small lung capacities will be the first to go, too starved for air to cry, their skin turning blue as they go into irreversible coma. It won’t be a pretty picture for those few to die last.”

Giordino looked incredulous. “Almost impossible to accept a dead world that ran out of oxygen.”