“It is. Maybe not today, but the death blow is sure as hell on the horizon if something isn’t done soon. I wouldn’t be surprised if the shrimp of the future come strictly from shrimp farms.”
“And that would be so horrible?”
“That would be more than horrible.” He hated even talking about what was happening to the fishing industry in Louisiana… in fact, to the whole bayou ecosystem. “The shrimpers are already beset with hundreds of government regulations, wetland erosion, foreign competition, fights with the sport fishermen, overdemand, population growth and residential development, farm runoff… and God only knows what the effects of global warming will be. The contaminants being released into the shrimp breeding grounds by the oil companies are the last straw.”
“But there are so many problems,” she argued. “I just don’t see how your… our… efforts can make a difference. It’s like dog paddling against a tidal wave.”
“Don’t discount the duck theory, Sylv.”
“And that would be?”
“Nibbling away like ducks,” he explained with a smile. “I know we can’t correct all the problems. There are dozens of environmental and other special-interest groups out there trying to correct some of them. If we attack the oil companies one at a time on their pollution policies, and others hit them on dredging offenses, or political corruption, or whatever, eventually… well, eventually we’ll have nibbled them away, like ducks.”
“Or at least given them a few duck bites,” she said with a smile.
“Bingo,” he agreed, smiling back at her. And it wasn’t just her duck-bite comment that he was smiling about. He couldn’t get over the fact that Sylvie had been dreaming about him. And she had been, no matter what she said.
“So, you and I and René and the shrimpers involved in this fight are ducks, right?”
“Quack-quack.” He hesitated a moment before adding, “There is something else we want from you.”
She sat up, alert with suspicion.
“Sometimes we Cajuns are a bit aggressive in fighting the oil companies… hell, even our Cajun brothers and sisters aren’t all supporting us. Many of them work on the oil rigs, for chrissake. So, I figure we should try a different tactic from the usual cancer scare when we go public with whatever damning information we gather.”
“I’m listening,” she said warily when he paused to decide just the right way to broach the subject.
“Well, we’ve discovered some scientific data that shows that petroleum by-products can affect the sperm counts in fish. If it can affect fish virility, maybe it does the same thing with male humans. What better way to get the public behind us than to threaten a man’s sexual prowess?”
Sylvie thought a moment. “I’m beginning to see the light. You figured since I’m a scientist who works with testosterone and hormones, I would be the perfect person to help you out.”
He felt his ears heat up, but he held his chin high.
“You rat! You told me that you wanted me to work with you because I was the only one you could trust.”
“There is that, too, Sylv. Honest.”
“I don’t know what to believe.”
“I’ve told you why the shrimpers’ case is important to me, Sylv. Now you tell me why JBX is so important to you.”
She hesitated, at first… unwilling to share her secrets. “I know you consider the love-potion experiment a huge joke, and I admit there are some aspects that lend themselves to humor. But this is very serious business to me. If I told you I was working on a new birth-control pill, or a new estrogen-replacement program, you’d be clapping me on the back in encouragement. It really isn’t such a far stretch to manipulating testosterone and hormone levels for aphrodisiacal purposes.”
He put up one hand in surrender, the other one still held the beer.
“And, okay, I might as well admit it, there’s a little bit of vanity involved, too,” she added.
His only response was a lift of one eyebrow, and another sip of beer.
“I come from a family of high achievers. Everyone knows my mother, the politician; my aunts, the herbal-tea queens; my cousin Valerie, the Court TV sensation. All the Breaux women are huge successes. By comparison, I’m just a mousy little scientist doing hackwork who will never rise to any great level of success. Maybe my family will lay off me if I can provide just one super-achievement.”