Noah's Ark: Contagion (20 page)

“Bloody hell,” Jake said, stunned by all the machines. “What is all this stuff?”

“Mostly standard equipment in here,” Vardy replied. “You’ve got an inverse gas chromatograph next to you there, and an infrared spectrometer. This is an x-ray refractometer, and next to it a non-contacting laser profilometer…hmm, that’s new.” He walked between the benches, scanning the machines. “This looks like a fluorescence polarisation system, and here’s a free radical analyser; that could come in handy. Over there is another spectrometer—a mass spectrometer—very expensive. And over on that bench are the spray dryers, fluid extractors, blenders, evaporators—”

“Russell, we’re not here on a shopping trip. Where’s your special machine?”

“Here, I’ve found it.” The doctor’s light beam rested on a large square box, about the size and shape of an upturned washing machine. It was made of sky blue metal and was loaded with an array of knobs and switches, as well as some useful carrying handles. Embossed on the front was the name and model number:
“Heimat Brinkdolph Gemini 5001”.

“One of you help me, will you?”

“Er, okay,” Eric said. He grabbed a pair of handles. Russell took hold of the other pair, and they heaved the machine up off the floor with a grunt. Eric was surprised just how heavy it was.

“These will be useful too,” Russell said, using his face to point out boxes of test tubes, syringes, and latex gloves, all of which Ewan collected up and placed on top of the machine. “Okay, let’s get out of here.” The others were happy to oblige and all made straight for the exit.

“Which way was it?” Eric asked once they were back outside in the grey tunnel.

“Left,” Vardy said, and started walking.

“Jake? What is it? Come on, we need to stay close together,” Ewan urged. But Jake remained rooted to the spot. “Hey, what is it? What’s up?”

“It’s my legs,” Jake said, his voice cracking slightly. “I can’t feel my legs.”

Twenty

V
ARDY
AND
E
RIC
put down the machine. Jake didn’t move but remained rooted to the spot, speechless.

“Here, let us help you,” Ewan said quietly. “Eric and I can help you walk.” They stood either side of him and, placing his arms over their shoulders, tried to half-carry him along.

“It’s no good,” Jake said eventually. “My legs aren’t going to move. This isn’t going to work.”

Vardy had joined them. He squatted down and placed his hands around Jake’s ankles, squeezing and prodding, working his way up.

“Can you feel this?”

“No.”

“What about this?”

“No.”

“How about here?”

“Russell, you’re wasting time. We all know what this is.”

“No, we don’t!” Ewan shook his head violently. “It might be temporary; your gas mask might be blocked. Maybe you’re not getting enough oxygen.”

“Ewan, it’s the virus. It’s obviously the virus. This isn’t temporary. It’s not going to go away.”

“Then we’ll carry you back to the ship. We’ll take you to the raft then come back for the machine.”

Eric and Vardy remained silent.

“Ewan, it’s going to take too long to do all of that. Besides, you’ll have a hell of a job getting me up that lift shaft. You’re going to have enough trouble getting the machine up there. Take the machine and go. I can wait here.”

“No! We can’t leave you, that’s out of the question.”

“You have to. Everyone’s lives depend on getting that machine back to the
Spirit of Arcadia
, on making a cure. We’re all infected, you as well. I’m just further along. Time is running out.”

“He’s right.” Vardy spoke up at last, but he couldn’t look Jake in the eye.

“What? You’re a doctor, you can’t agree to leave a man down here to die!” Ewan shouted, not willing to accept the truth. “You took an oath!”

“Ewan, we’re not leaving him to die. We’ll come back for him. He’s right, more lives will be lost the longer we delay. We’re wasting time even arguing about this. We have to go now.”

“Come on, mate,” Eric said, putting a hand on his colleague’s shoulder to pull him away.

“No, you can’t force me to come with you. If he’s staying, then I’m staying here with him.”

“Ewan, I appreciate your concern, but they need you more than I do. I’ll be fine,” Jake said solemnly. “You need to help them get that machine back. It will be quicker with three of you.”

“I can’t just abandon you, Jake. We need you. The ship needs you!”

“The ship needs a cure, and you’re stopping them from getting one. I’m not your captain, I can’t give you a direct order. But I am on the committee, and on behalf of that governing body of survivors, I am asking you, please, go with the other two and get that machine safely to the
Arcadia
.”

Ewan looked at Jake, then he looked at the other two men who were collecting up the Heimat Brinkdolph Gemini 5001, and he looked back at Jake.

“Go!” Jake urged him.

“We’re coming back for you, Jake. Okay? We’re coming back!”

Vardy and Ewan had already started walking back up the dark tunnel, the sound of their footsteps disappearing into the distance. With one last look back at Jake, Ewan turned and followed them. Jake flicked off his torch, conserving the remaining battery, and stood alone in the darkness for a full minute before his legs gave way beneath him and he crashed to the ground.

• • •

“There, that all seems to be in order. All we need now is for your lot to flick a switch and power us up.” Tom Sanderson stood back, one hand on his hips, the other wiping a little sweat from his brow.

“We have a few checks to run on our side first,” Gunson said, “but we should have power restored within thirty minutes.” He held out a hand, and there was an awkward moment before Tom realised it was for him to shake. “Mr Sanderson, it’s been a pleasure working with you. If ever you would like a tour of our submarine…”

“All that new-fangled atomic power goes over my head, Mr Gunson. But perhaps I will take you up on your offer sometime.”

Lucya looked on, wondering if any of them would live long enough for that visit to happen. The immediate crisis had been averted, but it was going to take more than a retired engineer to save them from the virus working its way through the ship. “Thank you, Tom, for your help,” she said. “Now if you would be so kind as to give me your cabin number, I’m putting you on the list of essential personnel.”

Tom drew a sharp breath and gave her a look which suggested he had no intention of working on the ship in the future, but her expression made it clear that he really had no choice in the matter.

“I’m in 907, but I’m retired, I’ll remind you!”

“Nobody is retired in this community, Tom. Mr Gunson, thank you for your help. I have to get back to the bridge. The landing party may be back already, so the sooner we can have the power on the better.”

Gunson nodded at her, and she left the two men in the engine room to finish their discussion.
 

Lucya didn’t return directly to the bridge; she wanted to find out how Martin was doing. Even before she reached deck eight she knew things were bad. From two decks below she could hear the moaning and howling, the sounds of sick people in great pain. Some were shouting, demanding help, or calling out the names of their loved ones. Some were simply wailing and crying. She could see through open cabin doors that those were the families, the people who weren’t yet sick but who were forced to watch the people they loved suffer, all the time knowing they would probably be next.

People she didn’t recognise were charging about, flitting from cabin to cabin dispensing wet towels and kind words. She assumed these must be the new recruits, the nurses called up to help. They looked exhausted, but they worked without complaint.

Janice was in cabin 845. She was pulling a sheet up over a lifeless body, whose face was obscured from view. For a moment, Lucya’s heart leaped into her mouth.

“Martin?” She whispered the name, and felt the colour drain from her cheeks. Janice looked up at her and shook her head.

“No, not Martin. I don’t know his name. The poor soul was in a cabin alone.”

Lucya let out a sigh of relief, then felt immediately guilty. This man’s death was as much of a tragedy as Martin’s would have been, but she didn’t know him, so it was impossible for her to feel the loss the same way.

“If there’s time, I will take him down and do an autopsy. As far as we know, Kiera and Barry were the first cases after Scott. He died quickly because of his pre-existing condition. Kiera is in a very bad way, but she is hanging on. If this man was infected after her, I’d like to know why he died first.”

“His age? He was weaker, perhaps?”

“That is the most likely, yes. Or it could be that he was infected earlier. As he was alone, nobody reported his condition to the medical staff. The nurses only found him because they were looking for empty cabins into which to put the sick coming up from other decks.”

“And Martin?”

“He’ll be okay. He’s not conscious, but his vital signs are all good. We’ll know more when he wakes up. Do you want to see him?”

Lucya considered the question. “No, I don’t think so. I should get back to the bridge. I wanted to know that he was okay, that’s the main thing.”

A sound from behind her made her turn around. A child, maybe ten years old, stood crying in the doorway.

“Hello, my love,” Janice said, crouching down to his height. “What’s your name then?”

“Robert,” the boy whimpered. He sounded American.

“And what’s the matter, Robert, my darling? Why are you upset?”

“My mom and dad are sick and nobody has come to help them.”

“Okay, honey, can you show me where they are?” The boy nodded, and took the hand she offered. “I’m sorry, I have to go,” Janice said to Lucya.

“Of course. I’ll be on the bridge. If there’s anything we can do, anything you need…”

“Sure thing, thanks, Lucya.”

• • •

Despite the lack of light, Jake was surprised to find he could make good progress through the deep passageway of level four, even without the use of his legs. The grate on the floor, which he realised with some alarm was designed to allow spillages of who-knew-what to be washed away into the channel beneath, was the perfect surface to drag himself along. He reached out his arms, locked his fingers into the holes, and pulled himself forwards. It was slow going, dirty, uncomfortable, and physically exhausting, but he felt that at least he was doing something.

He had considered the fact that by not staying put, he was making himself more difficult to find. But then, he reasoned, there was little chance that the others would ever come back for him, not really. They all knew that Vardy’s idea for a cure was a long shot. Such things normally required years of development, not hours. Even if by some miracle they did make it work, they would have to treat the others who were infected before him. The machine didn’t look like it was capable of producing industrial quantities of anything. By the time they got back to him, he’d be long since dead. He had known all of this when he sent them on their way. He knew he was probably signing his own death sentence.

And so, in an effort to keep his mind from dwelling on his likely demise, to stop himself from thinking about Lucya, he had decided to explore the rest of level four while he still had some mobility. One question continued to burn in his mind. Where had all the people from the base gone? Six thousand, McNair had said. Six thousand people had worked on the base. They had had hours of warning before the asteroid hit, ample time to get as many people as humanly possible into the relative safety of the underground levels. And yet they hadn’t seen evidence of a single soul having been inside. The place was tidy, clean. Level three had looked virtually unused. Although they hadn’t explored levels one and two, they had passed through on their way down the stairs. The lack of light and any sound on those levels, plus the fact that nobody had come running to see what the noise was when they had blown the lift floor, suggested they were just as empty, as did the pressurised halon they had discovered.

That left the hidden level four, a place so different to the others above that it was possible to imagine there were people hiding out down here, as far away from the surface as they could get. Spurred on by this thought, the idea that maybe, just maybe, he might find more survivors in this secret sub-basement, he continued to pull himself through the tunnel.

Every now and then his gloved fingers would touch the concrete of the wall and he would correct his course. He used the torch every fifteen metres or so, to check on his progress, and to try and see where the tunnel led. The battery was draining; the beam was no longer able to cut deep into the darkness. His eyes had fully adjusted though, so the feeble illumination it was still able to offer was enough to keep him on track.

After a good half an hour the light finally picked out something of interest. Set into the wall twenty metres away was a door, identical to the door of the lab. For a second he wondered if he hadn’t gone round in a big loop and ended up where he had started, but a glance behind him confirmed that the tunnel was very straight, and besides, he hadn’t passed the opening to the room with the giant vats of toxic substances.

The sight of the door gave him a definite objective, and a renewed determination. He switched the light off, attached it to his belt, and with his head down he reached forwards, gripped the floor grille, and pulled.

• • •

The bridge was a welcome oasis of calm for Lucya after the mayhem of the engine room and the horrors of deck eight. Back among the ordered rows of consoles and control panels it was almost possible to imagine that things were normal.

Seconds after she arrived there was a cacophony of whirring, beeping, and clicking as the power came back on and the various computers and systems all came back to life.

“Power! Thank you, Tom. So, any sign of the landing party?” She directed the question at Chuck, who had been maintaining the looking in her absence.

“The raft is on its way back. I would estimate ten minutes.”