Trauma (42 page)

Sarah slithered round to the side of the bed and
managed to get underneath, but there was no room left
for Lafferty.

'The boxes are too heavy. I can't move them!' said
Sarah.

Lafferty clapped his hand to his forehead in anguish. The shouting voices outside were getting very near and
there was nowhere else to hide except perhaps . . .

He tugged at the side of the plastic bubble enclosing the patient and it came free. He crawled in, feeling his way in
the dark, warm, humid atmosphere inside the plastic, and
lay down beside the patient. If the searchers, as he hoped
they might, just switched on the light and took a quick
look into the room they wouldn't see him.

Lafferty was very aware of the patient's chest rising and
falling in response to the ventilator as he lay as still as
a corpse. He tried to breathe as little as possible, partly
through fear, but also because of the sweet, sickly smell
that now filled his nostrils inside the plastic bubble.

'They can't possibly be down here,' he heard Tyndall
say outside the door. 'It was probably yobs who broke in.
They'd be looking for drugs. And even if it was one of
these nosy parkers, they wouldn't have found anything
up in the Sigma lab — and there's nothing to suggest that
they found the lift.'

'We have to be sure,' replied Sotillo.

Lafferty heard the door open and the room was suddenly
filled with light. For the first time he saw his companion
on the bed and it was a vision from hell. He could not stop
himself gasping at the nightmarish face that was only a few
centimetres from his own. For a moment he thought it was some kind of animal, but then he realised that the face was
human. The skin was completely covered in suppurating
pustules; they were the source of the sickly sweet smell. Even the eyes were affected with the sores and a sticky,
yellow exudate oozed out from encrusted lids. The face
jerked rhythmically as air was injected into the lungs by
the ventilator.

Lafferty felt the urge to vomit become almost overpow
ering. He could taste it in his mouth as he kept his lips
pursed and continued to fight the gagging in his throat.
For some reason, he felt compelled to continue staring
at the apparition in front of him, following the hideous
contours of the face as guilt began to mingle with the revulsion he felt. This had been a human being, he told
himself. He should be feeling compassion and pity, not
fear and revulsion. He continued to stare at the horror
until a new thought crept into the nightmare and exploded
inside his head. This was not just a human being . . . there
was something familiar about the outline of the forehead and cheek. His eyes widened as he realised the truth. The
stinking, pustulated body lying beside him had belonged
to Mary O'Donnell!

The realisation proved too much for Lafferty. He turned
away violently to the -left and threw up, fighting his
way out of the plastic bubble as he did so. He ended
up on the floor on his knees in front of Tyndall, Sotillo and two other men dressed in white. Sarah
slid out from under the bed and put a hand on his
shoulder.

'It's Mary,' he gasped, wiping his mouth with the back
of his hand. 'It's Mary O'Donnell.'

Sarah got to her feet and looked at the body inside the
bubble. She recoiled before saying quietly, 'Disseminated
Herpes. The new vaccine did this to her, didn't it?' She
looked Tyndall and Sotillo for an answer.

'A chance misfortune,' said Sotillo smoothly. 'It happens
sometimes with vaccines. You're a doctor, you should
know that.'

'But you don't know what the chances are with this
particular kind of vaccine. Right?' asked Sarah.

Tyndall and Sotillo looked at each other as they realised
that Sarah must have heard their earlier conversation.

'How could you possibly get involved in something like
this?' Sarah demanded of Tyndall.

'It's not as if they were live patients we were using,'
replied Tyndall. 'Can't you see the advantages to be
gained by using such a culture system?'

'Culture system?' exploded Sarah. 'They were people,
for God's sake, not culture systems!'

'Emotional claptrap!' snapped Sotillo. ‘They were dead at the outset. Can't you rise above such pettiness? You're
a doctor.'

'It's much to her credit that she can't,' said Lafferty,
getting to his feet and standing beside Sarah. 'Maybe
she recognises greed and avarice even when it's disguised
as a quest for medical advance. People like you don't
give a damn for anything other than their own glory and advancement. Money and prizes! That's what it's
all about, isn't it?'

'I don't think we
could
expect anything else from an
anachronism like yourself,' sneered Sotillo. 'You and your
kind are two thousand years out of date!'

Lafferty made a move towards Sotillo but the two
white-clad attendants blocked his way. 'Really, Father, v
iolence, and you a man of the cloth,' sneered Sotillo.

'I'm looking at the face of evil, Sotillo,' replied Lafferty.
'I don't think my church would have the slightest problem
with me smashing it through the back of your head.'

Sotillo seemed discomfited with the look on Lafferty's
face. He said to one of the attendants. 'Prepare two bays
out there.'

Lafferty smiled ruefully and said, 'And now there
are to be two more murders in the cause of medical
science. Right?"

Sotillo didn't reply and Tyndall looked at his feet in
silence.

'Well, Doctor?' said Sarah. 'Are you going to murder
us?'

Tyndall seemed embarrassed and lost for words.

'It shouldn't be too difficult. After all, it's not as if it's
the first time, is it?'

'What do you mean?' demanded Tyndall.

'John McKirrop,' said Sarah. 'And Main, and Logan, y
ou killed them all, didn't you? You came back to
the hospital that night after I phoned you and pushed
McKirrop's skull back into his brain. And later on,
when Logan knew too much and Main found the lab,
you disposed of them too.'

'McKirrop was a no-account tramp,' said Tyndall. 'He'd probably have, drunk himself to death within a
year anyway. As for Main and Logan, we couldn't
allow them to get away either. Don't you understand?
This work is far too important to let anything get in the
way. The
Herpes
vaccine is only the beginning. We're on
the threshold of being able to fight viruses at molecular
level! We're talking about an end to disease!'

Sarah and Lafferty did not reply.

'We're wasting time,' said Sotillo. 'Lock them in here
until the bays are ready for them.’

EIGHTEEN

As Sotillo and Tyndall turned away, Lafferty threw
himself across the room in a last-ditch attempt to fight
his way out. He knew that the odds against him were
hopeless, but he felt he owed it to Sarah and himself to
try. Sotillo and Tyndall were surprised at the sudden rush
but Mace, the attendant who had remained while Pallister went to organise the bays, was obviously prepared for it.
As Lafferty lunged forward he simply stepped aside like
a matador dealing with a clumsy bull and hammered his
fist into the side of Lafferty's head. Lafferty went down
and lay still on the floor.

'No more silliness, please,' said Sotillo, looking down
at Lafferty's prostrate form.

Lafferty came round to find Sarah pushing heavy boxes
against the door. He sat up slowly and asked what she
was doing.
Sarah jerked her head round and said, 'Good. You've
come round. Are you all right?'

'I think so,' said Lafferty, confused by the activity.

'Can you help me?' asked Sarah.

Lafferty got to his feet unsteadily and rubbed the side
of his head. 'What on earth are you doing?' he asked
haltingly.

'I'm barricading the door,' replied Sarah. 'I've decided
I'm not going to go meekly like a lamb to the slaughter. I
want to hold on to life as long as possible. I think we
should put up a fight; what do you say?'

Sarah didn't wait for an answer, and Lafferty watched
her manoeuvre one of the life-support machines into
position with a determination he found compelling. There
seemed to be no point in emphasising the hopelessness of
their position. He turned to look at the space above Mary's
bed where the machine had been. 'You disconnected it?'
he asked-

'Mary doesn't need it. She's dead,' replied Sarah. 'We
do. Come on. Lend a hand. Bring the other power-
pack over.'

Lafferty did as he was bid. He was still puzzled, but it felt a whole lot better to be doing something rather
than just sitting around. He shook off the last of his
drowsiness and got to work. He pulled out the remaining
heavy boxes from below the bed, carefully avoiding the glass waste-tank, and found that they were full of spares
for the life-support machines: diaphragms, filters and
pump-bodies. He dragged them one at a time across
the floor and started adding them to the barrier. When
he had stacked the last of them in position, Sarah took
a step back to look at the barricade. She screwed up her face. There's not going to he enough weight,' she said
anxiously.

Lafferty joined her and had to agree. After a moment's
thought, he said, 'Wedges!' He pulled some of the
plastic tubing from the tube ports on the machines
and started pushing it into the crack along the bottom
of the door.

'Good thinking,' said Sarah, but her voice still betrayed
doubts.

'What about the bed itself?' asked Lafferty when he'd
finished.

Sarah looked round and nodded. 'I'll move Mary.' She
tore away the plastic bubble from over the bed and used
it to wrap Mary O'Donnell's body.

'1 still don't understand what happened to her,' said
Lafferty as he watched.

‘
The new vaccine didn't work on Mary,' said Sarah.
'It
had the complete opposite effect to that intended. It left
her without any protection at all. So, when they came
to challenge her with an injection of live virus it simply
rampaged through her body.

'But that might happen to other people too,' said
Lafferty.

'Precisely.' agreed Sarah. ‘That's what Sotillo and
Tyndall were arguing about, Sotillo wanted to dismiss
Mary's case as a chance in a million happening. Tyndall
had cold feet; he wanted to withdraw the vaccine.'

'I see,' said Lafferty as he stepped in to lift Mary's body
gently from the bed and lay it on the floor. As he did
so, a deep sigh came from her throat and Lafferty almost
dropped her.

'It
wasn't real,' said Sarah, quickly putting her hand on
his shoulder to reassure him. 'Just trapped air in her lungs.'

Lafferty nodded nervously and joined Sarah in pulling
the bed across the floor. They propped it up against the
door as they heard sounds outside it.