Harlan fired one shot from the huge Peacemaker. The noise was deafening in the hallway. The bullet hit the closed double door and shattered its porthole-like window. The door that had been opened swung shut.
Harlan raced out into the hall and ran its length on legs that had suddenly gone rubbery. He staggered into the living room.
“Harlan?” Sheila questioned. “Have you been shot?” They had all heard the gun go off.
Harlan shook his head. A small amount of foam bubbled out of his mouth and oozed from his eyes. “I think it’s the rhinovirus kicking out the alien virus,” he managed. He steadied himself against the wall. “It’s happening. Unfortunately it’s a rather inconvenient time.”
Pitt rushed to Harlan’s side and draped Harlan’s arm over his shoulder. He took the gun from Harlan’s limp hand.
“Give me the gun,” Sheila commanded. Pitt handed it over.
“How are we going to get out of here?” Sheila asked Harlan.
The sound of breaking glass drifted back from the lab.
“We’ll use the main entrance,” Harlan said. “My Range Rover should be there. I’d been afraid to go out that way for fear of discovery. Now it doesn’t make any difference.”
“All right,” Sheila said. “How do we get there?”
“We go out in the main hall and turn right,” Harlan said. “We pass the storerooms and there’ll be another air lock. Then there is a long corridor with electric carts. The exit comes up inside a building that looks like a farmhouse.”
Sheila cracked the door to the hall and began slowly to lean her head out to look back toward the lab rooms. She felt the bullet before she heard a distant gun go off. The slug had come so close to her that it had singed some of her hair before burrowing into the partially open door.
She pulled back inside the living room.
“Obviously they know where we are,” she said. She wiped her forehead with her hand and examined it. She wouldn’t have been surprised to see blood. “Is there another way to get to the exit? We’re surely not going to be able to use the hall.”
“We have to use the hall,” Harlan said.
“Oh screw!” Sheila mumbled. She looked at the gun in her hand, wondering whom she thought she was kidding. She’d never even fired a gun in practice much less gotten into a battle with one.
“We can use the fire system,” Harlan said. He pointed toward the security panel on the living-room wall. “If you pull the fire lever, the whole place fills up with fire retardant. The intruders won’t be able to breathe very well, if at all.”
“Oh that’s clever,” Sheila said sarcastically. “And, of course, we just walk out holding our breaths.”
“No, no,” Harlan said. “In the cabinet below the panel are rebreathers that are good for a least a half hour.”
Sheila went over to the cabinet and pulled it open. It was filled with gas mask — like apparatuses. She took out five and handed them around. The directions on the long, tubular proboscis were to break the seal, shake, and then don.
“Everybody okay with this?” Sheila asked.
“It’s not as if we have a lot of choice,” Pitt said.
They all activated their units and then strapped them on. When everyone gave a thumbs-up sign, Sheila yanked down on the fire lever.
An immediate clanging was heard followed by an automated voice that repeated “Fire in the facility” over and over again. A minute later the sprinkler system was activated, sending out billows of fluid that rapidly vaporized. The room filled up with a smoglike haze.
“We have to stick together,” Sheila yelled. It was hard to talk in the gas mask, and it was getting hard to see as well. Sheila opened the door to the hall and was pleased to see the hall was as hazy as the living room. She leaned out and looked toward the labs. She couldn’t see for more than four or five feet.
Sheila stepped out into the hall. There were no gun shots. “Let’s go,” she called to the others. “Pitt, you and Harlan go ahead so that we know where we are going. Cassy and Jonathan, you carry the tissue culture flasks.”
In a tight group they moved down the hallway. In the haze the corridor seemed interminable. Finally they came to the air lock and climbed in. Sheila pulled the door behind them. Pitt opened the outer door.
Beyond the air lock, the atmosphere progressively cleared, especially when they got on the electric cart. By the time they came to the exit stairs, they could remove their breathing apparatuses.
It was six flights up to the surface. They emerged through a trap door the size of a scatter rug into the living room of a farmhouse. When the trap door was closed, no one would have suspected what it concealed.
“My car should be in the barn,” Harlan said. He took his arm off Pitt’s shoulder. “Thanks, Pitt,” he said. “I don’t think I could have made it without you, but I feel a bit better already.” He blew his nose noisily.
“Let’s get a move on,” Sheila said. “Those people who were after us might have found rebreathers as well.”
The group exited the house via the front door and walked back toward the barn. The sun had set and the desert heat was rapidly dissipating. There was a blood-red smear along the edge of the western horizon. The rest of the sky was an inverted bowl of indigo blue. A few stars twinkled overhead.
As Harlan had hoped, his Range Rover was still safely parked in the barn. He put all the tissue culture flasks in the back storage area before getting behind the wheel. He took the Colt from Sheila and slipped it into the door pocket.
“Are you sure you feel up to driving?” Sheila asked. She was amazed at his recovery.
“No problem,” Harlan said. “I feel completely different than I did just fifteen minutes ago. The only symptoms I have now are of garden-variety cold. I’d say our human trial was an unmitigated success!”
Sheila got into the front passenger seat. Cassy, Pitt, and Jonathan climbed into the back. Pitt put his arm around Cassy, and she snuggled up against him.
Harlan started the car and backed out of the barn. He made a U-turn and drove to the road.
“This alien infestation certainly has cut down on traffic,” he said. “Look at this. Not a car in sight and we’re only fifteen minutes out of Paswell.”
Harlan turned right and accelerated.
“Where are we going?” Sheila asked.
“I don’t think we have a lot of choice,” Harlan said. “My sense is that the rhinovirus is going to take care of the infestation. The problem then boils down to the Gateway thing. We got to try to do something about it.”
Cassy straightened up. “The Gateway!” she said. “Pitt has told you about it.”
“He certainly did,” Harlan said. “He said you thought it was almost operational. Did you get any idea when they might use it?”
“I wasn’t told specifically,” Cassy said. “But my sense is that it will be used as soon as it is finished.”
“There you go,” Harlan said. “We’ll just have to hope we can get there in time and figure out a way to throw a monkey wrench into the works.”
“What’s this about a rhinovirus?” Cassy asked.
“Some rather good news,” Harlan said, glancing at Cassy in the rearview mirror. “Particularly for you and me.”
Cassy was then told the whole sequence of events that led to the discovery of a way to rid the human race of the alien viral scourge. Both Harlan and Sheila credited Cassy for the information that she’d given Pitt.
“It was the fact that the alien virus had come here three billion years ago that was so important,” Sheila said. “Otherwise we wouldn’t have thought about its being sensitive to oxygen.”
“Maybe I should be breathing some of that rhinovirus now?” Cassy said.
“No need,” Harlan said. “Just riding in the car means all of you are being adequately infected. I imagine it only takes a couple of virions since no one has any immunity to it.”