Tim focused on the image of the two left hands. Did one of them look… shriveled?
“So you think whatever is forming under that membrane might act as a new communication device,” he said. “A walking cell-phone tower or something?”
“Maybe,” Clarence said. “Or, possibly, the Orbital thought like a general. The units it had on the battlefield didn’t get the job done, so maybe it wanted something new.”
Margaret closed her eyes, hung her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “We have three doses of the yeast, we give one each to Nagy, Austin and Chappas. Then we see what happens.”
It was time to fess up, and Tim knew it wouldn’t be pretty.
“We have two doses,” he said. “Not three.”
Margaret’s eyes narrowed in confusion, then widened in understanding.
“You took a dose?”
Tim shrugged. “If it’s any consolation, it tasted like a baboon’s ass speckled with hot bat guano.”
Clarence’s gloved hands noisily curled into fists. “You disobeyed orders.”
“Oh, whatever,” Tim said. “I’m not military, you goon, and what are you gonna do, cut it out of me? We can’t waste all of it on those guys when we don’t even know if it will help them. We need to know if it works on the uninfected, and that’s me.”
They were angry, sure, but Tim knew he had done the right thing. Not just the right thing, the smart thing. He wasn’t going to take any shit for it. He was ready to stand his ground, argue his case.
What he wasn’t ready for, however, was Margaret’s reaction.
She started to cry softly. Tears glistened on her cheeks — she couldn’t reach inside her helmet to wipe them away, so on her cheeks they stayed.
“Fine,” she said. “Since we don’t have the resources to treat them all, we choose two for the yeast.”
She looked up at Tim, her wet eyes screaming of hopelessness and anguish.
He felt small, insignificant.
“Nagy and Chappas,” she said. “Edmund’s blood is packed with hydras — we’ll try that on Clark since Clark is already so far gone. We’ll apply Edmund’s blood to Clark’s skin. We already know the hydras can replicate if they’re injected directly into the body. This method will let us test if they can also spread by exposure to blood, and, if that works, what impact they have on someone who has triangles.”
She was writing Clark off, and with good reason. His triangles couldn’t be cut out. Tim had taken X-rays, seen the spiked triangle tails wrapped around Clark’s heart, lying against his arteries. Removing the triangles would kill him.
Nagy and Austin, however, were in the early stages of infection. It was worth a shot to see if the yeast could cure them.
Clark, Nagy, Chappas… that left one.
“What about Austin?” Tim said. “The kid who was crying. Are you going to expose him to the hydras?”
Margaret sniffed sharply. Her expression changed — she was done crying.
“We’re not treating him at all,” she said. “We have to know what we’re up against. We have to let Austin’s infection run its course, so we can see what he becomes.”
She turned and walked out of the analysis module. Clarence stared at Tim for a few moments — maybe because of Tim’s selfish choice, or maybe just because Tim had made his wife cry — then followed her out.
HOMECOMING
Cooper stood on the deck of the Mary Ellen Moffett, waiting for the Platypus to close in.
He was experienced and sure-footed, yet the screaming wind and the rough water made him hold the rail to keep from falling overboard. Steve Stanton’s machine had brought with it bad weather, the worst of the trip so far. Stanton and Bo Pan stood close by, watching carefully.
Cooper turned to José. “You ready?”
The Filipino was wearing only swim trunks, flippers, a mask and a snorkel. He gave Cooper a thumbs-up. How in the hell the little man could tolerate frigid temperatures was beyond Cooper’s knowledge.
“You sure you don’t want a wet suit? That water will freeze your balls off.”
José smiled. “I am married with two children. I haven’t seen my balls in years.”
With that, the short man sat on the rail, put his hand tight to his mask and fell backward to splash into Lake Michigan. He surfaced in seconds. He grabbed a buoy that held a cable lead, then turned and swam toward the blinking light of Steve Stanton’s UUV.
The Platypus sat low in the water. The fuzzy, gray, wet material blended in with both the water and the cloudless night, making it look like a sea monster that might suddenly attack José.
José put his hands on the foam surface, pulled it in close. The cable lead had a hook on it, which he threaded through an eyebolt sticking out of the Platypus’s back. José yanked the connection to make sure it was secure, then gave Cooper a thumbs-up.
Cooper looked up to the crane’s tiny pilothouse, where Jeff was waiting. Cooper flashed a thumbs-up of his own. Jeff nodded, then worked the controls.
The winch whined as it reeled in the cable, lifting the UUV high. Water poured down from the machine’s foam covering, first in a triangular downpour, then a thick stream, then drips and drops as the crane pivoted, bringing the UUV over the Mary Ellen’s deck.
Jeff lowered the machine. Seconds after the Platypus touched down, a wave caught the Mary Ellen broadside, tilted the boat severely and splashed a high spray of water across the deck. The Platypus skidded starboard, heading for the edge.
Cooper rushed forward, one hand on the rail to keep his balance. With the other, he grabbed at the wet, gray machine — he couldn’t get a firm grip on the slippery surface. Then Bo Pan was there, throwing himself on top of the Platypus. Steve grabbed the tail; his feet slid out from under him and he fell hard on his ass, but he held on tight.
The two men seemed to have it; Cooper took a quick look to make sure José was safe — he was, already climbing up a rope ladder — then pulled the Platypus toward its storage crate. Jeff came out of the crane cabin and also grabbed hold.
Another wave rocked the Mary Ellen, but four men gripped the UUV and it wasn’t going anywhere. They slid it into the custom-built storage crate, then locked the crate shut. Cooper and Jeff strapped down the lid.
The Platypus was secure.
Cooper smelled something. He looked at his hands, then sniffed them — ugh, like dead fish, or worse. He wiped his hands against his jeans.
Bo Pan had something in his hands: a black tube, about the size of a travel mug. The old man unzipped his jacket and stuffed it inside. He headed for the door that led below, moving as fast as he could in the rough conditions.
Steve followed close behind.
Cooper felt a strong arm slap down hard around his shoulders.
“Hey, Coop!” A smiling Jeff screamed to be heard over the wind. He sniffed his free hand and wrinkled his face in disgust. “Coop, that thing smells like your old girlfriend’s cooch.” Jeff started laughing, as if he’d just made the wittiest statement in all of history.