“Jon, are you all right?” Valentina’s words were sharp this time, demanding.
“Yes, damn it!” He gave up on the flashlight and tried to drag himself toward the dim patch of outside illumination at the far end of the bay. Cold sweat burned in his eyes, and his arms felt as if they were encased in solidifying concrete. His breath hissing through clenched teeth, he commanded his body to move. Only his body refused to obey.
And then it reached him through his muddled mind. He wasn’t all right. He was dead.
“Get away from the plane!” he shouted weakly, his lungs suddenly on fire.
“Jon, what is it? What’s happening?”
“The plane’s hot! I’ve been contaminated! There’s something else in here! It’s not anthrax! Abort the mission! Get away from here!”
“Jon, hold on! We’re suiting up. We’re coming for you!”
“No! The suits are no good! It penetrates! The antibiotics aren’t stopping it, either!”
“Jon, we can’t just leave you!” Beyond Val’s frantic words he could hear Smyslov’s demanding questions.
“Forget it!” He had to force each word with its own racking breath. “I’ve had it! I’m already dying! Don’t come in after me! That’s an order!”
It had been bound to happen sooner or later. He’d dodged the biological bullet with Hades, with Cassandra, and with Lazarus. He had to take the fall sooner or later. That bit of his disintegrating consciousness that was still the researcher, the scientist, pushed its way forward. There was a last service he could render to those who would follow him into this black pit to learn and fight this thing.
“Val, listen…listen! It’s respiratory. It hits through the respiratory system. My lungs and bronchial tubes are burning…No congestion or fluid buildup…no pulmonary paralysis…but I can’t get oxygen…accelerated pulse…vision graying out…strength…losing…Get away…That’s…order.”
There was nothing left to breathe and speak with. They were calling to him over the radio, something about the MOPP suit. He couldn’t hear over the staggering hammer of his heartbeat in his ears. Was this how it had been for Sophia at the end, drowning in her own blood? No. At least Sophia hadn’t been so alone. He made a final effort to drag himself toward the light, just so he wouldn’t die in this hideous place. Then the light was gone, and the dark took him fully.
An eternity passed, or maybe only a second.
Smith became aware of fragments…Movement…Touch…Voices…Pressure on his chest…Lips, soft, warm, living, pressed against his, with urgency but without passion.
Sensation returned within himself. The lift of his chest; air, cold, pure, pouring into his lungs like water from an iced pitcher. Life stirred with its bite, radiating outward. He could breathe. He could breathe! He lay there in the suddenly pleasant cool darkness, almost orgasmically relishing each inhalation.
A small ungloved hand brushed back his hair, and those lips pressed against his again. Gently this time, pleasantly lingering.
“I think respiration has been fully restored, Professor,” an amused, accented voice commented.
“Just making sure,” a second lighter voice replied.
Smith realized that his head was pillowed on a rolled sleeping bag. Opening his eyes, he found Valentina Metrace kneeling beside him, her parka hood thrown back and ice crystals glittering like stars in her black hair. She smiled down into his face and quirked one of her expressive eyebrows at him.
Smyslov was looking over her shoulder, grinning as well. Smith realized he was lying on the deck in the forward compartment of the bomber. He was vague for a moment on just what they all were doing there; then full memory came crashing back.
“Damn it, Val! What do you think you’re doing?”
Both brows lifted. “So I’m enjoying my work?”
“That’s not what I mean!” he exclaimed, struggling to sit up. “This plane is a hot zone! There’s a contaminant-”
“Easy, Jon, easy,” the historian replied, holding him down gently with her hands on his shoulders. “There is no contaminant. You’re fine, we’re fine, and the plane is fine.”
“This is true, Colonel,” Smyslov interjected wryly. “I told you before, barring two tons of weaponized anthrax, there is nothing the least bit dangerous aboard this aircraft.”
Smith sank back and found he was still in most of the MOPP suit. Beyond the glare of the electric lantern that filled the cockpit, he could see a lingering trace of daylight through the windscreen. He must have been unconscious for only a matter of a few minutes. “Then what the hell did happen to me?”
“You almost protected yourself to death.” Smyslov held up the hood of the MOPP suit. “It’s cold in here. The moisture in your breath condensed and froze in the filters of your breathing mask. It gradually cut off your air.”
Valentina nodded. “Something similar happened in Israel during the first Gulf War. During the SCUD bombardment, when it was feared that Saddam might be using nerve gas, a number of Israeli citizens suffocated because they forgot to remove the filter caps on their gas masks. You were rebreathing your own carbon dioxide. Only with you the effect must have come on so gradually that you didn’t notice the buildup.”
Smith looked back over his clearing memories. “Yes. When I started to have breathing problems I first thought I was just having a bad attack of claustrophobia. Then I thought…”
“We know what you thought,” Valentina said softly. “You started to report the symptomology of your own death. But when you began to give us a very good clinical description of a man dying of suffocation, we realized what was going on. We tried to tell you to take off your mask, but you were too far gone to understand.”
She nodded toward the glassed-in nose of the bomber. “We came in through the cockpit window, and Gregori dove into the bomb bay and hauled you out. A little mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and here you are.”
Smith grimaced. “Pardon me while I feel incredibly stupid.”
“I shouldn’t, Jon,” Valentina replied soberly. “I can’t imagine what it must have been like, climbing into that chamber of horrors. Just looking through that hatch was enough to make my skin crawl.” The historian shook her head in profound distaste. “I love fine weapons, but that…thing…isn’t a weapon; it’s a nightmare.”
“I’m not going to argue the point.” Smith smiled up at her. “I suppose I should be making a stink over you and the major for disobeying my direct orders, but I can’t seem to work up much enthusiasm for it. Thank you, Val.”
He extended a hand past her to Smyslov. “And thank you, Major.”
The Russian gripped it firmly. “It is the duty of a good subordinate to point out factors in a situation possibly overlooked by his superior,” he quoted, still grinning.
Smith tried to sit up again, this time succeeding with only a hint of dizziness. His strength seemed to be returning rapidly. “Well, we’ve got some good news and bad news. The bad news is that we still have the anthrax to deal with. The good news is that the containment vessel seems to be intact and undamaged. Just in case, we’ll stay on the antibiotics, but I don’t think we have any spore spillage to contend with. Val, how did-”
She stood up abruptly, giving Smith a sharp but seemingly accidental bump as she got to her feet. “Thank God for that at least,” she chattered on. “Do you think it’s safe to fort up in the fuselage for tonight? It sounds like the weather is kicking up a bit outside.”
“Yes…I think that might be a good idea,” Smith replied. “I suspect it will feel a little odd camping on top of a mound of anthrax, but I think it should be safe enough. What do you say, Major?”
Smyslov shrugged. “I think it will still be bloody cold in here, but I think it will also be better than a tent out on that stinking glacier. I think we’d do better in the aft compartment though.”