“I really don’t know, Norman, I’m not quite sure, I need more time for tests. He might have had some biochemical peculiarity or has been vaccinated in a different way in Russia. I have no idea. But your wounds too were not only infected instantly, they healed instantly. Their saliva resembles that of the Varan de Komodo, which, beside having exocrine venomous glands, collects huge remains of its meat food between the teeth. The meat gets spoilt and the mouth of the huge lizard is full of lethal microorganisms. The victim dies of sepsis only hours after having been bitten. I just remembered that while I was analyzing the results. Obviously, those cells here have some kind of mechanism for enhancing metabolism as a whole, some special enzyme or other… I really don’t know yet.”
“Calm down, March, you’ve done a great job till now. When we get home, these data of yours will serve as a basis for future research, I am sure.”
“If we go back home, Norman… I’m scared.”
“Don’t worry, clever girl” he said composedly and put his hand on her slender shoulder. “I want you to collect yourself and tell me if there is anything to which their bodies are vulnerable.”
“Yes, I think I have something in mind. I thought of it, while I was watching the dishes.”
“How, March?”
“Well, I thought that in nature the velocities are not by chance and all processes are in balance. Something that develops and kills so fast, can correspondingly be destroyed as quickly and easily.”
She leaned over the table and lifted before his eyes a glass retort. filled with translucent liquid.
The noise had become unbearable.
What was just a vexing buzzing and squeezing in the temples, was now hitting them on the heads like a sledgehammer, while their ears stopped being able to absorb any kind of sounds at all.
Meanwhile the lights from the walls and ceiling were almost dimmed by the bluish heavy haze, smoldering over the metal floor. Only their eyes had not deserted them yet, glued to the lit screens of the control board.
Hans felt his body as if it were leaden. He could not turn his head to Ivanov and look at him, although just inches separated them. His brain felt soft as dough, he felt as if thousands of heated hooks were stuck in his head.
The Cube stood in its previous place over the corals and shone with the active bright blue light that they saw around it, when it was first discovered.
The diaphragm had contracted to a small dot, surrounded by a flaming circle of twinkling light.
The portal in time was opening.
Ivanov could barely separate his hand from his body and pulled the big handle of the control board. The figures on the blue screen started a countdown:
10, 9, 8, 7, 6…
The Cube started vibrating vigorously, and the loop was losing its outlines. Then it lifted from the floor, seeming lighter than air.
…5, 4, 3…
A beam of white light went from the Eye towards the Cube. Its sparkling edges as if melted in the space around it.
…2.
Blast!
The whole ship shook, the helpless bodies of both men flied upwards in the air and hit like straws the massive screen. The board below them crashed in thousands of metal pieces that flew in different directions, bombarding the place. The cannonade of molten metal threw them on the ground where they fell on a thick layer of glass splinters.
“Ivanov, what’s going on? Is this coming from the Core?”
“No, it’s coming from outside!”
At this moment two of the doubles dashed against them. They had not noticed when and where they had entered from.
The huge mass of Simpson’s double, one of the sergeants, pressed the Professor to the floor. His arms, strong as a vise, clutched his neck. He was throttling him with ease, as if the Professor’s throat was made of rubber. Hans felt his plump body squashed over the sharp and cutting glass and metal shards by the terrible weight of the creature, sprawled on his chest. His back was all covered in blood, mixed with sweat. The pain from the torn muscles pierced him as a drill. His head was about to burst. His eyes were blind in a dim and salty blackness, water was retreating and darkness was enveloping him.
Hans was losing consciousness and blue haze rose before his vision. He started drifting and his body stopped fighting, his arms ceased their helpless waiving and dropped lifeless on the ground.
The creature understood he had won and raised his head to check if the other one had finished too.
Suddenly a small lithe body with energetic movements threw against it. The short arms blocked the creature and did not allow any movement for defense. Babyface stuck an insulin jet in its neck and the double instantly loosened its hold of Hans’s throat. It fell on him like a breathless stone statue.
Hans was also lying stiff.
In the opposite end of the place the struggle was far more equal. Ivanov and his strong arms were a good match for Hans’s double. In the creature’s agile movements there was not a trace of the real professor’s phlegmatic and dull manner.
Both bodies had grasped in mortal combat. The fat double managed to stick his teeth in the flesh of the Russian’s neck. Ivanov did not utter a sound but a fountain of bright red blood gushed from his old wound and almost reached the ceiling.
The corpse of the Colonel smashed into the control board, activating the blinking buttons.
The beast let him go and slowly turned his head to Babyface. His nostrils were sniffing hungrily. His predatory scarlet eyes were glued to the Lieutenant’s body.
The double approached from one side, ducked a little back and then dashed forward like a spring towards the Lieutenant.
The small man remained cool and tried to evade the attack to the left, but the creature was there already, grabbing his leg. The Lieutenant knew he had only one last chance left, put his hand in his pocket and took out the second syringe. He stuck it in Hans’s double’s thick thigh and the thing instantly fell on the floor in a heap.
Ivanov’s dead body slipped down from the control board and the buttons went off for a second.
Then the screen lit again and the electromotors of the aperture switched on. This time the Eye was wide open and white concentrated light started pouring from it, engulfing the entire interior of the submarine.
It was so strong that it seemed to penetrate the thick steel corps.
Hans opened his eyes.
I’m still alive.
He took a deep breath and the light began returning to his
pupils. For a second the shadows around him froze immovable. He thought he could stay like that for a few minutes. It was like in the morning, when you awfully want to sleep and after the alarm sounds, you turn to the other side to steal a few sweet moments from the time of creation.
He felt the whole submarine shaking, while the ceiling lost its contours in the bluish shining. In the sweaty blinking fog before his eyes the thought flashed that they are going back in time. “Outside!” Hans’s face was all bloody. “Go outside now!”
Babyface had kneeled by the lifeless body of the Colonel. He jumped. He just needed an instant to get in touch with what was happening. He grabbed the plump man and dragged him towards the opening.
They barely managed to jump in the sand outside. The metal monster next to them started rising over the earth as a gin in an Arab fairy tale. The whole submarine was enveloped in a bluish-green cloud of trembling aerial lava that was going upward.
Their brains were heated to a boiling point. Hans looked at his hands: his fingers were at least twenty, his palms were burning in strong vibrations. His head was pulsating like it was hit by a lightning. His feet were stoned, buried in the sand.