‘Watch out for any signs,’ the professor had suggested.
‘Like what?’
‘Signs of radiation sickness. Nausea, diarrhoea, bleeding gums. Sores around the nose and mouth. Hair loss. Lassitude. Blisters.’
John had closed his eyes. As a first officer he had been trained to treat most shipboard illnesses, any number of which could show some or all of these symptoms, from toothache via scurvy and food poisoning to terminal malingering. Not to mention the self-inflicted varieties which arose out of sniffing, smoking or injecting illegal substances or over-indulging in any of the more legal ones. ‘Professor,’ he had said, hearing his voice taking on the overtones of one addressing a clinical idiot, ‘have you any idea of the number of things which might generate those symptoms?’
The professor’s tone had remained surprisingly understanding. ‘Yes. But I’m afraid I can’t give you any further guidance. If I were you I would send some men onto the iceberg with Geiger counters and see whether you can locate the source of the radiation. But I have no idea what the thing Sergeant Dundas swallowed was, or where it could have come from. I don’t know whether you would be looking for lots of little bits of black glass or one enormous piece. God, I hope it’s not in one big piece. But no, it can’t be; you’d all be as badly off as the sergeant if there was one big bit of it.’
‘That would depend on the size of the bit, I suppose,’ John had snapped.
‘Yes. And where it was located. I understand the actual iceberg is more than a hundred kilometres long.’
‘It was when we set sail. It may be smaller now. But yes, it is still extremely large. More than a billion cubic metres volume, as far as we can calculate. Only ten per cent of it above water.’
‘Well, you’d better search as much of it as you can as soon as possible.’
‘Any ideas what I should tell my men? “We’re just going to check this iceberg we’re all tethered to with unbreakable ropes because we think it may be radioactive?” ‘ He paused and then asked, ‘Are you familiar with the term mutiny, Professor?’
Jones had given a dry laugh. ‘I recognise that you have a problem of communication, Captain. I’m just trying to establish clearly that that is not the only problem you have. I can offer a little advice, however. One of the bodies you sent to us, that of the woman with blonde hair, was Russian. At least, she had Russian dental work, of a type routinely performed in Moscow during the early 1980s, I understand, though I don’t know how one can tell. You might like to use that as an excuse for a more detailed examination of your … ah… cargo.’
‘I’ll take it under advisement. Thank you, Professor. Would you please give me a number where I can contact you if we have any more news from this end … Thank you. Good night.’
In fact he had not taken it under advisement at all. He had told no one of the professor’s news, preferring to brood darkly all night, sleepless, increasingly perplexed and worried, missing Asha bitterly and wishing to God he could at least talk to Richard Mariner.
This last wish had been more than compounded by the fact that his last act before retiring had been to contact Robin, Richard’s wife, and tell her of his condition. It was a chore he had been dreading and one which, frankly, he had been hoping to delegate to Asha, who was one of Robin’s closest friends. But in the end he had seen all too clearly that it was just one more of his duties as acting commander. He would have done the same for the merest stranger; how could he do less for his closest friend? But it had been hard. He had got her out of bed and in the background he could hear that he had also disturbed the twins who howled dismally. He could see Robin quite clearly in his mind’s eye and could interpret every dull tone of devastated shock into a facial expression. When she took the walkabout phone downstairs to get away from the noise her children were making, he could imagine all too clearly the rooms through which she was moving, alone in the dark. He had visited Ashenden often enough to see in his mind’s eye the route she would be following through the great, chilly, cavernous, empty old house. He knew from the whispers of background sound just before they broke connection that she had ended up standing by the French windows looking out over the lawns to the tall white cliffs overlooking the busy Channel; the wife of a seafaring man going through every sea wife’s worst nightmare.
In the dark of his own cabin afterwards it had taken more time than he would have wished to clear that poignant image from his mind and return it to consideration of Professor Jones’s far more pressing information. What was he to look for among the crew? Lassitude. Incontinence. Bleeding gums. Radiation sickness.
He was still deep in these thoughts when the phone beside his bed shrilled and the measured tones of Peter Walcott, each precise syllable telling of the exercise of the most iron self-control, informed him that one of Psyche’s crew seemed to have contracted a strange, disfiguring skin disease.
‘What does it look like?’
‘Like nothing I’ve ever seen, John. His skin seems to be coming off in great blisters.’
Blisters, thought John. Oh God. Professor Jones had warned him about blisters.
‘All over his body?’
‘No. Just on his hands and face.’
‘Isolate him. Check the rest of the crew for similar symptoms.’
‘Done and being done. It’s the ice, isn’t it? There’s something wrong with Manhattan.’
‘Are you alone?’
‘Yes.’
‘Thank God. You can’t voice speculation like that in front of your crew, man!’ He took a deep breath, aware that his shock had made him step over the mark with the UN captain. He moderated his tone. ‘No, we don’t know if it’s anything to do with Manhattan. But I’ll send Dr Higgins over at once.’
‘Isn’t she looking after Captain Mariner?’
‘Yes. But this sounds more important.’
‘Yes, I agree — for the time being at any rate.’
‘What is the atmosphere on Psyche like?’
‘She’s called Psycho quite openly by her crew now. That should tell you.’
‘But you and your officers are well in control?’
‘Yes,’ snapped Peter.
‘Good. I’ll get the doctor across to your man as soon as possible, then. After she reports back to me with probable cause and recommended treatment, we’ll get everyone to work on sorting this mess out.’
‘Right. I’ll keep in touch.’
‘OK. But I’ll be moving out of Niobe across to Titan for the morning at least. Leaving at once, in fact.’
‘Weather permitting,’ observed Peter, but John had hung up before the phrase was completed. The weather was the least of his problems, he thought.