They each took a deep breath and held their silence for a time. She finally said, “I am sorry about Alandale—the real man, that is. But what is worse than allowing that thing to take out individuals, David? Imagine what might—no, what will happen— should it return to free its disease-spreading, awful progeny upon the masses.”
“Egg-sacs… Jesus help us. How many eggs are we talking about here?”
“Hundreds, maybe thousands. I don’t know for certain.”
“Each… each of which has the potential to infiltrate a human host?”
“No one aboard Scorpio will survive, and once Scorpio returns to Woods Hole and land there’ll be no stopping this thing. It will explode exponentially.”
“Presumably each would find a host…”
“Lay its own eggs.”
David quaked inwardly with the image. “This is all so freaking Stephen King.”
“No David, King deals in fantasy; try Crichton. There’s science in this, not supernatural but natural. This thing lived on Earth long before mankind arrived. You’ve got to believe me… and you have to read on in the journal.”
“I intend to… seeing Alandale like that… like Fiore’s body… like McAffey and O’Toole.”
“God, I have lived with this bottled up inside me, and all alone for so long.” A tear formed in her eye, but she quickly wiped it away, turning her face from him. “You must read on,” she insisted. “It’s so important that you understand the entire picture, David.”
“You’ve read all our files, haven’t you?” he asked.
“And I picked you because you went back for Terry Wilcox. Risked your life for a friend. I want you as my friend, David.”
“But you know Forbes; you’ve known him for years,” countered David. “How can you suspect him of such horrors as this? Of killing his colleague and friend, Alandale?”
“This thing has no friends or colleagues. Yes, I knew Forbes years ago, but even then he was aloof. Cold even, a real loner. He could be the carrier. I couldn’t confide in him. What if—”
“He has been stand-offish, true.” David replayed moments in his head. “But… but there could be many reasons for that.”
“I don’t want to sound like a TV psychiatrist, but David, how much do we really know about anyone?”
“You could say the same of me, and I might say the same of you, Kelly.”
“Whatever do you mean?” she asked, shocked.
“First time you came aboard… you fawned over Alandale, remember, and me beside him—not a word to me.”
“But I knew precisely who you were; I thought—”
“You managed to make me feel like a member of the crew. A high school dropout, you know?”
“Yes well but… I know men. I knew you would pursue me only if I seemed unobtainable.”
“Did you now?”
They had come out into the bright afternoon sun and stood on deck. He turned to her and said, “At some point, you have to trust someone.”
“I have—you!”
“At some point then we have to trust a third party.”
“But with Forbes, like I said, I have always felt a certain coldness. A heavy emotionless feeling coming from him, and given his OCT—”
“OC-what?”
“Obsessive Compulsion for all things Titanic, David. It has been absolute. It runs the man’s life to the point I’ve always suspected him.”
“That describes millions—do you recall James Cameron’s box office take for Titanic?”
“Regardless, he’s made a career of it. Hence why I’ve remained so close to him.”
“Yet you gained his support, and he’s never taken your body over. He doesn’t suspect you of being—of stalking him like some vampire hunter?”
“He has been in a unique position to be here, and frankly, I believe this thing—this creature—has gotten so good at using its host’s body, David, that it can slip in and out without completely destroying a host.”
“Hold on. Are you saying that it only temporarily inhabits one body, uses it up but once sated that it can control itself in a second body? Hide in plain sight?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“It’s become more sophisticated in utilizing its host with each incubation?”
“Body and soul, yes. It somehow gets such a grasp on the host’s mind that it leaves a person in a kind of neutral, if you will, goes out, feeds on another host, and returns then to its carrier host.”
“Forbes does seem at times in a daze,” David said, running a hand through his thick blond hair. “Almost… almost robotic.”
She met his eyes. “It may be that it or he suspects me… Forbes that is—OK, not Forbes—but the thing controlling him.”
“Is Forbes then in some sort of collusion with it?”
“It’s quite possible, yes, that it’s convinced him of the importance of the find—to discover a new species of life below… on board Titanic.”
“In which case…”
“In which case, it can put Forbes into some sort of post hypnotic suggestion state while it takes over another body temporarily not only to feed but to dive into Titanic, to reclaim its young.”
“And you suspect all this without proof?”
“I know how insane it all must sound, but David, I do… I suspect Forbes has been turned to its uses—has become the carrier, and rather than risk losing his insights and his prestige aboard, this creature, will not feed on him but rather manipulate his mind, his thinking—and when it needs to be more mobile say to feed in such a way as to not destroy its host, it reaches out to others.”
“And while it is feeding? What the hell is Forbes doing?”
“I don’t know; placed in a catatonic state, perhaps… placed in sleep mode like a computer or like I said, hypnotized.”
“Supposing even some of this is true, and the captain is aware of your suspicions. Or rather this… this creature is aware. That places you in danger.”
“And by extension, you too, David. I fear both what Forbes has become, a victim and an unwilling accomplice, and that it may suspect me of knowing whose body it’s currently occupying.”
“Forbes is it, you mean. I see… I think. So essentially you’ve made me a target like yourself.”
“Everyone aboard Scorpio is a target, David—all of us. No one’s immune to this parasite.”
“I’m beginning to feel like a pawn in a chess game.”
She squeezed his hand. “I’ve always wondered about his motives—his underlying motives. He’s in a perfect position to order us divers via Swigart to bring up whatever we find on Titanic that he sees on the remote screen—whatever he wants. And he is in the perfect position to order it while keeping a safe distance to protect the host body, you see.”
“Do you trust anyone aboard?”
“You, David, just you.” She looked deeply into his azure eyes and placed a hand on his broad chest.
He broke eye contact and pulled away. “Why? Why me? God, I wish I’d never signed on to this cursed ship now. I’m no hero.”
She pursued him. “You’re right; Scorpio is cursed in the same manner as Titanic unless we learn how to somehow stop this thing.”
“I must live right! First the Sea of Japan, and now this.”
“I read once of a fellow who survived the Titanic and two other sinking ships. It’s maybe the luck of the Irish… and maybe why I trust you as I do; trust your judgment, your instinct for survival.”
“All the same, Kelly, we can’t let them turn this ship around to search for a man not in the water. We have to confide in Swigart about Alandale.”