“Who bloody knows,” cursed Thomas.
“It’s nothing we’ve ever seen before, but thankfully, whatever it is, the good news is its dying before our eyes.”
“Whatever it is… it doesn’t appear well adapted to oxygen and light, now does it?” asked Thomas. “Whether dying or not, we have to culture it… keep it alive, Declan.”
“What?” asked Ransom. “What’re you saying—keep it alive?” He watched Thomas who’d set about the lab in search of what he needed.
Declan held up a hand to Ransom. “Thomas is correct; to learn from this thing, to understand it, this is the only way, and besides, we can prove its existence to others far easier if it wiggles under the scope.”
“And the only way we can defeat it,” added Thomas. “It’s no use to us dead if we’re ever to find a cure.”
“We need to place it in a culture that will support its life, you see…”
“And at the same time keep our distance from it.” Declan went about the process of finding a culture that the organism might either flourish in or go dormant in yet maintain life.
“Where did this thing come from?” asked Ransom, pacing now, thinking what might happen if this organism were to spread. “Is it a form of the Black Plague?” “No… I don’t think so,” replied Declan, covering his mouth as he coughed to one side.
“I wish it were the bloody Black Plague,” muttered Thomas, who appeared more knowledgeable in disease organisms than Declan, who was obviously the better surgeon. “Black Plague, now there’s a condition we’ve had some experience with over the years, and we know it.”
“Aye, the enemy you know,” muttered Ransom.
“We know next to nothing of how this thing, whatever it is, is transmitted,” began Declan.
“And we know even less about what kind of defenses we can place up against it,” added Thomas. “With smallpox, the greatest scourge and killer of the ages, at least we know it when we see it. But this… no, we haven’t a clue what it is, nor how to treat it—much less how to defeat it!”
“All the same, it begins in the lab with brilliant young men like Thomas Coogan,” said Declan, dropping into a metal chair for a moment’s respite.
“And yourself, Declan,” Thomas, blushing red, returned the compliment.
“So how long before a cure is found?”
“How long indeed.” Declan laughed.
“Years quite possibly, if at all.”
Ransom didn’t care for the sound of that. “There’s still a fourth missing man out there, the agent, Tuttle.”
“That’s where you come in, Detective. You must locate Tuttle, whether dead or alive.” Thomas stood over the microscope again and studied the enemy, his eyes on the parasite under the light. “I’ve always wanted to say that—wanted, dead or alive like you Americans say.” Thomas abruptly changed his tone. “Look here, Declan, at these little beasties. There’re a few left, cannibalizing the others. We might try taking the stronger cells. See if we can save the little buggers.”
“Perhaps I should get on that search for our missing agent.” Ransom stepped toward the door, his stomach churning. “Do my part… find Tuttle, last seen aboard Titanic.”
“We’d much prefer Tuttle alive, but if so, he may prove a terrible danger to you, detective,” replied Declan, who’d returned his eyes to the scope.
“Do hold on, sir,” suggested Thomas, “and wait for what we find in Uncle Anton.”
“Why bother? You don’t need to open him up now!” countered Ransom, stepping closer. “I mean you’ve got your comparisons with the two miners. You have your aunt’s feelings to consider. You don’t need to cut on your relative.”
But it was as if the young interns, once underway with their scalpels, could not be deterred by any logic Ransom might raise.
“We could be missing the bigger picture here, Detective.” Thomas now stood over his uncle’s body with the scalpel in hand, Declan nodding beside him, encouraging him. The moment gave Ransom pause; it had him recalling two things of great precision: How Dr. Christian Fenger and Dr. Jane Tewes acted whenever given an opportunity to operate—to wield a scalpel. It would appear the scalpel spoke the same language to these young surgeons.
The scalpel sliced through Uncle Anton’s chest, and again the crackling sound beneath the blade rose to their ears. Seeping from the cut, rising bubbles and brackish fluid, but this time the fluid and bubbles proved somewhat clearer. It just about proved Declan’s theory of the sequence of how these men died. McAffey in the mine with that beast they had uncovered from the wall—which now lay within one of the freezers in the wall here, followed by O’Toole, escaping the mine, coming into contact then with Anton Fiore—each man passing the disease to the other. Or so it would appear.
Thomas worked faster over his uncle when something hard hit the floor, the noise turning everyone to it. At first it was assumed that Ransom had bullishly knocked over a lab dish or instrument, but then they saw the white bone near his feet. “Something out of the pile of clothes tossed on that shelf,” Ransom said, shrugging.
“It’s the other sabre-tooth… must’ve been in one of the pockets,” said Declan, going to it and lifting it. “I’m quite willing to bet it’s empty of pulp.”
“We’ve no time for teeth or games of chance now, Declan.” Thomas had kept working as if to stop at any point would end it for him. He’d determined to give no thought whatever that the final dissection was over his beloved uncle. He obviously had made up his mind to treat Fiore’s body as he might any shell rolled into the dissection theater here at the university complex at Mater Infirmorum.
Ransom thought how much a man Thomas had become this night. Meanwhile, Declan pocketed the tooth, saying, “Well it may come in handy later on when we have to explain ourselves, eh?”
After making the initial Y incision on his own uncle, then cracking the chest open, then watching the dank, dirty-brown liquid bubble up, Thomas had felt his entire body relax. He was thinking, ‘I love the work, despite everything’ when suddenly he stumbled back with a startled gasp. This caused Declan to drop a metal dish, creating a gunshot-like sound.
Ransom, certain he’d been fired on, had dropped to the floor as the noise reverberated about the operating theater. “What is it? What’s happened?”
“Membranous tissue… ah-ah where it doesn’t belong.” Thomas pointed his leather-gloved hand with scalpel at the open chest.
“Are those sacs?” asked Ransom, shaken. “Some sort of… eggs?”
“But miscarriages—all of them, deflated, ill-formed, and unfinished.” Thomas’s leather-gloved right hand and scalpel still pointed at his uncle’s splayed open body.
Declan cautiously made his way to the open cavity into which he now stared long and hard. “They’re not doing well these little fellows, but you’re correct, detective.”
“This is some strange sort of life form alien to us, and it’s trying to incubate here.” Thomas perspired and looked as if he might faint out. The damnable things’ve filled the chest and abdominal cavities.”
“Now we know where all the fluids in the host body have gone… into this effort at survival and growth.” The consummate scientist, Declan appeared positively glowing with the excitement of discovering a new life form.
“Each attempt within each human host appears to be coming closer to completing itself.” Declan looked at Ransom, adding, “Tuttle’s body is likely riddled with these… these things. We’ve got to find him, like I said, dead or alive, and maybe even quarantine that so-called unsinkable ship.”
“Sun’s up,” said Thomas who’d looked out the door leading to the small supply room they had entered through. “We’re running out of time. We need to get our story organized and records in order if we’re to convince the Dean and Dr. B.”