“Whoever the bloody carrier is now,” began Ransom, “it’s certainly worked its way up the social ladder, now hasn’t it?”
“What are ye talking about?” asked Farley.
Lightoller parroted the question.
Ransom pointed to the dead. “It starts with a lowly member of your black gang, a stoker… works its way up to an officer—an influential ship’s surgeon, no less.”
“Yeah, not just any officer—your medical officer,” said Declan. “Second only to your captain.”
“What’re you saying?” Lightoller shrugged.
Ransom threw up his hands. “No doubt this thing has learned about hierarchy in human society, so now it’s become interested in rising to the level of your captain—the man in charge!”
“We can’t let that happen!”
“We must open these bodies up,” Declan said, going to a stash of hanging utensils and huge carving knives. “Thomas, we’ll have to make do with what is at hand. They took my scalpel when they arrested us, and I’ve not seen it since. It would be useless for bone at any rate. We’ll have to do more than simply crack open the chests of each victim.”
“The egg-sacs ought to be enough to convince Captain Smith,” added Ransom. “And we need to get to him before the carrier gets at him.”
“If he hasn’t already done so; if Dr. O’Laughlin was it the entire time we met with them… who knows?”
“Or it’s our friend Murdoch out there!” The horrible pounding on the other side of the impenetrable door had become incessant.
“The door opens outward,” said Farley.
Ransom was the only other one among them who understood how important this fact was. “He’ll soon be removing the hinges, and once removed, he’ll be coming in—likely with guns pointed.”
“We must work fast then!” shouted Thomas. “Get these bodies onto the table and the sink. Help me out.”
Ransom, Thomas, and Declan did not hesitate, going for the bodies to lift them and place them onto the surfaces so as to work on them. Both Farley and Lightoller held back, aghast at the sight of the awful result of the disease that had made mummies of these men. The dog, too, held back, a low growl reminding Ransom that Varmint held no love for him.
“Lightoller, lend a hand!”
“I-I-I…”
“They’re not contagious!” shouted Ransom. “At least not in this state.”
“If they were,” added Declan, “the three of us wouldn’t be here!”
Declan and Thomas carried Davenport to the sink and placed his dehydrated corpse there. Ransom took hold of Burnes’ by the underarms while Lightoller grabbed the ankles and they moved the stoker’s body to the chopping block. Just as they made the block, one of Burnes’ feet came off in Lightoller’s hand, causing him to leap back, gasping as the foot skittered into a corner where Varmint grabbed it up in his mouth. Farley shouted for the dog to give it up, and he obeyed, dropping it into Declan’s gloved hand.
Here they were presented with room enough for the young doctors to work on O’Lauglin’s remains as well as Davenport and Burnes. Declan and Thomas next conveyed Dr. O’laughlin’s corpse to lie beside the two stokers.
“Death alone makes all men equal,” said Ransom to no one in particular. “Stoker, porter, doctor, Indian chief.”
“You got that right,” agreed Farley, still shaken. “Now Varmint and me, we want outta here, now!”
“No opening that door, Mr. Farley, until we deem it time.” Ransom stood in his way as Declan and Thomas began cutting open the corpses. Declan began with Davenport at the sink, running the water in an attempt to soften the tissue before making the Y incision. “At least,” he muttered, “we don’t have to concern ourselves with blood.”
Thomas didn’t wait; he opened up Burnes’ chest.
“Ohhh, God! God!” shouted Lightoller on seeing what Declan revealed to him at the sink; Declan had found a cooking utensil that clasped onto the thick skin flap and using it, he’d pulled back the flesh to expose the pulsating brown egg sacs in brackish fluid soup created from the human host. The eggs—or rather the creatures inside them— appeared healthy and anxious to come to fruition.
“Alien life… alien to all we know,” muttered Thomas.
“We suspect it a form of life that existed eons ago,” added Ransom, pacing, hearing people stomping by outside.
“It’d gone dormant in an animal unearthed in a mineshaft in Belfast—” said Declan as he continued to cut and fill Lightoller in—“where it got hold of some men and literally ‘walked’ onto Titanic.”
“So I’ve read. We have to contain these—these things.” Lightoller had gone as white as his uniform.
“Judging from the condition of the body and the egg sacs inside him, Dr. O’Laughlin’s body hasn’t been here long,” commented Declan. “We have to freeze the bloody eggs.
“That makes sense,” agreed Ransom, “but whatever we do here now, nothing of this creature can reach New York.”
The stoker’s body, too, was riddled with alien life—frozen when they’d begun, but the egg-sacs literally drew in heat from the men and the dog here, drew energy from the living, and it had begun pulsating as if anxious to split their membranous outer shell. The egg-sacs were translucent, and the fat, half worm, half-tadpole things inside could be seen in silhouette as oily black when the light hit them just so.
“I want to cut one of these damnable little demons open,” declared Declan.
“Alive? Too dangerous,” replied Thomas. “Here.” He stabbed into and through the membranous sac before him, killing the hatchling, but it sent up a hellacious screech. Ignoring the death screams, Thomas efficiently ripped the gelatinous, black creature the size of a man’s palm from its sac and splayed it open on the chopping block typically used to cut meat portions. His gloved hands turned oily black.
With Declan looking on, Thomas said, “Damn, look at this abomination.”
“There’s no… I mean nothing; makes no sense.”
“Since when has any of this made any damn sense?” shouted Thomas.
Alastair looked in over their shoulders, gasping. “Where’s its eyes?”
“Hasn’t any.”
“Where’s its mouth?”
“Got none.”
Declan added, “No digestive system either; feeds through some sort of weird osmosis, taking in nutrients through its epidermal layer of skin.”
“It can somehow suck blood from bone, too, remember?” asked Thomas.
Farley had snatched a sight of the things and so had Varmint who sent up an angry volley of barking. Both dog and owner now hugged the door, anxious to put as much distance between themselves and these awful smelling corpses and the strange life in the sacs as they could. Farley suddenly tore away Ransom’s wolf’s head cane and spun the door lock. Ransom pushed the man away, and he tumbled and fell atop Ransom’s cane.
Ransom tried to hold the spinning lock, struggling with Murdoch and the men with him the other side of the door to get inside; Lightoller rushed to Ransom’s side to help stem the tide, but it was too late as the door was thrust open and Murdoch, Wilde, and two pursers held guns on them all.
Declan had already cracked Dr. O’Laughlin’s chest, causing the others to hold back. The sight of the once so proud Dr. O’Laughlin, not merely dead, but his body like some sort of ugly planter of fertile ground for the alien life forms inside him made Murdoch lose his lunch. Officer Wilde’s reaction was much the same, and the others held back. Murdoch and Wilde shouted for the burly stokers to leave at once and say nothing to anyone.
All guns were lowered.
“Where is your captain?” asked Ransom. “He needs to see what is aboard his ship, and he needs to see it now.”
No one readily answered. Lightoller found a call box and rang for the bridge, and in a moment was pleading for Captain Smith to come down to the central freezer units here below the bow decks. “I tell you, sir, it is absolutely urgent, yes! Murdoch and Wilde are here with me, and yes, we’ve apprehended the escaped prisoners, but sir—you must come and have a look. There’s been an awful… terrible turn of events, sir. Come! Come post haste!”