“Still with us, for now,” Anna said. “Do you need me?”

  “No, best stay with them, make sure they’re contained. We’ll do the legwork.”

  He signed off the call and headed for the Drill Dome. Rohit had had the right idea in that department; a blowtorch was what was needed here now… but by the looks of things he needed a damned big one.

  b

  He found what he was looking for in the equipment rack, a heavy-duty blowtorch that was worn like a knapsack and operated via a one handed pistol grip. It was normally used to clean crud off submersible hulls at low settings, but Jorge knew that when turned up high it could incinerate just about anything in its path. Between that and the overhead flash-fire system he was confident that they’d be able to take care of the Opas.

  If only we can find them first.

  He strapped on the blowtorch unit and headed back towards the living quarters and the water tank.

  CHAPTER 11

  "What do we do if we find them?” N’tini asked.

  They walked, hand in hand, through the small mess, making for the large larder that was built into the outer shell of the dome.

  “We get the A.I. to fry them,” Davide replied.

  “And if they’re in the food supply, and we fry all of that, what then?” N’tini asked.

  “We’ll have to deal with that when the time comes.”

  They approached the larder door.

  “Dim the lights,” Davide said.

  The overheads went dim, throwing the door area into shadow. There was no sign of aurora.

  “We’re in big trouble now, you know that, right?” N’tini said.

  “I knew as soon as I saw them scuttle across the floor on the holo,” Davide replied. “They’re adapting fast.”

  “We’ve given them a new playground,” N’tini replied. “And I think they’re planning to expand to fill it.”

  “We’ll get them,” Davide said, trying to hide the increasing worry and doubt that was creeping in. He gripped her hand tighter and reached for the larder door with his other hand.

  The door swung open to reveal only the expected stores of dried goods sitting in their containers waiting to be reconstituted. There was no sign that anything had been tampered with. They moved some boxes around, checking beyond them and into corners, but found nothing untoward.

  “Well, at least the coffee’s safe,” Davide said. “Although I don’t know if that’s a blessing or a curse. Everything’s good in here.”

  “What about the freezer?” N’tini asked.

  “Too cold.”

  “For us, maybe, but not for them.”

  “I see your point.”

  They stepped across to the large refrigerator. N’tini’s hand gripped his tight. He felt the same tension in her that he felt in himself.

  This is lunacy. We don’t have a weapon.

  Despite his misgivings he swung open the heavy door.

  A wash of blue-green aurora hung over everything, and small green, insect-like things, at least twenty of them, ran over and around all the contents of the eight-foot cube that held their refrigerated food stores. Two of the insects. sensing an opening, immediately started to scuttle towards them. Davide slammed the door shut, squishing them against the inside frame.

  He addressed the A.I.

  “Can you flash-fry the inside of the freezer, but just the inside of the freezer?”

  “Yes, but you will lose a great deal of your supplies.”

  “We’ll have to cope. Do it.”

  They heard a distant whooshing sound. David stepped forward and put a hand on the door, and had to draw it away again; the heat was intensifying rapidly inside. Thin smoke crept through the door’s seals. They heard another whoosh, water this time. He had to shield his hand with the sleeve of his shirt to pull the hot handle.

  The door swung open and a wash of hot steam hissed out. There was no aurora, but their cold stores had been reduced to no more than a large soggy pile of smoldering ash.

  “At least we got them,” Davide said.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure,” N’tini replied.

  She pointed to the rear of the unit, high up at the air vent in the wall where it met the ceiling. It had a coating of green slime, and a faint rainbow aura still hung around it.

  CHAPTER 12

  Rohit sat on the floor, afraid to drag his gaze away from Mark.

  He heard the A.I. speak.

  “Anna, Davide has requested that we flash fry the cold storage unit.”

  “Is it contaminated?”

  “Infested might be a better word for it.”

  “Then do it. Do it right now.”

  He was still looking at Mark when the A.I. set the flash-fry action going. Mark reacted as if he was the one being torched. His body went into spasm, his legs and arms drumming on the bed, his head twisting wildly from side to side. Flecks of green spittle sprayed from his mouth and the aurora around him turned an angry red, swirling and swooping like a matador’s cloak.

  Rohit stood and turned to Anna.

  “Help him!”

  The A.I. replied. “We cannot risk any more drugs; his system is overloaded already. And the UV is at maximum safe intensity.”

  “Then make it unsafe. Get that crap out of him!” Rohit shouted.

  Anna replied, her voice soft and measured.

  “We’ve done all we can, big man.”

  “It isn’t enough!”

  He turned away from the door and stepped towards the bed, meaning to try to hold Mark down, at least keep him still. He stepped back with a wail of despair when an inch-long green creature slid from between Mark’s lips. It sat on Mark’s chin, waving small tentacles in the air, as if tasting it. Another of the things was already pushing its way over Mark’s tongue.

  Rohit turned to Anna.

  “Now will you get me out of here?”

  She shook her head, but didn’t lower her gaze, looking him directly in the eye.

  “You know I can’t do that.”

  He bent and picked up the wrench. He held it in one hand and the blowtorch in the other. He switched on the torch.

  “I could get out, any time I wanted,” he said.

  “But you won’t. You’d be killing us all.”

  He noticed the blue-green aurora was back at full strength, swirling around him like smoke in a wind.

  “Damn you,” he said. “Damn you to hell,” and turned back to the bed.

  Half a dozen of the green things clambered down off Mark’s face and another pushed from between his lips. Rohit waited until they were clear of Mark’s body and down on the sheet before washing the flame over them. They burned with the same blue flame he’d seen before, sending up an acrid odor that stung at the back of his throat.

  He was patting out the flames from the sheet when Mark spasmed again, sat bolt upright…and coughed a wave of the insect things all down his chest. They immediately started to scurry in all directions, too fast for Rohit to stop them.

  The A.I. spoke.

  “We should contain this, boss, before it goes any further.”

  Rohit backed away until he was brought up against the door. The things were still pouring out of Mark’s mouth in a wave; there were hundreds of them, and as they came Mark’s body seemed to sag in on itself, as if he was being emptied out from the inside out.

  “Close your eyes, Rohit,” the A.I. said.

  “Why?”

  “Just do it,” Anna replied, “and quickly.”

  He did what he was told, although it didn’t help much. The A.I. set the lights in the room flashing in a bewildering, high intensity, stroboscopic dance that flashed, almost painfully so, even through his eyelids.

  “Is it working?”

  In answer he heard a moan from the bed. By instinct he opened his eyes. He could barely make it out through the flashing lights, but Mark looked to be trying to get up, even while the green slime poured down his chest. The man looked thin, to the point of emaciation, his ribs and cheekbones so sharp they looked like they were about to burst through the skin. The aurora was retreating, now little more than a bare inch all around Mark’s body. The infected man coughed again, and Rohit was dismayed to see a wash of blood mixed in with the green that came out of both his mouth and nose.

  “Stop it, you’re killing him,” he shouted.

  Neither the A.I. nor Anna took any heed of him.

  “Do it,” Anna said.

  “No!” Rohit shouted. He would have stepped forward towards the bed again, but just then the door behind him opened and he tumbled out backwards, looking round and up into Jodge’s concerned face.

  “Get that damned door shut,” Anna shouted.

  Green slime was now coming out of Mark’s ears, eyes, mouth and nose, a seemingly never-ending flood of it, and all of it with red streaks running through it.

  Jodge unceremoniously shoved Rohit aside and moved to close the door.

  “No!” Rohit shouted, and threw himself forward, only to be stopped by Anna putting him in an armlock.

  “There’s nothing you can do,” she said quietly in his ear. She turned him so he was facing the window, just in time to see the fire pour down from the ceiling, a wash of white flame that engulfed Mark and the slime. It didn’t distinguish between them, consigning the whole room to a fiery hell, some of which burned blue.

  Anna let it burn for what seemed like an eternity before speaking.

  “That’s enough,” she said. “Hose it down.”

  The sprinkler system kicked in.

  There was nothing left in the room but wet ash.

  CHAPTER 13

  "The good news is the water system’s not contaminated,” Jodge said.

  They had got a pot of coffee brewing and were seated around a table in the mess. Rohit was slumped forward, head in his hands, and they were all trying their best to avoid noticing his tears.

  “The bad news is the cold stores are all gone,” Davide added.

  “And the worst news is we all need to go through decontamination again,” Anna said. “But I want to root these boogers out and be done with them before that.”

  She addressed the A.I.

  “Any idea where, and how many, we haven’t got yet?”

  “They’re in the air vents,” the A.I. replied. “Some escaped the cold storage area that way. Unfortunately I have no sensors in the vent system.”

  “So they could be anywhere,” Jodge said.

  “And they could be multiplying,” N’tini added. “We’ve seen how quickly they can do that.”

  “So we’re screwed?” Jodge said.

  “Not necessarily,” Anna replied. “The A.I. can produce that light show if needed in all the areas we use. That should keep them away from us, for a while at least. It should give us time to track them then incinerate them.”

  “As I might have said before,” Jodge said. “That word is doing some heavy lifting there.”

  “Have you told Topside about our situation?” N’tini asked.

  “Not yet, and not until I have to,” Anna replied. “It’s still my mission, still my command. Besides, it would only scare them.”

  “Yeah, and we wouldn’t want anyone to be scared, would we?” Davide said with a thin grin.

  “So what’s to be done?” Jodge asked. “The ducts are too small for us to crawl through, and we can’t flash burn our own air supply.”

  “All we can do is hunt them down as best as we can,” Anna replied.

  “We could try luring them,” N’tini said. “They need food and water. We could give them some, set a trap.”

  “Good thinking,” Anna said. “But we don’t do anything that might compromise our food stores; we’re running low as it is.”

  “We could try the cold storage room,” Jodge said.

  “They might not go for that,” Davide replied. “Having been burned out of there once, they might be loath to venture in again.”

  “You think they’re that smart?”

  “You think they’re not?”

  “Whether they are or not, we’re not going to underestimate them,” Anna said. She turned to N’tini. “You’re the biologist, and it’s your idea. What do you need?”

  “Food, water, and a quiet, dark place to leave them…a place where the A.I. can flash burn them without causing us problems.”

  “I have the ideal spot,” the A.I. said. “But you’re not going to like it.”

  “Where would that be?” Anna asked.

  “Rohit and Mark’s room,” the A.I. replied, and Rohit looked up for the first time since he’d sat down.

  “No,” was all he said.

  “Hear me out,” the A.I. went on. “It’s where the infection first got started, and the Opas weren’t bothered by anything or anyone while they were there. If they do have any intelligence, it may be somewhere they find comfortable.”

  “Besides,” Anna said, “I was going to have it flashed anyway; we don’t know if anything lingers in there, if anything has been contaminated.”

  “No,” Rohit said again. “The stuff I have in there is all that’s left of him.”

  “This isn’t a request, Rohit,” Anna said. “It needs to be done.”

  “No,” Rohit said again, and before anyone could stop him he left the mess at a run.

  Jodge made to follow.

  “No, leave him be,” Anna said softly. “He’s been through enough for today. We’ll get to him later. First priority is tracking down the escapees from the cold store.”

  She addressed the A.I.

  “Anywhere else we could try?”

  “You’re not going to like this either,” the A.I. replied. “There’s always the submersible. It makes a very passable trap. We could get the Opas in there, close down the hatch, and send it back below, flash burning the inside once it’s in the deep.”

  “And lose our means of further surveys of the ocean, with the survey team still two weeks out from Topside? Not acceptable,” Anna said. “I want this done with as little impact on the ongoing mission as possible.”

  “That makes things trickier,” Davide replied. “The mission’s pretty much screwed already…”

  “I say when it’s screwed,” Anna butted in. “There’s nothing that has happened yet that we can’t recover from.”

  “Tell that to Mark,” N’tini said quietly.

  Anna’s eyes flashed angrily.

  “That needed to be done. We all know it, and the sooner we all accept it, the better it’ll be going forward.”

  Nobody argued with her, but Jodge saw the look on the biologists’ faces.

  They’re worried. Maybe I should be, too.

  N’tini spoke up.

  “If we can’t use Rohit and Mark’s room, maybe we can use one of the other bedrooms. It’s not as if we haven’t got spares.”

  “Yes, we have,” Anna said, thought for a few seconds then replied. “Okay, let’s do it. You and Davide get the food and water. Jodge and I will meet you through there in five.”

  Jodge knew what was coming. Anna took him out into the corridor leading to the Drill Dome, but it wasn’t to look at the view. She spoke in a low voice so they wouldn’t be overheard.

  “You disobeyed me,” she said. “You ignored a direct order.”

  “I saved Rohit’s life,” Jodge replied. “What was I supposed to do, let him burn?”

  “That’s exactly what you were supposed to do. Anything else and you’re endangering the rest of us. You knew the protocol. You just chose to ignore it.”

  “I couldn’t stand there and watch him burn. I’m just not built that way,” Jodge replied.

  “Then maybe you shouldn’t be here at all,” she said.

  He reached out, intending to stroke her arm. She pulled it away, and he finally realized how angry she was as her eyes flashed.

  “Come on, Anna,” he said.

  “Come on and what? Ignore my training? Roll over and let you walk all over me again? Stow it. The puppy dog eyes no longer work. Find yourself another room,” she said. “Once this is done I don’t want you near me.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “If you think so, you don’t know me at all,” she replied, and turned away without another word.

  CHAPTER 14

  Rohit had locked himself in his room, Anna was stomping around with a face like thunder, and Jodge had taken himself away somewhere out of her way, leaving Davide and N’tini to be the ones to set the trap for the Opas. They collected some chocolate from the stores.

  “They’re not mice,” N’tini said.

  “But we know they like sugar,” Davide replied, “and short of pouring syrup on the floor, this is what we’ve got.”

  N’tini had a shallow lipped bowl of water in her hands. They took that and the chocolate to one of the empty bedrooms and laid it all down on the floor.

  “Dim the lights, all sensors running.” Davide said, and the A.I. responded immediately. The room went dark. Davide was glad to see that there was no sign of any aurora. He took N’tini’s hand and they backed out the door, closing it behind them.

  “Now we wait,” he said. They returned to the lab. The cleaner bots had done what they could to remove the debris from the burned-out wreck of the spectrometer and the two autoclaves that had been damaged in the Opa’s escape, but that side of the lab was little more than a black ruin. Fortunately the holovid had survived the carnage. Davide called up the view in the bedroom. The pan of water and the chocolate were clearly visible on the floor.

  “All quiet so far,” the A.I. said.

  Anna arrived carrying three cups of coffee and handed them out.

  “Where’s Jodge?” N’tini asked.

  “In the Drill Dome. He can rot there for all I care.”

  “Lover’s tiff?” Davide said with a smile that disappeared as soon as she turned her gaze on him.

  “Insubordination,” she said crisply. “Let’s see it doesn’t spread, shall we?”

  “About that,” Ntini said. “Davide and I have been talking. We think we should consider evacuation and head back Topside.”

  “Forget it, it’s not going to happen,” Anna said. “We didn’t come all this way to run at the first sign of trouble.”

 

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