XVIII
They were too sick with gasoline fumes to count the passing hours ordays. Food was brought to them from time to time, but it tasted likeavgas. They could not think for the sick headaches that poundedincessantly behind their eyes. When Lee developed vomiting spasms thatwould not stop, Charles Orsino pounded on the bulkhead with his fistsand yelled, his voice thunderous in the metal compartment, for an hour.
Somebody came at last--Regan. The light stabbed Charles' eyes when heopened the door. "Trouble?" Regan asked, smirking.
"Miss Falcaro may be dying," Charles said. His own throat felt as thoughit had been gone over with a cobbler's rasp. "I don't have to tell youyour life won't be worth a dime if she dies and it gets back to SyndicTerritory. She's got to be moved and she's got to have medicalattention."
"Death threat from the dago?" Regan was amused. "I have it on your owntestimony that the Syndic is merely morale and people and credit--not aformidable organization. Yes, there was a mike in here. One reason foryour discomfort. You'll be gratified to learn that I thought most ofyour conversation decidedly dull. However, the lady will be of no use tous dead and we're now in the Seaway entering Lake Michigan. I suppose itcan't do any harm to move you two. Pick her up, will you? I'll let youlead the way--and I'll remind you that I may not, as the lady said, be afour-goal polo player but I am a high expert with the handgun. Getmoving."
Charles did not think he could pick his own feet up, but the thought ofpleading weakness to Regan was unbearable. He could try. Staggering, hegot Lee Falcaro over his shoulder and through the door. Regancourteously stood aside and murmured: "Straight ahead and up the ramp.I'm giving you my own cabin. We'll be docking soon enough; I'll makeout."
Charles dropped her onto a sybaritic bed in a small butlavishly-appointed cabin. Regan whistled up a deckhand and a ship'sofficer of some sort, who arrived with a medicine chest. "Do what youcan for her, mister," he told the officer. And to the deckhand: "Justwatch them. They aren't to touch anything. If they give you trouble,you're free to punch them around a bit." He left, whistling.
The officer fussed unhappily over the medicine chest and stalled bysponging off Lee Falcaro's face and throat. The deckhand watchedimpassively. He was a six-footer, and he hadn't spent days inhalingcasing-head fumes. The trip-hammer pounding behind Charles's eyes seemedto be worsening with the fresher air. He collapsed into a seat andcroaked, with shut eyes: "While you're trying to figure out thevomiting, can I have a handful of aspirins?"
"Eh? Nothing was said about you. You were in Number Three with her? Isuppose it'll be all right. Here." He poured a dozen tablets intoCharles' hand. "Get him some water, you." The deckhand brought a glassof water from the adjoining lavatory and Charles washed down some of thetablets. The officer was reading a booklet, worry written on his face."Do you know any medicine?" he finally asked.
The hard-outlined, kidney-shaped ache was beginning to diffuse throughCharles' head, more general now and less excruciating. He feltdeliciously sleepy, but roused himself to answer: "Some athletic trainerstuff. I don't know--morphine? Curare?"
The officer ruffled through the booklet. "Nothing about vomiting," hesaid. "But it says curare for muscular cramp and I guess that's what'sgoing on. A lipoid suspension to release it slowly into the bloodstreamand give the irritation time to subside. Anyway, I can't kill her if Iwatch the dose...."
Charles, through half-opened eyes, saw Lee Falcaro's arm reach behindthe officer's back to his medicine chest. The deckhand's eyes wereturning to the bed--Charles heaved himself to his feet, skyrockets goingoff again through his head, and started for the lavatory. The deckhandgrabbed his arm. "Rest, mister! Where do you think you're going?"
"Another glass of water--"
"_I'll_ get it. You heard my orders."
Charles subsided. When he dared to look again, Lee's arm lay alongsideher body and the officer was triple-checking dosages in his bookletagainst a pressurized hypodermic spray. The officer sighed and addressedLee: "You won't even feel this. Relax." He read his setting on the sprayagain, checked it again against the booklet. He touched the syringe tothe skin of Lee's arm and thumbed open the valve. It hissed for a momentand Charles knew submicroscopic particles of the medication had beenblasted under Lee's skin too fast for nerves to register the shock.
His glass of water came and he gulped it greedily. The officer packedthe pressurized syringe away, folded the chest and said to both of them,rather vaguely: "That should do it. If, uh, if anything happens--or ifit doesn't work--call me and I'll try something else. Morphine, maybe."
He left and Charles slumped in the chair, the pain ebbing and sleepbeginning to flow over him. Not yet, he told himself. She hookedsomething from the chest. He said to the deckhand: "Can I clean the ladyand myself up?"
"Go ahead, mister. You can use it. Just don't try anything."
The man lounged in the door-frame of the lavatory alternately studyingCharles at the wash-basin and Lee on the bed. Charles took off a heavylayer of oily grease from himself and then took washing tissues to thebed. Lee Falcaro's spasms were tapering off. As he washed her, shemanaged a smile and an unmistakable wink.
"You folks married?" the deckhand asked.
"No," Charles said. Weakly she held up her right arm for the washingtissue. As he scrubbed the hand, he felt a small cylinder smoothlytransferred from her palm to his. He slid it into a pocket and finishedthe job.
The officer popped in again with a carton of milk. "Any better, miss?"he asked.
"Yes," she whispered.
"Good. Try to drink this." Immensely set up by his success in treatment,he hovered over her for a quarter of an hour getting the milk down a sipat a time. It stayed down. He left trailing a favorable prognosis.Meanwhile, Charles had covertly examined Lee's booty: a pressurizedsyringe labeled _morphine sulfate sol_. It was full and ready. Hecracked off the protective cap and waited his chance.
It came when Lee grimaced at him and called the deckhand in a feeblemurmur. She continued to murmur so indistinctly that he bent over tryingto catch the words. Charles leaned forward and emptied the syringe atone inch range into the taut seat of the deckhand's pants. He scratchedabsently and said to Lee: "You'll have to talk up, lady." Then hegiggled, looked bewildered and collapsed on the floor, staring, coked tothe eyebrows.
Lee painfully sat up on the bed. "Porthole," she said.
Charles went to it and struggled with the locking lugs. It opened--andan alarm bell began to clang through the ship. _Now_ he saw thehair-fine, broken wire. An alarm trip-wire.
Feet thundered outside and the glutinous voice of Jimmy Regan was heard:"Wait, you damn fools! You in there--is everything all right? Did theytry to pull something?"
Charles kept silent and shook his head at the girl. He picked up a chairand stood by the door. The glutinous voice again, in a mumble thatdidn't carry through--and the door sprang open. Charles brought thechair down in a murderous chop, conscious only that it seemed curiouslylight. There was an impact and the head fell.
It was Regan, with a drawn gun. It had been Regan. His skull was smashedbefore he knew it. Charles felt as though he had all the time in theworld. He picked up the gun to a confused roar like a slowed-down soundtrack and emptied it into the corridor. It had been a full automatic,but the fifteen shots seemed as well-spaced as a ceremonial salute.Regan, in his vanity, wore two guns. Charles scooped up the other andsaid to Lee: "Come on."
He knew she was following as he raced down the cleared corridor and downthe ramp, back to the compartment in which they had been locked. Reddanger lights burned on the walls. Charles flipped the pistol tosemi-automatic as they passed a red-painted bulkhead with valves andgages sprouting from it. He turned and fired three deliberate shots intoit. The last was drowned out by a dull roar as gasoline fumes exploded.Pipe fittings and fragments of plate whizzed about them like bullets asthey raced on.
Somebody ahead loomed, yelling querulously: "What the hell was that,Mac? What blew?"
"Where's the rea
ctor room?" Charles demanded, jamming the pistol intohis chest. The man gulped and pointed.
"Take me there. Fast."
"Now _look_, Mac--"
Charles told him in a few incisive details where and how he was going tobe shot. The man went white and led them down the corridor and into thereactor room. Three white-coated men with the aloof look of reactorspecialists stared at them as they bulled into the spotless chamber.
The oldest sniffed: "And what, may I ask, are you crewmen doing in--"
Lee slammed the door behind them and said: "Sound the radiation alarm."
"Certainly not! You must be the couple we--"
"_Sound the radiation alarm._" She picked up a pair of dividers from theplot board and approached the technician with murder on her face. Hegaped until she poised the needle points before his eyes and repeated:"_Sound the radiation alarm._" Nobody in the room, including Charles,had the slightest doubt that the points would sink into the technician'seyeballs if he refused.
"Do what she says, Will," he mumbled, his eyes crossing on the dividers."For God's sake, do what she says. She's crazy."
One of the men moved, very cautiously, watching Charles and the gun, toa red handle and pulled it down. A ferro-concrete barrier rose to walloff the chamber and the sine-curve wail of a standard radioactivitywarning began to howl mournfully through the ship.
"Dump the reactor metal," Charles said. His eyes searched for the exit,and found it--a red-painted breakaway panel, standard for a hot lab.
A technician wailed: "We _can't_ do that! We can't _do_ that! A millionbucks of thorium with a hundred years of life in it--have a heart,mister! They'll crucify us!"
"They can dredge for it," Charles said. "Dump the metal."
"Dump the metal," Lee said. She hadn't moved.
The senior technician's eyes were still on the bright needle points. Hewas crying silently. "Dump it," he said.
"Okay, chief. Your responsibility, remember."
"Dump it!" wailed the senior.
The technician did something technical at the control board. After amoment the steady rumbling of the turbines ceased and the ship's deckbegan to wallow underfoot.
"Hit the panel, Lee," Charles said. She did, running. He followed herthrough the oval port. It was like an open-bottomed diving bell weldedto the hull. There were large, luminous cleats for pulling yourselfdown through the water, under the rim of the bell. He dropped the pistolinto the water, breathed deeply a couple of times and began to climbdown. There was no sign of Lee.
He kicked up through the dark water on a long slant away from the ship.It might be worse. With a fire and a hot-lab alarm and a dead chiefaboard, the crew would have things on their mind besides looking forbobbing heads.
He broke the surface and treaded water to make a minimum target. He didnot turn to the ship. His dark hair would be less visible than his whiteface. And if he was going to get a burst of machine-gun bullets througheither, he didn't want to know about it. Ahead he saw Lee's blonde hairspread on the water for a moment and then it vanished. He breathedhugely, ducked and swam under water toward it.
When he rose next a sheet of flame was lightening the sky and the oilyreek of burning hydrocarbons tainted the air. He dove again, and thistime caught up with Lee. Her face was bone-white and her eyes blank.Where she was drawing her strength from he could not guess. Behind themthe ship sent up an oily plume and the sine-curve wail of theradioactivity warning could be faintly heard. Before them a dim shorestretched.
He gripped her naked arm, roughened by the March waters of LakeMichigan, bent it around his neck and struck off for the shore. Hislungs were bursting in his chest and the world was turning gray-blackbefore his burning eyes. He heaved his tired arm through the water asthough each stroke would be his last, but the last stroke, by somemiracle, never was the last.