“Beau and at least one other infected person,” Sheila blurted out. “They have the hatch open that we used to come in here. They must have followed Cassy. They’ll be here any minute.”
“Damn!” Harlan exclaimed. He paused for a second to think, then stepped out through the air lock.
They immediately caught up with Cassy and Pitt as the two emerged from the neighboring containment room. Although Cassy appeared sleepy and confused, her color was better than it had been earlier.
“Where’s Jonathan?” Harlan barked.
“Back in the lab,” Pitt said. “He was searching for your Colt.”
With Harlan leading, the group rushed from the sick bay into the lab proper. They went from room to room. They found Jonathan in the final room, crouching by the door to the corridor. He was holding the pistol in both hands.
“We’re getting out of here,” Harlan yelled to Jonathan. Harlan ducked into the incubator and emerged seconds later carrying an armload of tissue culture flasks containing the rhinovirus.
A loud sputtering noise was heard from the corridor. Everyone’s eyes turned to the open doorway. A shower of sparks shot by as if someone were welding in the hallway. Simultaneously the pressure in the room precipitously dropped, forcing everyone to clear their ears.
“What happened?” Sheila demanded.
“They’re cutting through the pressure door,” Harlan yelled. “Come on! Hurry!” He motioned for everyone to retreat back toward the infirmary. But before anybody could move a black disc rounded the corner from the corridor and entered the lab. It was glowing bright red and surrounded by a hazy halo.
“It’s a disc!” Sheila shouted. “Stay away from it.”
“Yes!” Harlan bellowed. “When it’s active it’s radioactive. It’s spewing out alpha particles.”
The disc hovered near Jonathan, who ducked away and ran back toward the others. Harlan herded the group through the door into the next lab room. Stepping into the room himself, he slammed the heavy, two-inch-thick fire door.
“Hurry!” he commanded.
The group had gotten halfway across the second lab when the same sputtering noise they’d heard earlier reverberated around the room. There was another shower of sparks. Harlan turned to see the disc passing effortlessly through the door.
Everyone got into the third lab space and raced for the double doors into the infirmary. Harlan took the time to slam the second fire door before running after the others. Behind him he heard the sputtering again. Sparks bounced off the back of his head as he went into the infirmary. The doors swung closed behind him.
“Where to?” Sheila demanded.
“The X-ray room,” Harlan barked, pointing with a hand carrying one of the tissue culture flasks. “The one that is still operational.”
Jonathan was the first to arrive. He pushed open the shielded door and held it for the others. They all crowded inside.
“This is a dead end!” Sheila shrieked. “Why did you bring us in here?”
“Get over behind the shield,” Harlan ordered. Quickly he handed Sheila and Pitt the tissue culture flasks. Then he activated the machine that positioned the X-ray column. He aimed the positioning light directly at the door to the hall before rushing back and crowding behind the screen with the others.
Harlan’s hands rapidly flipped switches and spun dials on the X-ray machine’s control panel as sparking and sputtering commenced at the door. With the lead shielding it took the disc a few more seconds to burn through the X-ray room door than it had the fire doors. When it emerged inside the room, its red color had slightly paled.
Harlan flipped the switch that sent the high voltage built up in the machine to the X-ray source. There was an electronic buzzing noise and the overhead light dimmed. “These are the hardest X-rays this machine is capable of producing,” he explained.
Bombarded with the X-rays, the disc’s color instantly changed from pale red to luminous white. The pale halo intensified, expanded, and quickly engulfed the disc. The sound of an enormous furnace igniting was immediately cut off with a thump. At the same instant most of the X-ray machine, the X-ray table, an instrument tray, part of the door, and the light fixture were all pulled out of shape as if they had been sucked toward the point where the disc had been. Even the people had experienced this sudden imploding force and had instinctively braced themselves and grabbed onto whatever they could.
A pall of acrid smoke hung over the room.
Everyone was momentarily dazed.
“Is everyone okay?” Harlan asked.
“My watch exploded,” Sheila said.
“So did the wall clock,” Harlan said. He pointed up to the institutional clock on the wall. Its glass had been shattered, and its hands were nowhere to be seen.
“That was a miniature black hole,” Harlan said.
A loud thump out in the lab shocked everybody back to reality.
“Obviously they’ve gotten through the air lock,” Harlan said. “Come on!” He took the gun away from Jonathan and gave him a tissue culture flask to carry instead. Cassy and Pitt picked up the rest of the flasks. Harlan led everyone from behind the distorted shield toward the door.
“Don’t touch anything,” he warned. “There still might be some radiation.”
It took all three men to get the twisted door open. Harlan leaned out. He could see down to the double doors leading to the lab. There was a small scorched hole in the right one. He looked the other way. It was clear.
“To the left,” he barked. “Down through the door at the end and across into the living room. Got it?”
Everyone nodded.
“Go!” Harlan said. He kept his eye on the double doors until the last person had cleared the corridor. He was about to follow them when one of the double doors opened in the opposite direction.
Harlan fired one shot from the huge Peacemaker. The noise was deafening in the hallway. The bullet hit the closed double door and shattered its porthole-like window. The door that had been opened swung shut.
Harlan raced out into the hall and ran its length on legs that had suddenly gone rubbery. He staggered into the living room.
“Harlan?” Sheila questioned. “Have you been shot?” They had all heard the gun go off.
Harlan shook his head. A small amount of foam bubbled out of his mouth and oozed from his eyes. “I think it’s the rhinovirus kicking out the alien virus,” he managed. He steadied himself against the wall. “It’s happening. Unfortunately it’s a rather inconvenient time.”
Pitt rushed to Harlan’s side and draped Harlan’s arm over his shoulder. He took the gun from Harlan’s limp hand.
“Give me the gun,” Sheila commanded. Pitt handed it over.
“How are we going to get out of here?” Sheila asked Harlan.
The sound of breaking glass drifted back from the lab.
“We’ll use the main entrance,” Harlan said. “My Range Rover should be there. I’d been afraid to go out that way for fear of discovery. Now it doesn’t make any difference.”
“All right,” Sheila said. “How do we get there?”
“We go out in the main hall and turn right,” Harlan said. “We pass the storerooms and there’ll be another air lock. Then there is a long corridor with electric carts. The exit comes up inside a building that looks like a farmhouse.”
Sheila cracked the door to the hall and began slowly to lean her head out to look back toward the lab rooms. She felt the bullet before she heard a distant gun go off. The slug had come so close to her that it had singed some of her hair before burrowing into the partially open door.
She pulled back inside the living room.
“Obviously they know where we are,” she said. She wiped her forehead with her hand and examined it. She wouldn’t have been surprised to see blood. “Is there another way to get to the exit? We’re surely not going to be able to use the hall.”
“We have to use the hall,” Harlan said.
“Oh screw!” Sheila mu
mbled. She looked at the gun in her hand, wondering whom she thought she was kidding. She’d never even fired a gun in practice much less gotten into a battle with one.
“We can use the fire system,” Harlan said. He pointed toward the security panel on the living-room wall. “If you pull the fire lever, the whole place fills up with fire retardant. The intruders won’t be able to breathe very well, if at all.”
“Oh that’s clever,” Sheila said sarcastically. “And, of course, we just walk out holding our breaths.”
“No, no,” Harlan said. “In the cabinet below the panel are rebreathers that are good for a least a half hour.”
Sheila went over to the cabinet and pulled it open. It was filled with gas mask–like apparatuses. She took out five and handed them around. The directions on the long, tubular proboscis were to break the seal, shake, and then don.
“Everybody okay with this?” Sheila asked.
“It’s not as if we have a lot of choice,” Pitt said.
They all activated their units and then strapped them on. When everyone gave a thumbs-up sign, Sheila yanked down on the fire lever.
An immediate clanging was heard followed by an automated voice that repeated “Fire in the facility” over and over again. A minute later the sprinkler system was activated, sending out billows of fluid that rapidly vaporized. The room filled up with a smoglike haze.
“We have to stick together,” Sheila yelled. It was hard to talk in the gas mask, and it was getting hard to see as well. Sheila opened the door to the hall and was pleased to see the hall was as hazy as the living room. She leaned out and looked toward the labs. She couldn’t see for more than four or five feet.
Sheila stepped out into the hall. There were no gun shots. “Let’s go,” she called to the others. “Pitt, you and Harlan go ahead so that we know where we are going. Cassy and Jonathan, you carry the tissue culture flasks.”
In a tight group they moved down the hallway. In the haze the corridor seemed interminable. Finally they came to the air lock and climbed in. Sheila pulled the door behind them. Pitt opened the outer door.
Beyond the air lock, the atmosphere progressively cleared, especially when they got on the electric cart. By the time they came to the exit stairs, they could remove their breathing apparatuses.
It was six flights up to the surface. They emerged through a trap door the size of a scatter rug into the living room of a farmhouse. When the trap door was closed, no one would have suspected what it concealed.
“My car should be in the barn,” Harlan said. He took his arm off Pitt’s shoulder. “Thanks, Pitt,” he said. “I don’t think I could have made it without you, but I feel a bit better already.” He blew his nose noisily.
“Let’s get a move on,” Sheila said. “Those people who were after us might have found rebreathers as well.”
The group exited the house via the front door and walked back toward the barn. The sun had set and the desert heat was rapidly dissipating. There was a blood-red smear along the edge of the western horizon. The rest of the sky was an inverted bowl of indigo blue. A few stars twinkled overhead.
As Harlan had hoped, his Range Rover was still safely parked in the barn. He put all the tissue culture flasks in the back storage area before getting behind the wheel. He took the Colt from Sheila and slipped it into the door pocket.
“Are you sure you feel up to driving?” Sheila asked. She was amazed at his recovery.
“No problem,” Harlan said. “I feel completely different than I did just fifteen minutes ago. The only symptoms I have now are of garden-variety cold. I’d say our human trial was an unmitigated success!”
Sheila got into the front passenger seat. Cassy, Pitt, and Jonathan climbed into the back. Pitt put his arm around Cassy, and she snuggled up against him.
Harlan started the car and backed out of the barn. He made a U-turn and drove to the road.
“This alien infestation certainly has cut down on traffic,” he said. “Look at this. Not a car in sight and we’re only fifteen minutes out of Paswell.”
Harlan turned right and accelerated.
“Where are we going?” Sheila asked.
“I don’t think we have a lot of choice,” Harlan said. “My sense is that the rhinovirus is going to take care of the infestation. The problem then boils down to the Gateway thing. We got to try to do something about it.”
Cassy straightened up. “The Gateway!” she said. “Pitt has told you about it.”
“He certainly did,” Harlan said. “He said you thought it was almost operational. Did you get any idea when they might use it?”
“I wasn’t told specifically,” Cassy said. “But my sense is that it will be used as soon as it is finished.”
“There you go,” Harlan said. “We’ll just have to hope we can get there in time and figure out a way to throw a monkey wrench into the works.”
“What’s this about a rhinovirus?” Cassy asked.
“Some rather good news,” Harlan said, glancing at Cassy in the rearview mirror. “Particularly for you and me.”
Cassy was then told the whole sequence of events that led to the discovery of a way to rid the human race of the alien viral scourge. Both Harlan and Sheila credited Cassy for the information that she’d given Pitt.
“It was the fact that the alien virus had come here three billion years ago that was so important,” Sheila said. “Otherwise we wouldn’t have thought about its being sensitive to oxygen.”
“Maybe I should be breathing some of that rhinovirus now?” Cassy said.
“No need,” Harlan said. “Just riding in the car means all of you are being adequately infected. I imagine it only takes a couple of virions since no one has any immunity to it.”
Cassy settled back and snuggled against Pitt. “Only a few hours ago I thought all was lost. It’s a shock to be hopeful again.”
Pitt squeezed her shoulder. “We’ve been incredibly lucky.”
They arrived at the outskirts of Santa Fe a few minutes after eleven o’clock at night. They had driven straight through, stopping only once at an abandoned service station to fill up the gas tank. They’d also helped themselves to candy and peanuts from a vending machine. There was plenty of change in the cash register.
Cassy had stayed in the car. By then she’d been in the middle of the period of weakness, malaise, and foaming at the mouth and eyes that Harlan had experienced as they’d left the underground laboratory. Harlan had been ecstatic, taking Cassy’s temporary misery as further evidence of the efficacy of the “rhino-cure,” as he called it.
Skirting the center of Santa Fe, they followed Cassy’s directions and drove directly to the Institute for a New Beginning. At this time of night the outer gate was brightly illuminated with flood lights. The daily protesters were gone, but there was a significant number of infected people leaving the grounds.
Harlan pulled over to the side of the road and stopped. He leaned forward and surveyed the scene. “Where’s the mansion?” he asked.
En route Cassy had explained to everyone everything she’d been able to remember about the institute’s layout, particularly the fact that the Gateway was located in the ballroom on the first floor to the right of the front entrance.
“The main building is behind that line of trees,” Cassy said. “You can’t see it from here.”
“Which way did the ballroom windows face?” Harlan asked.
“I believe to the back of the house,” Cassy said. “But I’m not positive because they had been boarded up.”
“So much for the idea of breaking through the windows,” Harlan said.
“Considering what the Gateway is supposed to do,” Pitt said, “it must use a lot of energy, and that’s got to be electric. Maybe we could unplug it.”
“A wonderfully droll suggestion,” Harlan quipped. “But to transport aliens through time and space I can’t imagine they’ll be relying on the same energy as we use to power toasters. Seeing what a single, relatively tiny b
lack disc can do, think of what a whole bunch of them might accomplish if they were working in concert.”
“It was just an idea,” Pitt said. He felt stupid and decided to keep his thoughts to himself.
“How far is the mansion from the gate?” Sheila asked.
“Quite a ways,” Cassy said. “A couple of hundred yards or more. The driveway goes through trees first and then crosses a stretch of wide-open lawn.”
“Well, I think that’s our first problem,” Sheila said. “We have to get to the house if we’re going to do anything.”
“Good point,” Harlan said.
“What about sneaking over the fence somewhere in the back?” Jonathan said. “There are lights here at the gate but I don’t see others elsewhere.”
“There are big dogs patrolling the grounds,” Cassy said. “They’re infected just like the people, and they work together. I’m afraid trying to approach the house across the lawn would be dangerous.”
Suddenly the night sky above the trees lit up with undulating bands of energy that gave the impression of the northern lights. They formed a sphere and began expanding and contracting, reminiscent of an organism breathing. But each successive expansion was larger so the phenomenon was growing by the second.
“Uh oh,” Sheila said. “I have a feeling we’re too late. It’s starting.”
“All right, everybody out of the car!” Harlan commanded.
“What do you mean?” Sheila questioned.
“I want everybody out,” Harlan said. “I’m going to do something impulsive. I’m going to drive in there and run this car into the ballroom. I can’t let this go on.”
“Well, you’re not doing it alone,” Sheila said.
“Suit yourself,” Harlan said. “I don’t have time to argue. But the rest of you, out!”
“There’s not really anyplace to go,” Cassy said. She glanced at Pitt and then Jonathan. Their nods told her she was speaking for them. “I think we’re into this thing together.”
“Oh for chrissake!” Harlan complained as he put his Range Rover into low range for off-roading. “Just what the human race needs: an entire car full of goddamn martyrs.” He revved the engine and told everyone to cinch up his seat belt. Harlan yanked his own as tight as he could make it. Then he put on the CD player and selected his favorite: Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. He advanced it to a part he especially liked; it was where the kettle drums resound. With the volume at near full blast, he pulled out into the road.