Beyond the Ice Limit

53

ROSEMARIE WONG HAD locked the door to the marine acoustics lab and was straightening up, trying to put the lab back into a semblance of order after Garza and his team had swept the place for worms. Prothero would have a fit if he came in and found it like this. Although it was just as messy when Prothero was there, he always claimed to know where every little thing was. And it was true: if she moved so much as a pencil in one of his staggering piles of crap, he would notice and berate her.

She was deeply concerned about what was happening on board the ship. Several times in the past hour she had heard groups of people passing by in the narrow corridor outside the lab, talking in loud, angry voices, their boots ringing on the metal floor. Some of them sounded like they had been drinking, while others appeared wired from the amphetamines that were being passed out like candy.

Where was Prothero? He had been working on his whale lexicon for much of the night, but then had excused himself and left, saying he’d be back in fifteen. But it had been almost an hour and he still wasn’t back. Had he gone to sleep, defying regulations? That would be just like him; the way to get Prothero to do something was to ask him to do its opposite.

Wong told herself she shouldn’t be worried. Prothero maintained a completely unpredictable schedule, coming and going at all hours of the day and night, never eating in the mess but instead chowing down in the lab itself, at random times, on pizzas and sodas brought in from the canteen. He would typically kick the trash into a corner, and it would then be up to her to retrieve it, put it in the garbage, and then empty the garbage at regular intervals to get rid of the oniony smell of pizza, which she loathed…

Once again through the door she heard a group pass by; once again she heard the muffled, angry voices. This was truly disturbing. Where was security? But she knew the answer to that: Garza had commandeered them all in the search for the worms. In the meantime, the ship’s discipline was rapidly heading for a complete breakdown.

She heard the door rattle; a gasp. “Hey, Wong! Open up!”

Prothero. She got up, unlocked the door, opened it. He rushed in, slamming the door and locking it. He was gasping for breath, sweaty, his hair askew, sucking in air.

“What is it?” she asked. “What’s happened?”

“Son of a bitch,” he said. “The motherfuckers have gone crazy. It was only five minutes, maybe ten at most, I swear—”

There was a sudden thundering of footsteps outside the door; a rattling of the doorknob. “Prothero? Prothero!” a voice called, with an eruption of other voices behind.

Prothero backed away from the door. “Tell them I’m not here,” he whispered to Wong.

Wong swallowed. “He’s not here,” she said through the door.

“Bullshit!” came the reply. “We know he’s in there. Open up!”

A number of angry voices were raised on the other side of the door, and someone began pounding. “Who is that? Wong? Open the fucking door, Wong!”

Prothero, terror in his eyes, shook his head at her. He backed up, casting around the lab as if for a place to hide. There was none, of course.

“He’s not here,” she said again.

“Listen up, Wong! He’s infected. We caught the son of a bitch sleeping. Couldn’t wake him up. He’s got a worm!”

Wong felt paralyzed. She glanced at Prothero. He didn’t look right, but then he rarely looked normal.

“Are you listening? He’s infected! Get your ass out of there and let us take care of it!”

Prothero shook his head, mouthing no, no, no.

Wong couldn’t decide how to reply. She felt paralyzed.

Boom! Someone slammed into the door. Boom! The door was not a bulkhead and she could see it bow inward with each body blow.

“Open up, Wong! If you won’t save yourself, we will!”

“I don’t have a worm!” Prothero screamed. “I swear! I just took a snort nap, that’s all!”

“He’s in there!” There was a tumult of shouting and expostulation beyond the door. “Wong, for God’s sake, he’s dangerous! Let us in, now!”

“I’m not dangerous. I swear!”

Wong looked once again at Prothero. His eyes were bloodshot, he was soaked in sweat, and his body was twitching and jumping with panic and fear. He did look infected.

He read the meaning in her eyes. “No, no,” he said, swallowing and trying to speak without screaming. “I’m not. Rosemarie, I swear it. They’re crazy. I took a nap. Five minutes. I was out like a light. But I’m not infected! Remember, if you’re infected they can’t wake you for two hours, and—”

Boom! And now the metal door handle rattled and came loose. Boom!

Wong made a decision. “No!” she yelled at the men trying to break down the door. “You can’t do this without evidence!”

Boom! The handle sprang off the door.

“You need proof!” she yelled.

Boom! The door flew open and a huge man forced his way through. She was shocked; it was Vince Brancacci, the ship’s jovial chef. He did not look jovial now, with a meat cleaver in his hammy, hairy fist. A crowd surged in behind him, half a dozen men armed with tools, crowbars, wrenches, hammers.

“There he is!”

“No!” Prothero said. “Please God, no!”

The crowd, realizing they had Prothero trapped, suddenly seemed to hesitate.

“He’s infected,” Brancacci said, advancing with the cleaver. “He’s finished. We need to get rid of the worm inside him.”

“No, no, please!” Prothero whispered, shrinking back against a rack of computer equipment.

Wong stepped in between Brancacci and Prothero and drew herself up to her full height, towering above Brancacci. “You can’t kill a man without evidence. You can’t do it.”

“We have evidence,” said the chef.

“Which is?” Wong asked.

“He was sleeping. He couldn’t be woken up. And look at him—just look at him! He’s not acting normally.”

“You wouldn’t be acting normally if you were being chased by a mob.”

“Get out of my way,” said Brancacci threateningly.

She could smell the sour odor of Brancacci’s sweat. “Don’t do this,” she said quietly. “Just turn around and go. You can’t execute a man based on such weak evidence.”

He reached out, grasped her shoulder with one powerful hand. “Please step aside.”

“No.”

With a wrenching motion he threw her aside. He was strong, and the action sent her tumbling into a rack of equipment, which fell with her to the floor with a crash. Momentarily stunned, Wong sat there as the mob moved in, stepping over and around her.

“God, God God please no no noooo!” she heard Prothero sobbing and pleading.

Brancacci swung the cleaver at his head, striking him above the eye with a sickening hollow sound. Prothero screamed, going down, blood splattering, his head already coming apart. Brancacci drew back and, taking careful aim, swung the cleaver again. The scream was cut short. Prothero lay on the floor, unmoving. The chef now stepped over Prothero, straddling him, and brought the blade of the cleaver down once again, driving it into his skull and opening it up like a melon.

Wong turned her head and closed her eyes. She heard a frantic struggle, shouts of Find it! Get it! Get the worm! But then the tumult rapidly fell into silence.

She opened her eyes. Brancacci was still standing spraddle-legged over Prothero’s body, cleaver in hand. The rest had formed a silent circle around the fallen scientist, staring down at his remains, his skull and brains strewn across the floor in a pool of spreading blood.

“Stupid bastards!” Wong cried. “Are you satisfied now? Do you see? There is no worm!”