Beyond the Ice Limit

66

ELI GLINN FELT the vibration of the ship’s engines and knew immediately what had happened.

“What the hell?” Garza said. “The captain didn’t have orders to move!”

“It’s not the captain,” Glinn told him. “The mutineers must have seized the bridge.”

Garza shook his head. “Well, they’re just a few minutes too late, aren’t they?”

“So it would seem.”

“Mother of God,” said Garza, staring at the spot in the water where Gideon’s DSV had disappeared. “That took guts. Even for a dying man.”

“It’s not over yet,” said Sam McFarlane.

Glinn glanced at the man. His face was gaunt. He looked like a ghost. His eyes were sunken.

“Gideon might be a little crazy,” said Garza, “but the guy’s got luck. He hasn’t failed yet.”

There were shouts—and then Glinn saw a group of armed mutineers running toward them across the aft deck, weapons drawn. The DSV handler took one look at them, then sprinted off in the direction of the hangar. A burst of gunfire rang out and he was cut down.

“Down!” the mutineers commanded, as they surrounded them. “Facedown on the deck! Keep your hands in sight.”

Raising their hands, Glinn, McFarlane, Garza, and Wong were surrounded. They knelt, then lay facedown. The men searched them, removed their weapons, handcuffed them, and hauled them back to their feet. Glinn noted that one of the men had flecks of blood on his shirt—he had recently, it seemed, suffered a nosebleed.

“Where’s the ROV?” the one with the nosebleed asked. “What just happened here?”

“What just happened here is that you bastards are too late,” said Garza, spitting on the deck.

The men stared at him. They looked confused. “What do you mean, too late?”

“You’ll see.”

“We’re going to lock you in the hold so you don’t cause any more trouble,” said the man with the nosebleed. “Come with us.”

As they were being marched below, Glinn noted that much of the terror and chaos that had gripped the ship had subsided. The vessel had become more organized; the crew were going about their business with purpose. An unnatural calm had fallen. Was that because they were finally moving away from danger and heading for port…or because most of the crew had now become infected?

He glanced more closely at Prothero’s lab assistant, Rosemarie Wong. Her lab coat was splattered with blood.

“Are you hurt?” Glinn asked.

“Not my blood,” she said. “You know what’s going on, don’t you?”

“I’m afraid so.”

She lowered her voice. “They’re almost all infected.”

Glinn nodded.

“And we’re next. They’re locking us up in a worm-infested hold so that we, too, can join the cause.”

Glinn felt a sense of infinite exhaustion. But the Baobab would not prevail; Gideon would succeed in killing it. He wondered what would happen when the worm-infested ship and the parasitized crew docked in Ushuaia. But he realized such concern was pointless. If the Baobab was destroyed, there wasn’t much the infected crew could do about it. On the other hand, if Gideon failed in his mission…then it would just be a matter of time.

He glanced at his watch: twenty-six minutes to detonation. As they’d been led below, he’d noted that something seemed wrong: given the sound of the engine, and the sense of forward movement, it was clear the ship wasn’t reaching its normal cruising speed of twelve knots. Instead, it seemed to have plateaued at around four or five. Why, he didn’t know. But at this rate, the ship wouldn’t clear the six-mile radius of possible shock wave from the explosion. Perhaps that will take care of the infection problem, Glinn thought grimly as they descended into the darkness of the hold.

They were thrust through a bulkhead door into a dank, throbbing space in the very bowels of the ship. The door clanged shut, cleats were dogged from outside, and absolute darkness fell.

And then he began to hear, from all around, a rustling, scritching noise.