Titanic 2012 (inspector alastair ransom)

by Robert W. Walker

  “It’s become more sophisticated in utilizing its host with each incubation?”

  “Body and soul, yes. It somehow gets such a grasp on the host’s mind that it leaves a person in a kind of neutral, if you will, goes out, feeds on another host, and returns then to its carrier host.”

  “Forbes does seem at times in a daze,” David said, running a hand through his thick blond hair. “Almost… almost robotic.”

  She met his eyes. “It may be that it or he suspects me… Forbes that is—OK, not Forbes—but the thing controlling him.”

  “Is Forbes then in some sort of collusion with it?”

  “It’s quite possible, yes, that it’s convinced him of the importance of the find—to discover a new species of life below… on board Titanic.”

  “In which case…”

  “In which case, it can put Forbes into some sort of post hypnotic suggestion state while it takes over another body temporarily not only to feed but to dive into Titanic, to reclaim its young.”

  “And you suspect all this without proof?”

  “I know how insane it all must sound, but David, I do… I suspect Forbes has been turned to its uses—has become the carrier, and rather than risk losing his insights and his prestige aboard, this creature, will not feed on him but rather manipulate his mind, his thinking—and when it needs to be more mobile say to feed in such a way as to not destroy its host, it reaches out to others.”

  “And while it is feeding? What the hell is Forbes doing?”

  “I don’t know; placed in a catatonic state, perhaps… placed in sleep mode like a computer or like I said, hypnotized.”

  “Supposing even some of this is true, and the captain is aware of your suspicions. Or rather this… this creature is aware. That places you in danger.”

  “And by extension, you too, David. I fear both what Forbes has become, a victim and an unwilling accomplice, and that it may suspect me of knowing whose body it’s currently occupying.”

  “Forbes is it, you mean. I see… I think. So essentially you’ve made me a target like yourself.”

  “Everyone aboard Scorpio is a target, David—all of us. No one’s immune to this parasite.”

  “I’m beginning to feel like a pawn in a chess game.”

  She squeezed his hand. “I’ve always wondered about his motives—his underlying motives. He’s in a perfect position to order us divers via Swigart to bring up whatever we find on Titanic that he sees on the remote screen—whatever he wants. And he is in the perfect position to order it while keeping a safe distance to protect the host body, you see.”

  “Do you trust anyone aboard?”

  “You, David, just you.” She looked deeply into his azure eyes and placed a hand on his broad chest.

  He broke eye contact and pulled away. “Why? Why me? God, I wish I’d never signed on to this cursed ship now. I’m no hero.”

  She pursued him. “You’re right; Scorpio is cursed in the same manner as Titanic unless we learn how to somehow stop this thing.”

  “I must live right! First the Sea of Japan, and now this.”

  “I read once of a fellow who survived the Titanic and two other sinking ships. It’s maybe the luck of the Irish… and maybe why I trust you as I do; trust your judgment, your instinct for survival.”

  “All the same, Kelly, we can’t let them turn this ship around to search for a man not in the water. We have to confide in Swigart about Alandale.”

  “But if Swigart is the carrier, he’ll know we know of him; if he informs Forbes, and I am right about Lou, what then? If Alandale’s body is discovered, the creature becomes more cautious, more aware of the danger it faces, and that we represent a greater threat to it. Then again, if the thing infiltrates Forbes… with his being at the controls, giving the orders remotely, Forbes could order anything we find down there brought up.”

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  “And if we disobey, he could engineer an accident from two miles overhead while we are in Titanic.”

  “Then it was you who sabotaged the crane shaft, wasn’t it?” he suddenly asked.

  “Me? What are you talking about?”

  “You’re doing everything in your power to slow this mission, to determine how to put it to an end before it begins. I see that now.”

  “David, this mission means nothing if those damnable creatures come up from the deep and are protected by the thing that spawned them. There’re more important things than plundering Titanic here. No amount of gold and fame and achievement will matter if we all end up like Alandale or those victims of 1912.”

  “All right, calm down.”

  “Calm down? Damn it, David, Scorpio becomes a ghost ship if those things are brought on board.”

  They stood silent for a moment, the sea rushing past them as Scorpio continued toward its destination. “As it is, we have one enemy,” she continued, “but we don’t know the incubation period of these creatures, and if it is hours, a day, two… everyone aboard Scorpio is a walking dead.”

  “You’re the saboteur!”

  “David, damn it, don’t you see that’s not the issue?”

  “See? Issue? Kelly, it makes me wonder about your motives—and what’s to say you’re not somehow… well?”

  She shook her head and muttered, “Satan may come in a pleasant form, eh? Is that it?”

  “Don’t twist what I’m saying.”

  “Come on, Dave, think of Alandale… that cheerful, wonderful man we thought we knew… for all the time we knew him—you and I—he may’ve been the carrier; and now someone else aboard, someone he came into contact with is the new carrier.”

  “Or it’s slipped back into Forbes to hide until it needs to feed again. And I can’t believe I’m saying this.”

  “This thing is clever. It has managed to survive for a millennium, I suspect, and to somehow reinvent itself in 1912 by slipping in and out of its host organisms. In ancient times, it likely decimated whole species of animal life, whole populations. Hell, for all we know, it may’ve wiped out the ancient civilizations from Mesopotamia to the Aztec.”

  “And now it’s graduated to us—modern day mankind,” David replied, rubbing his chin. “So now you’re saying this… this shape-shifting bastard thing has the capability to leap from one man to another while residing in a third? That it has evolved to the point that it can put its grip on a man—put him on hold, so to speak, via some sort of hypnotic suggestion?”

  “Yes, allowing it to roam by mere touch, and if it thinks itself threatened by you or me, it will eliminate us.”

  “By feeding on our insides?”

  “To gather even more strength.”

  David considered this horrifying new revelation atop all the others since boarding Scorpio. “It changes spots like a chameleon.”

  Just then someone was shouting and racing past, saying “They’ve found Dr. Alandale!” It was Lena, heading for the nearest deck phone to inform Captain Forbes and Swigart on the bridge.

  The ship was half turned about by this time. David caught her and spun her around, asking Lena,“Who’s found him?”

  “Will and Jacob. Said they went back to his cabin, pulled apart a wall and found his body. Something awful about the way the body looks—blacker than Bowman. Alandale stuffed behind a wall panel in his compartment! Now I gotta call the bridge.”

  Lena rushed off, and Kelly stood beside David, shivering with the news. David wanted to console her, place an arm around her but held himself in check and said, “Well now, Bowman and Mendenhall’ve discovered the body anyway.”

  “It would appear so.”

  David shook his head. “This leaves us in the same boat as we would’ve been in had we come clean in the first place.”

  “We’d best appear as surprised as the next person,” she counseled.

  “Sure; what choice do we have?”

  “But David, knowing what we know, we can’t let one another out of sight.”

  He nodded. “Sh
ould either of us be cornered by this alien being, it has the power to take us over, I get that.”

  “We might have some residual will power for a short time should you become a victim, like the Pinkerton agent, Tuttle, in the journal, but I fear this thing really has become more complex, able to refine its methods, particularly control of its host.” She started away, but he hesitated, staring at her, wondering how in the name of God anyone could be sure of anyone else under these circumstances.

  She turned in the sunlight, her hair flying in the ocean breeze, to stare at him. “Come along; we have to join the others, appear surprised—or else we come under suspicion of sabotage and murder.”

  Kelly and David followed the parade of people back down to Alandale’s cabin. More than one of the others rushed away, holding back vomit, and looking terrified. No one could account for the condition of the body or the faintly annoying sulfuric odor emanating from Alandale’s quarters.

  Forbes rushed in behind Swigart, aghast at the sight of Alandale’s remains; the man was hardly recognizable. While everyone was alarmed at the sight, Lena and the others were debating what could have so discolored the man’s skin to turn it to the shade of mahogany.

  Steve Jens, gasping, put forth the theory, “Perhaps while the body was inside the wall, it somehow was burned to this brown cast.”

  “Maybe an electrical fire,” added Mendenhall with a bony shrug. But a glance inside the wall showed none of the tell-tale signs of an electrical fire.

  Kyle Fiske had joined them late and on seeing the body, and hearing Jens assessment, he said, “Sounds like you guys are grasping at straws.”

  “None of it makes sense, Kyle,” Swigart said, his tone sour. Men such as he did not like a question without answer. But he was right. None of it made sense. Fiske was right too—everyone was drawing a blank.

  “What can it mean?” Forbes had gone to his knees over Alandale’s body, showing emotion, which killed Kelly’s theory—unless the monster inside him had learned to use emotion now as another tool of hiding in plain sight.

  Swigart grabbed hold of Forbes to steady him and pull him back, warning him in the same instant: “Don’t touch him, Juris. We’ve no idea what this is! Looks like some awful disease if you ask me.”

  “It wasn’t any disease that put him behind that wall,” countered Lena.

  “You don’t know that,” piped up Will Bowman. “I mean if he was outta his mind, he could’ve climbed in there and see here—” he indicated two tabs on the inside of the panel—“he could’ve hidden himself away.”

  “Crazy? You’re calling the most intelligent man I’ve ever known insane?” Forbes attacked Bowman with a flurry of words. “You, a bone-headed diver? You have no say-so here. Get out, all of you!”

  “No, Juris,” said Swigart, still holding onto his friend. “No, you go… get away from here. I’ll see to it that Dimitri’s remains are handled with the utmost respect, and you, Bowman, keep your mouth shut—and that goes for all of you, and that’s an order! Kelly—take Dr. Forbes to his cabin. Juris, get some rest.”

  Juris pulled away from Swigart, dropped to his knees again over his long-time friend and hugged Alandale’s body against his own. “My god, he’s as hard as rock, Lou. What the hell can be behind this?” Forbes tore away the buttons on Alandale’s shirt to reveal that his entire body was discolored and hardened like fibrous wood.

  Was it the gesture of a longtime friend or a controlled hand and mind at work here? David wondered if Forbes was really showing concern for his long time friend, or if he was surreptitiously taking back the invisible being from Alandale to his own body. Had Forbes been the man who’d stowed Alandale’s lifeless form behind the wall panel—or had it been the other missing man, Crewman Houston Ford?

  “We don’t know if he’s contagious, Captain.” Swigart again pulled Forbes away from the remains. “We need to put the body on ice… keep it away from the men, and on our return to Woods Hole, call in the authorities, and let the authorities handle it with their criminal investigation team… CSI, all that.”

  “What of the other missing man—Ford, Houston Ford?” asked Forbes in a barely audible voice.

  “No sign of him yet, but now… seeing this, we have to search more thoroughly, every bulkhead, every pipe, every wall panel—and assume him armed and dangerous; if anyone has gone loco aboard this ship, it’s most likely Ford. I’m told he’d had several quarrels with other crewmen and Dr. Alandale.”

  The ship’s doctor, Chinua Entebbe, a man of Nigerian descent, had rushed to the scene with a medical bag in hand; obviously no one had told him the patient was dead. Entebbe stood over Alandale’s remains, shaken. “My god, I just played chess with Dr. Alandale last evening. What-Whatever could cause such discoloration and stiffness in the man’s body?”

  Swigart ordered everyone out except for Dr. Entebbe, Will, and David. “I want you two to don gloves and heave the body to the aft section of the ship; there’s a specimen freezer.”

  “For biological specimens,” said Daive.

  “It’ll have to do; w e lay Dr. Alandale’s remains, such as they are, in state until we arrive back in port after the completion of our expedition. There’s no other way.”

  “I am trying to conduct an examination here,” complained Entebbe, raising his hands over his head. A thin, bony man, he crouched near the body but remained too apprehensive to touch it. “On second thought, Commander Swigart, let’s go ahead with your plan.”

  “Good call, Doctor.”

  David took Swigart aside, slowing things down, wondering if he ought not to tell Lou all that he knew of this awful disease and how it was spread by a single organism taking up residence in the human body, then draining it of every ounce of fluid. Instead, he heeded Kelly’s earlier warnings and said, “What about that helicopter you said you could call up on a dime?” David’s question stopped Swigart in his tracks. “I mean shouldn’t we inform the authorities now and send the body back by air immediately to learn what we can from an autopsy?”

  Will Bowman nodded thoughtfully as if he believed David was onto something. “Yeah, good idea; get the authorities involved now, David,” and with a sharp turn of voice and a snicker, he added, “and blow our chance at Titanic? Are you nuts, man! Once this gets out, it’s bye-bye Mission Titanic! And damn it, I’m here to dive her!”

  “Don’t be naïve, David,” added Swigart, staring a hole through him.

  Even Dr. Entebbe jumped in with, “We can’t jeopardize the expedition, young man, not even for a fallen friend. I don’t know who did this to Dimitri, or what sort of acid was used to disfigure him, or why his body was hidden, or even where the other man might be—the missing man who likely killed Alandale, but I have to agree with your dive partner and your dive captain, Mr. Ingles. We’re too close to our goal now to risk having it taken away.”

  David translated their combined concerns into money. A bottom line mentality; they had all signed on to make a fortune with the plunder of Titanic—and even Entebbe meant to get his share at whatever cost. “So we just stow the body like it’s some… some mannequin?” asked David, incredulous, shaking his head, but watching each man closely for any slight sign of being too anxious to rid himself of the body.

  It’d been Swigart who ordered the body be routed through the ship to the bio-lab freezer, to essentially put it on ice. Forbes had been more subtle and had shown deep hurt and emotion, but could that be counted on? Entebbe was quick to agree with Swigart, perhaps too quick, and as for Will? He was just being Will, he imagined—an anxious salvage diver looking at the most historic dive of his career who didn’t want anything to stand in his way. He’d most likely already signed a book contract with Random House and had a TV reality show in the works for after the mission.

  Mendenhall had earlier left the compartment looking white as a sheet and ill from what he’d discovered along with Will, yet Will Bowman hadn’t seemed at all affected by either the sulfuric odor or the sight. What if anythin
g did that indicate?

  David quickly decided he was in the midst of a nightmare; any quirk or small gesture, any comment might be fitted into the box of suspicion. No one was above suspicion, and yet how was he to know which man deserved his suspicion? Kelly had made up her mind that it was Forbes, but David was not so sure—not anymore.

  “Yes, we stow the body, and that’s an order!” shouted Swigart as a knock came at the cabin door and Lena Gambio peeked in to hand Swigart a box of surgical gloves.

  “I found ’em in the med supply just like you said.”

  Swigart snatched out a handful of rubber gloves and ordered David and Will to “Carry on, gentlemen!”

  “I dunno, Captain Swigart,” said Bowman, not so anxious to touch Alandale even with gloves. “Didn’t sign on for this kinda… well, shit, sir.”

  “You signed on to take orders from me, Bowman.”

  “Sir-yes-sir!”

  “Just do it. Take hold! You too, Ingles.”

  Reluctantly, knowing what he knew, David moved toward the head and shoulders, readying to lift and carry Alandale’s fragile remains out. A cloud of dust rose from him as if he were brittle, ancient parchment.

  Swigart said, “Heft ’im outta here and up to the mainsail and across the deck to the bio-lab. The specimen freezer. I’m talking about is there.”

  Ingles exchanged a look with Bowman—now at the ankles—and in tandem they lifted the surprisingly light, stiff body; it felt like carrying a mannequin, and the light weight recalled to David’s mind Declan’s vivid description of the discovery of the shriveled, dehydrated remains the young doctors had autopsied in 1912.

  These thoughts bounced about David’s mind when suddenly a TV cameraman materialized at the compartment entry with a camera on his shoulder, and Swigart shoved the man and camera back. Taking the two newsmen aside in the hallway, he fast-talked them into a deal—complete access and footage if they withheld sending any of it back to port until the expedition to Titanic was over. He actually got Craig Powers to agree with promises David suspected Lou could never deliver on.

  Again they hefted Alandale’s remains and started out, cameras rolling; for David it all felt surreal in the most extreme sense. The stiffness of the body made getting it out of his cabin and into the corridor no easy task, and hitting the dead man’s fingers on the hatchway literally broke some digits off.