by John Stith
The fan triggered his intuition.
Horrified, Cal finally made sense of the connecting pieces. How could Tolbor possibly be that sick?
The Bible spoke of Sodom and Gomorrah being destroyed by God, while Lot traveled to a new home. Cal was being left to die in a well-ventilated laboratory while Tolbor left on a mission of exploration. Tolbor wasn’t leaving Cal to suffocate.
In his Daedalus apartment, Tolbor had hung twin pictures of Earth and Daedalus. But only now did Cal realize what Tolbor must see when he looked at them.
He saw Sodom and Gomorrah.
CHAPTER 19
Helpless
Cal was stunned at the realization. Tolbor had to be absolutely certifiable. He couldn’t possibly plan to destroy life on Daedalus.
But Cal had no doubts. He knew suddenly why he had been worried that Nikki would die. They all would die.
The sterilization gear that Tolbor had rented, and the waldoes, all of it made sense. Tolbor hadn’t caused the disaster on Earth, but it must have pushed him over the edge. He probably saw it as God destroying Sodom. Now Gomorrah was ready to fall, and Tolbor was God’s chosen one. A modern-day Lot, one acting as God’s firm right hand.
Cal was desperate. There had to be something he could do. “You’re mad,” he said slowly.
But Tolbor didn’t answer. He moved out of the light, and a noise sounded from behind Cal.
“Wait a minute,” Cal said, turning swiftly to face the exit, realizing why he had been confused about the direction of the sound. Tolbor had put a mirror at the far end of the room, to trick Cal into thinking he was ahead rather than near the entrance. Tolbor had been just on the other side of the door Cal had passed. Cal started for the exit. Fear made his heart pound.
“Stop right where you are,” Tolbor said harshly into the gloom. Light spilled from the interior doorway, giving him a half-light, half-dark appearance.
Cal stopped. Then he began to move forward in minuscule steps. “Aren’t you curious?” he asked quickly, “about how I found out you were monitoring me?”
Tolbor hesitated, the gun visible once again. “Make it quick.”
An encouraging thought occurred to Cal. If Vincent had been cooperating all along with Tolbor, if he were following Tolbor’s instructions, there was no need for Cal to be locked in a shielded room. A strong closet would have been adequate. Maybe he could get close enough to Tolbor that he might consider taking Vincent with him.
“Vincent,” Cal said. “Make sure you get all this recorded, so you can pass it on to whoever finds me if I die soon. It may be too late already, but I have to do whatever I can.”
“I’m all ears.”
“That’s the first part of the problem, now that you mention it. The night Domingo died, something else happened, too. Russ must have tampered with you.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“Just listen. Somehow, I think he loaded a second program into your memory, one which was set up to run without your noticing. As far as I can tell, it’s still there, and designed to do only one thing: relay audio and video to Tolbor.”
“How sure are you? I haven’t noticed anything like that.”
“It has to—”
“Wait a minute,” said Vincent. “I think I see something. Well, ‘see’ isn’t quite the word, but periodically, my transmitter goes busy for a little less than a microsecond.”
“That must be it.”
“I didn’t pay any attention to that. I thought maybe one of my subroutines was just responding to location checks or diagnostics.”
“I doubt it.”
“Do you have any suggestions?”
“Yes. Search through your entire memory, looking for anything that doesn’t seem to be exactly what you thought should be there. If some of the video you’ve saved has been altered, or if any data that should be recognizable looks more like a program, find it.”
“This may take a while.”
“Get to the point, Cal,” Tolbor said. “I’ve got to leave.”
“I think I found it,” said Vincent excitedly. “Damn him. He tampered with me. Cal, you’ve got to beat the hell out of him.”
“First things first.” Cal looked back at the gun in Tolbor’s hand. “Get rid of it if you can.”
“Done,” Vincent said. “Cal, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to betray you. You know I wouldn’t.”
“I know. It’s okay. You were just fooled. Like I was.”
“How long have you known?” Tolbor asked.
“Since I got the message asking me to come here. That’s why I couldn’t tell Nikki. She probably has her own apartment already. But I’m worrying about centimeters when I should be concerned about light-years. Vincent, our friend here is planning to kill everyone on Daedalus.”
“He’s what?”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, Russ.” Cal explained what he had deduced, finishing with “So Russ must plan to leave a container with the bacteria on Daedalus. When it breaks, there won’t be anything left to stop the bacteria. And Gomorrah will go the way of Sodom.”
“So how long do we have?” Vincent asked.
“My very question. Would you care to tell us, Russ? It can’t be too long. Vittoria leaves at oh six hundred. You’re obviously planning to leave me alive, so you don’t expect me to be found before you’re untouchable.” Cal looked at Vincent’s screen. “So we probably have between twelve hours and maybe a day or two. And Luna will die too, if the bacteria gets spread before anyone gets the first symptoms. Damn!”
“It’s been nice knowing you, Cal,” Vincent said. “I guess this means you aren’t a murderer. I’m glad to know that at least.”
“Don’t start, Vincent. We’re going to get out of here. Tolbor’s just confused. He’s been reading the Bible too much. He isn’t really going to do this, are you, Russ?” Inside, Cal was as pessimistic as Vincent, but he refused to stop trying. He crept closer.
“This has ceased to be interesting,” Tolbor said. “You’ve got substantial power on your side. That’s obvious from the progress you’ve made. But you stay here, and I go. That’s what it all comes down—”
Cal knew that. He held no hope for reprieve. The only change of heart Tolbor would be likely to have was a transplant. So, just before Tolbor finished speaking, Cal began to run.
Obviously there was only one exit. Since Tolbor hadn’t disagreed when he said he’d leave Cal alive, he had to be intending to lock him in the shielded room. Once the door was closed, Cal would have absolutely no chance.
But now he had one small one. He took huge steps, ignoring the pain in his ribs, swerving, trying to keep his course erratic. Tolbor was a man who set things in motion. He didn’t pull triggers, Cal hoped.
He was wrong.
Just as Cal closed the distance to a meter, he heard Tolbor’s gun discharge, and he felt the stabbing pain in his side. But Cal’s momentum kept him going.
He hurtled into Tolbor, slamming the man hard against the door. And then Cal hit, too. His head crashed into solid, unyielding metal.
Lynn was sitting on his lap. She looked up into Cal’s eyes and smiled. Across the room lay her traveling bag. Nikki sat nearby. Her bags were packed, too.
Cal found himself looking at a door labeled Linewold Testing Laboratory in blue letters. There was someone behind him. Gabriel Domingo.
“But we’ve got to go in, Gabe,” said Cal.
After a discussion too brief to call an argument, they opened the door. The room full of lab benches lay in darkness until Gabe found the light switch. They searched the room thoroughly, each covering half of the area.
They obviously hadn’t found whatever they sought. Cal convinced Domingo they must continue searching. The emissions lab proved to be uninteresting, so Cal examined the other door, the one that looked as if it were built to seal an environmental lab.
Gabe shook his head and pointed at the door. Cal moved to it and tried to turn the wheel. It wouldn’t move. Cal called to Gabe and
indicated his stronger muscles.
Annoyed, Gabe pushed Cal aside and twisted on the wheel. It didn’t turn for him either. He applied more force. His biceps tensed, and sweat appeared on his forehead.
The wheel began to turn.
The last conscious act Domingo made was giving Cal a condescending but friendly grin, turning the wheel with only one hand.
Then the door did something Cal had never expected. With no warning sound it burst open so quickly, it was hard for Cal to believe that it was a solid, massive door.
Gabe couldn’t believe it either. He had no time to retreat from the door’s path. It smashed violently into his chest.
In the same instant Gabe’s body rammed backward into Cal. Cal felt himself propelled off balance, thrust into a wall-mounted ashtray that caught him just to one side of the small of his back. His head snapped against the wall. Dazed, he slumped to the floor.
The pain was excruciating. Unable to move for several moments, Cal finally managed to pull himself over to where Domingo lay.
For just an instant there was a look of amazement on Gabe’s face, and then it was gone. He had probably been dead even before Cal was able to see his face. Gabe’s chest was crushed, and he had already lost a massive quantity of blood.
For a moment Cal refused to believe what had happened. It couldn’t be. But it was. “Gabe,” he cried in a strangled voice. “Gabe. What have I done to you?” If only Cal had opened the door. If only he hadn’t asked Gabe to come with him.
For several long seconds Cal didn’t know what he was doing. When his awareness returned, he saw that he had taken hold of Gabe’s legs and had pulled him away from the door, as though removing him from the scene would eliminate the damage.
“Vincent?” Cal said.
“Yes.”
“Erase all records of my recent activities.”
“If that’s what you really want.”
Cal didn’t know if that was what he wanted or not, he was so confused. But he didn’t want those memories getting into the wrong person’s hands if he were caught soon. “Do it.”
He stopped right where he was and collapsed. After a time he realized he was crying for the friend he had lost, for being the one to drag him here. Cal turned off Vincent and looked up.
From where he was he could see into the enclosure that had been barred by the door. It was dark inside, but light from the main lab spilled in and shone off something silvery inside.
He wiped blood from his hands onto the floor and then rose shakily. He moved a step or two closer.
The silvery shape was in the center of the room. It seemed to be a sealed test tube.
He approached more closely. As he reached the entrance to the lab, he noticed an unusual smell, rather like roses.
His knees weakened suddenly, and he had to catch himself on the door. And then, as he thought about thoroughness and booby traps, consciousness slipped away.
Cal was uncomfortable. He tried to straighten his pillow. He was still uncomfortable. Only after a few more minutes did his head begin to clear. Something was wrong. This wasn’t a pillow. This was—what?
It was a body. Cal flinched. He pulled himself away so rapidly that the jolt started his head hurting. What was he doing lying on top of a body, particularly a male one?
And then things began to come back swiftly. Russ Tolbor was the man beneath Cal.
And Russ Tolbor was dead.
It took no detailed inspection for Cal to reach the conclusion. He quickly checked for a pulse to make absolutely certain, but the action only confirmed what he already knew.
He rose shakily. A raw spot on his side painfully reminded Cal where Tolbor had shot him. Cal had been lucky. Or Tolbor had shied from taking a direct, irreconcilable action.
Tolbor and Domingo. How different they were. And how similar they looked in death.
“You’re still on, right, Vincent?” Cal asked at last.
“I’m fine. And I’m glad you’re okay. I would have called for help, but I’m still shielded. I couldn’t even call out for pizza.”
Cal grinned wryly. He swung the door open and stepped out of the chamber and into the lab. “Can you communicate again?”
“Yes.”
“In just a minute I want to call Lieutenant Dobson. If anything at all happens to me, call him, bring him up to date on the last”—Cal looked at the time—“two hours. I want to do something first.”
Cal walked shakily over to the environmental lab he had noticed earlier, the one he had just remembered. As he got closer he began to get a bad feeling about it. By the time he reached it, he knew why. The door was shut but not locked.
Standing clear of the path of the door, Cal pulled at it to open it. He pulled harder.
The door slowly began to swing open. And suddenly Cal felt at least as bad as when Nikki had walked out.
The test tube he had seen earlier was gone.
CHAPTER 20
Hoard
“Mr. Donley,” called a voice. “Are you in there?”
Cal moved from behind the door. Lieutenant Dobson was at the entrance to the lab.
“Thank God you’re here,” Cal said, starting to function again. “We may be too late already.”
Lt. Dobson stepped into the lab. “Too late for what? Are you injured? Your wife and Michelle Garney tried to tell us something was wrong with Vittoria’s communications, but no one was convinced. We thought they were just worried that you might be aboard Vittoria.” There was another policeman with Dobson.
“They were right,” Cal said. “But it’s far worse than that. Russ Tolbor. He had a container of the bacteria in here. The bacteria that destroyed Earth.” Cal led them to Tolbor’s body.
“You’re serious, then,” Dobson said in a hushed voice.
“There’s no time to delay. I’ve got wristcomp recordings to convince you, but we’ve got to act now.”
“Whatever you say, sir. I’ve just had a long talk with Mike Jones.” Dobson’s eyes were steady, but his jaw muscles contracted and relaxed as he looked at Cal.
“Okay, then. We’ve got to evacuate the whole colony.”
Lt. Dobson gave Cal a final appraising gaze and made a call. “Dobson, sir. Immediate evacuation of Daedalus and Icarus is required.”
The voice on the other end asked, “Donley says so?” The voice Cal recognized as Mike Jones’s.
“Yes,” said Dobson.
“I’ll start it. But we can’t handle more than five to ten percent.” He gave orders to someone else for a minute, then said, “Put Donley on.”
“Here,” said Cal.
“Give it to me fast.”
“There’s a container of the bacteria that killed life on Earth. It’s somewhere on Daedalus or Icarus. And I’m sure it’s going to break sometime soon. Russ Tolbor brought it here.”
It was a lot for Jones to accept, but he did it readily. “We’ll start a search. We’ve got a lot of people to do it with since probably ninety percent of us are stuck here. What’s it look like?”
Cal told him.
“Any idea where he might have put it? I’ll have someone ask him fast and firm, but I don’t want to count on it.”
“None.” Cal explained why no one would be able to question Tolbor, and then thought for a moment. “Maybe in his old apartment. He paid for another month in advance.”
Jones didn’t ask him his source of information. He just acted on it.
“I’m going over there myself,” Cal said. “It’s on my way home. I want to see if my wife will speak to me one last time.”
“Why wouldn’t she?” asked Dobson. “She was worried enough about you an hour ago.”
Cal had started for the door, but stopped and turned. “What do you mean? You found me here because of the note I left on the waiver log, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but we probably wouldn’t have found you so soon if she hadn’t raised such a commotion after you disappeared. She’s the one who went looking all through the hosp
ital for some indication of what had happened. That nurse probably wouldn’t have looked at the log until the end of the month.”
Cal couldn’t speak for a moment, he was so relieved to learn the news. Then he tried to force thoughts of Nikki out of his mind. They had to find the container.
“Thanks,” he said to Dobson, and started for the door.
“I’ll join you,” Dobson said. “It’s a big place, and that seems as good as any to look.” He directed his companion to stay behind with the body.
On the way over Dobson explained two things that Cal had been still puzzled about. First, the faked findings in Domingo’s apartment, the drugs and weapons, had been intended to make Domingo look like a criminal instead of an undercover officer, to protect Cal. Second, Cal had been asked to help investigate, not because the police had any real reason to expect fraud or any other crimes, but because that was the way Mike Jones chose to be thorough. No one but Mike Jones had known the entire story until recently.
When Cal and Lieutenant Dobson reached Tolbor’s apartment, there were two other policemen leaving. “You’re wasting your time,” said one.
Cal sagged against the hallway wall, wondering if he should try to find Nikki, to spend their last hours together. Instead he entered the apartment.
He understood immediately what the man had meant. They had ripped the place apart.
The men had already dismantled the furniture, the computer cabinet, and the kitchen appliance cabinets, leaving panels hanging open. Nothing inside. The only other possessions still there were the two pictures on the wall.
Cal felt sick. How could Tolbor do it? If the container wasn’t here, it could be almost anywhere. It could take years to find.
Cal couldn’t believe it wasn’t here. Not after Tolbor arranged a month’s extra rent. He moved to inspect the computer cabinet.
The cabinet had so many panels removed, Cal could see straight through it in almost any direction he chose. There couldn’t be anything like the bacteria container hidden there.
The kitchen appliances were the same. The police had used controlled-depth cutting lasers and carefully peeled apart any possible area of concealment.
