Looking intently at McFarlane’s expression, Lloyd nodded. “We both hate the man. Don’t we, Sam? It was his fault—all his fault.”
“Not just his,” McFarlane said. “Yours, too.”
Lloyd sat back up in his chair. “Mine!” He gave a harsh laugh. “Oh—I suppose you’re blaming me for roping you into the expedition in the first place? For ruining your life?” His voice rose tremulously. “As I recall, your life was ruined already. Have you forgotten the Tornarssuk meteorite? I gave you a chance for redemption. It was Glinn, not I, who took that chance away—and you know it.”
The orderly named Ronald, standing near the door, stirred. “Don’t excite the patient,” he warned.
Immediately Lloyd became calm again. He gestured for the other orderly to give him a sip from the plastic cup. “What have you been doing with yourself, Sam?” he asked in a quieter voice. “Other than peddling worthless meteorites, I mean.”
“This and that.”
“Such as?”
McFarlane shrugged. “Taught geology at a community college for a while. Worked at a steel mill in Braddock, Pennsylvania.”
“But you couldn’t stay still, could you? The demons kept driving you on, right? Ha! Well, it turns out you’re not the only one. Glinn, too. He came to see me with that right-hand man of his, Garza, and some younger fellow, can’t recall his name. Seems he’s been haunted by that thing we planted in the South Atlantic all this time, too.” Lloyd leaned in again. “Except his demons are worse than ours. He didn’t throw the dead man’s switch. He sank the Rolvaag. He killed a hundred and eight people. Worst of alclass="underline" he left that thing there, all these five years. He let it grow. Grow, grow, until now it’s—”
“Mr. Lloyd,” Ronald said, mildly but firmly.
“What?” Lloyd said, craning his neck around to look at the orderly. “I’m just talking to an old friend.” He turned back to McFarlane. Now his tone became hurried, almost anxious, as if he knew his time was short. “I’ve thought about Glinn’s visit, ever since he left. I’ve thought about nothing else. He’s going back there, Sam—after all these years. I thought his inaction was cowardice. But it wasn’t that. It was a question of money. Now he’s got it. And he’s down there by now. God only knows what’s going on there, this very minute.”
He made a gesture from beneath the straitjacket, as if desirous of grasping McFarlane’s hand. The chains on his legs clinked as he shifted in his chair. “But I know what’s going to happen. If you have any brains, you know, too. He’s going to fail—again. He’s born to failure; he seeks it out. The patterns of thought that doomed the Rolvaag are going to doom this expedition, too. He’s acting egotistically, judgment clouded. He’s got no humility, no sense of the uncontrollable randomness of events. He’s made a living out of solving engineering problems, terrestrial engineering problems—and this isn’t like that at all. Oh, no, not at all.”
“Why are you telling me this?” McFarlane asked.
“Why do you think, man? You have to go down there. He needs your expertise. Your familiarity with those bad old days. Your ability to stand up to him, tell him he’s wrong to his face. Damn it, he needs somebody who was as—as close—to that thing as he was. He needs an interfering angel—someone as wrecked as he is!”
“Go yourself,” McFarlane said.
For a moment, Lloyd stared at him in surprise. Then he dissolved into laughter once again. “Go myself? These gentlemen would protest. Besides, even if they let me out of these restraints, I’d never make it past the front door. I’ve thought of a hundred, a thousand, ways to kill myself. I’d be dead within sixty seconds of being free.” Lloyd stopped laughing. “Look, it’s not a question of money, you have to go, and go now, I’ll bankroll you—”
“So you’re as big a coward as you thought Glinn was,” McFarlane interrupted. “You know what’s going to happen—what that seed will do to the world—and you can’t stand the thought of it. So you want out before it happens.”
“Sir—” Ronald said in another warning tone.
“Well, you know what? You’re right. We’re all dead—or will be, soon. And a good thing. I’ve wandered the world for five years now, and in all that time I haven’t seen a whole hell of a lot worth saving. I hope that thing does destroy humanity—before we go out and ruin the galaxy. Good riddance to us. And you especially.”
For a moment, Lloyd stared in mute surprise. Then his face colored with rage. “You…How dare you come here and patronize me with your insectile world-weariness, your faux ennui! You’re worse than he is. You disgust me! You’re dogshit! You’re…no, wait! Don’t go. Come back, Sam—don’t go! Don’t go!”
But McFarlane had risen and was heading quickly for the door—even as the orderlies were hurrying to escort him bodily from Dearborne Park.
28
IN THE VIDEO room, Garza glanced at Glinn to see how he was taking it. Once again, he could only marvel at the man’s coolness.
The video now cut to several quick shots of the ship’s corridors; the running of personnel to the lifeboats; and then to the lifeboats themselves, enclosed orange boats that were not on davits but of the free-fall type, in which the lifeboat sits on a downward-facing track and is launched by sliding off the main vessel.
Back to the bridge. Everyone had abandoned their stations save for First Officer Howell and the helmsman. The helmsman would die, Garza knew, but Howell would survive. But where had the captain gone? Garza recalled that he himself had ordered his men to abandon their stations and then had followed the captain’s orders, leaving the hold and proceeding to his own assigned abandon station: one of the free-fall lifeboats.
Another cut to the hold. Glinn could now be seen arriving at the upper catwalk, greeted by the Tierra del Fuegan, Puppup. The hold elevator was broken, and so Glinn began climbing down to the lower catwalk around the cradle, clinging to the ladder as the ship heeled and the ladder departed from the vertical. The hold was filled with the sound of groaning steel and cracking wood. The tarp around the meteorite had torn, exposing its massive crimson surface.
Garza peered more closely at the screen. Fascination was now replacing his initial shock and horror. These were images he had never seen; events he had never known. Glinn, of course, had never spoken of them.
Glinn began working the rubber-coated chains that had shaken loose, using the motor-assist to tighten them back around the meteorite. Puppup was helping him, their conversation partially drowned out by noise.
Then another figure suddenly appeared on the upper catwalk: Captain Britton. “Eli!” she called in a loud voice. “The ship’s about to break up!”
Glinn said nothing. He continued to work with Puppup, trying to retighten the chains, which had ratcheted loose in the previous roll. Garza himself had tried again and again to tighten the chains in the same way, only to have them slide back out under the immense weight of the meteorite with each roll of the ship, as the ratcheting gears were becoming stripped.
“Come back to the bridge with me,” she called out. “There may still be time to trigger the switch. Both of us can still live.”
Now Glinn shouted back, “Sally, the only people who are going to die are the foolish ones in the lifeboats. If you stay here, you’ll survive.”
The ship heeled once again; the meteorite shuddered; and still the captain pleaded with Glinn to abandon ship. But Glinn refused to stop work on the chains, even as the ship rolled again, more dreadfully, the hold a riot of screeching, tearing metal, the great meteorite shifting with a sound like thunder.