The two pieces of the wreck loomed up over him, its great rust-colored hull sweeping upward and out of sight. He came to a halt mere feet from it, well hidden from the Baobab. He shut off his lights and settled in for a short wait—his last. Funny, now that he was facing death—certain death—no thoughts came into his brain. Just the final steps he had to take in order to position the bomb, complete his mission. And—he smiled grimly—save the world.
Twenty-four minutes.
Suddenly, through the starboard viewport, he saw lights approaching. Bright lights. He was confounded: what the hell was this? He turned on his own lights and saw, with utter surprise, the DSV John—coming straight at him at flank speed.
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.
67
GIDEON COULD SEE that John was on a kamikaze mission, AI obviously turned off or overridden, the mini sub intending to ram him. He ramped up the propulsion and brought Pete around to face John while at the same time ascending as quickly as possible. But being tethered to the nuke made his DSV sluggish and difficult to maneuver. He realized that what he had to do, above all, was to protect the six propellers in the rear from damage.
Slowly, agonizingly, his propellers humming, the DSV rose, the tethered nuke dangling. John came on fast but erratically, and through either misjudgment or mishandling it missed ramming Pete, passing just to one side; as it swept past, Gideon glimpsed Antonella Sax working the controls, struggling to bring the DSV back around without the help of the autopilot. It was incredible: the senior exobiologist, in thrall to the alien life-form. What in hell was she thinking?
Now Pete was ascending faster, while below him he watched Sax’s DSV make a loop, coming back around and heading for him once again. Gideon realized she was on a trajectory to hit his stern—aiming, rightly so, for the propulsion system.
There was nothing he could do, he realized, to avoid an impact. Quickly moving his joystick around, he rotated the DSV so as to put the propellers behind and watched, helplessly, as John came straight at him. Sax’s calm, bland face could be seen illuminated through the forward viewport, staring at him as she closed in.
There was a terrific crash and Gideon was thrown forward, arrested by the safety straps, his DSV recoiling from the blow. A monitor cracked and a shower of sparks fell inside the personnel module. But the titanium sphere was built to withstand immense pressure, far higher than any ramming would accomplish. She couldn’t sink him by ramming him—but she could make it impossible for him to deliver the weapon to the proper altitude.
Sixteen minutes.
As his ascending sub cleared the upper edge of the Rolvaag, the Baobab loomed into view. Gideon was shocked: it was now glowing from some sort of internal phosphorescence, a gigantic, pale, greenish-yellow thing that no longer looked like a tree but rather a vast polyp, swelling and subsiding as it drew in and expelled water.
He wondered if Sax could be reached on the UQC; if there was any chance of talking her out of this crazy defense of the Baobab. He switched it on.
“Antonella!” he cried. “Can you hear me?”
John was coming around for another swipe at him. To his surprise, her voice came back, calm and steady. “I hear you loud and clear.”
“What the hell are you doing?”