Asher made a visible effort to remain calm. "I know that. I just need time-maybe a few hours, maybe a day-to run the signals through the language analyzers. Then I'll go straight to Medical, submit to any treatment or procedure you want. Marris can take care of the other issue by himself, at least for the present."
"Other issue?" Crane asked.
"Marris thinks he's figured out the method of transmission the saboteur is using to get information on and off the Facility."
"Really? What is it?"
"No time to explain now. But once I'm out of the chamber he's going to test his theory, try to trace the transmissions to their source. Meanwhile, I've e-mailed all the department heads-Ferguson, Conover, Bishop, the rest-to be on the lookout for anything suspicious." He paused. "But that's for later. Right now, our top priority is to decipher these signals."
Crane sighed. "Very well. But the moment you emerge from the chamber, I expect you in Medical."
At this, Asher gave a fleeting smile-the old smile Crane remembered from his first days aboard Deep Storm. "Thank you, Peter." He turned to Marris. "Got everything?"
Marris hefted the laptop, nodded.
"We'll be able to access the WAN wirelessly on the inside," Asher said. "The sentinels are all several decks below us; there won't be any interference here."
"I'll get the chamber prepped," Crane said, turning away. Then he stopped. "Wait a minute. What's this 'we'?"
"I'm going inside with Dr. Asher," Marris said.
Crane frowned. "That's highly unusual. You're not the one requiring therapy."
"It's the only way to continue our work without interruption," Marris said.
Crane hesitated a moment longer. Then he shrugged. It's only oxygen, after all. "Very well. Go ahead then, step into the chamber, please. I'll walk you through the setup procedures via the onboard microphone."
He stepped into the control room only to find that Asher had followed him. The chief scientist laid his right hand on Crane's arm. "Peter," he said, lowering his voice. "Don't tell Spartan."
"Don't tell him what?"
"About the wrong turn we took. Or about how close we are now."
This caught Crane by surprise. "I thought the whole point of this exercise was to tell Spartan what you find."
Asher shook his head vigorously. "No, not right away. I don't trust Spartan." His voice fell even further. "And I trust Korolis even less." His grip tightened on Crane's arm. "Promise me, Peter?"
Crane hesitated. Hearing this-seeing the strange light in Asher's eyes, the sheen of sweat on his brow-a new thought suddenly occurred to him. Vascular insufficiency might not be the only thing afflicting Asher. Perhaps what was striking the rest of the personnel was affecting him now, as well.
It was a profoundly depressing and disturbing thought.
Gently, he freed his arm from Asher's grasp. "Very well."
Asher nodded, smiled again. Then he turned away and walked toward the hyperbaric chamber. And as Crane ran through the control room setup-bringing the compressors online, ensuring the ASME storage tanks were topped up, checking the relief valves and pressure gauges-the haunted, hunted look in Asher's eyes remained always before him.
33
Charles Vasselhoff shuffled slowly and uncertainly toward Bottom, the mess hall located on deck 3. It wasn't so much that he was hungry-his mouth felt dry, as if moths had nested in it, and there was an unpleasant feeling in the pit of his stomach-it was simply that he had no place else to go. His large frame shook with chills, yet he felt so hot he'd had to unzip the top half of his orange jumpsuit. But what bothered him most was his head. The pain had begun like a normal headache, and he'd assumed it was just stress or maybe overwork. But then it had grown worse: a strange, irritating feeling of fullness, as if his brain had grown too big for his skull. His vision blurred, and his fingers grew tingly and numb at the tips. So he'd stopped work in the Electromechanical Machine Shop, where he'd been repairing impact damage to the alpha Doodlebug, and went to his quarters.
But that had been no better. He'd tossed and thrashed, soaking the pillow with a cold sweat and entangling his limbs in the sheets. Patroni, one of his bunkmates, had been there, big smelly feet up on the communal table, watching a cooking show on the Facility's internal cable network. The incessant drone of the cooking pro became more and more annoying. The strange sensation in his head increased, causing his ears to ring. And then there was the way Patroni looked at him-sidelong, sneaky glances, the way you'd look at somebody who was talking to himself just a little too loudly. Vasselhoff had been aware of people staring at him for the last couple of days-it started, he thought, around the same time the headaches began-but never his own bunkmates. And so with a whispered curse, he swung his legs out of the bunk, pushed himself to his feet, and stepped out into the hallway, shutting the door behind him without a word.
And now he found his feet taking him in the direction of Bottom. At least, he thought it was the direction of Bottom, but somehow he found himself in front of a Radiography Lab instead. He blinked, swayed slightly on his feet, turned around. Somewhere he'd taken a false step: he'd try again. Putting one foot deliberately in front of the other, he started back down the narrow corridor.
A man in a white lat coat passed by, digital clipboard in hand. "Yo, Chucky," he said without stopping.
Chucky took another two steps, then halted. Slowly, even stiffly, he turned in the direction of the technician, who was already halfway down the hall. The words had taken a second to register: the strange, crowded feeling in his head was causing his eyes to water slightly and the ringing in his ears to increase, and he was withdrawing into himself, preoccupied with the pain in his head and the chills that racked his body.
"Hey," he said tentatively, his voice sounding thick and strange. He licked his lips again but was unable to bring any moisture to them. Turning back, he made his slow, plodding way to the cafeteria, stopping at each intersection and blinking at the direction signs, forcing himself through the fog of confusion to make the necessary turns.
Bottom was crowded before the impending shift change. Some people were clustered before an easel sporting the evening's menu choices. Others had formed a line for the serving stations. Chucky joined this line, wondering-remotely-why his legs felt so wooden and heavy. The buzz of conversation in the small cafeteria seemed to make the ringing in his ears worse. It was so loud, so distinct, he was certain the others must hear it, too. Yet nobody seemed to find anything strange or out of place. It was as if invisible beams of noise were being directed into his head alone.
Where was it coming from? Who was doing this?
He took a tray from the stack, shuffled ahead, bumped into the person ahead of him, mumbled an apology, lurched backward.
It took all the concentration he could muster to move forward with the line. He reached for a can of soda, then another and another, thinking they might wash the dryness from his mouth. He took a plate of watercress salad, looked at it uncertainly, put it back. He stopped at the carving station, where a chef wielding a heavy steel knife cut a thick slab of prime rib for him, forking it onto a plate and drizzling a brownish line of gravy over it.