Walsh stood up. Good idea. Xenon was the heaviest, non-radioactive gaseous element. They needed to get farther from the floor. Bergen stood up too and swayed, blinking owlishly at Walsh.
“Where’s the other canister?” Walsh demanded, taking off the mask and holding it over Bergen’s face. Bergen took deep breaths, quickly purging the dense gas.
“I don’t know.” He shined the light around them carefully, but the second canister was nowhere to be seen. All it did was illuminate the number of slugs in the immediate area, which was far too many for Bergen’s comfort.
They weren’t just on the walls. They were covering the sides of the tanks all around them. In fact, one of the largest ones was currently covering the door controls that led back into the other room. That’s why the light had gone out. Their escape route had just been violated by a turgid, purple blob.
The radio crackled with Jane’s voice. “Alan! Are you still awake?”
Jane. He remembered what she’d told him to do.
He passed the oxygen back to Walsh and approached the nearest ladder. “Still not dead, Jane. About to climb a ladder. We have one can of air between us.” He motioned to Walsh. “Come on, we have to get higher. The air will be better and maybe we’ll be able to see another door from up there.”
Jane’s voice came over the radio again, “Alan, don’t touch the slugs—they secrete a substance that could give you chemical burns.”
Bergen huffed and pulled himself up another rung. He couldn’t spare a hand to answer her. The rungs were ridiculously far apart. He had to pause frequently to breathe.
The exertion of climbing made them both take in too much gas. Walsh wasn’t doing so great. He wasn’t saying anything and had to be reminded what they were doing frequently. Hell, he was having trouble remembering what they were doing.
The flashlight was hooked to Bergen’s clothes, making visibility poor, but he needed both hands to climb and to pass the mask back and forth.
The slugs were all around him. He could see them glistening in the faint light.
Where was Jane? Goddammit, this needed to be over soon. How was she going to find them? How did she even know what was happening?
Life was about climbing an endless ladder and trying to keep Walsh alive. There was nothing else. Rung after rung in the near darkness. Breathe. Pass the mask.
Walsh grew less and less responsive.
The rungs were wide. Bergen hooked his elbow on a rung and slipped to the side, keeping his body carefully away from the tank and its gooey residents. He beckoned at Walsh to come up next to him, holding his breath to keep the oxygen inside as long as possible.
They would have to stay here, like this, until Jane could find them. To that end, he groped around until he had wrapped his body around Walsh’s, hooking one foot painfully around the bar and over a rung, to keep himself securely in place. He wasn’t about to let the bastard fall after all this.
After a long turn with the air, he risked trying the radio again. “Jane. Ok, look, this isn’t funny anymore. What’s taking so goddamn long?” His voice sounded a little closer to normal—a good sign.
“Are you safe now?” Jane asked.
“Not really. Walsh is in bad shape. I have no idea why. The compressed air isn’t helping him much.”
“I left Compton and Gibbs to keep trying at the door you went through. The door controls aren’t responding. We couldn’t get that door to open.”
“If the slugs are dripping toxic juice—that’s why. There’s a slug the size of a small pony sitting on the door control on this side.”
“I’m almost to another door that accesses the same room. It’s going to take me longer to find you from there. Do you have a flashlight with a strobe?”
He took the mask back from Walsh and took a few puffs before answering. “I still have a pack. I’m clinging to a ladder, trying to keep this stupid fuck from falling off. I can turn on a strobe. Just tell me when.”
He held back from saying what he really wanted to say to her: Hurry Jane. I can’t manage this much longer. Walsh is dead weight and he’s going to pull us both down.
7
Jane was afraid to believe Ei’Brai, afraid to trust him—and she was afraid not to. She was in pain. There was an absurd amount of information unfurling inside her head. She felt panicked and unsure, but she couldn’t let any of that show.
Walsh and Bergen were in desperate need—Ei’Brai seemed to be quite correct about that—and, given the nature of their predicament, it was extremely unlikely they were capable of self-rescue.
Walsh and Bergen…Alan…they could be suffocating even now.
That brought up so many uncomfortable thoughts and memories. She wanted to suppress them, but the images kept bubbling to the surface:
It had been a weekend day, with a bright blue sky and rushing clouds. She chatted up the tourists, soaking up the sun on the small boat, as Dad sought just the right spot. Then she was watching their eyes light up with wonder as she pointed out brightly colored fish and mesmerizing underwater creatures to them. The storm was unexpected, blew up quickly. The sea, suddenly turbulent, tossed them painfully into the coral. The day’s vacationers were weak swimmers, were drifting too far away. She tried to help. She had helped. But it hadn’t been enough.
No. Focus.
At least Ajaya had enough sense to observe Jane, rather than restrain or sedate her. Fortunately, Ajaya seemed to be sufficiently convinced by Jane’s self-possession and certitude, as well as by Walsh and Bergen’s strange behavior, to comply with her terse directions. That didn’t stop her from asking a lot of questions, but Jane couldn’t spare the time to explain. The best proof, for both herself and the others, was going to be a demonstration of this…collaboration—with a favorable outcome. There was no other option.
“Jane? What’s this about slugs?” Ajaya gasped from behind her.
Jane was racing for the nearest entry point to the room where Bergen and Walsh were trapped. A large green canister of compressed air was slung on her back; the tubing that connected it to the face mask slapped against her neck and chest with each step.
She had to get there in time. In a dangerous situation, even a moment of indecision could cost a life. Even a strong swimmer, they’d said.
Too many minutes had been lost trying to get the other door open. She would have liked to have sent Gibbs and Compton to try yet another door, but it would have taken too long to explain how to get there.
She ignored Ajaya’s question. Pulling off her mask briefly, she instead supplied a vital one of her own, “Ajaya, how many minutes of air are in the small canisters they took?”
“Typically, 40 minutes—”
“The same if they’re sharing it?” She spared Ajaya a fearful glance over her shoulder. They had no idea how long they’d been sharing that canister. There might not be much time left.
“The rate of flow should be the same….” Ajaya trailed off. Even Ajaya wasn’t sure.
One, two, three rows more, according to the layout that unfolded in her mind. She didn’t slow down much, just slammed into the wall, her hand outstretched to the symbol. The door opened and she darted inside. It was dark. She fumbled in her pack for a flashlight. Had she taken too long? Would she find them, pale and blue, the way they’d found her father, trapped in the reef?
She pulled off the mask and grabbed for her radio. “Bergen, I’m here. Turn on the strobe so I can see where you are.”
She replaced the mask and strained her eyes and ears to pick up any sign of him. He didn’t answer. She could faintly hear the beeping of their oxygen monitors, but the sound was repeated in the cavernous room and was hard to pinpoint.