Their bodies were fixed in odd, unnatural positions. None lay on the floor as if they had simply fallen. Most looked as if they had suddenly lost their balance and were desperately clinging to something to keep upright. A few were actually clutching carpeted flooring; one or two had hands tightly clasped against the sides of their head. Pitt was intrigued by the odd positions and tried to pry the hands away to see if they might have been covering any indications of injury or disease, but they were as rigid as if they had been grafted to the skin of the ears and temples.
The vomiting seemed an indication that death was brought about by virulent disease or contaminated food. And yet the obvious causes did not set right to Pitt’s way of thinking. No plague or food poisoning is known to kill in a few short minutes. As he walked in deep contemplation toward the communications room, a theory began unfolding in his mind. His thoughts were rudely interrupted when he entered and was greeted by a cadaver perched on a desk like a grotesque ceramic statue.
“How did he get there?” Pitt asked calmly.
“I put him there,” Giordino said matter-of-factly without looking up from the radio console. “He was sitting on the only chair in the room and I figured I needed it worse than he did.”
“He makes a total of seventeen.”
“The toll keeps adding up.”
“You get through to Dempsey?”
“He’s standing by. Do you want to talk to him?”
Pitt leaned over Giordino and spoke into the satellite telephone that linked him with almost any point of the globe. “This is Pitt. You there, skipper?”
“Go ahead Dirk, I’m listening.”
“Has Al filled you in on what we’ve found here?”
“A brief account. As soon as you can tell me there are no survivors, I will alert Argentinean authorities.”
“Consider it done. Unless I missed one or two in closets or under beds, I have a body count of seventeen.”
“Seventeen,” Dempsey repeated. “I read you. Can you determine the cause of death?”
“Negative,” Pitt answered. “The apparent symptoms aren’t like anything you’d find in your home medical guide. We’ll have to wait for a pathologist’s report.”
“You might be interested to know that Miss Fletcher and Van Fleet have pretty well eliminated viral infections and chemical contamination as the cause of death for the penguins and seals.”
“Everyone at the station vomited before they died. Ask them to explain that.”
“I’ll make a note of it. Any sign of the second shore party?”
“Nothing. They must still be on board the ship.”
“Very strange.”
“So what are we left with?”
Dempsey sighed defeatedly. “A big fat puzzle with too many missing pieces.”
“On the flight here we passed over a seal colony that was wiped out. Have you determined how far the scourge extends?”
“The British station two hundred kilometers to the south of you on the Jason Peninsula and a U.S. cruise ship that’s anchored off Hope Bay have reported no unusual events nor any evidence of mass creature destruction. By taking into account the area in the Weddell Sea where we discovered the school of dead dolphins, I put the death circle within a diameter of ninety kilometers, using the whaling station on Seymour Island as a center point.”
“We’re going to move on now,” Pitt notified him, “and make a sweep for Polar Queen.”
“Mind that you keep enough fuel in reserve to return to the ship.”
“In the bank,” Pitt assured Dempsey. “An invigorating swim in ice water I can do without.”
Giordino closed down the research station’s communications console, and then they stepped lively toward the entrance; jogged quickly was closer to the truth. Neither Pitt nor Giordino wished to spend another moment in that icy tomb. As they rose from the station, Giordino studied his chart of the Antarctic Peninsula.
“Where to?”
“The right thing to do is search in the area selected by Ice Hunter’s computer,” Pitt replied.
Giordino gave Pitt a dubious look. “You realize, of course, that our ship’s data analyzer did not agree with your idea of the cruise ship running aground on the peninsula or a nearby island.”
“Yes, I’m well aware that Dempsey’s brain box put Polar Queen steaming around in circles far out in the Weddell Sea.”
“Do I detect a tone of conflict?”
“Let’s just say a computer can only analyze the data that is programmed into it before offering an electronic opinion.”
“So where to?” Giordino repeated.
“We’ll check out the islands north of here as far as Moody Point at the tip of the peninsula. Then we’ll curve east and work out to sea until we converge with the Ice Hunter.”
Giordino well knew he was being baited and hooked by the biggest flimflam man in the polar seas, but he took the bait anyway. “You’re not strictly following the computer’s advice.”
“Not one hundred percent, no.”
Giordino could feel the jerk on the line. “I’d like a faint clue as to what’s going on in your devious mind.”
“We found no human bodies at the seal colony. So we now know the ship did not heave to for a shore excursion. Follow me?”
“Thus far.”
“Picture the ship steering north from the whaling station. The scourge, plague or whatever you want to call it, strikes before the crew has a chance to send the passengers ashore. In these waters, with ice floes and bergs floating all around like ice cubes in a punch bowl, there is no way the captain would have set the ship on automated control. The risk of collision is too great. He would have taken the helm himself, probably steering the ship from one of the electronic steering consoles on the port and starboard bridge wings.”
“Good as far as it goes,” Giordino said mechanically. “Then what?”
“The ship was cruising along the coast of Seymour Island when the crew was stricken,” Pitt explained.
“Now take your chart and draw a line slightly north of east for two hundred kilometers and cross it with a thirty kilometer arc. Then tell me where you are and what islands intersect the course.”
Before Giordino complied, he stared at Pitt. “Why didn’t the computer come to the same conclusion?”
“Because as a ship’s captain, Dempsey was more concerned with winds and currents. He also assumed, and rightly so for a master mariner, that the last act of a dying captain would be to save his ship. That meant turning Polar Queen away from the danger of grounding on a rocky shore and steering her toward the relative safety of the sea and taking his chances with the icebergs.”
“You don’t think that was the way it was.”
“Not after seeing the bodies at the research station. Those poor souls hardly had time to react much less carry out a sound decision. The captain of the cruise ship died in his own vomit while the ship was on a course parallel to the shore. With the rest of the ship’s officers and the engine room crew stricken, Polar Queen sailed on until she either beached on an island, struck a berg and sank, or steamed out into the South Atlantic until her engines ran out of fuel and she became a drifting derelict far off the known sea lanes.”
The absence of reaction to Pitt’s divination was almost total. It was as if Giordino expected it. “Have you ever thought seriously of becoming a professional palm reader?”
“Not until five minutes ago,” Pitt came back.
Giordino sighed and drew the course Pitt requested on the chart. After a few minutes he propped it against the instrument panel so Pitt could view his markings. “If your mystical intuition is on target, the only chance Polar Queen has for striking hard ground between here and the South Atlantic is on one of three small islands that are little more than pinnacles of exposed rock.”