Whiteout!

'We got an ever-hot machine in there.'

'And sugar? You take sugar?'

'In my desk. Why?'

'Just answer,' I said urgently.

'I got those paper sugar bags in a little box.'

'You just took the top one and poured it in ?'

'Well, why not?'

'Think about it,' I said. 'You stir sugar into your coffee. Then you drink it and lie down. And shortly afterwards you start having bloody great hallucinations about boulders of dust and steel that looks like skin, and you see colours whirling about. What does that little lot suggest?'

Kelleher stared at me. 'Welcome to the crazy club.'

'Go on. Tell me what it sounds like.'

He told me. He told me I was nuts, that it was impossible, that nobody at Hundred would do a goddam crazy thing like that.

'Like what?'

'Like putting acid in my coffee.'

'In your sugar,' I said. 'I believe sugar's the classic medium.'

In the next few moments, a variety of expressions came and went on his face. The only one that stayed there was the last, and it was relief.

He said, 'I told you I'd be okay. Now we tell Barney.'

'Not yet,' I said.

'Why the hell not?'

'Because he'll choose not to believe it.'

'Barney? Sure he'll believe it. He'll believe me, I know that.'

I said, 'Look, Barney saw you. After you tried to climb into the reactor, while you were fighting everybody off, Barney was there. If your nose feels sore, it's because Barney thumped it.'

'Oh, c'mon. I've known Barney years.'

I shook my head. 'He told me yesterday about the reactor contract. He's already made up his mind not to let you near the thing again. Barney is not going to listen.'

'Talk all you want,' Kelleher said. 'I still want to see him, right?'

I conceded. 'I'll telephone the command office.'

Master Sergeant Allen told me Barney wasn't there; he was out checking and rechecking every hut, supervising the search for Carson. I asked Allen to pass on to Barney a message that Mr Kelleher was awake and anxious to talk to him.

We waited, talking desultorily. Out of plain self-defence I didn't mention my theory to Kelleher. If he could convince Barney of what must have been done to him, that was fine; but if Kelleher quoted me to Barney, his own story would be damned from that moment. Kelleher seemed content to think that the LSD had been fed to him, if indeed it had, out of personal spite or malice. Maybe he'd been driving people too hard.

He dozed off again after a while, and I tiptoed out to the office to avoid wakening him. If sleep could knit his ravelled mind, I was all for sleep.

The medic came back eventually, having spent a lot of time on a very poor radio line to some Air Force psychiatrist at Thule base. It hadn't, I gathered, been a very profitable consultation. The psychiatrist had approved what had been done, had prescribed specified sedation as necessary, and wanted Kelleher flown out to the base hospital as soon as possible.

I said, 'Well, there's no need for sedation at the moment. He's asleep.'

He nodded. He, too, was out of his depth. I glanced at my watch and said, 'Why don't you get something to eat?'

He brightened a little and went to lunch. There was no way I could have guessed it was already too late

- for him and many more.

Chapter 13

Some time after the medic had left, a complaining stomach reminded me first that I'd had no food that day, secondly that Kelleher had eaten nothing for at least thirty hours, and thirdly that no arrangements had been made for meals to be sent to us in the hospital. Something would have to be done. I picked up the phone, dialled the cookhouse number, and waited while it rang and rang. Then I hung up and dialled again. Still no response. Next I tried the command office, on the grounds that Allen would fix it. No response there, either, and that was strange: the command office was manned day and night. Then, just a few minutes later, the door opened and Allen himself stood in the doorway. He was swaying, half-doubled over, his black skin gone greasy grey, his arms folded tight and low across his stomach. He started to say something, but gagged deep in his throat, half-turned and vomited uncontrollably out of the door. It took me a couple of seconds to reach him and when I did I could only stand holding him as he continued retching. Then he seemed to have finished and tried to straighten, but another spasm gripped him and he retched again, groaning and shaking and clearly in considerable pain. When he spoke it was in a strangled croak, so punctuated by contractions of throat and stomach that it seemed the words would never come. At last he managed to get them out. 'Food poisoning.'

'Come in,' I said. 'Lie down and - '

'Not just me,' Allen gasped. 'The cookhouse . . , half the camp .., for God's sake look .., look.., in the Doc's books!' Then he was retching again, sinking to his knees in the doorway. The next few hours were horrific. Almost eighty men were affected and it seemed at times that the entire population of the camp was collapsing in the snow with acute stomach pains, vomiting and diarrhoea, and there was no help to be had from the medical staff at Thule because radio communication had again disintegrated into mush and static. We all did what we could, pouring saline solution into the sufferers, hustling them off to bed, wrapping blankets round them. The book said victims must be kept warm, and the hospital's stock of hot water bottles numbered four. Anything that would hold hot water was filled and distributed. We didn't know what we were dealing with, and since the medic, who might conceivably have known, was one of the worst victims, we didn't even know if the treatment was correct. By late evening, three men were dead and many others in a state of almost total collapse, being nursed by their friends. But by then we had radio contact again and were able to raid the dispensary for botulinus antitoxin. It almost certainly saved several lives. Kirton, if he'd been alive, might well have saved more.

I don't know when I heard about Barney. It must have been some time during the long afternoon that someone said Major Smales, too, was a victim, but I was too busy to take much notice, and in any case, with so many affected, it was hardly surprising. Later, it was rumoured for a while that he'd died, and Westlake too, but I learned later still that, though both were badly affected, they seemed to be holding their own.

By that night, Camp Hundred was in a mess. Two Air Force doctors from Thule had volunteered to be parachuted in, but the offer had to be turned down. Weather conditions up above were very bad, with winds gusting near a hundred miles an hour and the temperature thirty below. Two brave men would have been jumping to their deaths.

At one point in the afternoon, I'd slipped Kelleher a couple of sleeping tablets, in the belief that, since I couldn't release him to help and he would only chafe angrily if he were to lie helpless through it all, he'd be better asleep. They worked, but not for long. By that time he'd slept so much that it would have needed a hammer to keep his eyes closed for long. So, though he'd slept for a couple of hours, he'd also Iain awake, thinking. I was sitting beside his bed, which I'd dragged into the office to leave more space free in the ward, drinking coffee and eating a bar of chocolate, when he said, 'You reckon this whole thing could be deliberate?'

I turned and stared at him. I'd been so busy the thought hadn't even occurred to me. 'How could it be? It's on too big a scale.'

Kelleher said slowly, 'You got a freezer at home, Harry ?'

I shook my head.

'We have,' he said. 'The instructions, the books, the deep freeze centres, they all warn you the same way. It's dangerous to thaw and freeze again.'

'So?'

'So up here it's all frozen. Well, most of the stuff is. Meat is, that's for damn sure. You got any idea what those guys ate?'