Dr Morbury's Cargo Page 5

  Dingbang descended the ladder, feeling the heat of the pipes against his exposed skin. Halfway down was a hatch that connected to the engine room. It was unlocked, so Dingbang pushed it open and climbed inside.

  A wave of heat struck him, far more than he would have expected simply from the furnace. It must be due to the modifications for the cargo.

  The first two doors on the left and right were crew quarters for Terry, Ichiro and Remy. The second on the right was the workshop. He went to the door at the end and tried the handle. It turned but the door would not open. The handle itself was hot.

  He banged on the door. “Montgomery!” he shouted. He knew the Europeans made fun of him behind his back, about the way he pronounced their names. “Montgomery, it is Dingbang Hsieh. We must talk!”

  After a few moments there was the sound of a bolt being drawn back and the door opened. Montgomery was stripped to the waist as usual and covered in sweat. Dingbang was no effete bureaucrat from Peking, but the smell of sweat was overpowering and unpleasant.

  Montgomery’s arm muscles twitched and it was then Ding noticed the knife in his hand reflecting the red light from the furnace within.

  “Who’s with you?” Montgomery said, his gaze flicking past Ding into the area behind.

  “No one.”

  Montgomery took a step back to make way for him and gestured with the knife for Ding to enter. Keeping an eye on the blade, Ding came through. Montgomery slammed the door shut and rebolted it.

  “Had to be sure,” he said. “Can’t let them find me.”

  “Who?” asked Dingbang. Could it be that Montgomery also feared the Company?

  “Here,” said Montgomery. Ding watched as the man reached down and picked up a length of rope. He tossed it to Ding, who caught it automatically. Montgomery was on him in a second, the knife pressed against Ding’s neck.

  “Sit down and tie that around your ankles,” he said. “Nice and tight.”

  As Ding let himself down to the floor gently he noticed the bulk of Ichiro in the far corner, trussed up and gagged.

  “Sorry,” said Montgomery. “But I can’t trust you.”

  xii

  Now

  Fanning stared in horrified fascination as Morbury disappeared beneath the fast expanding fungal growth. She almost forgot she was clinging to the exterior of the ship.

  The fact that she was right about the cargo being the source of the problem did not make her feel any better. She wished she could have a smoke.

  Then she realised that she could. All she had to do was make her way along the hull to the rear and the open deck section below the propeller.

  The ship’s oscillations had ceased and she was now only partially within the Faraday. She had to climb down. It was only a few inches but she would have to bend her right leg—which was only supported on a tiny crack in the wood.

  It did not matter, she told herself, because she had tied the ropes and she could not fall far if she slipped. Still, the prospect of that did not please her. After all, what if the ropes did not hold? Or the lip broke? Either would send her plummeting to her death.

  She took a firm hold of the door handle with her left hand and gripped as best she could with her right on the porthole frame. Tensing herself she bent her right leg. Her left foot was pointed and, as she went down, she used it to search for the lip. Only a few inches, it must be there.

  The thruster above her head whined into life again, and the ship swung from under her. Her right hand could not maintain any grip on the frame and she fell. Her left hand tightened convulsively on the door handle, which turned.

  Without the slightest click it swung open and she dangled beneath it as a blast of hot air poured out, along with the smell of hot, damp wood.

  She got her foot up inside the door frame, and though the door tried to open further as she applied pressure to hold her weight, she managed to keep it from swinging further out. With her other hand she grabbed the frame and pulled herself inside. Her weight disappeared as she moved further in and the whole manoeuvre became easier as she performed it.

  She released the outside handle, grabbed the inner one, and pulled it shut. Or tried to. The rope prevented it from closing. She spent valuable seconds pulling it in after her and shut the door.

  She had never been so grateful to be inside the ship and safe. As she slid down the door frame and sat, she realised her heart was thumping like a marching band doing double time. It was so hot and damp, her clothes and hair became plastered to her body in moments.

  In the harsh electric light everything in the cargo hold was visible. Particularly the remains of Dr Morbury: Almost nothing could be seen of him now save his general outline and his clothes poking through the encroaching layer of fungus.

  Halfway across the hold were the boxes of the cargo itself. They looked completely normal. Just wooden crates piled up. If the fungus had escaped from there it must have moved on. It must have eaten Dr Morbury.

  Did that mean that Dr Lambington was dead too? And Mr Ketteridge?

  Morbury had crawled from his sleeping area nearest to the door, just fifteen feet from where Fanning now sat. The light showed nothing around her, but she moved away from the wall. There might be something hiding in the shadows.

  The other two spaces remained a mystery. The men might be in there. They might already be dead. They might just be sleeping. If that was the case she needed to warn them. Either way she needed to get out of here as soon as possible, before the fungus came after her.

  Taking pains not to make any sound she climbed to her feet. The background throbbing of the generators and motor that drove the propeller hid small noises, but that worked both ways. Somehow the fungus had managed to creep up on Morbury.

  Her mind went back to the way the botanist had scoffed at Mrs Cameron’s comments about the fungus attacking people. He was wrong and now the victim of his error. All those skeletons they said they had found on Venus, covered with fungus. Those were not carrion killed by something else, that much was plain.

  Well, the Oxford Botanic Garden would need a new curator. If Fanning and the crew managed to get out of this alive she could warn him (whoever he might be) and his people to be more careful with their samples—though she could imagine it would make quite a sight for visitors to see a fungus creeping up on a rat and consuming it while it still lived.

  She shivered at the thought.

  She needed to move. What if she opened the doors? Clearly it was hot and damp enough in here to mimic conditions on Venus. It seemed reasonable to think the fungus could not survive if it was too cold. She did not think she could get the cargo doors open by herself, but she could at least open the one she had come in by.

  After checking the shadows to make sure there was nothing lurking in them, she opened the door again. The incoming air seemed very cold since she had had enough time to acclimatise to the heat of the hold. Getting that door to stay open was another problem.

  She found an off-cut from Montgomery’s construction work lying in a corner. Cautiously she poked at it with her foot, just in case something was lurking. She wedged it into the door frame. The gap was only a couple of inches but she thought it would hold.

  It might reduce the overall temperature by a few degrees.

  Fanning took a deep breath. Time to check the other sleeping areas. She gave the fungal remains of Dr Morbury a wide berth but got close enough to see that the surface continued to move as the fungus absorbed his body.

  Once she got closer she could hear a faint popping noise coming from the corpse. She could not imagine what might cause it and, after a couple of unpleasant thoughts passed through her mind, she decided that she did not want to imagine—or know for certain, either.

  Keeping at arm’s length and using another off-cut she pushed back the curtain of the second space. A second pile of fungus, approximately body-shaped, lay on a pallet. She did not know whether it was Ketteridge or Lambington. She did know he was dead.

  She
inspected the area again, still not seeing any patches of fungus that might attack her. A terrifying thought struck her. She looked up.

  The ceiling looked normal. No fungal patches ready to drop on her. She let out a breath she had not realised she was holding.

  She made her way towards the stairs that led back up towards the bridge, focused on the need to get to the engine room to turn the heat off.

  There was a sound above her. The door to the cargo hold was being opened. Someone was coming in.

  Fanning dived beneath the stairs and into the shadow. For a moment she wondered why she did not just talk to whoever it was coming through. But her experiences with everyone else on the ship so far convinced her that, until she knew which way the wind blew, staying hidden was best.

  The first voice Fanning heard from the safety of the shadows was Mrs Cameron’s.

  “Someone’s left the door open.”

  xiii

  Now

  The boots of Mr Ketteridge thumped down the steps over Fanning’s head while Mrs Cameron’s tripped down lightly.

  “Wait there,” said Ketteridge when they reached the bottom. Fanning shrank back further into the shadows as the man went out across the deck towards the open door. He grabbed the handle and pushed the door wider then kicked the rope out. Fanning watched its length slither over the edge, disappearing faster and faster until the end whipped out into the dark.

  The sound of rushing air cut off as he slammed the door shut. She crouched and then knelt in the dark, freezing as his gaze swept the room. He glared into the darkness below the stairs, making her blood run cold and her heart pound so hard she thought he must hear it. Then he looked elsewhere.

  “Why are we here?”

  Mrs Cameron’s words slurred as if she was drunk. Fanning saw her stagger away from the bottom of the stairs.

  “What’s that?” Beatrice said pointing at the pile of fungus that had once been Dr Morbury. “One of your specimens has escaped. Will it attack?”

  Ketteridge came striding back across the deck. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “You’ve been told they don’t attack.”

  He caught her by the hand. Fanning was embarrassed by the lascivious look Mrs Cameron gave him. She lifted his hand and entwined her fingers in his. She rubbed her cheek against his hand and then brought it to her mouth. From what Fanning could see she was licking his fingers, all the while looking into his eyes from beneath half-closed eyelids.

  She clearly had no idea how to seduce a man. Rather than appearing the coquette, she looked ridiculous.

  Ketteridge pulled his hand from her face but did not disentangle their fingers. “Plenty of time for that, Beatrice.”

  Mrs Cameron pouted and looked around the cargo hold with disdain. “Why are we here, Tom? We would be much more comfortable in my cabin.”

  “But I have something important to show you, Beatrice, my dear.”

  He stepped towards the cases piled in the centre of the hold. She did not move for a moment and their arms stretched out between them.

  “I don’t like it in here,” she said. “And I don’t think I like you either.”

  “But you’ll still do anything I say, won’t you?” he said with an undertone of menace in his voice.

  She sighed. “Of course I will.”

  Fanning frowned. What was wrong with her? Being drunk was one thing but this was more like mesmerism, as if Ketteridge wielded some mystic power over Beatrice. Not that Fanning could understand his appeal at all. They had not even been introduced. The closest they had been since Ketteridge had arrived was at the dinner table when Fanning had been serving.

  Ketteridge pulled Beatrice up to the packing cases. “Stay there,” he said again and disengaged his hand. Playfully she kept twisting her fingers round his so he could not let go.

  He back-handed her across the face. The slap cut like a knife through the hold and threw Beatrice to the floor. She pulled herself into a sitting position and wept noisily, like a child making a point rather than actually being in pain.

  Fanning shook her head. This made no sense.

  Turning his attention to the boxes, Ketteridge shifted a small one from the top of another and picked up what looked like a chisel from between the packing cases.

  The lid of the small crate levered off with almost no effort, as if someone had done it before, quite recently. Ketteridge reached in and pulled out handfuls of straw, dumping it on the ground around him. Then he leaned in and lifted out another box.

  The new box was made of a very dark wood bound in brass. It hit the deck with a clunk as Ketteridge put it down. Even under reduced gravity it seemed to possess considerable weight.

  Fanning leaned forwards to see better but her view was blocked by cargo. She could only see one end of the box. Still standing, Ketteridge rummaged in his pockets until he found a brass key. He knelt down so only his head was visible but Fanning could see when he lifted the lid.

  The actions of Tom Ketteridge had distracted Beatrice from her immature crying. She was now looking at the box and the contents, which Fanning was unable to see from her position.

  “That looks horrible,” said Beatrice.

  “No, it’s beautiful,” said Ketteridge. There was a tone in his voice that Fanning had only ever heard in church: devout reverence bordering on mania.

  “Don’t touch it!” said Beatrice.

  “That’s why we’re here, my darling.”

  “Well, I’m not touching it,” she said. “And you can’t make me.”

  She gathered up her skirts, climbed to her feet, and backed away.

  Ketteridge stood as well, but slowly. The object he was holding came into view. A livid green under the electric lights, it was a globule of fungus about six inches across. From where she was Fanning could see that the surface was dimpled and patterned, and strands of thin material hung down from it though they were light enough to move in the air. Ketteridge was holding it with his bare hand and a smile touched his lips.

  He glanced across to the outer wall where Beatrice had retreated.

  “Come here.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Come here, now!”

  Fanning was astonished to see the woman’s whole body switch from the defiant posture she had been maintaining to one of subservience, with her head down and her shoulders rounded. She shuffled towards Ketteridge.

  “That’s right,” he said. “Do as you’re told. It just wants to get to know you.”

  “I don’t want to touch it,” she said, returning to the little girl voice.

  “I know, but it wants to touch you.”

  The hackles rose on the back of Fanning’s neck. She shifted her position, getting up from her knees and onto her feet. She watched the scene in fascination.

  With obvious reluctance but seemingly unable to fight Ketteridge’s instructions, Mrs Cameron approached.

  Fanning’s gaze was attracted by the feathery strands of the green glob. They twitched. She was certain Ketteridge’s hand had not moved. They had twitched on their own.

  “I’m scared,” said Beatrice.

  “There’s no need.”

  He reached out his free hand and she stretched out hers until they were touching. She shuffled forwards again. He took a firm grip of her wrist but she did not react to it. Her eyes were fixated on the blob.

  There was no question now that it was moving of its own accord—the strands, at least.

  Mrs Cameron whimpered as Ketteridge pulled her hand closer to the green mass. The threadlike strands reached towards her.

  Fanning screamed her attack.

  xiv

  Now

  Fanning launched herself from the shadows beneath the stairs.

  Ketteridge looked up in astonishment as Fanning rocketed like a banshee, screaming across the deck, bounding fast under the Faraday effect. Whatever spell Ketteridge had over Beatrice appeared to break as she yanked her wrist free of his hand.

  Fanning had a plan of
sorts. The first part involved her barrelling into Beatrice and knocking her back and away from Ketteridge and his fist full of green. That part worked. Moments later her momentum had transferred to Beatrice who was now flying away from her, though with less speed.

  Fanning rebounded a little from the collision and took a moment to orient herself. That moment was all it took for Ketteridge to reach out for her and grab her wrist. He was strong and could easily overpower her small female body.

  Ketteridge glanced at the green blob. Its strands had resumed their aimless fluttering.

  “It doesn’t want me,” Fanning said in triumph.

  “Of course not,” said Ketteridge. “You haven’t been prepared.”

  With an almost casual air he lowered his hand to let the fungus slide off, back into the case where Fanning saw three glass containers held firmly inside. Even in the high temperature of the cargo hold she could feel an even more intense heat radiating from the case. It must have its own heating elements.

  Ketteridge was holding her firm, and Fanning used that to lift her feet from the deck and press them into the side of the packing case beside her. She drove her legs straight and shoved herself away from the man in the hopes it would force him to release her.

  She failed and instead pulled him with her. Together they flew back towards the stairs. She landed on her back, which would not have been a problem had Ketteridge not landed on top of her, driving the wind from her lungs with his elbow and pinning her legs.

  “Fanning, isn’t it?” he said. “We haven’t been formally introduced. I am Tom Ketteridge, the herald of a new age.”

  She slapped him with her free hand but he barely seemed to notice. She was not very strong.

  As if he were a magician about to indulge in some prestidigitation, Ketteridge showed her his free hand and stretched his arm, thereby pulling the sleeve of his shirt up his forearm. As he splayed out his fingers Fanning could not help but look; the skin of his now-bare wrist had a curious mottled appearance, almost like a faded tattoo.