Hell's Gate(76)
But Voorhees never replied. My sleds, the beautiful control systems I designed, the guidance systems, all of it will soon be destroyed.
“Maurice . . . are you listening to me?” S?nger said.
Wasted.
Despite all of it, there had to be a better day coming, he tried to convince himself. He just did not know how to get there yet.
But, he told himself, I’ll think of something.
In the Bio Lab, Dr. Akira Kimura had just put the finishing touches on the six pathogenic reentry vehicles, or “cluster bombs.” Three for each of what’s-his-name’s Silverfish.
The bacteria within each bomb now rested (comfortably, Kimura imagined) in beds of ultrafine sand, sand that would be dispersed for miles in every direction once a whole series of cylindrical “bomblets” popped apart, high over their targets.
Until then, his “children” could sleep peacefully, safely isolated from exposure to the damp tropical air. Their nurturing and safety had been his primary concern for the past week.
Who knows what disgusting thing might try to contaminate them as they sleep?
To minimize the risk, the little incubation chambers themselves had been outfitted with parachutes, thus becoming the bomblets, dozens of which would be parceled into the six cluster bombs, each designed to “blossom” at a predetermined altitude. Like the Silverbirds, Kimura’s bomblet system had almost been launch-ready on the day the Nostromo arrived at Hell’s Gate, with the only modification being substitution of vampire bat pathogens for his Unit 731 anthrax strain.
What will the Americans think when they see the parachutes? Kimura wondered. And the insignia we’ve designed.
He hoped they would be frightened—although not to death. That would be too soon, and it would spoil the fun.
Kimura was satisfied that all the difficulties of testing and preparing the bomblets were conquered. The other bit of good news concerned the draculae, who had doubtless taken care of the MacCready problem. The disease warrior imagined that the plateau at sunset must have been like a violently shaken hornet’s nest, after Wolff and Reitsch helicoptered out with their specimen.
“We yanked the dragon’s tail,” Wolff had told Kimura, “then left the American to burn.”
Nightfall, in the forest two miles outside Nostromo Base
FEBRUARY 15, 1944
* * *
MacCready had told Yanni he would do better than walking twenty feet without collapsing. He was determined to cover twenty miles. And by now he had done just that.
“So what is he really doing in there, Mac? This so-called Wolff and his pals?”
“I have no doubt at this point that they’re trying to multiply whatever the bats are carrying in their mouths—some form of hemorrhagic shit—quite possibly a bacterium.”
“And what makes you think this, again?” Thorne had heard his friend’s explanation several times already but he was apparently still trying to convince himself that Mac was no longer delirious.
“Look, the wrecked submarine they found downriver was a Jap design—and there were Japs in that camp. It isn’t a coincidence that Japan is running the world’s largest biological weapons program.”
“And what, they are in cahoots with the Krauts to develop germs?”
“Bioweapons, disease bombs. Same shit they’ve been experimenting with somewhere in Manchuria. We’ve had reports of unnatural plagues breaking out in occupied regions of China.”
“This is low of them,” Thorne replied.
“These guys probably have a new delivery system going as well. There was fuel all over that base. From the smell of it, I think they were farming methane.”
“So, you are thinking that any day now, this Wolff flings a missile at London or New York, full of something he grows out of your bats?”
“Something like that.”
“Mac, not to be a pain in the neck but did you also consider that this might be worse than disease-bombing a city?”
MacCready gave a funeral laugh. “I’m trying not to think that far ahead. But go on.”
The botanist continued. “Once these bacteria are out in a new environment or under the microscope of some other lab jockey, that is where the real trouble starts. Shit mutates, Mac. This is a basic law of living things.”
“What are you getting at?”
“Let’s speculate that there’s maybe a thimbleful of this bacterium in nature, in all the bats that are alive. It’s no stretch that Wolff and his goons are already able to isolate this thing. If so, they could be multiplying it by the pound. Now, what if they tamper with it—progress it beyond its natural host?”
“That would be bad.”
“Real bad. And if this stuff doesn’t bite him in the ass, if someone carries any of it to labs outside Brazil . . .”
MacCready finished the thought. “Then we could be looking at the biggest shit-stomping of all time.”
“Okay,” Yanni said. “Like you need one more reason to blow it all up.”
“But how?” her husband asked.
“I keep thinking back to those fuel reserves I saw back at the base,” MacCready said.
“Fuel blows up,” Yanni added.
“Well, this is a good start,” Thorne said with a clearly forced grin. “I suppose we’ll just keep making up this famous plan as we go along.”