The panicked Marine whimpered and tried to climb the rolls and hide.
Mrs. Holloway finally seemed to realize that Delbarco was not prone to exaggeration. “My God.” She scratched her cheek with a manicured nail, leaving a white streak. “That poor man.”
“Where are we?” Breaker shouted. Delbarco tapped her map and held it up for Holloway to see.
“You’re just below Aristos Tower,” Holloway answered feebly. “B Deck, adjacent to Shell Crescent Residential.” She fumbled for words as her body conveyed more clearly its animal opinions. “Aristos is the premier tower for midpriced living, with the best sports facilities on the ship. Somebody should help that poor man.”
“There’s a hospital in this tower. Where?” Breaker asked.
“We have four hospitals on Lemuria,” Mrs. Holloway explained, “and seventeen clinics, with one hundred and fifty-seven licensed—”
“We want the first tower hospital,” Delbarco said. “Goncourt’s medical center.”
The Coast Guard lieutenant answered his walkie-talkie.
“That’s a private facility, the Goncourt Training Center,” Mrs. Holloway said. “Sports medicine. Not yet open, and not really a public hospital.”
“We’re being ordered to break off,” the lieutenant interrupted. “It’s over. The operation is canceled. We’re to rejoin our chopper team on the helipad, or head toward the bow platform, whichever is closer.”
“It’s split command. Ignore it,” Ben advised.
The lieutenant stared at him. “There’s something wrong, and I have my orders,” he insisted.
“Go,” Breaker told him. “We’ll keep the Marines.”
“Sir, with all respect, we will—”
“Just go!” Breaker shouted, and Delbarco moved up to lend her sandpaper stare.
The Coast Guard officers reluctantly broke away. The Marines stayed.
“Should I leave, too?” Mrs. Holloway inquired hopefully.
“Hospital,” Delbarco insisted, taking her by the elbow.
It did not matter how often we had studied the charts and maps—within ten minutes we were lost. The ship’s decks were a labyrinth of staggered passageways, promenades, galleries, multilevel ventilation shafts, sitting rooms, lounges, bars, restaurants, shops—all in different degrees of finish. We ascended one long escalator inboard and stared up at a huge stained-glass skylight. Turned left in the atrium, spun around to another escalator . . .
Mrs. Holloway began to look pale.
Came out on the starboard promenade, looking along a row of doors opening into empty condos.
We were not where we wanted to be.
Barricades of equipment and construction materials had left Mrs. Holloway as confused as the rest of us. After half an hour of twists and turns and doubling back, only to arrive at where we had been earlier, she started crying. “They haven’t posted the deck signs yet. We’re going too fast,” she said. “I want to know, please, are we in danger? I can’t help you now. We’re out of my area.”
Ben and Delbarco walked in lockstep to the nearest wide port. Delbarco raised her rifle and fired a burst. The safety glass erupted in a million flying jewels. Mrs. Holloway cringed and covered her eyes.
Ben leaned through and looked up, sideways, down. “That way,” he concluded, and pointed at a forty-five-degree angle. Delbarco agreed.
We approached a ribbed-steel fire door blocking a broad walkway. “What’s that smell?” a Marine asked, lifting his nose. Something did indeed smell rich and foul.
“The alarm has been turned off,” Mrs. Holloway said. “This door should be open.” She took a key from her wrist bag and inserted it into a red box. The door obediently slid aside. Fluid slopped and spilled across the deck.
We drew back, repelled by an unbelievable stench, like ten thousand rotting skunks. A flow of puslike liquid, pink and green and filled with congealed yellow streamers, pooled at our feet.
Mrs. Holloway dissolved in hysterics.
“Let her go,” Delbarco said. Breaker took Mrs. Holloway by the shoulders and pointed her aft. She ran off in quick jerking steps, lifting her gown to free her legs and not looking back.
“Tell us what this is,” Breaker asked Candle and Carson.
“Looks like, smells like, contaminated fluid,” Carson said.
Breaker gave him a disappointed sneer. They turned to me.
“It’s a culture,” I said. I pointed to a strand of slime hanging from a sprinkler head. “Someone connected a vat to the fire control sprinklers.”
That explained the grease fire, the thin ribbon of smoke; the emergency water flow had been deliberately triggered, and not by our teams.
Breaker closed his eyes. “No suits.”
Delbarco asked, “Aren’t we immunized?”
“Someone had loose lips,” Ben said. “What do you want to bet Golokhov is trying something new?”
Four of the Marines started coughing, waved their hands, coughing harder, excused themselves, then doubled over and fell to their knees. Through their gasps, I saw they were smiling; coughs were giving way to laughter.
