flow out and spread across the floor.
Wilson stood transfixed at the sight of his wife’s corpse collapsing in upon itself. As the hyphae spread threateningly towards them Kimberley ran to the flame-thrower. She picked it up and tried to make it work. She finally figured out how to turn it on and yelped as flames roared out. Awkwardly she sprayed fire over the fungus radiating out of Jane’s body, and then incinerated the head.
“How do I turn it off?” she cried in alarm as fire continued to gush from the nozzle. He was forced to go and assist her.
But by the time he’d managed to switch it off it was too late. The laboratory was burning.
The fire caught hold very quickly, forcing them back toward the entrance. It was then that he noticed the small glass case sitting on a table that had been decorated to resemble an altar. Telling Kimberley to get out, he made a frantic dash through the flames to the case.
Sitting in the case was a pile of paper. On the top sheet he recognized the dense scrawl of Jane’s handwriting. He had found her notes.
He snatched up the case and ran for the doorway. The flames licked at his bare skin, making him scream. And then, at last, he was through the doorway and safe.
8
Kimberley died three days later.
It was on the morning of the day after the fire that he noticed the small patch of bright orange mold behind her right knee. They had spent hours helping Carter carry his equipment across to the nearby Euston Tower, which he considered to be the best alternative location for his transmitter after the fire had completely gutted the Post Office Tower.
While Carter worked to rig his makeshift transmitter, utilizing the antenna and other undamaged equipment from the local radio station—Capital Radio—that had been based in the building, Wilson and Kimberley went exploring and found a tankful of water in a relatively untouched apartment near the top of the building.
It was a relief to be able to wash the encrusted blood and filth from their bodies, and despite his exhaustion and depression, Wilson responded to the sheer sensuality of the experience. As he helped wash Kimberley he felt a sudden and intense desire for her. By making love he would be able to blot out, if only for a short time, all the horrors of the last couple of days.
And it was soon obvious that she shared his mood—her body trembled under his touch as he rinsed the soapy water from her. But as he leaned down to raise another cupped handful of water from the bathtub he saw the small patch of orange.
“Kimberley,” he sighed, all desire gone in that instant.
She looked down and followed the direction of his gaze. The only sound she made was a tiny, child-like, “Oh.”
He hugged her, not knowing what to say. For a few moments she clung to him, then pushed him gently, but firmly, away. “Come on,” she said in a steady voice, “we’d better go see how Carter is making out.”
They didn’t mention the fungus again that day, but by nightfall it was no longer possible to ignore it. By then her right leg, from foot to upper thigh, was covered in the orange mold. It was as if she were wearing a single woolen stocking.
Carter couldn’t have helped noticing it but he said nothing either. They were sitting in what had been one of Capital Radio’s control rooms. With his spare parts Carter had got some of the equipment functioning again and they had just completed making a recording of Wilson’s analysis of Jane’s notes. Wilson had quickly read through all the notes, knowing that once out of their sealed case the paper would quickly be attacked by the fungus. He had succeeded in pinpointing the vital information. He identified the crucial enzymes that had been modified, and then gave a detailed description of the chemical structure of Jane’s resulting super-enzyme. Carter’s intention was to put the tape on a loop and transmit it continuously.
It was then that Kimberley had asked Carter suddenly, “Do you think it’s symbiotic or parasitic?” Both men knew what she was referring to.
“It’s too early to tell,” wheezed Carter.
She was thoughtful for a while, then said, “Well, at least it’s prettier than some I’ve seen.”
Carter began the transmission. As he was relying solely on batteries for power, he wasn’t sure if the signal would carry far enough, nor did he have the means to build a receiver to hear if the signal was acknowledged.
“What are the chances?” Wilson asked him.
“Fifty-fifty. We’re sending on the designated frequency, so someone somewhere should be monitoring it 24 hours a day waiting to hear from you. It all depends on how close to us the nearest functioning receiver is now. It may be that the fungus has spread right through Wales to the coast. Then again, how far a signal travels often varies depending on atmospheric conditions; so the longer I can keep this equipment functioning, the better our chances are.”
Wilson and Kimberley left Carter in the dimly lit control room, anxiously tending the vulnerable transmitter. They returned to the apartment they’d found earlier. They knew there were some cans of food stored in a kitchen cupboard.
They ate in darkness on the floor of the living room, opening one can after another by touch and then tasting to identify the contents. It was a strange meal, consisting of asparagus tips, courgettes, tuna fish, tomato soup, apricot halves, rice pudding, and evaporated milk. They even managed to laugh at one point when Wilson realized he’d opened a can of dog food.
Afterward, by an unspoken agreement, they made love. In the darkness, on the floor, they made love with a frantic, desperate, urgency. At first he tried to avoid touching her right leg but soon it didn’t matter to him, nor to her.
Later, as they lay in each other’s arms, she sighed and said, “I wish now we’d got to know each other better.” She spoke matter-of-factly and he realized she was now resigned to the fact of her imminent death.
He gave her a gentle hug. “So do I. But there’s still time.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” she said but he knew she didn’t mean it.
“For a start you could tell me why you came along on this trip. I know you’ve been hiding something all along.”
She sighed again. “You’re right. I had an ulterior motive. It made sense once but now it seems crazy. I would never have succeeded.”
“In doing what?”
“In getting my parents out of prison. They were convicted last year in Johannesburg under the Anti- Terrorism Act, conspiring to cause explosions.” She gave a bitter laugh. “It was all trumped up by the security boys, of course. My parents have had connections with anti-apartheid movements for years now, but they’d never be involved with violence. My mother’s a doctor, for God’s sake. But she’s been sentenced to 10 years and my father to 15.”
Wilson made a sympathetic sound though he couldn’t see what possible link there might be between her parents’ jail sentence and the fungus.
“When I heard what was happening in London,” she continued, “and learned the reason for it, I came up with this wild scheme. It involved mutated lichen fungi—you know the special properties of lichen fungi, don’t you?”
“Vaguely,” he said, trying to remember. “I know they’re a strange combination of fungi and algae.”
“Yes, and they have the ability to absorb heavy metals. There’s a theory that the gold deposits in South Africa at Witwatersrand are the result of lichen fungi in pre-Cambrian lagoons absorbing the gold out of the water. I had the idea of using mutated lichen fungi to extract gold in vast quantities from sea water. And if that was possible it would mean the ruination of the South African economy, because the price of gold would plummet and the country still depends on the damn stuff so much.”
