two feet wide by four high - yet we would destroy part of a lovely group of giraffe, and a dainty little gazelle with big listening ears.
We kept thirty feet away from the white king, to avoid undue vibrations from the drills which may have loosened flakes of stone or paint pigments. Tinus would go in for thirty feet, then turn his shaft at right angles to the face and cut in behind the king. Tinus was set to begin first thing the following morning, but that night we entertained him in the common room. The atmosphere was similar to that of a fighter squadron mess on the eve of a dangerous sortie. We were all voluble and tense, and all of us were drinking a little too much.
To begin with, Tinus was very reserved, clearly overawed by the company of the legendary Louren Sturvesant, but the brandy loosened him up and he joined in the conversation.
‘What do you want the respirators for, Doc?’ he asked. ‘You expecting gas or a fire?’
‘Respirators?’ Louren broke off a private conversation with Sally. ‘Who ordered respirators?’
‘They specially told me six respirators.’ Tinus looked dismayed at Louren’s direct questioning. ‘They told me that, sir.’
‘That’s right, Lo.’ I rescued the poor man. ‘I asked for them.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, Lo. What we are all hoping to find is a passage, a—’ I was about to say tomb, but I did not want to tempt the gods,‘—cave of some sort.’
He nodded. They were all watching me - and with a receptive audience I can seldom resist a touch of the theatrical.
‘That cave will have been sealed, airtight, for two thousand years or so, which means there could be a danger of—’
‘The Curse of the Pharaohs!’ Sally interjected. ‘Of course, do you remember what happened to the men who first entered Tutankhamen’s tomb?’ She drew a finger across her own throat and rolled her eyes horribly. She was onto her second Glen Grant.
‘Sally, you ought to know better,’ I cut in severely. ‘The Curse of the Pharaohs is of course a myth. But there is a danger of a peculiarly unpleasant lung disease.’
‘Well, I must say, I don’t believe in curses and all that sort of bulldust,’ Tinus laughed, a little too loudly. His inhibitions were way down around his ankles.
‘That makes two of us,’ agreed Ral Davidson.
‘It’s not a supernatural thing,’ Leslie told them primly. ‘It’s a fungus disease.’
I seemed to have lost control of the situation completely, so I raised my voice.
‘If you are all finished, I’ll go on,’ which got their attention back to me. ‘The conditions would have been ideal for the development of
‘What does it do?’ Tinus asked.
‘The spores are breathed into the lungs, and in the warm moist conditions they germinate almost immediately and develop into dense granulitic colonies.’
‘Sies!’ said Tinus, which is an expression of the deepest disgust. ‘You mean it starts growing on your lungs like that green stuff on mouldy bread?’
‘What are the consequences?’ Louren asked
I had it word perfect. ‘Primarily they are extensive lesions of the lung tissue, with haemorrhage, high temperature and rapidly painful breathing, but then the fungoid colonies begin generating wastes which are readily absorbed into the blood and carried to the brain and central nervous system.’
‘My God!’ Tinus was blanched and horrified, his blue eyes stared out of the white freckled face. ‘Then what happens?’
‘Well, the wastes act as a virulent neurotoxin and induce hallucination. There is inflammation of the meninges, and severe brain malfunction, similar to the effects of lysergic acid or mescalin.’
‘Groovy!’ said Ral, and Leslie kicked his shin.
‘You mean it drives you crazy?’ Tinus demanded.
‘Clean out of your little skull,’ Sally assured him.
‘Fatal?’ asked Louren.
‘Seventy-five per cent, depending on individual immunity and the rate of antibody formation.’
‘In the event of survival, is there permanent damage?’
‘Scarring of the lungs similar to healed tuberculosis.’
‘Brain damage?’
‘No,’ I shook my head.
‘Hell, man,’ said Tinus carefully, setting his glass down. ‘I don’t know that I am so keen on this deal. Rock falls, methane gas, pressure bursts - those don’t worry me. But this fungus thing,’ he shuddered, ‘it is creepy, man. Just plain bloody creepy.’
‘What precautions are you going to take, Ben?’ Louren asked.
‘The first party in will be protected by respirators.’ I explained. ‘I will take air and dust samples for microscopic examination.’
