Cowper was totally matter-of-fact. 'As the only man on board with command experience, I'm acting captain until Mr. Coombs is fit for duty.'
'Like hell you are. You're a goddamned traitor who has jeopardized this vessel and compromised its mission, and now you think you're going to make it your private little navy. Well, that's not going to happen. I'm in command here.'
'Mr. Kranuski, you haven't been XO long enough for that promotion, but I will need you to continue your duties, starting with a fix on our position. Lulu will look after Mr. Coombs. Mr. Robles, will you man periscope one and scan for traffic?'
'Stay where you are, Mr. Robles,' Kranuski ordered.
Robles looked from Kranuski to Coombs and back again. Then he crossed to the periscope and began working. Kranuski cast about furiously and realized not a single person was paying attention to him. He was alone. I was afraid he would kick up a fuss and upset everybody, but something seemed to click in his mind, and he became very calm. Without another word, he went to the other periscope and flipped down the handles.
His grace in defeat was awesome to see-I could have kissed him for taking it so rationally. You can't usually count on people being dignified, and to me there is nothing in the world more important, because isn't dignity the soul of reason? It's what makes us human.
I felt Coombs grasp my ankle, and looked down expecting to see that he had recovered consciousness. I might have been smiling in relief. But Coombs was still passed out, arms motionless at his sides. The arm that clutched my leg like a predatory squid had no body. It seemed to want mine.
Even after I managed to wrest the nasty thing loose, then hammered, stomped, and mashed it into something resembling day-old roadkill, it was a while before I stopped freaking out. People gave me plenty of space.
CHAPTER NINE
After everything possible had been done to stabilize the sub and barricade us in, the men discussed what to do next.
'I know there isn't a lot of useful information about this Maenad thing,' Cowper said, looking dreadfully tired, 'but if we pool what we know, maybe we can think of a way to slow those bastids down. I know we can't suffocate 'em, because that's how they spread the infection, by stopping you from breathing. They give you that kiss of death, and the disease moves in. That's why they all look cyanotic, because Agent X somehow takes the place of oxygen in the bloodstream and uses it like a highway to attack your brain and nervous system. That's the last I heard out of USAMRIID. Anyone else hear that?'
A white-haired man with a walrus mustache said, 'I saw on TV that the Centers for Disease Control were treating it with pure oxygen. They said it slowed the disease. That was the only good news I heard before everything went off the air.'
Others chipped in, saying they had heard the same thing.
'Well, that's gotta be our first move then,' said Cowper, encouraged. 'We pump the oh-two content way up and see what happens.'
Kranuski was skeptical. 'Are you serious? This boat has just been gutted and rebuilt. You wouldn't believe the half-assed repair jobs I've witnessed over the last four weeks-I'd hardly dignify it as a refit. More like something out of Dr. Frankenstein's lab. Enriching the oxygen mixture under these circumstances is asking for it.'
'He has a point,' said Albemarle. 'One spark, and we're toast. We know the smoke barrier's compromised, too, not to mention the X-jobs crawling around in the works. I don't think we can risk a fire. Especially since we don't really know if it'll make any difference. I'm no scientist-what do we really know about this? Enough to stake the boat on it?'
'I agree,' said Strong Man. 'It's not worth it. We're better off fighting hand to hand, section by section.'
Cowper shook his head. 'We've lost two people, and we've secured one compartment. Now we're gonna abandon that small hedgehold and open ourselves to attack? There's too much boat to cover; they'll whittle us down to nothing. That's how they get you.'
'Have you ever seen a flash fire?' asked Kranuski.
'I've seen enough to know we got no choice.'
'Well, you're acting CO,' he said scornfully. 'You give the order.'
Cowper didn't take the bait. 'Keep your shirt on. Commander Coombs must have had some plan. What'd he have in mind?'
'He intended for us to use this as a base to spread out from, gradually expanding our area of control until we could seal off and quarantine the rest without hampering critical operations.'
'See, that just doesn't work for me. The Xombies won't cooperate unless we have some kind of clear advantage… which we might, if we just think about it. Look, this is a submarine-a highly adjustable environment. We can play with it. How can we make it uncomfortable for them?'
'CO,' I said.
'The problem is, whatever hurts them, hurts us,' Kranuski said.
'Which brings us back to oxygen,' Cowper replied.
'I'd rather go down fighting than blow myself to kingdom come.'
'CO,' I repeated, a bit louder. Boys in the room frowned at me. Chipmunk Boy gave me a wide-eyed inquiring look and shook his head: Don't.
Cowper said, 'Quiet, Lulu. What about controlled flooding? Or changing the air pressure? The temperature? How can we make climate control work for us?'
'Or a big dose of radiation?' another man offered gloomily.
I said, 'Excuse me, but what about CO? Carbon monoxide?' My skin crawled with embarrassment, but I had to speak up. 'That won't burn as much, and it mimics oxygen in the bloodstream.'
All the boys rolled their eyes at my impertinence. 'God, shut up,' said one, and another said, 'It's poisonous, stupid.'
Forging ahead as I had so many times in school, I tried, 'But there are emergency air masks, aren't there? Like on airplanes?' Almost apologetically, I added, 'Isn't that what these nozzles are for?'
There was a sudden hitch in the men's discussion. Annoyance and confusion played across all their stubbly faces. Cowper said, 'Goddammit, Lulu…' then trailed off in consternation.
Albemarle scratched his big head. 'Kid's right,' he said.
Without bothering to thank me, Cowper, Kranuski, and the others applied themselves to the problem of how to fill the boat with carbon monoxide. It turned out to be very simple, much simpler than I expected when I made the suggestion. All I had known was that submarines-even modern nuclear submarines-are equipped with backup diesel engines. But my trivia-packed brain did not know that these were specifically Fairbanks-Morse engines, or that they suck air from the living spaces inside the sub (drawing it in through vents at the top of the sail) and expel exhaust gases out a retractable tailpipe at the stern, creating a powerful suction that can replace the boat's entire volume of air in minutes.
Or, by blocking the exhaust, can just as quickly flood the boat with suffocating carbon monoxide.
After a rather heated phone conversation with the engineers in back, Cowper made an announcement over the PA system:
'Attention all hands. We are about to fumigate everything forward amidships with carbon monoxide. The CO burner is to remain off. Unless you want to die, close off all vents from the forward bulkhead and don EAB apparatus. Do not remove it until I give the all clear.'
After this message was repeated a few times, orders were given to disconnect the exhaust coupling. The fresh-air intake was left shut, and the open hatch through which we had entered was ordered closed. I felt bad about this because of how it must have looked to the people stuck above, but consoled myself with the knowledge that we were doing all this for them. And if we didn't succeed, they would live longer than any of us. We then put
