Declan whispered while grimacing as if in pain, “Go to Officer Lightoller, port side boat deck. He’s already filling lifeboats with women and children. He’s expecting you.”
“I’m hardly a woman or a child, Declan!”
“No, you misunderstand. He’s had a horrible time of it, getting the crew to go along with things, despite captain’s orders. He believes himself clean of the creatures and plans to get on the last boat under his command himself, and he’s promised that he’ll take you along too.”
“But I thought Lightoller resolved?”
“Resolve falters for some.”
Thomas nodded. “We can’t all be heroes, can we now, Declan? So what about you?”
“Me? I’m going back to the freezer compartment where they’ve stacked every bloody diseased body found on board.”
“But why? The war’s over, Declan.”
“I mean to make certain nothing gets out of that freezer, not by anyone’s hand.”
“Don’t be crazy; come away with me.”
“No, I have to do this.”
“But why?”
“Its… the only sure way.”
“How do we know that the women and children on that final boat aren’t diseased? It would only take one to be contagious, and it starts all over again! On land somewhere.”
“We have to believe that at some point the carrier can reproduce no more, and in fact, that last fellow we found, when I cut him open, there was a poor showing indeed… looking like the early efforts we first saw back in Belfast.”
“You think the monster’s played out then?”
“I believe so, yes, weakened at least in terms of reproducing.”
“Come with me, Declan! No need to play the bloody hero. This is no time for dramatics and posturing. You’re a damn fine surgeon, a man the world needs.”
“The world needs a gatekeeper more this time ‘round. Suppose the carrier returns for even a handful of those eggs and makes it onto a lifeboat, and from there to New York? It will’ve all been for naught. Every bit of it!”
“There’s a guard on the damned freezer, remember?”
“Gone already—frightened as we all are.” He shrugged, “Poor fellow looking to save himself with the water rushing in.”
The two young surgeons looked long into one another’s eyes and embraced for the last time. In Thomas’ ear, Declan whispered, “Live on, Tommie—live well for me; live well and prosper! Ya bastard—become a fine old country doctor in the heartland of America, or back to Wales with ya.”
“Aye Wales and family, I suspect.”
“No New York or maybe even Ransom’s Chicago?”
“More likely home and family for me, after this.”
Varmint stood at Thomas’ leg now. Declan petted the dog again, saying, “Off with you both; Lightoller’s a softy. He’ll give the dog space too if he can.”
“I don’t feel right about this, Declan; I should stay with you. You and Alastair… see it through to the end.”
“No, old friend. One of us needs to live on and keep the record of what really happened this night aboard
“Then you do it; it’s your bloody journal, it’s always been your bloody fight!”
“No, we’ve been Dumas’ Three Musketeers, we have!”
“And you are Aramis, me Athos!” Thomas replied with a wane smile.
“And Ransom’s been Porthos—our raucous brag-a-bout, anxious for a smoke and a drink!” joked Declan, but it didn’t work.
“Declan, brother, you-you have Rachel to think of, man.”
“She’s my greatest regret of all, your sister, my secret bride.”
“Then come with me,” Thomas pleaded.
“No , Tommie. It’s for you to do. My destiny is here. Take courage in living on to a ripe old age, as I take courage in doing what I must do—kill this thing once and for all.”
“And that’s what I’m to tell Rachel and your child? That you sacrificed yourself on the altar of
“To kill this thing once and for all,” he repeated. “To slam it with the last blow. I-I wish you could understand. Sometimes one’s fate is written, and we’ve no way to change it.”
With Varmint at his heels, Thomas took the gilded staircase two and three steps at a time, angry, frustrated, rushing now for the boat deck and Lightoller, with Declan’s journal and the ancient tooth in his hands. Watching his best friend and secret brother-in-law disappear, Declan bit his lip, fought back a tear, and steadied himself. He glanced in Ransom’s direction and wondered if he ought to ask him to back his play, but the old copper looked so happy and in his element that Declan balked at the idea. Ransom had already won a wonderful, shiny pair of dress shoes, followed by successive hands at the poker game. He still maintained control of four bottles of whiskey as well. Let this good man, this Porthos character, die happy and successful, he thought.
Declan stepped around the bar and grabbed a bottle of 90 proof Vodka and started for the bowels of the ship, heading for the freezer compartment, armed with the gun that he had secretly managed to lift from Ransom shortly before. Using the liquor and the gun, he meant to burn the remains of the bodies in the freezer, igniting the egg- sacs unless his will and his resolve gave out. A powerful sense of urgency motivated him.
Former Chicago Police Inspector Alastair Ransom glanced up to find Thomas going off with the dog and the journal; he watched next as Declan had stepped behind the unsupervised bar for a bottle, and he caught a glimpse of the shimmering clear liquid—Vodka—and when he suddenly stood from the table, knocking over a chair. He’d seen the dark, metal object in Declan’s hand—a gun.
Ransom, knowing it gone, felt for his weapon in the now empty holster he’d strapped on when Murdoch had offered him the firearm.
His sudden action had all the other card players on their feet, each man with a weapon trained on him.
“I am unarmed, gentlemen!” he shouted, a part of his brain chastising him for not following through and getting himself shot dead here and now, a quick escape from death’s plan for him. “Bleedin’ kid’s stole my gun, gentlemen. It’s a sad day when your own good friend pickpocket’s a man. You’ll have to forgive me now.” He made a move to pick up his winnings, a matter of habit, when all the guns trained on him cocked.
One going by the name Klondike Konrath pointed his gun at the shoes on Ransom’s feet. Walker used his gun to indicate the winnings and the whiskey. “You have to give us a chance to win back our lost merchandise.”
Ransom frowned, shook his head, lifted his cane, and said, “Gents, I agree; you should be given a chance to win back my earnings. I’ll just take the shoes and—”
The others protested his sudden departure. “We let you put up the liquor for shillings, and now you’re going to walk off with our cash?”
“And my shoes?” asked Konrath.
“Without giving us a chance to win it back!” asked another he’d come to know as John Fitch the Fifth.
“I see I am outnumbered, gents, but it has been forever ago since I’ve a good bar fight, so let’s have at it!” he sent out a nose-crushing right fist into the closest one, Walker, sending him hurtling to the floor. As they were all drunk and stunned, the others stood for a moment in surprised agitation. One threw up his hands and backed off, but two others came at Ransom, one on either side, as Walker shouted, “Hold him for me, boys!”
Ransom kicked out at a chair and caught it just right at the crook of his foot, sending this handy weapon flying into their leader’s forehead before he could fully recover from the first blow. The chair hit Walker hard enough to knock him back to the floor.
Watching it all transpire, Architect Andrews smiled at the brawl aboard his sinking ship. It made as much sense as the band slipping into a rousing fight song to accompany the brawl aboard at a time like this. It made perfect sense.
Ransom dispatched the other two men on either side of him by side-stepping one’s blow to bring home a
