deemed a far safer form of defense against noxious and infectious organisms than the typical white cloth gloves surgeons preferred during an operation.
Again Thomas continued cutting, and as he did so, the dry cordwood of the exterior of the corpse cracked, crinkled, popped, and came wide, popping again as it did so. The noise alone was disturbing, but the sight proved worse yet.
He soon could see the condition of the organs, and like McAffey’s before, the organs had dried and shrunken to the point they were nearly unrecognizable, despite the soupy, bubbling brackish fluids they floated in.
“What now?” Thomas asked.
“Check the bone and the spinal cord to make the comparisons, but take care. Don’t get that unnatural fluid on your skin.” Declan made more notes in his ledger. His meticulous care with his records impressed Ransom.
Thomas swallowed hard, and took the bone cutter handed him by Ransom. With his leather bound hands literally in the soup, in a matter of minutes, Thomas snapped one of the ribs open, cut out a section, dried it of superfluous fluid, and held it up to the light for all three of them to inspect. “Bone dry inside—no fluid, no marrow,” muttered Thomas.
“I’m surprised,” replied Ransom.
Declan kept silent council on this finding. He then urged Thomas on, saying, “Now the spinal column, just as we did with McAffey. It’s vitally important that we duplicate each step.”
“It’ll be the same, Declan; I know it, and so do you—and this fluid, this is not natural… not supposed to be here, not in a body in this condition.”
“You’d think all three were dead for a thousand years,” added Ransom.
“This unusual dehydration of the body, coming as it has before decay… it’s as if all the natural process of breaking down was somehow sped up!” said Declan, chewing now on a piece of beef jerky he’d found in one of the freezers. The snack likely belonged to one of the faculty members. He took a moment to share it with Thomas, but Ransom declined the offer.
Thomas next found a spot on O’Toole’s spinal column, and the cutters sent up the snapping sound that Ransom was beginning to detest. Then came a second cut. With forceps, Thomas lifted out the section he’d taken and held it up to the overhead light.
“Again nothing… dry as desert air.” Thomas placed the section of spine the length of a thumb onto a metal plate for later tagging.
“We need a sample of the brackish fluid pooled in the body,” said Declan, and Ransom grabbed up an empty small jar and handed this to Thomas. Declan then lifted a slide, “and I want a look at this muck under the ’scope.”
Thomas scooped some of the brownish-to-black gruel from where it had bubbled and pooled; he captured a heaping specimen in the jar. Declan, leather gloves still in place, took a smear of the stuff for his slide. He rushed over to the microscope and began working the scope to get a clear magnification. With his eyes still on the lens, he moaned, “My God, Thomas, have a look.”
Thomas stepped to the scope, hesitated a moment, and then examined the slide. He said nothing but looked up at Thomas and the two medical men exchanged a look of deep, abiding concern.
“What the hell is it?” asked Ransom, pushing between the young men—a veritable bull in a china shop here in the lab area of the surgery. Ransom took a long look at what was beneath the slide which was magnified five seven-hundred and fifty times. When Ransom looked up again, he repeated, “What in hell is that?”
“Who bloody knows,” cursed Thomas.
“It’s nothing we’ve ever seen before, but thankfully, whatever it is, the good news is its dying before our eyes.”
“Whatever it is… it doesn’t appear well adapted to oxygen and light, now does it?” asked Thomas. “Whether dying or not, we have to culture it… keep it alive, Declan.”
“What?” asked Ransom. “What’re you saying—keep it alive?” He watched Thomas who’d set about the lab in search of what he needed.
Declan held up a hand to Ransom. “Thomas is correct; to learn from this thing, to understand it, this is the only way, and besides, we can prove its existence to others far easier if it wiggles under the scope.”
“And the only way we can defeat it,” added Thomas. “It’s no use to us dead if we’re ever to find a cure.”
“We need to place it in a culture that will support its life, you see…”
“And at the same time keep our distance from it.” Declan went about the process of finding a culture that the organism might either flourish in or go dormant in yet maintain life.
“Where did this thing come from?” asked Ransom, pacing now, thinking what might happen if this organism were to spread. “Is it a form of the Black Plague?” “No… I don’t think so,” replied Declan, covering his mouth as he coughed to one side.
“I wish it were the bloody Black Plague,” muttered Thomas, who appeared more knowledgeable in disease organisms than Declan, who was obviously the better surgeon. “Black Plague, now there’s a condition we’ve had some experience with over the years, and we know it.”
“Aye, the enemy you know,” muttered Ransom.
“We know next to nothing of how this thing, whatever it is, is transmitted,” began Declan.
“And we know even less about what kind of defenses we can place up against it,” added Thomas. “With smallpox, the greatest scourge and killer of the ages, at least we know it when we see it. But this… no, we haven’t a clue what it is, nor how to treat it—much less how to defeat it!”
“All the same, it begins in the lab with brilliant young men like Thomas Coogan,” said Declan, dropping into a metal chair for a moment’s respite.
“And yourself, Declan,” Thomas, blushing red, returned the compliment.
“So how long before a cure is found?”
“How long indeed.” Declan laughed.
“Years quite possibly, if at all.”
Ransom didn’t care for the sound of that. “There’s still a fourth missing man out there, the agent, Tuttle.”
“That’s where you come in, Detective. You must locate Tuttle, whether dead or alive.” Thomas stood over the microscope again and studied the enemy, his eyes on the parasite under the light. “I’ve always wanted to say that—wanted, dead or alive like you Americans say.” Thomas abruptly changed his tone. “Look here, Declan, at these little beasties. There’re a few left, cannibalizing the others. We might try taking the stronger cells. See if we can save the little buggers.”
“Perhaps I should get on that search for our missing agent.” Ransom stepped toward the door, his stomach churning. “Do my part… find Tuttle, last seen aboard
“We’d much prefer Tuttle alive, but if so, he may prove a terrible danger to you, detective,” replied Declan, who’d returned his eyes to the scope.
“Do hold on, sir,” suggested Thomas, “and wait for what we find in Uncle Anton.”
“Why bother? You don’t need to open him up now!” countered Ransom, stepping closer. “I mean you’ve got your comparisons with the two miners. You have your aunt’s feelings to consider. You don’t need to cut on your relative.”
But it was as if the young interns, once underway with their scalpels, could not be deterred by any logic Ransom might raise.
“We could be missing the bigger picture here, Detective.” Thomas now stood over his uncle’s body with the scalpel in hand, Declan nodding beside him, encouraging him. The moment gave Ransom pause; it had him recalling two things of great precision: How Dr. Christian Fenger and Dr. Jane Tewes acted whenever given an opportunity to operate—to wield a scalpel. It would appear the scalpel spoke the same language to these young surgeons.
The scalpel sliced through Uncle Anton’s chest, and again the crackling sound beneath the blade rose to their ears. Seeping from the cut, rising bubbles and brackish fluid, but this time the fluid and bubbles proved somewhat clearer. It just about proved Declan’s theory of the sequence of how these men died. McAffey in the mine with that beast they had uncovered from the wall—which now lay within one of the freezers in the wall here, followed by O’Toole, escaping the mine, coming into contact then with Anton Fiore—each man passing the disease to the other. Or so it would appear.
