Titanic 2012

“It occurs to me that the only thing separating one man’s valuable from another’s,” said Ransom, “is how desperately he wants it. Take poker for instance; whether I win or lose is not so valuable to me as keeping company with other men at a game of chance.”

“While you fellows hash this out, I’m for relocating now,” said Farley.

He may just as well have shouted fire for the sudden leap to their feet; in an instant, they were all at the door and peeking out, all but Varmint, still sleeping, his snores filling the little room.

“Might wanna get your dog, Mr. Farley.” Carefully looking in all directions, Ransom assessed the situation. In a moment, he and the others eased out into the corridors and stairways. Soon they had located and returned to the area of the brig.

“Why in hell’re we back here, Alastair?” asked Thomas.

“Last place we saw Davenport, and here the dog may just pick up a scent. Whether it’s Davenport’s or Burnsey.”

“Or the combined sweat the three of us expended here when Davenport did all in his power to come through the bars at us,” Thomas pointed out.

“Just have faith and look at Varmint; look at the pride in that old face!”

Farley laughed and slapped his knee. “He’s onto something sure.”

“A good sign,” added Declan, seeing the dog circle and circle an odor, alert on something unseen and head off in a new direction—the same direction Davenport had taken the night of their incarceration here.

Farley held the dog on its leash; Alastair suggested letting Varmint off the leash, that they needed a fast resolution to this scavenger hunt before Titanic should gain another mile at sea.

“But we need to be cautious, boss,” replied Farley. “For one thing, if he gets too far ahead of us, we could lose Varmint on this monster ship. Another concern is them fellas chasing us. If they see Varmint and throw a net over him, we’ve lost this game—whatever it is.”

“As Sherlock would say, ‘Watson, the game’s afoot!’” quoted Declan with a half smile curling his lip.

Ransom took Farley aside, “All right… we keep him on a tight rein for now, but if he alerts on something, we have to let ’im go and do his—his—”

Farley smiled. “Magic.”

“Yes, his nose-magic, right.”

“Deal then,” began Farley, taking each of these men in one at a time with his jaundiced eye. “Now can you blokes tell me what in the name of creation you’re really after?”

“In due time, Mr. Farley… in due time.”

Nodding, Declan remarked, “Our most precious commodity now… time itself.”

TWENTY NINE

David Ingles had read on in Declan Irvin’s journal while waiting for everything to be sorted out, and he’d gained a great deal of startling details that seemed to rush at him from the past and corroborate so much of what Kelly Irvin had said that first night she’d teased him to her cabin not for a romantic interlude, not even for unabashed sex, but to lure him into being her co-conspirator against the unknown killer aboard Scorpio.

According to all that David Ingles had read in Declan’s journal, whatever this unknown creature was, it had planted its seed in multiple human hosts on board Titanic. It had also spawned eggs discovered during autopsies secretly performed by the medical men of 1912 in the sealed compartment of a deep freezer, and now Kelly was certain the creature had somehow survived Titanic and had returned for its progeny—and that it knew precisely where its young lay dormant and waiting.

This portended badly for them all; it meant anyone infected now could conceivably carry viable eggs capable of hatching within a deceased host body to infect other people on Scorpio as it had on Titanic. While Kelly believed otherwise, who was to say that Alandale and Ford had not become breeding grounds for more of these things? Where the creature had once been weak, it had grown in strength. It meant that the two bodies on ice on Scorpio could well be nourishing viable young creatures that meant to explode on the world unless destroyed—but perhaps not; perhaps Kelly was correct in saying the creature had only so many opportunities to replenish itself, and that the frozen embryonic creatures inside Titanic represented its last hope.

The great fear that had brought Titanic’s captain on board with the idea—according to his having leapt ahead in his reading—that Titanic must go down was born somewhere below where David now found himself.

It has to be in one of the freezer compartments.

David realized he must relay information to Captain Forbes about the possible dangers lurking within the bodies he had on board Scorpio, and he meant to do so now. He spoke directly to Forbes and Entebbe through the open lines of the com-link, telling them in a compelling voice that they must locate and read the journal he’d hidden in the wall of his cabin, and after that they must autopsy Ford’s and Alandale’s mummified remains. “Pay particular attention to the viscera and determine if there’s anything unusual, any danger to you from an unknown disease.”

They immediately suggested that the pressures at which David was working had begun to work on his mind.

Others hearing the transmissions tried to cheer David on, some from as far away as the other section of Titanic, but not a word from either Kelly or Swigart.

David pushed for the men on Scorpio to listen to him. “As soon as you can, crack open the dead men’s chests! Please, you gotta listen and do what I tell ya!” No sooner than he’d said it, David realized he sounded like a maniac.

No one on board Scorpio was taking him seriously.

“As soon as we dispense with the pressing business at hand,” Mr. Ingles,” Forbes ‘humored’ him, “we’ll get right on it.”

Things felt all wrong. He didn’t like Forbes’ snarky reply followed by Entebbe telling him to calm down and that his blood pressure was racing skyward. Nor did David like Swigart’s sudden, last minute change of plans down here. It didn’t make sense. It went against who Lou Swigart was. First the separating of the original team assignments, then allowing even the reserve diver along, and finally the whole bit with the photo op of the entire group. It was so unlike Lou. Now this, David sent off with Jacob in one direction, Lou taking Kelly off in another, endangering the group and the mission by splitting up.

It’d been difficult to watch her swim off with Lou; more difficult still to helplessly see them slip through the gaping, tattered end where Titanic had ripped herself apart, watching Kelly disappear from sight.

The debris field here looked like the remnants of an explosion, giant, toppled over smoke stacks, enormous boilers askew, and whole slabs of the deck literally blown apart by the uncontrolled, two and a half mile dive at enormous speed which Titanic had taken. The bulkhead at mid-ship having come apart, resulting in a huge gaping hole—the entire framework was ripped from port side to starboard as if Poseidon himself had ripped it open with his bare hands.

In short, this was likely the most dangerous place for Kelly and Swigart to have entered the ship—loose dangling wires, sharp edges, six to fourteen foot-long rust fingers looking like tree branches anxious to snag a passing diver. A single rent in their liquid air paks or Cryo-suits could cause a leak or a loss of pressure or loss of the OPFC, which meant certain death at these depths. It seemed to David that Lou was taking dangerous chances with all their lives. This came in the form of his random choices plucked from the air, and in his taking unnecessary risks. For one, he should have located a safer point of entry or remained with David and Jacob.

Then, too, there were the sudden last minute changes in assigned dive partners. Kelly was originally to be with Mendenhall, and David with Bowman, but they’d been shuffled at the last minute without explanation. Nothing rational there, a break in logic and planning and organization—as if to prime them for the unexpected perhaps? Or was it something more sinister?