Deep Storm

32

Three hours later, the summons from Asher came. Michele Bishop had left the deck 4 infirmary to oversee the electroencephalograms Crane requested, and he'd just finished logging the morning's events and was preparing to track down "Chucky," the machinist, for a mandatory physical and psychological evaluation when the telephone rang.

He walked across the small room, plucked the phone from its cradle. "Dr. Crane speaking."

"Peter? This is Howard Asher. I need your assistance, please."

"Of course. Are you in your office? I'll be right there-"

"No. I'm in Hyperbaric Therapy. Deck seven. You know the location?"

"Certainly. But-"

"Please come at once." The phone went dead.

Crane stared at the receiver in mystification. Why Asher would be there, of all spots, made no sense.

It was the work of ten minutes to pass through the Barrier and ascend to deck 7. The scientific level was full of activity, as usual, but the small suite of rooms on the dead-end corridor composing Hyperbaric Therapy was empty, almost ghostly. This, too, was expected: since the atmosphere on the Facility was not, in fact, pressurized in any way, there were no pressure-related ailments to be treated. Crane had found this out the hard way, with his original theory of caisson disease.

The therapy suite consisted of a tiny control room; a waiting area outside the hyperbaric chamber; and the chamber itself, a metal cylinder about six feet in diameter and ten feet long, with an observation porthole in the entrance hatch and another on one side. Within, two cushioned benches ran along each of the walls, set across from each other. Along the ceiling ran two identical control strips, housing the lighting as well as the emergency water deluge system.

Asher was standing in the waiting area, along with John Marris, the NOD cryptanlyst. Marris had a large satchel slung over one shoulder. Asher looked tired, almost haggard, and his left hand-which he held protectively against his side-was bandaged with gauze. He nodded distractedly at Crane as he entered.

"You're not looking especially good," Crane said. "Getting enough sleep?"

Asher's response was a wintry smile.

Crane nodded at the bandaged hand. "What happened?"

"Look for yourself. Gently, please." Asher turned to Marris. "We'll run those common-language routines once again, doubling the ply depth. Perhaps we'll get a different result."

Carefully, Crane unhooked the metal butterfly clip and unwrapped the bandage. Beneath the gauze, an evil-looking ulceration had formed on the back of Asher's hand.

Crane examined it closely. The surrounding skin was pale, almost alabaster. Yet-alarmingly-Asher's fingertips were bluish black around the nails.

"When did you notice this?" he asked, looking up sharply at the chief scientist.

"Last night."

"Well, it's no joke." Crane carefully rewrapped the bandage. "It's a result of the vascular insufficiency you're suffering from. Not only is the hand ulcerated now, but there are signs of incipient necrosis as well. You have to report to the Medical Suite. We need to run Doppler imaging on that hand, do a bypass procedure on the blockage-"

"No!" Asher said fiercely. He took a deep breath, got himself under control. "No. There's no time for surgery."

Crane looked at him appraisingly. "Why is that?"

"We need to decipher that code. Three men just died; it's vital we understand what the message is. Do you hear, Peter? Until we've done that, I can't afford the downtime."

Crane frowned. "But your hand-"

"I'm still taking Coumadin. When I got my hand bandaged in Medical this morning, the on-duty intern gave me a course of antibiotic therapy. And there's this." Asher waved in the direction of the Chamber.

Crane had wondered if this might be what Asher had in mind. Hyperbaric therapy was, in fact, often used as an adjunctive treatment for clinical conditions like arterial insufficiency or for necrotizing soft tissue infections. Pure oxygen, under pressure, penetrated tissue more effectively, rallied white blood cells to the body's defense. Yet it was no substitute for more aggressive, and more direct, treatment.

"Listen, Peter," Asher said, his voice growing low and persuasive. "We're close. It's thanks to you the sentinels are now transmitting on countless frequencies. That was a huge leap for us. And with different messages on each of the frequencies, we have that many more samples to work with. See, the trouble was we've been barking up the wrong tree for the last couple of days."

"How so?"

"We thought we'd cracked it. We thought the sentinels had been transmitting…well, a mathematical expression."

"A mathematical expression?" Crane repeated. He found it hard to keep the disbelief out of his voice.

For a moment, Asher's look became almost sheepish. "A very simple mathematical expression."

"What was it?"

When Asher did not answer, Marris reached into his pocket and handed Crane a printout.

Crane handed the sheet back. "One divided by zero? The first thing I learned in math was that you can't divide by zero."

Asher began pacing restlessly. "Obviously you can't. Division by zero is forbidden by all the laws of the universe. But the hell of it is, the decoding went so smoothly, it all fit together so well…we thought we'd just made some minor miscalculation in our translation. That's why I didn't tell you earlier, that's why we've wasted all this time running computer simulations and cryptographic attacks trying to spot our error. But now I see that was the wrong direction entirely." Here he stopped and wheeled back toward Crane, his eyes on fire. "We're going to run the signals through a series of common-language analyzers. We'd have done it sooner if we hadn't been so hung up on that wild-goose chase." He waved at the paper in Crane's hand. "We've wasted time-time we don't have. That's why we can't stop now. That's why I'm ordering you-no, I'm asking you-to prep the chamber for oxygen therapy." Crane didn't move. "It's not a cure. It's only delaying the inevitable."

Asher made a visible effort to remain calm. "I know that. I just need time-maybe a few hours, maybe a day-to run the signals through the language analyzers. Then I'll go straight to Medical, submit to any treatment or procedure you want. Marris can take care of the other issue by himself, at least for the present."

"Other issue?" Crane asked.

"Marris thinks he's figured out the method of transmission the saboteur is using to get information on and off the Facility."

"Really? What is it?"

"No time to explain now. But once I'm out of the chamber he's going to test his theory, try to trace the transmissions to their source. Meanwhile, I've e-mailed all the department heads-Ferguson, Conover, Bishop, the rest-to be on the lookout for anything suspicious." He paused. "But that's for later. Right now, our top priority is to decipher these signals."

Crane sighed. "Very well. But the moment you emerge from the chamber, I expect you in Medical."

At this, Asher gave a fleeting smile-the old smile Crane remembered from his first days aboard Deep Storm. "Thank you, Peter." He turned to Marris. "Got everything?"

Marris hefted the laptop, nodded.

"We'll be able to access the WAN wirelessly on the inside," Asher said. "The sentinels are all several decks below us; there won't be any interference here."

"I'll get the chamber prepped," Crane said, turning away. Then he stopped. "Wait a minute. What's this 'we'?"

"I'm going inside with Dr. Asher," Marris said.

Crane frowned. "That's highly unusual. You're not the one requiring therapy."

"It's the only way to continue our work without interruption," Marris said.

Crane hesitated a moment longer. Then he shrugged. It's only oxygen, after all. "Very well. Go ahead then, step into the chamber, please. I'll walk you through the setup procedures via the onboard microphone."

He stepped into the control room only to find that Asher had followed him. The chief scientist laid his right hand on Crane's arm. "Peter," he said, lowering his voice. "Don't tell Spartan."

"Don't tell him what?"

"About the wrong turn we took. Or about how close we are now."

This caught Crane by surprise. "I thought the whole point of this exercise was to tell Spartan what you find."

Asher shook his head vigorously. "No, not right away. I don't trust Spartan." His voice fell even further. "And I trust Korolis even less." His grip tightened on Crane's arm. "Promise me, Peter?"

Crane hesitated. Hearing this-seeing the strange light in Asher's eyes, the sheen of sweat on his brow-a new thought suddenly occurred to him. Vascular insufficiency might not be the only thing afflicting Asher. Perhaps what was striking the rest of the personnel was affecting him now, as well.

It was a profoundly depressing and disturbing thought.

Gently, he freed his arm from Asher's grasp. "Very well."

Asher nodded, smiled again. Then he turned away and walked toward the hyperbaric chamber. And as Crane ran through the control room setup-bringing the compressors online, ensuring the ASME storage tanks were topped up, checking the relief valves and pressure gauges-the haunted, hunted look in Asher's eyes remained always before him.