Last Gasp полностью

The engineer acknowledged, throwing levers, watching gauges.

The stubby silver craft with its embryonic wings and steeply raked tail plane was ungainly at this height and speed, dominated as it was by the huge rocket engines that protruded aft from the rectangular fuselage like the gaping maw of a deep-sea predator.

The Aurora had arced across the Pacific at a height of one hundred twenty thousand feet. Because exposure to ultraviolet and cosmic radiation at this altitude could cause skin cancer and total hair loss in under an hour, the entire craft was encased in lead shielding. The passengers saw daylight only when the shutters were raised below ten thousand feet.

Strapped into a padded reclining seat, Lt. Cy Skrote stared rigidly at the curved ceiling panel directly above him. The muscles on his thin freckled neck were corded and covered in perspiration. He'd never liked flying, but he absolutely hated rocket flights. The high g forces on lift-off and reentry made him fear he might lose control of his bodily functions.

In the seat next to his, nearest the window, Maj. Jarvis Jones was leaning forward against the straps, straining to see outside, a black hand cupped to his eyes to reduce glare. Nothing got to him, thought Skrote. Made out of rock.

Yet if Jones was rock, what in hell was Colonel Madden in the seat in front, who'd spent the two-and-a-half-hour six-thousand-mile flight with an open file across his knees? Skrote guessed that for him it was simply the quickest way of getting from A to B over long distances. End of story.

Skrote instinctively gripped the arms of his seat as the pitch of the engines deepened. The rapid deceleration was making his eyeballs bulge. Luckily for him, the pilot was experienced and brought the Aurora in on the first pass, lining her up dead-center on the twelve-thousand-foot floating concrete runway anchored two miles off the island. Fifteen minutes later the three ASP officers could taste salt on their lips as the launch cut a creamy swathe through the glittering blue ocean.

"I never expected this!" Skrote shouted. The warm wind snatched his words away. He gestured all around with one hand, holding on to his peaked cap with the other.

"The oxygen level is only a fraction of a percent below normal in this area," Madden called back. He pointed. "Two thousand miles southwest of here, on the other side of the Kermadec Trench, it's solid weed. New Zealand is completely surrounded. Have to evacuate soon."

Cy Skrote raised his sparse eyebrows and nodded. Marine ecology wasn't his subject.

From the jetty they were taken to Zone 2, the bacteriological research center where the director, Dr. Jeremiah Rolsom, and members of his staff were waiting to greet them. Everyone donned protective white suits and technicians adjusted the air supply to the bulky fishbowl helmets. Then the party lumbered out like spacemen on their tour of the sterile bays.

"The problem is twofold," Rolsom explained over the intercom. "Deployment and containment. If that seems contradictory, that's because it is. TCDD has extreme toxicity and we don't want to spread the stuff around indiscriminately. Somehow we've got to keep it away from the protected territories, namely the United States, Russia, and parts of Europe. So you'll understand it's a matter of precise selectivity."

Skrote understood very well indeed. Tetrachlorodibenzo-paradioxin was the most virulent poison known to man. Spray Africa from cruise missiles, for example, and there was the danger of wiping out the populations of Spain, Portugal, and most of southern Europe as well.

The party moved on to the animal experimentation area. Rabbits, guinea pigs, and hamsters were drinking water laced with a few parts per million of TCDD. Contaminating the water supply held promise, the director informed them. Minute concentrations caused changes in the blood cells and enzymes and led to liver damage, cancer, and severe fetal deformities.

Lloyd Madden paused by a row of cages and fondled one of the rabbits. Even though the colonel was wearing thick rubber gloves, Skrote couldn't repress a shudder. He turned in the cumbersome suit and looked at Major Jones, but the face in the fishbowl was impassive, quite unperturbed.

It was irrational for him to react in this way, Skrote knew. Safety precautions on Starbuck were rigorous and strictly enforced. He could only put it down to his experience in genetics, which made him edgy.

Colonel Madden had a question. Why not employ the techniques already developed for DEPARTMENT STORE? "We had some very effective methods of deploying 2,4,5-T, which contains dioxin," he said to Rolsom. "The only difference here, as I see it, is that we need to disseminate TCDD in its pure form rather than as part of a weaker mix. Am I right?"